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

项目摘要/摘要 感音神经性听力损失(SNHL)是老年人最常见的慢性疾病之一，具有 对言语理解产生深刻的负面影响，导致社会孤立增加，语言质量下降 寿命，以及在成年后罹患痴呆症的风险增加。典型的听力测试和 专注于测量和恢复听觉的干预措施并不能解释认知的全部范围 听力损失成年人在言语理解中遇到的困难。例如，患有SNHL的成年人 不得不付出不成比例的努力来解码声学退化的语音。这种额外的努力被认为是 减少高级语言过程的共享执行和注意力资源，影响 随后的理解和记忆，即使在语音完全可以理解的情况下。这一现象产生了 被称为倾听努力(LE)。越来越多的人认识到这些认知因素是一种 听力损失的严重且往往是“隐藏的影响”。同时，LE对神经机制的影响 目前对SNHL的语言处理和记忆的研究还不是很清楚。为了发展证据- 基于评估和干预以改善SNHL的理解和记忆，至关重要的是我们 阐明LE的认知和神经机制及其对言语理解的影响。在这 项目中，我们采用了多种方法，结合了临床听力学、心理语言学和 认知神经科学来解决这一知识缺口。具体地说，我们采用了一种新颖的创新方法 联合记录瞳孔测量(LE的可靠生理测量)和语言相关事件相关脑的研究 实时语音处理过程中的潜在事件相关电位(ERP)测量以表征声学挑战的影响 以及高级语言过程(例如，语义检索、句法整合)和后续 老年SNHL患者的言语记忆。这项创新的工作解决了 关于识别特定神经认知过程的客观和可靠标记物的文献 年龄相关性SNHL受声学挑战和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.