Temporal Factors and Speech Recognition Performance in Young and Elderly Listeners

1993 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
pp. 1276-1285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Gordon-Salant ◽  
Peter J. Fitzgibbons
Keyword(s):  
Speech Recognition ◽  
Temporal Processing ◽  
Recognition Performance ◽  
Duration Discrimination ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Auditory Temporal Processing ◽  
Percent Correct ◽  
Hearing Sensitivity ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Processing Abilities

This study investigated factors that contribute to deficits of elderly listeners in recognizing speech that is degraded by temporal waveform distortion. Young and elderly listeners with normal hearing sensitivity and with mild-to-moderate, sloping sensorineural hearing losses were evaluated. Low-predictability (LP) sentences from the Revised Speech Perception in Noise test (R-SPIN) (Bilger, Nuetzel, Rabinowitz, & Rzeczkowski, 1984) were presented to subjects in undistorted form and in three forms of distortion: time compression, reverberation, and interruption. Percent-correct recognition scores indicated that age and hearing impairment contributed independently to deficits in recognizing all forms of temporally distorted speech. In addition, subjects’ auditory temporal processing abilities were assessed on duration discrimination and gap detection tasks. Canonical correlation procedures showed that some of the suprathreshold temporal processing measures, especially gap duration discrimination, contributed to the ability to recognize reverberant speech. The overall conclusion is that age-related factors other than peripheral hearing loss contribute to diminished speech recognition performance of elderly listeners.

Temporal Processing Abilities across Different Age Groups

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (01) ◽  
pp. 005-012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ajith Kumar U ◽  
A.V. Sangamanatha
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Processing ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Duration Discrimination ◽  
Elderly Persons ◽  
Research Subjects ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Fourth Decade ◽  
Processing Abilities ◽  
Effects Of Aging

Background: Psychophysical evidence indicates age-related decline over a broad range of auditory abilities. Thus, age-related deterioration in temporal processing abilities also may be expected. At issue is whether the various dimensions of temporal processing decline at the same or at different rates across age. Purpose: To determine whether various temporal processes decline with aging and whether some are more resistant to the effects of aging than others. Study Sample: A total of 176 subjects in the age range from 20 to 85 yr participated in this research. Subjects were divided into six cross-sectional age groups. There were 30 subjects per age decade up to 70 yr and 26 subjects in the age group >70 yr. Data Collection and Analysis: Temporal processing was evaluated using gap detection, duration discrimination, modulation detection, and duration pattern. Results: Individuals in the 20–30 and 30–40 yr groups performed significantly better in all the psychoacoustic measures in comparison to other age groups. Deterioration in temporal processing began after the fourth decade of life. Deterioration accelerated after 70 yr of age. Conclusions: There is a systematic, age-related decline in temporal processing starting from the fourth decade of life. The deficits in temporal processing observed in the present study may be related in part to the difficulties that elderly persons encounter in noisy listening situations.

The Impact of Neurocognitive Skills on Recognition of Spectrally Degraded Sentences

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (08) ◽  
pp. 528-536
Author(s):  
Jessica H. Lewis ◽  
Irina Castellanos ◽  
Aaron C. Moberly
Keyword(s):  
Speech Recognition ◽  
Young Adult ◽  
Temporal Processing ◽  
Recognition Performance ◽  
Channel Noise ◽  
Sentence Recognition ◽  
Inhibition Concentration ◽  
Spectral Degradation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Clinical Populations

Abstract Background Recent models theorize that neurocognitive resources are deployed differently during speech recognition depending on task demands, such as the severity of degradation of the signal or modality (auditory vs. audiovisual [AV]). This concept is particularly relevant to the adult cochlear implant (CI) population, considering the large amount of variability among CI users in their spectro-temporal processing abilities. However, disentangling the effects of individual differences in spectro-temporal processing and neurocognitive skills on speech recognition in clinical populations of adult CI users is challenging. Thus, this study investigated the relationship between neurocognitive functions and recognition of spectrally degraded speech in a group of young adult normal-hearing (NH) listeners. Purpose The aim of this study was to manipulate the degree of spectral degradation and modality of speech presented to young adult NH listeners to determine whether deployment of neurocognitive skills would be affected. Research Design Correlational study design. Study Sample Twenty-one NH college students. Data Collection and Analysis Participants listened to sentences in three spectral-degradation conditions: no degradation (clear sentences); moderate degradation (8-channel noise-vocoded); and high degradation (4-channel noise-vocoded). Thirty sentences were presented in an auditory-only (A-only) modality and an AV fashion. Visual assessments from The National Institute of Health Toolbox Cognitive Battery were completed to evaluate working memory, inhibition-concentration, cognitive flexibility, and processing speed. Analyses of variance compared speech recognition performance among spectral degradation condition and modality. Bivariate correlation analyses were performed among speech recognition performance and the neurocognitive skills in the various test conditions. Results Main effects on sentence recognition were found for degree of degradation (p = < 0.001) and modality (p = < 0.001). Inhibition-concentration skills moderately correlated (r = 0.45, p = 0.02) with recognition scores for sentences that were moderately degraded in the A-only condition. No correlations were found among neurocognitive scores and AV speech recognition scores. Conclusions Inhibition-concentration skills are deployed differentially during sentence recognition, depending on the level of signal degradation. Additional studies will be required to study these relations in actual clinical populations such as adult CI users.

scholarly journals Electrophysiological markers of cochlear function correlate with hearing-in-noise performance among audiometrically normal subjects

