Leading and following: Noise differently affects semantic and acoustic processing during naturalistic speech comprehension
Leading and following: Noise differently affects semantic and acoustic processing during naturalistic speech comprehension
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DOI：
10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120404
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发表时间：
2023-10-11
期刊：
影响因子：
5.7
通讯作者：
Zhang，Dan
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Zhang，Xinmiao;Li，Jiawei;Zhang，Dan
尽管日常生活中不可避免的噪声会导致语音信号失真，但我们在噪声环境中理解语音的能力相对稳定。然而，可靠的噪声中语音理解的神经机制仍有待阐明。本研究探讨了噪声自然言语理解过程中声学和语义言语信息的神经追踪。参与者在三个信噪比(SNR)水平(无噪声、3分贝、-3分贝)下听混合了频谱匹配平稳噪声的叙述性音频记录，并记录了60个通道的脑电(EEG)信号。使用时间响应函数(TRF)方法从声学和语义两个层面上获得对连续语音流的事件相关响应。以自然语音的幅值包络作为声学特征，通过自然语言处理方法提取词熵和词奇异度作为两个语义特征。在所有三个SNR水平上，在语音波动开始后，在大约400ms处观察到对声学特征的Theta频段前部到中央TRF响应，并且响应潜伏期随着噪声的增加而更延迟。对词熵语义特征的增量频段正面TRF反应在200到600毫秒左右观察到，导致在所有三个信噪比水平上都出现语音波动。反应潜伏期随着噪声的增加、言语理解力和清晰度的降低而变得更加明显。虽然对语音声学的下列反应与前人的研究一致，但我们的研究揭示了对语音语义的引导反应的稳健性，这表明在语义水平上可能存在一种预测机制，以在噪声环境中保持可靠的语音理解。
Despite the distortion of speech signals caused by unavoidable noise in daily life, our ability to comprehend speech in noisy environments is relatively stable. However, the neural mechanisms underlying reliable speech-in-noise comprehension remain to be elucidated. The present study investigated the neural tracking of acoustic and semantic speech information during noisy naturalistic speech comprehension. Participants listened to narrative audio recordings mixed with spectrally matched stationary noise at three signal-to-ratio (SNR) levels (no noise, 3 dB, -3 dB), and 60-channel electroencephalography (EEG) signals were recorded. A temporal response function (TRF) method was employed to derive event-related-like responses to the continuous speech stream at both the acoustic and the semantic levels. Whereas the amplitude envelope of the naturalistic speech was taken as the acoustic feature, word entropy and word surprisal were extracted via the natural language processing method as two semantic features. Theta-band frontocentral TRF responses to the acoustic feature were observed at around 400 ms following speech fluctuation onset over all three SNR levels, and the response latencies were more delayed with increasing noise. Delta-band frontal TRF responses to the semantic feature of word entropy were observed at around 200 to 600 ms leading to speech fluctuation onset over all three SNR levels. The response latencies became more leading with increasing noise and decreasing speech comprehension and intelligibility. While the following responses to speech acoustics were consistent with previous studies, our study revealed the robustness of leading responses to speech semantics, which suggests a possible predictive mechanism at the semantic level for maintaining reliable speech comprehension in noisy environments.