How voice familiarity facilitates intelligibility of degraded and masked speech

跟随和理解一个特定的对话对象，尽管有其他来源的干扰，这是我们大多数人每天都在做的一件事。然而，当听到由许多不同声源（及其回声）组成的复杂听觉信号时，需要进行许多处理操作，以便能够识别、跟踪和理解特定的一个声源（即声音）。我和学员们研究经验和先验知识如何影响语音听力和理解，特别是在嘈杂的日常环境中。知识引导的过程（例如，使用有意义的上下文在感知上填补“被掩盖或退化的语音”）可以显著改善感知组织和语音感知，但通常需要注意，这可能就是为什么在嘈杂的社会环境中沟通是费力的，经常令人沮丧。一个未被充分开发的基于知识的因素可能会提高理解能力，但实际上会减少倾听的努力，那就是熟悉说话者的声音。Johnsrude等人（2013）证明，人们可以利用对高度熟悉的声音（配偶的声音）的了解，不仅在有陌生人干扰的声音存在时更好地跟踪它，而且可以忽略它，以便更有效地理解陌生人的声音。这一初步研究表明，在自然情境下，来自特定声音经验的线索对言语理解具有潜在的高度重要的促进作用；但人们对它们几乎一无所知。这里提出的研究将开始填补这一空白，通过四个目标：******1)检查需要多少经验和什么样的经验才能使声音变得熟悉，从而有利于可理解性；***2)识别对实现熟悉语音效益最重要的声音声学特征；***3)检查语音熟悉度是否会降低听力努力度；***4)比较在熟悉和不熟悉的声音中支持言语感知的神经（和认知）机制。******我的研究计划的目标是发展一个更详细的理论说明熟悉的声音如何有助于理解退化和蒙面语音。这项工作对我们理解语音理解背后的认知过程，以及解决现实世界语音理解受损的问题都是革命性的。这是必要的第一步：开发听力假体，保留基本线索，提高声音的可理解性；使我们能够改善学校和公共场所的听力环境，使熟悉的声音信息可以被利用；并使老年人能够在具有挑战性的听力环境中更充分地利用熟悉的语音信息。

Following and understanding one particular conversational partner, despite interference from other sources, is a feat most of us accomplish every day. However, many processing operations are required so that, when hearing a complex auditory signal consisting of many different sources of sound (and their echoes), one source in particular (i.e., a voice) can be identified, tracked, and understood. My trainees and I study how experience and prior knowledge feed into voice listening and comprehension, particularly in noisy, everyday, conditions. Knowledge-guided processes (e.g., the use of meaningful context to perceptually fill in' masked or degraded speech) can dramatically improve perceptual organization and speech perception, but often require attention, which is probably why communicating in noisy social situations is effortful and often frustrating. One underexplored knowledge-based factor that may enhance comprehension while actually reducing listening effort is familiarity with a talker's voice. Johnsrude et al (2013) demonstrated that people can exploit knowledge of a highly familiar voice (their spouse's) not only to track it better in the presence of an interfering stranger's voice, but also to ignore it so as to comprehend a stranger's voice more effectively. This preliminary study indicates that cues derived from experience with particular voices are potentially highly significant facilitators of speech comprehension in naturalistic situations; but almost nothing is known about them. The research proposed here will begin to fill this gap, through four aims:******1) to examine how much experience, and what kind, is required for voices to become familiar so as to benefit intelligibility; ***2) to identify the acoustic characteristics of voices that are most important for enabling familiar-voice benefit; ***3) to examine whether voice familiarity reduces listening effort; ***4) to compare the neural (and cognitive) mechanisms supporting perception of speech in familiar and unfamiliar voices.******The goal of my research program is to develop a more detailed theoretical account of how familiar voices contribute to comprehension of degraded and masked speech. This work is transformational both for our understanding of the cognitive processes underlying speech comprehension, and for tackling the problem of impaired real-world speech comprehension. It is a necessary first step to: developing hearing prostheses that preserve essential cues that enhance intelligibility of a voice; enabling us to improve listening environments in schools and public places so familiar-voice information can be exploited; and enabling older people to take more complete advantage of familiar-voice information in challenging listening environments.