Auditory processing and speech understanding

我过去的研究表明，即使声音足够大，其时间特性的微小失真也会影响听者对信息的吸收，特别是当他们必须整合信息以理解或记住它时。然而，语言环境可以减轻信号失真的有害影响;即，听力的自下而上（耳对脑）和自上而下（脑对耳）方面之间的相互作用调节性能。声音的时间属性包括精细结构（音高）的快速变化和声音包络（节奏）的缓慢变化。临床听力正常的老年人已经研究，因为他们的问题，使用时间线索可能会解释他们的困难，听噪音和年轻人进行类似的测试时，使用时间失真的精细结构线索，以模拟老年人的时间处理问题的听众。人们对不同频率的语音能量与语音清晰度的关系知之甚少，但对时间线索的作用知之甚少。此外，时间线索对于非语言信息如说话者身份和情感的交流也很重要。拟议的研究将发现时间线索如何有助于提取语言和非语言（例如，情感、说话者身份）信息以及这些共存类型的信息如何交互。一个惊人的初步发现是，在控制强度后，用恐惧的声音说话比用悲伤的声音说话更容易理解。一种假设是，情感信息改变了听者对语言信息的关注。另一个假设是，因为情感和语言线索是同时表达的，所以说话者所做的运动动作引起了互动。该研究旨在发现语言信息（说什么）和非语言信息（如何说）的同时交流如何影响口语的产生和理解。这项研究对设计通信设备的工程师非常感兴趣（例如，助听器），以及对心理学家，语言学家和其他希望了解人类如何在交流中使用感官信息的人感兴趣。

My past research has shown that even when sound is loud enough, micro distortions in its temporal properties affect how well listeners uptake information, especially when they must integrate information to comprehend or remember it. However, linguistic context can mitigate the deleterious effects of signal distortions; i.e., interactions between bottom-up (ear to brain) and top-down (brain to ear) aspects of listening modulate performance. The temporal properties of sound include fast changes in the fine structure (pitch) and slow changes in the sound envelope (rhythm). Older adults with clinically normal hearing have been studied because their problems using temporal cues may explain their difficulties listening in noise and younger adults perform similarly when tested using temporal distortions of fine structure cues to simulate the temporal processing problems of older listeners. Much is known about how the amount of speech energy in different frequencies relates to speech intelligibility, but little is known about the role of temporal cues. In addition, temporal cues are important for the communication of non-linguistic information such as talker identity and emotion. The proposed research will discover how temporal cues contribute to the extraction of linguistic and non-linguistic (e.g., emotion, talker identity) information and how these co-existing types of information interact. A striking preliminary finding is that, after controlling for intensity, words are understood better when spoken in a fearful voice than in a sad voice. One hypothesis is that emotional information alters how the listener attends to linguistic information. Another hypothesis is that because emotional and linguistic cues are expressed simultaneously, the motor acts performed by a talker give rise to interactions. The proposed research aims to discover how the simultaneous communication of linguistic (what is said) and non-linguistic (how it is said) information influences the production and comprehension of spoken language. This research is of great interest to engineers designing communication devices (e.g., hearing aids), as well as being of interest to psychologists, linguists and others who wish to understand how humans use sensory information during communication.