Spectro-temporal interactions in electric and acoustic auditory perception

尽管在过去的三十年里人工耳蜗（CI）技术取得了相当大的进步，但语音仍然是一个难题。 通过CI的感知仍然比正常听力（NH）差得多，特别是在嘈杂的环境中。 背景听障人士亦有类似的困难，但程度较轻。 听力损失不严重的听众，即使在助听器安装后也不需要CI。长期 这项研究的目的是通过CI和助听器改善听觉和言语感知， 理解有助于和限制挑战中言语感知的基本机制 声学条件这一目标通过三个具体目标实现。第一个目标是将联合收割机的行为 和非侵入性神经测量，以更好地了解NH，HI和CI人群中的听觉背景效应。 语境效应是我们感知经验的重要组成部分，有助于维持感知的恒定性- 面对不同的室内声学效果、说话者属性以及 变化的背景噪声。关于背景效应如何被年龄、听力损失或CI改变，我们知之甚少。 第二个目标是研究语音中的声学和语言语境效应，并了解年龄和 听力损失与这类重要的背景效应相互作用。第三个目的是了解外围 以及对CI用户结果中的个体差异的更多核心贡献。人们通常认为， 外周和植入物相关因素可以解释CI结果的显著差异。这 目标将通过比较CI用户之间的变异性与估计的 在两种情况下，在退化的听力条件下，年轻和年长的NH听众之间的人口方差 心理声学和基于语音的性能测量，使用的样本比 过去总的来说，这些结果将为听觉和听觉的频谱-时间处理提供新的见解。 NH，HI和CI人群的语言刺激，这将有助于治疗和康复策略， 听力损失的人。治疗方法包括结合缺失的背景效应， 通过助听器和CI中的信号处理，在不同的声学条件下，康复可能包括 提高HI和CI患者在日常生活中利用语言语境线索的能力的训练策略 对话环境。

Despite considerable progress in cochlear implant (CI) technology over the past three decades, speech perception via a CI remains considerably poorer than with normal hearing (NH), particularly in noisy backgrounds. Similar difficulties, although often to a lesser extent, are experienced by hearing-impaired (HI) listeners, whose hearing loss is not severe enough to warrant a CI, even after hearing-aid fitting. The long-term goal of this research is to improve auditory and speech perception via CIs and hearing aids, through a greater understanding of the basic mechanisms that contribute to, and limit, the perception of speech in challenging acoustic conditions. This goal is addressed through three specific aims. The first aim is to combine behavioral and non-invasive neural measures to better understand auditory context effects in NH, HI, and CI populations. Context effects are a crucial part of our perceptual experience, and help to maintain perceptual constancy – the ability to recognize objects, voices, and words, in the face of different room acoustics, talker properties, and varying background noise. Little is known about how context effects are altered by aging, hearing loss, or CIs. The second aim is to study acoustic and linguistic context effects in speech, and to understand how age and hearing loss interact with this important class of context effects. The third aim is to understand the peripheral and more central contributions to individual differences in the outcomes of CI users. It is often assumed that peripheral and implant-related factors can explain a significant proportion of the variance in CI outcomes. This aim will provide a direct test of the assumption by comparing the variability among CI users with the estimated population variance among younger and older NH listeners under degraded listening conditions in both psychoacoustic and speech-based measures of performance, using larger samples than have been tested in the past. Overall, the results will provide new insights into the spectro-temporal processing of auditory and speech stimuli by NH, HI, and CI populations that will help in the treatment and rehabilitation strategies for people with hearing loss. Treatments include the incorporation of missing context effects that assist perception in varying acoustic conditions via signal processing in hearing aids and CIs, and rehabilitation may include training strategies that accelerate the ability of HI and CI patients to utilize linguistic context cues in everyday conversational environments.