Van Wilderode Mira, Van Humbeeck Nathan, Krampe Ralf T, van Wieringen Astrid
Department of Neurosciences, Research Group Experimental ORL, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Research Group Brain and Cognition, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Ear Hear. 2023;44(5):1229-1239. doi: 10.1097/AUD.0000000000001367. Epub 2023 Apr 20.
Adults' most common complaint relates to understanding speech in noisy environments. Hearing aids can compensate for sensory loss but do not restore hearing to normal. Listening training has the potential to partially remediate these problems. In this study, we propose and evaluate a Flemish version of a listening training paradigm, which involves the use of cognitive control as well as auditory perception. The paradigm entails a discrimination task where participants are cued to attend to one of two concurrent talkers with target speakers randomly varying between a female and a male voice. We evaluate learning effects, different scenarios, and masking types.
In total, 70 young and 54 middle-aged adults participated in this study. Each adult performed one or more conditions. Participants' hearing was screened before participation, all middle-aged adults passed a cognitive screening task.
Analyses indicated learning effects across scenarios that were similar in terms of speech intelligibility. Our results indicated better speech intelligibility when the female speaker was the target, but speech intelligibility did not differ when the target was the male speaker. An unintelligible masker noise results in worse speech intelligibility than a competing talker masker. Our results suggest that listeners could use an intensity cue to identify and/or select the target speaker when presented at a lower signal to noise ratio (SNR). Error analysis suggested higher cognitive control demands when the target and masker were presented at similar levels (i.e., around 0 dB SNR). The addition of independent trials with the intensity of target and masker reversed improved speech intelligibility. Inhibitory control, but not task switching, was reliably correlated with listening performance.
The proposed paradigm turned out to be feasible and practicable, demonstrating its potential for training speech intelligibility in noise. We believe that this training paradigm can generate real-life benefits including for persons with hearing loss. This latter application awaits future evaluation.
成年人最常见的抱怨是在嘈杂环境中理解言语困难。助听器可以补偿感觉丧失，但不能使听力恢复正常。听力训练有可能部分纠正这些问题。在本研究中，我们提出并评估一种佛兰芒语版的听力训练范式，该范式涉及认知控制以及听觉感知的运用。该范式包含一项辨别任务，参与者被提示关注两个同时说话者中的一个，目标说话者在女性和男性声音之间随机变化。我们评估学习效果、不同场景和掩蔽类型。
共有70名年轻人和54名中年成年人参与了本研究。每位成年人执行一种或多种条件。参与者在参与前进行了听力筛查，所有中年成年人通过了认知筛查任务。
分析表明，在言语可懂度方面相似的不同场景中均存在学习效果。我们的结果表明，当女性说话者为目标时，言语可懂度更好，但当目标为男性说话者时，言语可懂度没有差异。与竞争说话者掩蔽相比，不可懂的掩蔽噪声会导致更差的言语可懂度。我们的结果表明，当以较低的信噪比呈现时，听众可以使用强度线索来识别和/或选择目标说话者。错误分析表明，当目标和掩蔽以相似水平呈现时（即信噪比约为0 dB），认知控制需求更高。增加目标和掩蔽强度的独立试验后，言语可懂度得到改善。抑制控制而非任务切换与听力表现可靠相关。
所提出的范式被证明是可行且实用的，展示了其在噪声中训练言语可懂度的潜力。我们相信这种训练范式可以产生实际益处，包括对听力损失者。后一种应用有待未来评估。
