Spatial Hearing in Speech Mixtures

项目摘要/摘要 在包含多个谈话者的环境中进行通信(餐厅、派对等)是最大的挑战 面对听力受损的听众。先前的研究表明，这一困难源于单声道和 双耳缺陷。目前的助听器不能完全弥补这些缺陷，因此不能提供足够的 改善了多人通话环境。在某些情况下，它们甚至引入了额外的扭曲，可能是 在这种情况下尤其有害。建议项目的目标是利用我们对 这些不同的问题来探索提高助听器佩戴者在多人交谈中的言语感知的方法 环境。目标1将专注于恢复听力，这是助听器的主要目标。自.以来 放大策略大多是为恢复安静状态下的语音可听性而优化的，它们可能不会优化 用于以多个说话者混合形式呈现的语音。具体地，多个说话者混合中感兴趣的语音可以仅 在相当稀疏的时间和频率区域(或“一瞥”)可用。目标1中提出的实验 将比较不同放大策略的能力，以恢复瞥见的可听性和可理解性 演讲。这项工作将证明，即使是听觉上的微小变化也会对现实世界产生影响 语音理解，并揭示了当前放大策略之间潜在的重要差异。目标 2的动机是，一些听力损失的听众对双耳的敏感度也降低了 暗示，这会削弱对位置的感知，并可能阻碍选择性注意。以此为目的的实验 我将研究旨在增强语音表示的语音增强策略 提高清晰度的噪音。因为它们通过改变语音信封来操作，所以次要的好处可能是 是为了增加信封中携带的双耳线索的显着性。增强功能将应用于语音 一系列空间任务中的刺激，以确定观察到双耳益处的条件。这 这项工作将为改善助听器中复杂声学场景的表现开辟一条新的途径 佩戴者。最后，虽然适当的放大和双耳增强有可能改善语音 在多人通话混合体中的感知，至关重要的是，听力设备不会通过 引入了具有相反效果的扭曲。目标3将专注于一个这样的扭曲，它已经 已确认身份。虽然经验数据有限，但有许多迹象表明，助听器增加了 靠近头部或在头部内部感觉到的外部声音。这种迷失方向的影响可能会特别严重 在多个说话者混合中的后果，其中不同的空间位置对于分离竞争至关重要 声音。目标3中提出的实验将系统地检查助听器对声音的影响。 外化，明确这种效应的来源(S)，并确定对言语清晰度的影响。这部作品 将强调在助听器中保持自然声音图像对于优化语音的关键重要性 在真实世界的听力环境中的可理解性。

Project Summary/Abstract Communicating in environments containing multiple talkers (restaurants, parties, etc.) is the biggest challenge faced by listeners with hearing loss. Previous work has shown that this difficulty stems from both monaural and binaural deficits. Current hearing aids do not fully compensate for these deficits and thus do not offer adequate improvements in multitalker environments. In some cases they even introduce additional distortions that may be particularly detrimental in such situations. The goal of the proposed project is to leverage our understanding of these different issues to explore ways of improving speech perception for hearing-aid wearers in multitalker environments. Aim 1 will focus on restoring audibility, which is the primary goal of a hearing aid. Since amplification strategies are mostly optimized for restoring speech audibility in quiet, they may not be optimized for speech presented in multitalker mixtures. In particular, the speech of interest in multitalker mixtures may only be available in rather sparse regions of time and frequency (or “glimpses”). The experiments proposed in Aim 1 will compare the ability of different amplification strategies to restore the audibility and intelligibility of glimpsed speech. This work will demonstrate the impact that even small variations in audibility can have on real-world speech understanding, and reveal potentially important differences between current amplification strategies. Aim 2 is motivated by the fact that some listeners with hearing loss also demonstrate reduced sensitivity to binaural cues, which weakens the perception of location and may hinder selective attention. The experiments in this aim will investigate speech enhancement strategies that are designed to enhance the representation of speech in noise to improve intelligibility. Because they operate by altering the speech envelope, a secondary benefit may be to increase the salience of binaural cues carried in the envelope. Enhancement will be applied to speech stimuli across a range of spatial tasks, to identify conditions under which a binaural benefit is observed. This work will open up a new avenue for improving the representation of complex acoustic scenes in hearing-aid wearers. Finally, while appropriate amplification and binaural enhancement have the potential to improve speech perception in multitalker mixtures, it is vitally important that hearing devices do not offset these benefits by introducing distortions that have the opposite effect. Aim 3 will focus on one such distortion that has been identified. While empirical data is limited, there are many indications that hearing aids increase the tendency for external sounds to be perceived close to or inside the head. This disorienting effect may have particularly serious consequences in multitalker mixtures, where distinct spatial locations are critical for segregating competing voices. The experiments proposed in Aim 3 will systematically examine the effect of hearing aids on sound externalization, clarify the source(s) of this effect, and determine the impact on speech intelligibility. This work will highlight the critical importance of maintaining natural sound images in hearing aids for optimizing speech intelligibility in real-world listening situations.