McHaney Jacie R, Hancock Kenneth E, Polley Daniel B, Parthasarathy Aravindakshan
Department of Communication Science and Disorders, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 15260, USA.
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA.
Sci Rep. 2024 Dec 28;14(1):30882. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-81673-8.
Multi-talker speech intelligibility requires successful separation of the target speech from background speech. Successful speech segregation relies on bottom-up neural coding fidelity of sensory information and top-down effortful listening. Here, we studied the interaction between temporal processing measured using Envelope Following Responses (EFRs) to amplitude modulated tones, and pupil-indexed listening effort, as it related to performance on the Quick Speech-in-Noise (QuickSIN) test in normal-hearing adults. Listening effort increased at the more difficult signal-to-noise ratios, but speech intelligibility only decreased at the hardest signal-to-noise ratio. Pupil-indexed listening effort and EFRs did not independently relate to QuickSIN performance. However, the combined effects of both EFRs and listening effort explained significant variance in QuickSIN performance. Our results suggest a synergistic interaction between sensory coding and listening effort as it relates to multi-talker speech intelligibility. These findings can inform the development of next-generation multi-dimensional approaches for testing speech intelligibility deficits in listeners with normal-hearing.
多说话者语音可懂度要求将目标语音与背景语音成功分离。成功的语音分离依赖于感觉信息的自下而上神经编码保真度和自上而下的努力倾听。在此，我们研究了使用对调幅音的包络跟随反应（EFRs）测量的时间处理与瞳孔索引的倾听努力之间的相互作用，因为它与正常听力成年人的快速噪声中的语音（QuickSIN）测试表现相关。在更困难的信噪比下，倾听努力增加，但语音可懂度仅在最难的信噪比下下降。瞳孔索引的倾听努力和EFRs与QuickSIN表现没有独立关联。然而，EFRs和倾听努力的综合效应解释了QuickSIN表现中的显著差异。我们的结果表明，在与多说话者语音可懂度相关的方面，感觉编码和倾听努力之间存在协同相互作用。这些发现可为开发下一代多维方法提供信息，以测试正常听力听众的语音可懂度缺陷。
