DEVELOPMENT OF FUNCTIONAL SPATIAL HEARING IN REVERBERATION

混响中功能性空间听力的发展

• 批准号: 10646352
• 负责人: ZHAO ELLEN PENG
• 金额: $ 20.26万
• 依托单位: FATHER FLANAGAN'S BOYS' HOME
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-07-01 至 2025-06-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10646352
• 关键词: 12 year old; 18 year old; 5 year old; 9 year old; Address; Adult; Affect; Age; Area; Auditory; Auditory Perception; Benchmarking; Bilateral; Binaural; Child; Cochlear Implants; Communication; Complex; Cueing for speech; Cues; Data; Development; Devices; Environment; Foundations; Goals; Hearing; Hearing Aids; Hearing Tests; Image; Impairment; Intervention; Knowledge; Learning; Life; Maps; Measures; National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders; Outcome; Outcome Measure; Pattern; Perception; Performance; Process; Psychophysics; Role; School-Age Population; Severities; Signal Transduction; Size Perception; Social Interaction; Source; Speech; Speech Perception; Surface; Testing; Time; Width; Work; auditory processing; educational atmosphere; hearing impairment; improved; innovation; noise perception; normal hearing; novel; object perception; precedence effect; prevent; school environment; skills; sound; speech in noise; virtual; virtual reality

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Adverse auditory environments in indoor spaces present constant challenges to children during everyday learning and social interactions. Spatial hearing provides access to auditory cues that promote auditory and speech perception in these difficult listening situations. However, auditory spatial cues are distorted in most indoor spaces due to reverberation—the excessive sound energy reflected from room surfaces arriving at the listener shortly after the initial sound directly from the source. The perceptual consequences of reverberation on spatial hearing have not been characterized in children with normal hearing, leaving a critical gap in our knowledge of benchmark abilities to assess hearing device fitting outcomes for children with hearing loss during real-world listening. In the proposed work, our goal is to reveal the developmental trajectories of functional spatial hearing abilities under realistic reverberation between 6- to 18-year-old children. This age range reflects the protracted development of perceptual abilities, which underlies a multitude of immaturities in children’s processing of auditory information particularly in difficult listening situations. This work takes an innovative and unprecedented approach to study the impact of reverberation in auditory virtual reality, in which realistic auditory environments mimicking children’s learning environments are simulated to maximize ecological validity. Across the specific aims, we examine three aspects of functional spatial hearing abilities under virtual reverberant environments that vary in interaural coherence—a metric that describes reverberation severity. In Aim 1, we will investigate developmental changes in apparent source width—a measure of perceived auditory object size that is critical for auditory scene analysis. In Aim 2, we will investigate the development of minimum audible angle, the smallest detectable angular separation between two sounds—a well-tested metric for auditory spatial acuity. In Aim 3, we will investigate developmental changes in minimum angular separation—a novel measure of spatial unmasking based on the smallest spatial separation required to receive a target speech benefit in competing babbles. By correlating the three outcome measures from the independent aims, we will assess the inter-relationships between auditory object perception, spatial acuity, and spatial unmasking in reverberant environments among school-aged children. Findings from the proposed work will (i) establish our understanding of typical developmental trajectories of functional spatial hearing in realistic reverberant environments, and (ii) elucidate the role of auditory object perception in spatial acuity and subsequently spatial unmasking in children. Together, this work will provide intervention benchmark to assess fitting outcomes for children with hearing loss, and will generate substantial feasibility and pilot data for a planned R01 to develop fitting strategies for children with hearing devices.

项目总结/摘要 室内空间中的不良听觉环境在日常生活中对儿童提出了不断的挑战 学习和社交互动。空间听觉提供了对听觉线索的访问， 在这些困难的听力情况下的语音感知。然而，听觉空间线索在大多数情况下是失真的， 室内空间由于混响-过多的声能反射从房间表面到达 听后不久，最初的声音直接从来源。混响的知觉后果 空间听觉在听力正常的儿童中还没有得到表征，这在我们的研究中留下了一个关键的空白。 了解评估听力损失儿童助听器验配结果的基准能力， 真实世界的倾听 本研究旨在揭示功能性空间听觉能力的发展轨迹 在6到18岁的孩子之间的现实回响下。这一年龄范围反映了长期的 知觉能力的发展，这是儿童在处理 听觉信息，特别是在困难的听力情况下。这项工作采取了创新和前所未有的 一种研究混响对听觉虚拟现实影响的方法， 模仿儿童的学习环境，以最大限度地提高生态有效性。 在具体的目标，我们研究了三个方面的功能性空间听觉能力，在虚拟环境下， 在耳间相干性（描述混响严重性的度量）方面变化的混响环境。在 目的1，我们将调查发展变化的表观源宽-一个措施，感知听觉 对象的大小是听觉场景分析的关键。在目标2中，我们将研究最小值的发展 可听角，两个声音之间最小的可检测的角度间隔-一个经过良好测试的听觉指标 空间敏锐度在目标3中，我们将研究最小角分离的发展变化-一种新的 基于接收目标语音所需的最小空间间隔的空间去掩蔽的度量 在竞争的babbles中受益。通过将三个独立目标的结果指标相关联，我们将 评估听觉物体感知、空间敏锐度和空间暴露之间的相互关系， 在学龄儿童中的回响环境。 从拟议的工作结果将（一）建立我们的理解典型的发展轨迹， 在现实混响环境中的功能性空间听觉，以及（ii）阐明听觉对象的作用 儿童的空间敏锐度和随后的空间揭露。这项工作将提供 干预基准，以评估听力损失儿童的拟合结果，并将产生大量的 计划中的R 01的可行性和试点数据，以制定助听器儿童的验配策略。