Online speech processing in pediatric and adult cochlear implant users

儿童和成人人工耳蜗用户的在线语音处理

• 批准号: 8254958
• 负责人: Ashley Wilson Farris-Trimble
• 金额: $ 5.3万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-09-01 至 2013-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8254958
• 关键词: Accounting; Acoustic Nerve; Acoustics; Address; Adult; Affect; American; Auditory; Auricular prosthesis; Basic Science; Categories; Cellular Phone; Characteristics; Child; Childhood; Clinical; Cochlea; Cochlear Implants; Cognition; Computers; Cues; Data; Devices; Diagnostic; Electrodes; Exhibits; Eye; Eye Movements; Frequencies; Goals; Hearing; Hearing Impaired Persons; Implant; Implanted Electrodes; Incidence; Individual; Individual Differences; Language; Lead; Measures; Methodology; Modeling; Monitor; Nature; Neurons; Outcome; Outcome Measure; Output; Perception; Performance; Phonetics; Population; Problem Solving; Process; Process Measure; Prosthesis; Research; Research Personnel; Resolution; Sensory; Signal Transduction; Simulate; Sorting - Cell Movement; Speech; Speech Perception; Stimulus; Structure; System; Time; United States; Variant; Vision; Visual; Work; auditory stimulus; base; cognitive system; coping; deafness; improved; lexical; lexical processing; response; sound; speech processing; success; therapy development

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): It is estimated that 3 out of every 1000 people in the United States are deaf, and 60,000 Americans have cochlear implants, prosthetic devices that electrically stimulate the auditory nerve to simulate hearing. Previous research has shown that CI users exhibit a wide range of variability in word recognition and outcome measures of speech perception. Some work has focused on CI users' auditory deficits, but with recent advances in our understanding of the online processing necessary to speech perception and word recognition, we ask whether CI users' online processing abilities contribute to their differences in these tasks. The proposed research seeks to examine speech processing in the face of a degraded signal, and to determine how listeners adapt to that signal. Our goal is to characterize the nature of online processing and adaptation in this population, with three specific aims: to determine the factors that account for differences in lexical dynamics; to examine phonetic category structure and response to degradation in CI users via lexical activation; and to examine the nature and duration of competitor activation and in CI users. These aims will help us understand how CI users adapt to degraded signals and how sounds and words compete for activation in the lexicon. To measure online processing and lexical activation, we need a real-time measure of lexical activation, including that of the stimulus word and its competitors. We will use eye tracking in the visual world paradigm to measure this. As the listener does a basic word identification task on a computer, his or her eye movements are monitored as a measure of how strongly the listener is considering different words as a match to the auditory stimulus at that time. This yields a real-time measure of which competitors are being considered throughout processing. The task is straightforward and requires no metalinguistic interference, and as a result can be easily used with impaired populations like children and adult CI users. The proposed research has both clinical and theoretical implications. Clinically, we hope that by understanding specific ways in which CI users' online processing differs from that of normal hearers, and the ways in which CI users differ from one another in adaptation strategies, we can inform diagnostic criteria and provide data that will improve the processing strategies of the implants themselves. From a theoretical perspective, no model of speech perception has attempted to account for how degraded speech is perceived, and our preliminary results challenge some of the most basic principles of word recognition. The processing of degraded speech has broad implications: every time we hear speech in a noisy room, or talk on a cell phone, we are processing speech that has been degraded in some way. Understanding and modeling this process may thus inform researchers' strategies in coping with degraded speech. This set of studies will thus expanding our account of the cognitive system as a whole. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The research proposed here has direct relevance to a clinical population: deaf individuals, specifically those with a prosthetic cochlear implant (CI). The incidence of deafness in the US is around 3 cases per 1000 individuals, and there are approximately 60,000 cochlear implant users; the proposed studies attempt to account for the wide variation in outcome measures for this population by examining how CI users process speech and recognize words in real-time. The results are expected to inform diagnostic criteria for this population; moreover, they will enhance our understanding of the processing of a degraded signal in general, which affects many situations confronted by normal hearers on a daily basis, like hearing speech in a noisy room or talking on a cell phone.

描述（由申请人提供）：据估计，美国每1000人中有3人是聋哑人，有60,000名美国人具有人工耳蜗植入物，假体设备，这些设备会刺激听觉神经，以模拟听力。先前的研究表明，CI用户在单词识别和语音感知的结果度量方面表现出广泛的可变性。一些工作集中在CI用户的听觉缺陷上，但是随着我们对语音感知和单词识别所必需的在线处理的最新进展，我们询问CI用户的在线处理能力是否有助于他们在这些任务中的差异。拟议的研究试图在面对降级信号时检查语音处理，并确定听众如何适应该信号。我们的目标是表征该人群中在线处理和适应性的性质，具有三个特定的目的：确定涉及词汇动态差异的因素；通过词汇激活检查语音类别的结构和对CI用户降解的响应；并检查竞争对手激活和CI用户的性质和持续时间。这些目标将有助于我们了解CI用户如何适应降级信号以及声音和单词如何在词典中竞争激活。 为了衡量在线处理和词汇激活，我们需要实时衡量词汇激活，包括刺激词及其竞争对手的词汇激活。我们将使用视觉世界范式中的眼睛跟踪来衡量这一点。由于听众在计算机上执行基本的单词识别任务，因此对他或她的眼睛运动进行了监测，以衡量听众在当时将不同的单词视为与听觉刺激的匹配。这产生了一个实时衡量标准，即整个处理过程中都考虑了竞争对手。这项任务很简单，不需要综合性语言干扰，因此可以轻松地与儿童和成人CI使用者（例如儿童和成人CI使用者）一起使用。 拟议的研究具有临床和理论意义。在临床上，我们希望通过了解CI用户在线处理与普通听众的特定方式以及CI用户在适应策略方面彼此不同的方式，我们可以为诊断标准提供信息，并提供可以改善植入物本身的处理策略的数据。从理论的角度来看，没有任何语音感知模型试图说明如何感知语音的降级，我们的初步结果挑战了一些单词识别的一些最基本的原则。降级语音的处理具有广泛的含义：每次我们在嘈杂的房间内听到演讲，或者在手机上说话时，我们都在处理以某种方式降级的演讲。因此，理解和建模这一过程可能会为研究人员在应对退化语音时的策略提供信息。因此，这组研究将扩大我们对整个认知系统的描述。 公共卫生相关性：此处提出的研究与临床人群有直接的相关性：聋人，特别是那些具有人工耳蜗（CI）的人。美国的耳聋发病率是每1000个人约3例，大约有60,000个人工耳蜗使用者；拟议的研究试图通过检查CI使用者如何实时处理语音和识别单词来解决该人群的结果度量的广泛差异。结果预计将为该人群提供诊断标准。此外，它们将增强我们对一般信号处理的处理的理解，这会影响普通听众每天面临的许多情况，例如在嘈杂的室里听到演讲或在手机上说话。