Maximizing Speech Recognition Under Adverse Listening Conditions

描述（由申请人提供）：由于对声线索的上下文依赖权重的理解不足，这些线索在不利的听力条件下受到干扰，以及衰老和听力障碍对这些线索的处理限制，目前辅助听力设备的编程和定制进展有限。该提案通过确定老年正常听力和听力受损的听众如何在辅助演示中使用听觉线索来理解噪音中的讲话，从而针对这一差距。本项目的主要目标是确定(1)在不利听力条件下最大限度地理解语音的听觉线索，(2)老年听众如何感知这些线索，以及(3)掩蔽语音的哪些听觉特性最大程度地限制了语音理解。研究的中心目标是在嘈杂的环境中，当年老听众的可听性恢复时，当只有部分语音信息可用时，检查和识别最具信息量的听觉线索。核心假设是，在安静的情况下，时间包络线索对语言的可理解性贡献最大，对于有辅助听力的老年听众来说是可用的。然而，在噪声和竞争语音中，这些声学线索的贡献是有限的，而其他线索的贡献变得越来越重要，例如颞精细结构，其处理可能受到年龄或耳蜗病理的限制。具体目标#1针对连续的、打断的和咿呀学语的语音噪音。不同的听者群体可以调查年龄、耳蜗病理和听觉感知权重的放大贡献。相关分析将探讨感知权重、噪声表现中的语音和认知能力之间的关系。具体目标#2研究目标和竞争语音的时间属性以及它们如何相互作用。这些实验探讨了目标说话者的时间属性如何促进语音理解，而竞争说话者的时间属性如何干扰语音理解。信息掩蔽也通过时间反转竞争进行了探索。该项目的长期目标是为辅助听力技术的增强编程定义声学参数，并确定个人加权策略，以帮助这些设备的未来定制，以利用设备和听者的现有功能。该项目的重要贡献在于确定在不同嘈杂条件下对这些听众最有帮助的语音线索。这个项目的方法是创新的。它采用新颖的信号处理策略，通过噪声信号提取来独立改变语音的复杂时间特性。此外，它将自动语音识别的“瞥见”理论扩展到人类对部分信息的语音理解。这些创新允许在竞争性说话者范式中直接研究听觉时间线索的使用，这对老年听众来说是最困难的听力条件。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Current progress in the programming and customization of assistive listening devices is limited due to an inadequate understanding of the context-dependent weighting of acoustic cues, the interference of these cues under adverse listening conditions, and the processing limitations imposed on these cues by aging and hearing impairment. This proposal targets this gap by identifying how older normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners use auditory cues during aided presentations for understanding speech in noise. The primary objectives of this project are to identify (1) the auditory cues that maximize speech understanding under adverse listening conditions, (2) how older listeners perceptually weight those cues, and (3) what auditory properties of the masking speech limit speech understanding the most. The central aim is to examine and identify the most informative auditory cues when only partial speech information is available in noisy environments for older listeners when audibility is restored. The central hypothesis is that in quiet, temporal envelope cues contribute most to speech intelligibility and are available for older listeners with aided hearing. However, in noise and competing speech the contribution of these acoustic cues are more limited, with the contribution of other cues becoming more important, such as the temporal fine structure, the processing of which may be limited by age or cochlear pathology. Specific Aim #1 addresses speech in continuous, interrupting, and speech-babble noise. Different listener groups enable the investigation of age, cochlear pathology, and amplification contributions to auditory perceptual weights. Correlational analysis will explore the relationship between perceptual weights, speech in noise performance, and cognitive abilities. Specific Aim #2 investigates temporal properties of the target and competing speech and how they interact. These experiments explore how temporal properties of the target talker facilitate speech understanding and properties of the competing talker interfere. Informational masking is also explored via time-reversed competition. The long-term goal of this project is to define acoustic parameters for enhanced programming of assistive hearing technology and identify individual weighting strategies to assist in future customization of these devices to capitalize on existing capabilities of the device and the listener. The significant contribution of this project is in identifying the speech cues that will be most informative for these listeners in different noisy conditions. The approach of this project is innovative. It uses novel signal processing strategies to independently vary complex temporal properties of speech via noisy signal extraction. Furthermore, it extends the 'glimpsing' theory of automatic speech recognition to the human understanding of speech from partial information. These innovations allow for the direct investigation of auditory temporal cue use during a competing talker paradigm, quite arguably the most difficult listening condition for older listeners.