Enhanced environments for psychophysical evaluation and training

项目摘要 传统上，噪声测试中的语音包括1)不现实的掩蔽物，如呈现的宽带噪声 来自与目标语音相同的空间位置，以及2)不参与的奖励结构。我们最重要的是 假设是，如果听众在日常生活中的体验与表演更密切相关，那么 通过增加测试环境的真实性和引入游戏来增强实验室测试 就像界面一样。该项目的主要目标是确定哪些增强功能对 与听者抱怨的关系，以及听者的哪些能力(听觉和认知)调解和 调整这种关系。将测试1)通过以下方式模拟真实世界体验的增强环境 在包括听觉和视觉刺激的综合环境中进行评估和2) 引入像游戏一样的元素，对听众更有回报和激励。了解如何 不同的参与者对各种增强功能的响应将提供有关 现实体验与传统实验室测试的不同之处，以及奖励和 动机影响测验结果的变异性以及与自我报告的关系。实验将涉及到 听力正常的年轻听众，听力从正常到严重的老年听众 受损，以及一组有轻度创伤性脑损伤病史的听众。这些参与者将提供 在听觉和认知能力方面的广泛表现，然后可以用来更好地 了解增强自我报告能力对复杂听力的任何影响 环境。该项目完成后，将免费提供一套广泛的增强版 比目前可用的和运行的更吸引人和更现实的听觉评估 在廉价的消费级设备上。该项目将为这些增强测试建立1) 作为年龄和听力损失函数的正常表现的既定范围，以及2)已知的与 在噪音中对语音的各种既定测试。与此项目相关的建模工作将揭示哪些 听力和认知能力与偏离正常表现和自我报告有关 在比预期更大的恶劣听力环境中听力有困难。

Project Summary Speech in noise tests have traditionally involved 1) unrealistic maskers such as broadband noise presented from the same spatial location as the target speech, and 2) unengaging reward structures. Our overarching hypothesis is that the experience of listeners in their daily lives will be more strongly related to performance if the laboratory tests are enhanced by increasing the realism of the testing environments and introducing game- like interfaces. The main goal of this project is to determine which enhancements have the greatest impact on the relationship with listener complaints, and which listener abilities (auditory and cognitive) mediate and modulate this relationship. Enhanced environments will be tested that 1) simulate real-world experiences by conducting assessments in synthetic environments that include both auditory and visual stimuli and 2) introduce game-like elements that are more rewarding and motivating for the listener. Understanding how different participants respond to a variety of enhancements will provide essential new information about the ways in which realistic experiences differ from traditional laboratory tests and the ways that rewards and motivation influence variability of test results as well as relationships with self-report. Experiments will involve younger listeners with normal hearing, older listeners with a range of hearing abilities from normal to severely impaired, and a group of listeners with a history of mild traumatic brain injury. These participants will provide a wide range of performance on measures of auditory and cognitive abilities, which can then be used to better understand any effects of the enhancements on self-reported ability to function in complex listening environments. Upon completion of this project there will exist, freely available, an extensive set of enhanced auditory assessments that are more engaging and more realistic than what is currently available and that run on inexpensive consumer-grade equipment. This project will establish for these enhanced tests both 1) established ranges of normal performance as a function of age and hearing loss, and 2) known relationships to various established tests of speech in noise. The modeling work associated with this project will reveal which auditory and cognitive abilities are associated with deviations from normal performance and self-reported difficulties hearing in adverse listening environments that are great than would be expected.