Wisniewski Matthew G, Thompson Eric R, Iyer Nandini, Estepp Justin R, Goder-Reiser Max N, Sullivan Sarah C
a711th Human Performance Wing, Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH, USA bBall Aerospace Technologies Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., Fairborn, OH, USA cDOD Hearing Center of Excellence, Lackland Air Force Base, TX, USA.
Neuroreport. 2015 Jan 21;26(2):94-9. doi: 10.1097/WNR.0000000000000306.
Attempts to identify physiological correlates of listening effort have mainly focused on peripheral measures (e.g. pupillometry) and auditory-evoked/event-related potentials. Although nonauditory studies have suggested that sustained time-frequency electroencephalographic (EEG) features in the θ-band (4-7 Hz) are correlated with domain-general mental effort, little work has characterized such features during effortful listening. Here, high-density EEG data was collected while listeners performed a sentence-recognition task in noise, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of which varied across blocks. Frontal midline θ (Fmθ), largely driven by sources localized in or near the medial frontal cortex, showed greater power with decreasing SNR and was positively correlated with self-reports of effort. Increased Fmθ was present before speech onset and during speech presentation. Fmθ power also differed across SNRs when including only trials in which all words were recognized, suggesting that the effects were unrelated to performance differences. Results suggest that frontal cortical networks play a larger role in listening as acoustic signals are increasingly masked. Further, sustained time-frequency EEG features may usefully supplement previously used peripheral and event-related potential measures in psychophysiological investigations of effortful listening.
确定听力努力的生理相关性的尝试主要集中在外周测量（如瞳孔测量法）以及听觉诱发/事件相关电位上。尽管非听觉研究表明，θ波段（4 - 7赫兹）的持续时频脑电图（EEG）特征与一般领域的心理努力相关，但在费力聆听过程中对这些特征进行表征的研究却很少。在此，当听众在噪声中执行句子识别任务时收集了高密度脑电图数据，该任务的信噪比（SNR）在不同组块中有所变化。额叶中线θ波（Fmθ）主要由位于内侧额叶皮质或其附近的源驱动，随着信噪比降低显示出更大的功率，并且与努力程度的自我报告呈正相关。在语音开始前和语音呈现期间均出现了Fmθ增加的情况。当仅纳入所有单词都被识别的试验时，Fmθ功率在不同信噪比之间也存在差异，这表明这些效应与表现差异无关。结果表明，随着声学信号被越来越多地掩盖，额叶皮质网络在聆听中发挥着更大的作用。此外，持续时频脑电图特征可能会在费力聆听的心理生理学研究中有效地补充先前使用的外周和事件相关电位测量方法。
