1 Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, Boston University, MA, USA.
2 Starkey Hearing Research Center, Berkeley, CA, USA.
Trends Hear. 2018 Jan-Dec;22:2331216518807519. doi: 10.1177/2331216518807519.
The perception of simple auditory mixtures is known to evolve over time. For instance, a common example of this is the "buildup" of stream segregation that is observed for sequences of tones alternating in pitch. Yet very little is known about how the perception of more complicated auditory scenes, such as multitalker mixtures, changes over time. Previous data are consistent with the idea that the ability to segregate a target talker from competing sounds improves rapidly when stable cues are available, which leads to improvements in speech intelligibility. This study examined the time course of this buildup in listeners with normal and impaired hearing. Five simultaneous sequences of digits, varying in length from three to six digits, were presented from five locations in the horizontal plane. A synchronized visual cue at one location indicated which sequence was the target on each trial. We observed a buildup in digit identification performance, driven primarily by reductions in confusions between the target and the maskers, that occurred over the course of three to four digits. Performance tended to be poorer in listeners with hearing loss; however, there was only weak evidence that the buildup was diminished or slowed in this group.
人们知道，对简单听觉混合的感知是随着时间的推移而演变的。例如，一个常见的例子是，在音调交替的音调序列中观察到的流分离的“累积”。然而，对于更复杂的听觉场景（如多说话者混合）的感知如何随时间变化，人们知之甚少。先前的数据与以下观点一致，即当存在稳定的线索时，从竞争声音中分离目标说话者的能力会迅速提高，从而提高语音可懂度。这项研究考察了正常听力和听力受损的听众中这种累积的时间过程。五个同时出现的数字序列，长度从三个到六个数字不等，从水平面上的五个位置呈现。在一个位置上同步的视觉提示指示每个试验中的哪个序列是目标。我们观察到，在三个到四个数字的过程中，数字识别性能的提高主要是由于目标和掩蔽之间的混淆减少。听力损失者的表现往往较差；然而，只有微弱的证据表明，在这群人中，这种积累减少或减缓。
