Enhanced environments for psychophysical evaluation and training

项目概要 噪声测试中的语音传统上涉及 1) 不切实际的掩蔽器，例如呈现的宽带噪声 来自与目标语音相同的空间位置，2) 不吸引人的奖励结构。我们的首要任务 假设如果听众在日常生活中的体验与表演的相关性更强， 通过增加测试环境的真实性并引入游戏来增强实验室测试 就像接口一样。该项目的主要目标是确定哪些增强功能对系统影响最大 与听众投诉的关系，以及听众能力（听觉和认知）的调节和调节 调节这种关系。将测试增强的环境：1）通过以下方式模拟真实世界的体验 在包括听觉和视觉刺激的合成环境中进行评估，2) 引入类似游戏的元素，对听众来说更具奖励性和激励性。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奖励的方式 动机影响测试结果的可变性以及与自我报告的关系。实验将涉及 听力正常的年轻听众，听力能力从正常到严重的老年听众 受损的听众，以及一群有轻度脑外伤史的听众。这些参与者将提供 听觉和认知能力测量的广泛表现，然后可以用来更好地 了解增强对复杂听力自我报告能力的影响 环境。该项目完成后，将免费提供一套广泛的增强型 比目前可用且正在运行的听觉评估更具吸引力和更现实 在廉价的消费级设备上。该项目将为这些增强测试建立 1) 确定了作为年龄和听力损失函数的正常表现范围，以及 2）已知的关系 噪声中语音的各种既定测试。与该项目相关的建模工作将揭示哪些 听觉和认知能力与正常表现和自我报告的偏差有关 在不利的聆听环境中听力困难比预期严重。

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.