The Impact of Frequency Compression on Cortical Evoked Potentials and Perception

频率压缩对皮质诱发电位和感知的影响

• 批准号: 8531669
• 负责人: Benjamin J Kirby
• 金额: $ 2.52万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-08-07 至 2014-06-05
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8531669
• 关键词: Acoustics; Address; Adult; Audiology; Auditory Evoked Potentials; Auditory area; Characteristics; Child; Childhood; Clinical; Complex; Computer software; Conflict (Psychology); Custom; Data Compression; Detection; Development; Discrimination; Elderly; Evidence based practice; Evoked Potentials; Feedback; Frequencies; Hearing; Hearing Aids; High-Frequency Hearing Loss; Individual; Infant; Laboratories; Measures; Methods; Outcome Measure; Participant; Perception; Performance; Pilot Projects; Population; Population Heterogeneity; Process; Psychophysics; Publications; Reporting; Research; Sensorineural Hearing Loss; Series; Simulate; Speech Perception; Speech Sound; Stimulus; Testing; Time; Variant; base; computerized data processing; evidence base; hearing impairment; improved; knowledge base; research study; response; sound; sound frequency; tool

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): One of the central challenges in the field of audiology is the verification of optimal hearing aid fitting in infants and young children who cannot reliabl provide detailed subjective feedback about hearing aid settings. The audiologist often must depend on parental report to guide the selection of hearing aid settings and obtaining that information may take weeks or months. Recently, it has been established that cortical auditory evoked potentials (CAEPs), objective recordings of activity in the auditory cortex, may serve as an alternative to parental report for fitting hearing aids. While CAEPs can be used in clinical settings to determine audibility of sound for infants using various hearing aid gain characteristics, at this time, no objective measure exists to guide the selection of optimal frequency compression parameters for an individual hearing aid user. Frequency compression is a hearing aid signal-processing strategy for systematically lowering high frequency sounds that is now commonly enabled for adult and child hearing aid users. It can be effective at increasing the audibility of high frequency speech sounds for individuals with sloping, high frequency hearing loss because it moves those speech sounds from a region of hearing impairment to a region of better hearing. Unfortunately, frequency compression algorithms can also cause a reduction in the spectral contrast between different speech sounds - particularly when more aggressive frequency compression settings are used. The acoustic change complex (ACC) is a variant of traditionally recorded CAEPs and the presence of an ACC is correlated with detection of change in an ongoing stimulus. The ACC may be ideal to evaluate objectively the effects of frequency compression parameters on the representation of spectrally contrasted sounds in the auditory cortex in hearing aid users who are unable to provide subjective feedback on frequency compression settings. The specific aim of this project is to determine the relationship between cortical evoked potentials and psychophysical performance in conditions of frequency compression and hearing loss. A series of three experiments are proposed to address this specific aim. In the first experiment, ACC responses, psychophysical spectral discrimination thresholds, and vowel identification scores will be obtained from normal hearing participants listening to stimuli that have been compressed in frequency using custom software. In the second experiment, these same measures will be completed in normal hearing participants listening to stimuli additionally processed to simulate high frequency hearing loss. Finally, in the third experiment, a heterogeneous group of participants with high frequency sensorineural hearing loss will be tested. The results of these three experiments will describe the relationship between perception and cortical evoked responses in a range of frequency compression conditions, filling a critical gap in our knowledge base and potentially establishing a needed evidence-based objective outcome measure applicable to clinical pediatric hearing aid fitting.

描述（由申请人提供）：听力学领域的主要挑战之一是验证婴儿和幼儿的最佳助听器适配，这些婴儿和幼儿无法可靠地提供关于助听器设置的详细主观反馈。听力学家通常必须依赖父母的报告来指导助听器设置的选择，并且获得该信息可能需要数周或数月。最近，已经确定皮质听觉诱发电位（CAEP），听觉皮层活动的客观记录，可以作为选配助听器的父母报告的替代方案。虽然CAEP可以在临床环境中使用，以确定使用各种助听器增益特性的婴儿的声音可听度，但此时，不存在客观的测量来指导个体助听器用户选择最佳频率压缩参数。频率压缩是一种助听器信号处理策略，用于系统地降低高频声音，现在通常适用于成人和儿童助听器用户。它可以有效地增加倾斜高频听力损失患者的高频语音的可听度，因为它将这些语音从听力障碍区域移动到听力更好的区域。不幸的是，频率压缩算法也会导致不同语音之间的频谱对比度降低-特别是当使用更激进的频率压缩设置时。声学变化复合体（ACC）是传统记录的CAEP的变体，并且ACC的存在与正在进行的刺激中的变化的检测相关。对于无法提供频率压缩设置的主观反馈的助听器用户，ACC可能是客观评估频率压缩参数对听觉皮层中频谱对比声音表示的影响的理想选择。本项目的具体目标是确定在频率压缩和听力损失的条件下，皮层诱发电位和心理物理性能之间的关系。一系列的三个实验提出了解决这一具体目标。在第一个实验中，ACC反应，心理物理频谱辨别阈值，和元音识别分数将从正常听力参与者听到的刺激，已被压缩的频率使用自定义软件。在第二个实验中，这些相同的测量将在正常听力参与者中完成，这些参与者收听额外处理的刺激以模拟高频听力损失。最后，在第三个实验中，将测试一组具有高频感音神经性听力损失的异质性参与者。这三个实验的结果将描述在一系列频率压缩条件下感知和皮层诱发反应之间的关系，填补了我们知识库中的一个关键空白，并可能建立一个适用于临床儿科助听器验配的基于证据的客观结果测量。