Spectro-temporal interactions in electric and acoustic auditory perception

尽管在过去的三十年里人工耳蜗(CI)技术取得了长足的进步，但语音 通过CI的感觉仍然比正常听力(NH)差得多，特别是在有噪音的情况下 背景。类似的困难，尽管通常程度较小，但听力受损(HI)者也会经历 听者，其听力损失不足以保证CI，即使在配戴助听器后也是如此。长期的 这项研究的目标是通过更大的顺应性和助听器来改善听觉和言语感知 理解在挑战中促进和限制言语知觉的基本机制 声学条件。这一目标是通过三个具体目标实现的。第一个目标是将行为 以及非侵入性神经测量，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体验的重要组成部分，有助于保持感知的恒定性-- 在面对不同的房间声学、说话者属性和 不同的背景噪音。关于背景效应是如何因衰老、听力损失或顺应性改变而改变的，我们知之甚少。 第二个目标是研究言语中的声学和语言语境效应，并理解年龄和语言环境是如何 听力损失与这类重要的背景效应相互作用。第三个目标是了解外围设备 以及对CI用户结果的个体差异的更核心的贡献。人们通常认为 外周和植入物相关的因素可以解释脑梗塞结果的很大一部分差异。这 AIM将通过将CI用户之间的变异性与估计值进行比较，对该假设进行直接测试 在退化的听力条件下，年轻和老年NH收听者之间的群体差异 心理声学和基于语音的性能测量，使用的样本比 过去的事。总体而言，这些结果将为听觉和听觉的频谱-时间加工提供新的见解。 NH、HI和CI人群的言语刺激将有助于治疗和康复策略 听力受损的人。治疗方法包括结合缺失的情境效应来帮助感知 在不同的声学条件下，通过助听器和CI中的信号处理，康复可以包括 提高HI和CI患者日常使用语境线索能力的训练策略 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.