Spectral Cue Use in Listeners with Poor Word Recognition

描述(申请人提供)：有一群年长的听障人士患有特殊的沟通障碍，表现为言语感知能力差，但航向损失的数量无法解释这一缺陷。听力专家对他们具体的知觉困难缺乏了解，也无法为他们提供适当的治疗。这个项目的目的是发现涉及的特定缺陷，并确定通过数字增强光谱提示进行听觉训练的潜力。长期目标是通过放大和康复策略来改善这些人的言语感知。假设这些听者将表现出较差的浊辅音识别，其中光谱线索的使用是不足的，并且在听觉训练过程中需要对光谱线索进行数字增强。实验I将证实这些听者会有不同于那些有良好言语知觉的人的发声辅音混淆，以及语音性别或元音语境是否与这些混淆有关。这将通过在/i/、/a/和/u/的上下文中的浊音/b/、/d/、/g/、/m/、/n/、/v/、/z/的闭合集合识别任务来完成，并且以95dBSPL呈现。其次，在被编辑为仅包括孤立光谱线索的CV的单间隔、两种选择的强迫选择识别过程中，将确定哪些光谱线索未被差的鉴别器在识别/b/-/d/和/m/-/n/区分中使用。最后，心理声学强迫选择训练方法的有效性将通过对一组差判别器的特定光谱线索进行12分贝数字增强来检验。使用强迫选择训练措施和数字增强作为老年听众听力训练的一部分是创新的。作为听力学专家，我们在改善这些人的生活质量方面缺乏成功，这是一个到目前为止还没有解决的重要临床问题。拟议中的研究结果将提供关于这一群体经历的知觉缺陷的具体信息。这是朝着制定成功的扩大和康复战略迈出的必要的第一步，以便使这些人走出因无法有效沟通而造成的孤立。预计该项目的结果将为竞标R01提供必要的背景资料。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): There is a subgroup of elderly hearing-impaired people who suffer exceptional communication deficits, in the form of poor speech perception, which are unaccounted for by the amount of heading loss. Audiologists lack an understanding of their specific perceptual difficulties and are unable to offer them adequate treatment. The aim of this project is to uncover specific deficits involved and determine the potential for auditory training with digital enhancement of spectral cues. Long-term goals are to improve speech perception for these individuals with amplification and rehabilitation strategies. It is hypothesized that these listeners will demonstrate poorer voiced consonant recognition, wherein the use of spectral cues are deficient, and that digital enhancement of the spectral cue will be necessary in the auditory training process. Experiment I will confirm that these listeners will have different voiced consonant confusions than those with good speech perception, and whether voice gender or vowel context is pertinent to these confusions. This will be accomplished with a closed-set identification task of the voiced /b/, /d/, /g/, /m/, /n/, /v/, /z/ in the contexts of /i/, /a/, and /u/ spoken by a male and a female, and presented at 95 dB SPL. Secondly, it will be determined which spectral cues are unutilized by the poor discriminators in the recognition of the /b/-/d/ and /m/-/n/ distinctions in a single-interval, two-alternative forced-choice identification procedure of CVs edited to include only isolated spectral cues. Lastly, the efficacy of psychoacoustic forced-choice training methods will be examined with a 12 dB digital enhancement of a particular spectral cue on the group of poor discriminators. Using forced-choice training measures and digital enhancement as part of auditory training with elderly listeners is innovative. The lack of success we have had as audiologists in improving the quality of life for these people is an important clinical problem that has not been hitherto addressed. The findings from the proposed research will provide specific information on the perceptual deficits experienced by this group of people. This is a necessary first step towards devising successful amplification and rehabilitation strategies in order to bring these people out of the isolation caused by the inability to communicate effectively. The outcomes of this project are expected to provide the background necessary to make a competitive R01 bid.