Binaural Hearing in Children in Complex Environments

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究的目标是了解 幼儿如何能够在复杂的声学环境中发挥作用， 常常存在多个源。这包括确定 声源，特别是在嘈杂的环境中，并提取内容 有意义的声音，如理解讲话。这项工作将侧重于 4-7岁儿童。我们将使用两种范例来测量双耳能力。的 第一个测试将评估孩子们在安静的环境中， 存在模拟回波（优先效应），以及存在“真实的回波”时， 在空间上靠近或远离目标的“世界”竞争声音 源头第二个将侧重于孩子们的能力，理解讲话， 竞争的语音和噪音的存在，以及它们在多大程度上 证明了语音和竞争声音的空间分离的益处 （从掩蔽的空间释放）。在成年人中，声音定位和空间 从掩蔽的释放已知通过双耳系统来促进， 然而，令人惊讶的是，人们对幼儿的这些能力知之甚少。 先前的研究表明，基本的双耳过程在出生时是初步的， 在幼儿期经历了许多发展变化;然而， 这些变化对儿童科普现实复杂问题能力的影响 环境还有待了解。这项工作的长期目标是 将我们对听觉能力的测量扩展到儿童群体， 感觉神经性听力损失和认知障碍，包括注意力 缺陷障碍和自闭症。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of this research is to understand how young children are able to function in complex acoustic environments, where multiple sources are often present. This includes identifying the location of sound sources, especially in noisy environments, and extracting the content meaningful sounds, such as understanding speech. This work will focus on children ages 4-7. We will measure binaural abilities using two paradigms. The first will evaluate children's ability to locate sounds, in quiet, in the presence of simulated echoes (precedence effect), and in the presence of "real world" competing sounds that are either spatially near or far from the target source. The second will focus on the children's ability to understand speech in the presence of competing speech and noise, and the extent to which they demonstrate a benefit from spatial separation of the speech and competing sounds (spatial release from masking). In adults, sound localization and spatial release from masking are known to be facilitated by the binaural system, however, surprisingly little is known about these abilities in young children. Previous work has shown that basic binaural processes are rudimentary at birth, and undergo many developmental changes during early childhood; however, the impact of these changes on children's abilities to cope with realistic complex environments remains to be understood. The long-term goal of this work is to extend our measures of auditory abilities to populations of children with sensori-neural hearing loss and with cognitive disabilities, including attention deficit disorders and autism.