Department of Communication Disorders, The Stanley Steyer School of Health Professions, Faculty of Medicine, and Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Trends Hear. 2024 Jan-Dec;28:23312165241275895. doi: 10.1177/23312165241275895.
Auditory training can lead to notable enhancements in specific tasks, but whether these improvements generalize to untrained tasks like speech-in-noise (SIN) recognition remains uncertain. This study examined how training conditions affect generalization. Fifty-five young adults were divided into "Trained-in-Quiet" ( = 15), "Trained-in-Noise" ( = 20), and "Control" ( = 20) groups. Participants completed two sessions. The first session involved an assessment of SIN recognition and voice discrimination (VD) with word or sentence stimuli, employing combined fundamental frequency (F0) + formant frequencies voice cues. Subsequently, only the trained groups proceeded to an interleaved training phase, encompassing six VD blocks with sentence stimuli, utilizing either F0-only or formant-only cues. The second session replicated the interleaved training for the trained groups, followed by a second assessment conducted by all three groups, identical to the first session. Results showed significant improvements in the trained task regardless of training conditions. However, VD training with a single cue did not enhance VD with both cues beyond control group improvements, suggesting limited generalization. Notably, the Trained-in-Noise group exhibited the most significant SIN recognition improvements posttraining, implying generalization across tasks that share similar acoustic conditions. Overall, findings suggest training conditions impact generalization by influencing processing levels associated with the trained task. Training in noisy conditions may prompt higher auditory and/or cognitive processing than training in quiet, potentially extending skills to tasks involving challenging listening conditions, such as SIN recognition. These insights hold significant theoretical and clinical implications, potentially advancing the development of effective auditory training protocols.
听觉训练可以显著提高特定任务的表现，但这些提高是否能推广到未训练的任务，如语音噪声下的识别（SIN），仍然不确定。本研究探讨了训练条件如何影响推广。55 名年轻成年人被分为“安静训练组”（ = 15）、“噪声训练组”（ = 20）和“对照组”（ = 20）。参与者完成了两个阶段。第一阶段包括 SIN 识别和语音辨别（VD）的评估，使用单词或句子刺激，结合基频（F0）+共振峰频率语音线索。随后，只有训练组进行了交错训练阶段，包括六个使用句子刺激的 VD 块，使用 F0 或共振峰单一线索。第二阶段，对训练组进行了交错训练的复制，然后所有三组都进行了第二次评估，与第一次评估相同。结果表明，无论训练条件如何，训练任务都有显著提高。然而，使用单一线索进行 VD 训练并不能在控制组提高的基础上进一步提高使用两种线索的 VD，表明推广有限。值得注意的是，噪声训练组在训练后 SIN 识别的改善最为显著，这意味着任务之间存在相似的声学条件的推广。总的来说，研究结果表明，训练条件通过影响与训练任务相关的处理水平来影响推广。在嘈杂条件下进行训练可能会引发比在安静条件下更高的听觉和/或认知处理，从而将技能扩展到涉及挑战性听力条件的任务，如 SIN 识别。这些发现具有重要的理论和临床意义，可能会推动有效的听觉训练方案的发展。