2020 ◽  
Vol 124 (2) ◽  
pp. 418-431
Author(s):  
Kelsie J. Grant ◽  
Anita M. Mepani ◽  
Peizhe Wu ◽  
Kenneth E. Hancock ◽  
Victor de Gruttola ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Animal Studies ◽  
Recognition Performance ◽  
Normal Subjects ◽  
Cochlear Function ◽  
Neural Connections ◽  
Hearing Sensitivity ◽  
Neural Damage ◽  
Hearing In Noise ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Electrophysiological Responses

Recent animal studies suggest that millions of people may be at risk of permanent impairment from cochlear synaptopathy, the age-related and noise-induced degeneration of neural connections in the inner ear that “hides” behind a normal audiogram. This study examines electrophysiological responses to clicks in a large cohort of subjects with normal hearing sensitivity. The resultant correlations with word recognition performance are consistent with an important contribution cochlear neural damage to deficits in hearing in noise abilities.

scholarly journals Age-Related Temporal Processing Deficits in Word Segments in Adult Cochlear-Implant Users

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 233121651988668 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zilong Xie ◽  
Casey R. Gaskins ◽  
Maureen J. Shader ◽  
Sandra Gordon-Salant ◽  
Samira Anderson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cochlear Implant ◽  
Temporal Processing ◽  
Word Identification ◽  
Speech Understanding ◽  
Potential Mechanism ◽  
Auditory Temporal Processing ◽  
Categorization Task ◽  
Performance Differences ◽  
Temporal Cues ◽  
Age Related

Aging may limit speech understanding outcomes in cochlear-implant (CI) users. Here, we examined age-related declines in auditory temporal processing as a potential mechanism that underlies speech understanding deficits associated with aging in CI users. Auditory temporal processing was assessed with a categorization task for the words dish and ditch (i.e., identify each token as the word dish or ditch) on a continuum of speech tokens with varying silence duration (0 to 60 ms) prior to the final fricative. In Experiments 1 and 2, younger CI (YCI), middle-aged CI (MCI), and older CI (OCI) users participated in the categorization task across a range of presentation levels (25 to 85 dB). Relative to YCI, OCI required longer silence durations to identify ditch and exhibited reduced ability to distinguish the words dish and ditch (shallower slopes in the categorization function). Critically, we observed age-related performance differences only at higher presentation levels. This contrasted with findings from normal-hearing listeners in Experiment 3 that demonstrated age-related performance differences independent of presentation level. In summary, aging in CI users appears to degrade the ability to utilize brief temporal cues in word identification, particularly at high levels. Age-specific CI programming may potentially improve clinical outcomes for speech understanding performance by older CI listeners.

scholarly journals Age-related changes in auditory temporal processing in the rat

2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (9) ◽  
pp. 739-746 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Šuta ◽  
Natalia Rybalko ◽  
Jana Pelánová ◽  
Jiří Popelář ◽  
Josef Syka
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Processing ◽  
Auditory Temporal Processing ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Age Related Changes

Auditory Temporal Processing Performance of Young Adults With Reading Disorders

2002 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 598-605 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianna M. Walker ◽  
Jennifer B. Shinn ◽  
Jerry L. Cranford ◽  
Gregg D. Givens ◽  
Don Holbert
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Temporal Processing ◽  
Reading Ability ◽  
Pattern Discrimination ◽  
Error Rates ◽  
Frequency Difference ◽  
Reading Disorders ◽  
Frequency Pattern ◽  
Auditory Temporal Processing ◽  
Processing Abilities

The present study investigated the temporal processing abilities of college students with diagnosed reading disorders. A behavioral test battery was used that involved discrimination of the pattern of presentation of tone triads in which individual components differed in either frequency or duration. An additional test involving measurement of frequency difference limens for long- and short-duration tones was also administered. The college students with reading disorders exhibited significantly higher error rates in discriminating duration patterns than the normal reading group. No group differences were found for the frequency pattern discrimination task. Both groups exhibited larger frequency difference limens with the shorter 20- and 50-ms tones than with the 200-ms tones. Significant correlations were found between reading ability measures and temporal processing abilities, specifically in word recognition and duration pattern processing, suggesting a relationship between lower level auditory temporal processing skills and decoding efficiency.

Profile of Auditory Temporal Processing in Older Listeners

1999 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 300-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Gordon-Salant ◽  
Peter J. Fitzgibbons
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Function Analysis ◽  
Duration Discrimination ◽  
Age Effects ◽  
Complex Stimulus ◽  
Auditory Temporal Processing ◽  
Compressed Speech ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Performance Patterns ◽  
Reverberant Speech

This investigation examined age-related performance differences on a range of speech and nonspeech measures involving temporal manipulation of acoustic signals and variation of stimulus complexity. The goal was to identify a subset of temporally mediated measures that effectively distinguishes the performance patterns of younger and older listeners, with and without hearing loss. The nonspeech measures included duration discrimination for simple tones and gaps, duration discrimination for tones and gaps embedded within complex sequences, and discrimination of temporal order. The speech measures were undistorted speech, time-compressed speech, reverberant speech, and combined time-compressed + reverberant speech. All speech measures were presented both in quiet and in noise. Strong age effects were observed for the nonspeech measures, particularly in the more complex stimulus conditions. Additionally, age effects were observed for all time-compressed speech conditions and some reverberant speech conditions, in both quiet and noise. Effects of hearing loss were observed also for the speech measures only. Discriminant function analysis derived a formula, based on a subset of these measures, for classifying individuals according to temporal performance consistent with age and hearing loss categories. The most important measures to accomplish this goal involved conditions featuring temporal manipulations of complex speech and nonspeech signals.

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