Roles of fine time processing and reverberation in spatial selective auditory

描述(申请人提供)：语音交流通常在充满竞争声源和扭曲环境效果的环境中进行。面对这样的挑战，外周和中枢听觉系统已经发展出一个复杂的神经机制网络，用于分离和选择听觉对象。个体听者执行空间选择任务的能力的差异可能源于他们使用听觉系统可用的线索的能力的各种差异，而这些个体差异可能会因外周和中央听觉系统的混响和病理而加剧。在这个项目的第一个目标中，通过耳机向受试者呈现的计算机模拟环境来测量听力正常的听者的空间选择性听觉注意的个体差异。在第二个目标中，测量了听力正常人群中顶部和底部四分位数的受试者对单耳和双耳时间精细结构的阈值敏感度。评估空间选择性注意任务的表现与这些简单测量之间的关系，以了解基本时间加工的差异是否可以预测更高顺序任务的差异。研究、量化和建模个体如何使用时间听觉线索，对于辅助听力设备和语音识别软件，以及我们对处理和调制由感官提供的信息的复杂神经网络的理解，具有重要的意义。本研究的第三个目标是对目标1中的空间选择性注意数据进行建模，通过扩展现有的空间处理模型来包括注意和选择的影响，这些模型使用纯空间信息。 公共卫生相关性：对于听力受损和听力正常的听众来说，在复杂的环境中与多个相互竞争的来源进行沟通经常被认为是困难和令人沮丧的。这项研究将描述精细时间处理在混响空间中空间选择性听觉注意中所起的作用，并将建立简单的框架，将自下而上和自上而下的信息结合起来，以实现选择性听觉注意。通过确定一些因素来解释听力正常的听者成功引导空间选择性注意的能力的一些戏剧性差异，这项研究将使该领域更接近有效的信号处理模式和辅助设备的开发，这将改善大量听力受损和听力正常的人的生活质量。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Speech communication usually takes place in environments filled with competing sound sources and distorting environmental effects. Faced with such challenges, the peripheral and central auditory systems have developed a complex network of neural mechanisms that segregate and select auditory objects. Variability in individual listeners' abilities to perform spatial selective tasks may arise from a variety of differences in their abilities to use the cues available to the auditory system, and those individual differences may be exacerbated by reverberation and pathologies of the peripheral and central auditory systems. In the first aim of this project, individual differences in normal-hearing listeners' spatial selective auditory attention are measured using computer-simulated environments presented to subjects via headphones. In the second aim, threshold sensitivity to monaural and binaural temporal fine structure is measured for subjects in the top and bottom quartiles of the normal-hearing population. The relationship between performance on the spatial selective attention task and these simple measures is evaluated to see if differences in basic temporal processing predict differences on higher-order tasks. Studying, quantifying, and modeling how individuals use temporal auditory cues has important implications for assistive listening devices and speech recognition software, as well as for our understanding of the complex neural network that processes and modulates information provided by the senses. The third aim of this study will model the spatial selective attention data from Aim 1 by extending existing models of spatial processing, which use purely spatial information, to include effects of attention and selection. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Communication in complex settings with multiple, competing sources is often cited as difficult and frustrating for both hearing impaired and normal hearing listeners. This research will characterize the role played by fine time processing in spatial selective auditory attention in reverberant spaces, and it will model simple frameworks for combining bottom-up and top- down information to enable selective auditory attention. By identifying factors that explain some of the dramatic variability in the ability of normal-hearing listeners to successfully direct spatial selective attention, this research will move the field closer to effective signal processing schemas and development of assistive devices that will improve the quality of life of a large population of both hearing impaired and normal hearing individuals.