DEVELOPMENT OF FUNCTIONAL SPATIAL HEARING IN REVERBERATION

项目摘要/摘要 室内空间的不利听觉环境在日常生活中给儿童带来了持续不断的挑战 学习和社会互动。空间听力提供了获得听觉线索的途径，这些线索促进了听觉和 在这些困难的听力情况下的言语感知。然而，听觉空间线索在大多数情况下是失真的 由混响引起的室内空间--从房间表面反射的过多的声能 听众在听到最初的声音后不久，直接从源头发声。混响的知觉后果 空间听力在听力正常的儿童中并不具有特征，这在我们的 评估听力损失儿童配戴听力装置结果的基准能力 真实世界的倾听。 在提出的工作中，我们的目标是揭示功能性空间听力的发展轨迹 在6至18岁儿童之间的现实回响下。这个年龄范围反映了旷日持久的 感知能力的发展，这是儿童加工过程中许多不成熟的基础 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 研究混响对听觉虚拟现实的影响的方法，其中真实的听觉环境 模拟儿童的学习环境，以最大限度地提高生态有效性。 通过特定的目标，我们考察了虚拟环境下功能性空间听觉能力的三个方面 混响环境在不同的听觉相干中--一个描述混响严重程度的指标。在……里面 目标1，我们将研究视源宽度的发育变化--视源宽度是感知听觉的量度 对听觉场景分析至关重要的对象大小。在目标2中，我们将调查Minimum的发展 可听角度，两个声音之间可检测到的最小角度间隔-这是一种经过良好测试的听觉指标 空间敏锐度。在目标3中，我们将研究最小角度间隔的发展变化--一种新的 基于接收目标语音所需的最小空间分离的空间去掩蔽度量 在相互竞争的闲聊中获益。通过将独立目标的三项结果衡量标准联系起来，我们将 评估听觉对象感知、空间敏锐度和空间掩蔽之间的相互关系 在学龄儿童中回响的环境。 拟议工作的结果将(I)建立我们对 现实混响环境中的功能性空间听觉，以及(Ii)阐明听觉物体的作用 儿童的空间敏锐度知觉和随后的空间去掩饰。共同努力，这项工作将提供 干预基准评估听力损失儿童的合适结果，并将产生大量 计划中的R01的可行性和试点数据，以开发适合听力设备儿童的策略。

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.