Speech audiometry, attention and aging

听力和几种认知能力通常会随着年龄的增长而下降。近年来，这些能力之间的潜在相互作用已成为临床科学的强烈关注焦点。在其他方面，它可能会对言语交流产生重要影响，特别是在困难的声学环境中。在本项目过程中，在与年龄有关的变化背景下审议了不同形式的关注。其目的是加深对潜在机制的理解，并在适当的言语测听方法的框架内考虑到这些机制。特别是通过调查静态和动态的“鸡尾酒会情景”，可以获得更多的洞察力。与静态情况不同，目标说话人在动态情况下可能会发生变化。这些与日常生活相关的情况通过言语测听来检查，包括有听力障碍的年轻人和没有听力障碍的老年人。与年龄和听力损失相关的差异被发现，特别是在分散注意力和关注多个潜在目标说话者的能力方面。相比之下，说话者之间的注意力转移没有显示出显著的研究组差异。此外，关于目标说话人的位置、时间加工和可能的误差源，可以确定几种与注意力有关的机制。在拟议的后续项目中，将根据个人的听觉和认知表现更详细地探讨这些机制。这些主题包括语音信号处理的半球差异，这种差异在动态情况下可能更加明显，空间听觉注意转换的迟缓，以及尚未考虑的语义语境效应意义上的语言因素。通过在这些领域获得进一步的见解，该项目提供了基于言语测听为临床和科学目的建立受控的、生态有效的环境的机会。从而为现代听力康复技术的评价和听力认知能力的综合诊断提供支持。

Hearing acuity and several cognitive abilities are typically subject to age-related decline. A potential interplay of these abilities has come into strong clinical-scientific focus in recent years. Amongst other, it may have important consequences for verbal communication, especially in difficult acoustic situations. In the course of the present project, different forms of attention have been considered in the context of age-related changes. The aim is to obtain a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms and to take them into account in the framework of appropriate speech audiometric methods. Especially by investigating static and dynamic "cocktail party situations" further insights could be gained. In contrast to static situations, the target speaker may change in dynamic situations. Such situations relevant to everyday life were examined by speech audiometry considering younger and older subjects with and without hearing impairment. Age- and hearing loss-related differences were found, especially for the ability to divide attention and to attend to multiple potential target talkers. In contrast, switching attention between talkers showed no significant study group differences. In addition, several attention-related mechanisms could be identified with respect to target speaker position, temporal processing, and possible error sources. In the proposed follow-up project, these mechanisms will be explored in more detail in light of individual auditory and cognitive performance. These topics include a hemisphere difference in the processing of speech signals that may be more pronounced in dynamic situations, sluggishness of switching spatial auditory attention, and linguistic factors in the sense of semantic context effects that have not yet been taken into account. By gaining further insights in these areas, the project offers the chance to establish a controlled, ecologically valid setting for clinical and scientific purposes based on speech audiometry. Thus, it can provide support for the evaluation of modern hearing rehabilitation technologies and the comprehensive diagnostics of auditory and cognitive abilities.