Spectral Cue Use in Listeners with Poor Word Recognition

描述（由申请人提供）：有一个老年听障人士的亚组，他们有特殊的沟通缺陷，表现为语言感知能力差，这是头部损失的数额无法解释的。听力学家缺乏对他们特殊知觉困难的理解，无法为他们提供适当的治疗。这个项目的目的是揭示具体的缺陷，并确定听觉训练与数字增强频谱线索的潜力。长期目标是通过放大和康复策略来提高这些个体的言语感知能力。假设这些听者将表现出较差的浊音识别，其中频谱线索的使用不足，并且频谱线索的数字增强在听觉训练过程中是必要的。实验1将证实，这些听者会有不同于那些有良好的语音感知的人的浊音混淆，以及是否语音性别或元音上下文与这些混淆有关。这将通过一个封闭集识别任务来完成，该任务是对男性和女性在/i/， /a/和/u/上下文中发音的/b/， /d/, /g/, /m/, /n/, /v/， /z/进行识别，并以95 dB SPL呈现。其次，在编辑后仅包含孤立光谱线索的cv的单间隔、双选项强制选择识别过程中，将确定哪些光谱线索未被差判别器用于识别/b/-/d/和/m/-/n/区别。最后，心理声学强迫选择训练方法的有效性将通过对特定频谱线索进行12 dB的数字增强来检验。将强迫选择训练措施和数字增强作为老年听众听觉训练的一部分是创新的。作为听力学家，我们在改善这些人的生活质量方面缺乏成功，这是一个迄今为止尚未解决的重要临床问题。拟议研究的结果将为这群人所经历的感知缺陷提供具体信息。这是朝着制定成功的扩大和康复战略迈出的必要的第一步，以便使这些人摆脱因无法有效沟通而造成的孤立。该项目的结果预计将提供必要的背景，使有竞争力的R01投标。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): There is a subgroup of elderly hearing-impaired people who suffer exceptional communication deficits, in the form of poor speech perception, which are unaccounted for by the amount of heading loss. Audiologists lack an understanding of their specific perceptual difficulties and are unable to offer them adequate treatment. The aim of this project is to uncover specific deficits involved and determine the potential for auditory training with digital enhancement of spectral cues. Long-term goals are to improve speech perception for these individuals with amplification and rehabilitation strategies. It is hypothesized that these listeners will demonstrate poorer voiced consonant recognition, wherein the use of spectral cues are deficient, and that digital enhancement of the spectral cue will be necessary in the auditory training process. Experiment I will confirm that these listeners will have different voiced consonant confusions than those with good speech perception, and whether voice gender or vowel context is pertinent to these confusions. This will be accomplished with a closed-set identification task of the voiced /b/, /d/, /g/, /m/, /n/, /v/, /z/ in the contexts of /i/, /a/, and /u/ spoken by a male and a female, and presented at 95 dB SPL. Secondly, it will be determined which spectral cues are unutilized by the poor discriminators in the recognition of the /b/-/d/ and /m/-/n/ distinctions in a single-interval, two-alternative forced-choice identification procedure of CVs edited to include only isolated spectral cues. Lastly, the efficacy of psychoacoustic forced-choice training methods will be examined with a 12 dB digital enhancement of a particular spectral cue on the group of poor discriminators. Using forced-choice training measures and digital enhancement as part of auditory training with elderly listeners is innovative. The lack of success we have had as audiologists in improving the quality of life for these people is an important clinical problem that has not been hitherto addressed. The findings from the proposed research will provide specific information on the perceptual deficits experienced by this group of people. This is a necessary first step towards devising successful amplification and rehabilitation strategies in order to bring these people out of the isolation caused by the inability to communicate effectively. The outcomes of this project are expected to provide the background necessary to make a competitive R01 bid.