Speech audiometry, attention and aging

听力敏锐度和几种认知能力通常会受到与年龄相关的下降。近年来，这些能力的潜在相互作用已经成为临床科学的焦点。除此之外，它可能对语言交流产生重要影响，特别是在困难的声学情况下。在本项目过程中，在与年龄有关的变化的背景下，考虑了不同形式的注意。其目的是获得更深入的了解的基本机制，并考虑到他们在适当的语音测听方法的框架。特别是通过调查静态和动态的"鸡尾酒会情况"，可以获得进一步的见解。与静态情况相比，目标说话人在动态情况下可能会发生变化。这些情况相关的日常生活进行了检查，考虑年轻和老年人的听力障碍和没有言语测听。年龄和听力损失相关的差异被发现，特别是在分散注意力和注意多个潜在的目标谈话者的能力。相比之下，谈话者之间的注意力转换没有显着的研究组差异。此外，几个注意力相关的机制可以确定相对于目标扬声器的位置，时间处理，和可能的错误源。在拟议的后续项目中，这些机制将根据个人的听觉和认知表现进行更详细的探讨。这些主题包括在动态情况下可能更明显的语音信号处理的半球差异，切换空间听觉注意的迟钝，以及尚未考虑到的语义上下文效应的意义上的语言因素。通过在这些领域获得进一步的见解，该项目提供了一个机会，建立一个基于言语测听的临床和科学目的的受控，生态有效的设置。为现代听力康复技术的评价和听觉认知能力的综合诊断提供支持。

Hearing acuity and several cognitive abilities are typically subject to age-related decline. A potential interplay of these abilities has come into strong clinical-scientific focus in recent years. Amongst other, it may have important consequences for verbal communication, especially in difficult acoustic situations. In the course of the present project, different forms of attention have been considered in the context of age-related changes. The aim is to obtain a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms and to take them into account in the framework of appropriate speech audiometric methods. Especially by investigating static and dynamic "cocktail party situations" further insights could be gained. In contrast to static situations, the target speaker may change in dynamic situations. Such situations relevant to everyday life were examined by speech audiometry considering younger and older subjects with and without hearing impairment. Age- and hearing loss-related differences were found, especially for the ability to divide attention and to attend to multiple potential target talkers. In contrast, switching attention between talkers showed no significant study group differences. In addition, several attention-related mechanisms could be identified with respect to target speaker position, temporal processing, and possible error sources. In the proposed follow-up project, these mechanisms will be explored in more detail in light of individual auditory and cognitive performance. These topics include a hemisphere difference in the processing of speech signals that may be more pronounced in dynamic situations, sluggishness of switching spatial auditory attention, and linguistic factors in the sense of semantic context effects that have not yet been taken into account. By gaining further insights in these areas, the project offers the chance to establish a controlled, ecologically valid setting for clinical and scientific purposes based on speech audiometry. Thus, it can provide support for the evaluation of modern hearing rehabilitation technologies and the comprehensive diagnostics of auditory and cognitive abilities.