Understanding the effects of listening effort on sentence processing and memory in sensorineural hearing loss: Evidence from simultaneous electrophysiology and pupillometry

项目总结/摘要 感音神经性听力损失（SNHL）是老年人中最普遍的慢性疾病之一， 对言语理解产生深刻的负面影响，导致社会孤立增加， 生活，并增加老年痴呆症的发展风险。典型的听力测试和 干预措施，重点是测量和恢复听力，并不能解释所有的认知功能， 听力损失的成年人在言语理解方面遇到的困难。例如，患有SNHL的成人 必须更加努力地工作来解码声学降级的语音。这种额外的努力被认为 减少共享的执行和注意力资源，用于更高层次的语言过程， 随后的理解和记忆，即使在语音完全可理解的情况下。这一现象 被称为倾听努力（LE）。越来越多的人认识到，这些认知因素是 听力损失的关键和往往“隐藏的影响”。同时探讨LE对神经机制的影响 SNHL中的语言处理和记忆的机制目前还不清楚。为了找到证据- 基于评估和干预措施来提高SNHL的理解和记忆，我们必须 阐明LE的认知和神经机制及其对言语理解的影响。在这 项目，我们采用多方法的方法，结合临床听力学，心理语言学， 认知神经科学来填补这一知识空白。具体来说，我们采用了一种新颖的创新方法， 共同记录瞳孔测量（LE的可靠生理测量）和语言相关事件相关脑 在实时语音处理过程中测量ERP，以表征声学挑战的影响 和高级语言处理上的LE（例如，语义检索、句法整合）以及随后的 老年SNHL患者的言语记忆。这项创新工作解决了一个时间敏感的差距， 关于识别特定神经认知过程的客观和可靠标志物的文献 在年龄相关SNHL中受到声学挑战和LE的影响。

PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT Sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) is among the most prevalent chronic conditions in aging and has a profoundly negative effect on speech comprehension, leading to increased social isolation, reduced quality of life, and increased risk for the development of dementia in older adulthood. Typical audiological tests and interventions, which focus on measuring and restoring audibility, do not explain the full range of cognitive difficulties that adults with hearing loss experience in speech comprehension. For example, adults with SNHL have to work disproportionally harder to decode acoustically degraded speech. That additional effort is thought to diminish shared executive and attentional resources for higher-level language processes, impacting subsequent comprehension and memory, even when speech is completely intelligible. This phenomenon has been referred to as listening effort (LE). There is a growing understanding that these cognitive factors are a critical and often “hidden effect” of hearing loss. At the same time, the effects of LE on the neural mechanisms of language processing and memory in SNHL are currently not well understood. In order to develop evidence- based assessments and interventions to improve comprehension and memory in SNHL, it is critical that we elucidate the cognitive and neural mechanisms of LE and its consequences for speech comprehension. In this project, we adopt a multi-method approach, combining methods from clinical audiology, psycholinguistics, and cognitive neuroscience to address this gap of knowledge. Specifically, we adopt a novel and innovative method of co-registering pupillometry (a reliable physiological measure of LE) and language-related event-related brain potential (ERP) measures during real-time speech processing to characterize the effects of acoustic challenge and LE on high-level language processes (e.g., semantic retrieval, syntactic integration) and subsequent speech memory in older adults with SNHL. This innovative work addresses a time-sensitive gap in the literature regarding the identification of objective and reliable markers of specific neurocognitive processes impacted by acoustic challenge and LE in age-related SNHL.