Buss Emily, Leibold Lori J, Porter Heather L, Grose John H
Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA.
Center for Hearing Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, Nebraska 68131, USA.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2017 Apr;141(4):2650. doi: 10.1121/1.4979936.
Children perform more poorly than adults on a wide range of masked speech perception paradigms, but this effect is particularly pronounced when the masker itself is also composed of speech. The present study evaluated two factors that might contribute to this effect: the ability to perceptually isolate the target from masker speech, and the ability to recognize target speech based on sparse cues (glimpsing). Speech reception thresholds (SRTs) were estimated for closed-set, disyllabic word recognition in children (5-16 years) and adults in a one- or two-talker masker. Speech maskers were 60 dB sound pressure level (SPL), and they were either presented alone or in combination with a 50-dB-SPL speech-shaped noise masker. There was an age effect overall, but performance was adult-like at a younger age for the one-talker than the two-talker masker. Noise tended to elevate SRTs, particularly for older children and adults, and when summed with the one-talker masker. Removing time-frequency epochs associated with a poor target-to-masker ratio markedly improved SRTs, with larger effects for younger listeners; the age effect was not eliminated, however. Results were interpreted as indicating that development of speech-in-speech recognition is likely impacted by development of both perceptual masking and the ability recognize speech based on sparse cues.
在多种掩蔽言语感知范式中，儿童的表现比成人差，但当掩蔽声本身也由言语组成时，这种效应尤为明显。本研究评估了可能导致这种效应的两个因素：从掩蔽言语中感知分离目标的能力，以及基于稀疏线索（瞥见）识别目标言语的能力。在单说话者或双说话者掩蔽条件下，估计了儿童（5至16岁）和成人在封闭集双音节词识别中的言语接受阈值（SRT）。言语掩蔽声的声压级为60分贝（dB SPL），它们要么单独呈现，要么与50 dB SPL的言语形状噪声掩蔽声组合呈现。总体上存在年龄效应，但对于单说话者掩蔽条件，儿童在较年轻时的表现就与成人相似，而双说话者掩蔽条件下则不然。噪声往往会提高SRT，特别是对年龄较大的儿童和成人，以及与单说话者掩蔽声相加时。去除与目标-掩蔽声比例不佳相关的时频片段显著改善了SRT，对较年轻的听众影响更大；然而，年龄效应并未消除。结果被解释为表明言语中言语识别的发展可能受到感知掩蔽和基于稀疏线索识别言语能力发展的影响。
