Speech Perception Training: Advanced Scoring and Feedback Methods

项目摘要 噪声中的言语感知对于轻度至中度听力的老年人来说是一个普遍的，令人沮丧的问题 损失这些成年人中很少有人有资格或使用助听器。听觉语音识别训练被认为是一种 可能的干预，但研究未能提供可靠有效的训练制度，以改善讲话 识别困难。提高视觉言语感知的训练可能更有效，因为（1）年龄较大 成年人在他们组合联合收割机和视觉语音信息的能力上可能没有显著的下降， (2)视觉语音信息提供了克服声学噪声干扰的显著益处，以及（3） 随着唇读能力的提高，益处增加。大多数人一生都依赖于 听觉语言不是很好的唇读器：因此，视觉语言有很大的改进空间 在困难的听力条件下的感知和视听益处。此外，现有的少数培训 可用于老年人的系统不包含当前关于视觉言语感知的知识， 感知学习的潜在机制。这个第一阶段项目将进一步开发和测试一个视觉 语音训练系统在目标1中，我们将把现有的实验室唇读训练系统移植到云端， 执行其运作的初步非正式评估，并在目标2，我们将正式测试的有效性， 对听力受损的成年人进行基于云的培训，这些成年人已经过筛查并接受了前后测试 在乔治华盛顿大学。一个呈现句子刺激并执行开放集合的训练系统 为该项目开发了认可反应分析和反馈。核心系统组件包括 音素-音素刺激-反应序列对齐和知觉的计算建模 视觉发音音素和单词的差异。该系统可以产生不同类型的反馈。 三个将在目标2，辅音，单词和整个句子的反馈进行比较。在培训期间，一个视频 句子被传递，参与者输入他们的开放集响应。系统分析响应。 辅音反馈和单词反馈对正确的和感知接近的反应单词提供反馈。句话 反馈是常规的打印整句反馈。Aim-2评估将确定是否存在 唇读和视听语音识别的反馈方法之间存在显着差异， 背景噪音将检查每种反馈类型的益处的个体差异。焦点小组 将召集目标1和目标2中的项目小组，就系统使用的便利性， 理解系统指令和反馈格式。该项目将直接进入第二阶段， 这将包括开发一个更大的刺激数据库，包括在线视听测试等活动 材料，并获得各年龄组和听力损失水平的系统功效的规范性数据。

PROJECT SUMMARY Speech perception in noise is a pervasive, frustrating problem for older adults with mild-to-moderate hearing loss. Few of these adults qualify for or use hearing aids. Auditory speech recognition training is considered a possible intervention, but research has failed to deliver reliably effective training regimes to ameliorate speech recognition difficulties. Training to improve visual speech perception may be more effective, because (1) older adults may experience no significant declines in their ability to combine auditory and visual speech information, (2) visual speech information delivers significant benefit for overcoming acoustic noise interference, and (3) the benefit increases with better lipreading ability. Most individuals who have relied throughout their lives on auditory speech are not good lipreaders: Consequently, there is wide room for improvement in visual speech perception and audiovisual benefits under difficult listening conditions. Additionally, the few existing training systems available to older adults do not incorporate current knowledge about visual speech perception and the underlying mechanisms of perceptual learning. This Phase I project will further develop and test a visual speech training system. In Aim 1, we will port our existing laboratory lipreading training system to the cloud and perform an initial informal evaluation of its operation, and in Aim 2, we will formally test the efficacy of the cloud-based training with hearing-impaired adults, who have been screened and receive pre- and post-testing at George Washington University. A training system that presents sentence stimuli and carries out open set recognition response analyses and feedback was developed for this project. The core system components are phoneme-to-phoneme stimulus-response sequence alignment and computational modeling of the perceptual dissimilarities of visual spoken phonemes and words. The system can produce diverse types of feedback. Three will be compared in Aim 2, Consonant, Word, and whole Sentence feedback. During training, a video sentence is delivered, and participants type their open set response. The system analyzes the response. Consonant and Word feedback give feedback on correct and perceptually-near response words. Sentence feedback is the conventional printed whole sentence feedback. Aim-2 evaluation will determine whether there are significant differences across feedback approaches for lipreading and for audiovisual speech recognition in background noise. Individual differences in the benefits of each feedback type will be examined. Focus groups in Aims 1 and 2 will be convened to give the project team feedback on areas such as ease of system use, understanding of system instructions, and feedback formats. The project will lead straightforwardly to Phase II, which will include activities such as developing a larger stimulus database, including online audiovisual testing materials, and obtaining normative data on system efficacy across age groups and hearing loss levels.