Development and plasticity in normal and impaired ears

描述（由申请人提供）：长期目标是更好地理解在背景噪音中听力的听觉过程，以及早期听力损失对这些过程的影响。目的1将研究这样一种假设，即正常听力儿童在噪音中整合语音的光谱-时间短暂性能力的发展是一个长期的发展过程，而这种发展在长期患有积液性中耳炎（OME）的儿童中更为漫长。目的2研究了一个相对新颖的观点，即听力损失不仅与发育迟缓和听觉线索的衰减有关，而且还可能伴随着听觉处理的适应，从而能够有效地利用可用的剩余信息。这将在OME患者和有严重倾斜感音神经性听力损失的患者中进行检查。目的3研究严重单侧传导性听力损失患者的双耳和单耳声学信息处理。双耳实验旨在测试长期的单侧听力丧失如何影响大脑分析和权衡来自两只耳朵的信息的能力。单耳实验将探讨在有传导性听力损失史的耳中，相对复杂的单耳加工是否受损。在接受听力损失干预的患者中，将对双耳和单耳能力进行纵向跟踪，以确定经验是否会导致听觉系统对来自两只耳朵的信息进行权衡和分析的能力发生变化。心理声学研究将使用标准的自适应测试技术，而语音研究将使用自适应和固定块方法的结合。项目的所有阶段都将包括年龄匹配的对照听众。数据将使用方差分析和描述性统计程序进行分析。拟议的工作在两个方面与公共卫生有关：1)听力损失研究的数据将提供有关早期听力损失对听觉发展的影响的信息；2)对正常听力儿童和成人的听力能力的研究将提供关于人类在噪音中听到信号的能力的信息，这是听力损失患者最常见的问题。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The long-term aim is a better understanding of the auditory processes that enable hearing in background noise, and the effect of early hearing loss on those processes. Aim 1 will investigate the hypothesis that the development of the ability to integrate spectro-temporal glimpses of speech in noise has a protracted development in normal-hearing children, and that such development is even more protracted in children who have long histories of recurrent otitis media with effusion (OME). Aim 2 investigates the relatively novel perspective that hearing loss is associated not only with delays in development and the attenuation of auditory cues, but may also be accompanied by adaptations in auditory processing that enable efficient use of available remaining information. This will be examined both in patients having OME and patients who have severely sloping sensorineural hearing losses. Aim 3 investigates the processing of binaural and monaural acoustical information in patients having severe, unilateral conductive hearing losses. The binaural experiments are aimed at testing how a long history of unilateral hearing loss affects the ability of the brain to analyze and weight information from the two ears. The monaural experiments will investigate whether relatively complex monaural processing is impaired in the ear having history of conductive hearing loss. In patients receiving hearing loss intervention, the binaural and monaural abilities will be tracked longitudinally to determine whether experience results in changes in the ability of the auditory system to weight and analyze information from the two ears. Psychoacoustic studies will use standard, adaptive testing techniques, and speech studies will use a combination of adaptive and fixed block methods. All phases of the project will include age-matched control listeners. Data will be analyzed using analysis of variance and descriptive statistical procedures. There are two ways in which the proposed work relates to public health: 1) the data from the studies on hearing loss will provide information about the effect of early hearing loss on the development of auditory perception; 2) the studies on hearing abilities in normal-hearing children and adults will provide information about human abilities to hear signals in noise, the most common problem experienced by patients having hearing losses.