Predicting language under difficult conditions: Effects of cognitive load, noise, and hearing impairment

在困难条件下预测语言：认知负荷、噪音和听力障碍的影响

• 批准号: ES/X001148/1
• 负责人: Martin Pickering
• 金额: $ 87.93万
• 依托单位: University of Edinburgh
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FX001148%2F1
• 关键词: Predicting; language; under; difficult; conditions

Understanding speech is extraordinarily complex, yet people can generally understand what somebody has said as soon as they hear it. They manage to do so, in part, because they predict what the speaker is going to say next. For example, if a speaker says "I would like to go outside to fly a...", then the listener may predict that the speaker's next word will likely be "kite". Listeners use these predictions to "get ahead of the game", making comprehension more rapid and efficient. But we do not know what happens when listeners are unable to make these predictions (because their efforts are elsewhere), such as when they have to concentrate hard to hear the utterance, when they are paying attention to another task, or when they have a hearing impairment. In fact, given that people with hearing impairment already receive degraded auditory information and have to apply extra effort to understand what is being said, they could particularly benefit from predictions to "stay on the front foot". In this project, we investigate the factors that disrupt prediction when listening to speech to better understand the how prediction works in listeners with and without hearing impairment. By identifying the types of difficulty that impair prediction, we can start to identify methods to help resolve these difficulties and improve speech understanding, both for people with normal hearing in challenging listening situations, and for older adults with hearing impairment. We use a well-established technique known as the visual-world paradigm, in which participants listen to sentences and view objects on a screen while their eye movements are recorded. In previous studies, people heard (for example) the sentence "I would like to wear..." while seeing pictures of a tie, a dress, a drill, and a hairdryer. They tended to look at pictures of wearable objects (i.e., the tie or dress) before the speaker actually named the object, and they did so very quickly. We call this associative prediction, because it is dependent on simple associations with the word "wear". However, our work has shown that people also take their knowledge of the speaker into account when predicting. For example, they tended to look at the picture of a tie (a stereotypically masculine object) when they heard a male speaker say "I would like to wear...", but the picture of a dress (a stereotypically feminine object) when it was said by a female speaker. We call this strategic prediction, because it requires the listener to additionally take the perspective of the speaker. These strategic predictions are particularly valuable because they more accurately estimate what the speaker is likely to say, but they are slow and effortful.Our goal is to investigate the factors that hinder both simple associative predictions, and more complex strategic predictions. In a series of experiments, participants perform the visual-world paradigm under conditions of hearing difficulty (by listening to sentences in background noise) and increased task difficulty (by completing a second task while listening). Some of our experiments use young participants with normal hearing (conducted at the University of Edinburgh). Other experiments use older participants with and without hearing impairment (conducted at Hearing Sciences - Scottish Section, part of the University of Nottingham located in Glasgow). The studies address the following questions: (1) How do adverse listening conditions and increased task difficulty affect the two types of prediction?; (2) Does difficulty affect people with and without hearing impairment in the same or different ways?; and (3) Are the effects of hearing loss comparable to perceptual difficulty, cognitive difficulty, or a combination of both?Answering these questions will allow us to identify methods for overcoming such difficulties to improve speech understanding, particularly for people who struggle because of hearing loss.

理解言语是一件非常复杂的事情，但人们通常一听到别人说的话就能理解，部分原因是他们能预测说话者接下来要说什么。例如，如果一个演讲者说：“我想出去飞...”，那么听者可以预测说话者的下一个词将可能是“风筝”。听众利用这些预测来“领先于游戏”，使理解更加迅速和有效。但我们不知道当听众无法做出这些预测时会发生什么（因为他们的努力在其他地方），比如当他们不得不集中精力听话语时，当他们注意力集中在另一项任务时，或者当他们有听力障碍时。事实上，考虑到听力障碍的人已经接收到了退化的听觉信息，并且必须付出额外的努力来理解正在说的话，他们可以特别受益于“保持领先”的预测。在这个项目中，我们调查了在听演讲时干扰预测的因素，以更好地了解预测在有听力障碍和没有听力障碍的听众中是如何工作的。通过识别损害预测的困难类型，我们可以开始识别方法来帮助解决这些困难并提高语音理解，无论是在具有挑战性的听力环境中听力正常的人，还是有听力障碍的老年人。我们使用一种被称为视觉世界范式的成熟技术，参与者在屏幕上听句子和看物体，同时记录他们的眼球运动。在以前的研究中，人们听到（例如）句子“我想穿......“同时看到领带，裙子，电钻和吹风机的照片。他们倾向于看可穿戴物品的图片（即，领带或衣服）之前，发言者实际上命名的对象，他们这样做非常快。我们称之为关联预测，因为它依赖于与单词“磨损”的简单关联。然而，我们的研究表明，人们在预测时也会考虑到他们对说话者的了解。例如，当他们听到一个男性说话者说“我想穿......”时，他们倾向于看领带（一种刻板的男性物品）的图片。“，而是一件衣服的图片（一个刻板的女性对象）时，它是由一个女性发言者说。我们称之为战略预测，因为它要求听者额外地从说话者的角度出发。这些策略预测特别有价值，因为它们能更准确地估计说话者可能会说什么，但它们速度慢，而且需要花费大量精力。我们的目标是调查阻碍简单联想预测和更复杂策略预测的因素。在一系列实验中，参与者在听力困难（通过在背景噪音中听句子）和增加任务难度（通过在听的同时完成第二项任务）的条件下执行视觉世界范式。我们的一些实验使用听力正常的年轻参与者（在爱丁堡大学进行）。其他实验使用有听力障碍和没有听力障碍的老年参与者（在位于格拉斯哥的诺丁汉大学的一部分听力科学-苏格兰分部进行）。本研究探讨了以下问题：（1）不利的听力条件和增加的任务难度如何影响这两种类型的预测？(2)听力障碍对听力障碍者和非听力障碍者的影响是相同还是不同？以及（3）听力损失的影响是否与感知困难、认知困难或两者的组合相当？研究这些问题将使我们能够确定克服这些困难的方法，以提高言语理解能力，特别是对于那些因听力损失而挣扎的人。