Understanding speech in noise_The roles of aging and attentional entrainment

描述（由申请人提供）：拟议研究的总体目标是确定老年人言语理解问题的潜在原因。年长的听者，无论是否有严重的听力损失，在存在竞争声音的情况下，往往比年轻的听者在理解语音方面要困难得多（CHABA, 1988; Dubno et al., 1984; Duquesnoy, 1983）。对于听力受损的听者来说，听力损失（或可听性）程度的差异在很大程度上解释了听者在竞争声音存在下理解言语能力的差异，但其他因素（如认知或中枢听觉因素）对听力受损和正常听力的听者都起着重要作用（见Houtgast & Festin, 2008; Akeroyd, 2008; Humes, 2007; Humes & Dubno, 2010; Humes, Kidd, & Lentz, 2013）。一个有希望的假设，迄今为止得到的关注相对较少，即在存在竞争声音的情况下，有效的语音理解在很大程度上取决于遵循话语时间结构的能力，以及通过注意力吸引过程准确预测语音事件发生时间的能力。根据干扰假说（参见Large & Jones, 1999; McAuley et al., 2006），注意力追踪言语时间模式的能力，通过增强对与说话者时间模式相对应的言语事件的注意力，有助于听者在感知上隔离和解决单个说话者的言语细节。此外，通过话语中听不见或部分听得到的部分对时间模式进行准确的外推，可以通过将言语的间歇性“瞥见”整合到一个共同的时间框架中来促进它们的整合。这一普遍假设将通过一系列实验进行调查，这些实验将在语音环境中测试夹带理论的预测，并结合评估夹带能力个体差异的新测试。将对1000名有听力损失和没有听力损失的年轻人和老年人听众进行抽样测试，使用形状放大来确保听力受损听众的可听性。该项目将采用行为学和神经生理学相结合的测量方法来确定娱乐能力与语言理解之间的关系，同时控制基本听觉能力和认知能力的个体差异，这些能力之前被证明对语言感知很重要。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overarching goal of the proposed research is to identify the underlying causes of speech understanding problems in older adults. Older listeners, with or without significant hearing loss, often have much greater difficulty understanding speech in the presence of competing sounds than do younger listeners (CHABA, 1988; Dubno et al., 1984; Duquesnoy, 1983). For hearing-impaired listeners, differences in degree of hearing loss (or audibility) account for a large portion of the variance in listeners' ability to understand speech in the presence of competing sounds, but other factors (e.g., cognitive or central auditory factors) play an important role for both hearing-impaired and normal-hearing listeners (see Houtgast & Festin, 2008; Akeroyd, 2008; Humes, 2007; Humes & Dubno, 2010; Humes, Kidd, & Lentz, 2013). One promising hypothesis, which has received relatively little attention to date, is that effective speech understanding in the presence of competing sounds depends strongly on the ability to follow the temporal structure of an utterance and to accurately anticipate the timing of speech events through a process of attentional entrainment. According to the entrainment hypothesis (see Large & Jones, 1999; McAuley et al., 2006) the ability to attentionally track the temporal patterns of speech helps listeners to perceptually isolate and resolve the details of a single talker's speech by enhancing attention to speech events that correspond to a talker's temporal pattern. Moreover, accurate extrapolation of temporal patterns through inaudible or partially audible portions of an utterance is proposed to facilitate the integration of intermittent "glimpses" of speech by incorporating them in a common temporal framework. This general hypothesis will be investigated through a series of experiments that test the predictions of entrainment theory in a speech context, in combination with a new test battery that assesses individual differences in entrainment ability. A sample of 1000 young and older listeners with and without hearing loss will be tested, using shaped amplification to ensure audibility for hearing- impaired listeners. The project will employ a combination of behavioral and neurophysiological measures to determine how entrainment ability is related to speech understanding, while controlling for individual differences in basic auditory capabilities and cognitive abilities previously shown to be important for speech perception.