Development of Amplitude Modulation as a Grouping Cue

描述(申请人提供)：本研究计划的目的是确定儿童是否使用幅度调制(AM)作为形成听觉物体的分组线索。具体地说，听觉对象形成指的是将听觉前景与背景分开的能力。这个项目将考察儿童使用AM作为分组线索的能力是否与成人不同，以及这种能力是否随着发展而变化。尽管研究人员目前正在研究成年人的听觉对象形成，但对儿童中这一现象的发展知之甚少。由于语音包含大量的声学特征，使得语音感知中的听觉分组研究变得复杂，因此将采用时变正弦(TVS)语音。这些刺激不包含典型的语音声学特征，并已在以前的研究中用于检查成年人的听觉分组。将根据适合年龄的句子开发新的刺激。这个项目将考察成人和儿童在感知电视句子时使用AM作为听觉分组线索的能力。将获得TVS语句(未调制和四个频率的AM)的语音识别。假设儿童使用AM作为听觉分组线索的能力低于成年人，并且儿童使用这一信息的能力随着年龄的增长而提高。本研究的结果将加深我们对儿童言语知觉中听觉客体形成过程的认识。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The aim of this research proposal is to determine whether children use amplitude comodulation (AM) as a grouping cue in the formation of auditory objects. Specifically, auditory object formation refers to the ability to separate the auditory foreground from the background. This project will examine whether children's ability to use AM as a grouping cue is different from adults and whether this ability changes with development. Although researchers are currently studying auditory object formation in adults, little is known about the development of this phenomenon in children. Because the study of auditory grouping in speech perception is complicated by the fact that speech contains numerous acoustic characteristics, time varying sinusoidal (TVS) speech will be used. These stimuli do not contain typical acoustic characteristics of speech and have been used in previous studies to examine auditory grouping in adults. New stimuli will be developed based on age-appropriate sentences. This project will examine the ability of adults and children to use AM as an auditory grouping cue in the perception of TVS sentences. Speech recognition of TVS sentences (unmodulated and AM at four frequencies) will be obtained. It is hypothesized that children are less able than adults to use AM as an auditory grouping cue and that children's ability to use this information improves with age. The results of this study will enhance our knowledge of the process of auditory object formation in children's speech perception.