scholarly journals Speech intelligibility predicted from neural entrainment of the speech envelope

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Vanthornhout ◽  
Lien Decruy ◽  
Jan Wouters ◽  
Jonathan Z. Simon ◽  
Tom Francart
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Speech Signal ◽  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Neural Processing ◽  
Behavioral Measures ◽  
Speech Stimuli ◽  
Neural Entrainment ◽  
Auditory Prostheses ◽  
Speech Envelope ◽  
Processing Motivation

AbstractSpeech intelligibility is currently measured by scoring how well a person can identify a speech signal. The results of such behavioral measures reflect neural processing of the speech signal, but are also influenced by language processing, motivation and memory. Very often electrophysiological measures of hearing give insight in the neural processing of sound. However, in most methods non-speech stimuli are used, making it hard to relate the results to behavioral measures of speech intelligibility. The use of natural running speech as a stimulus in electrophysiological measures of hearing is a paradigm shift which allows to bridge the gap between behavioral and electrophysiological measures. Here, by decoding the speech envelope from the electroencephalogram, and correlating it with the stimulus envelope, we demonstrate an electrophysiological measure of neural processing of running speech. We show that behaviorally measured speech intelligibility is strongly correlated with our electrophysiological measure. Our results pave the way towards an objective and automatic way of assessing neural processing of speech presented through auditory prostheses, reducing confounds such as attention and cognitive capabilities. We anticipate that our electrophysiological measure will allow better differential diagnosis of the auditory system, and will allow the development of closed-loop auditory prostheses that automatically adapt to individual users.

scholarly journals Speech Intelligibility Predicted from Neural Entrainment of the Speech Envelope

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Vanthornhout ◽  
Lien Decruy ◽  
Jan Wouters ◽  
Jonathan Z. Simon ◽  
Tom Francart
Keyword(s):  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Neural Entrainment ◽  
Speech Envelope

scholarly journals Delta and theta neural entrainment during phonological and semantic processing in speech perception

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guangting Mai ◽  
William S-Y. Wang
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Phonological Processing ◽  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Semantic Information ◽  
Real Word ◽  
Theta Band ◽  
Spoken Language Processing ◽  
Delta Band ◽  
Neural Entrainment

AbstractNeural entrainment of acoustic envelopes is important for speech intelligibility in spoken language processing. However, it is unclear how it contributes to processing at different linguistic hierarchical levels. The present EEG study investigated this issue when participants responded to stimuli that dissociated phonological and semantic processing (real-word, pseudo-word and backward utterances). Multivariate Temporal Response Function (mTRF) model was adopted to map speech envelopes from multiple spectral bands onto EEG signals, providing a direct approach to measure neural entrainment. We tested the hypothesis that entrainment at delta (supra-syllabic) and theta (syllabic and sub-syllabic) bands take distinct roles at different hierarchical levels. Results showed that both types of entrainment involve speech-specific processing, but their underlying mechanisms were different. Theta-band entrainment was modulated by phonological but not semantic contents, reflecting the possible mechanism of tracking syllabic- and sub-syllabic patterns during phonological processing. Delta-band entrainment, on the other hand, was modulated by semantic information, indexing more attention-demanding, effortful phonological encoding when higher-level (semantic) information is deficient. Interestingly, we further demonstrated that the statistical capacity of mTRFs at the delta band and theta band to classify utterances is affected by their semantic (real-word vs. pseudo-word) and phonological (real-word and pseudo-word vs. backward) contents, respectively. Moreover, analyses on the response weighting of mTRFs showed that delta-band entrainment sustained across neural processing stages up to higher-order timescales (~ 300 ms), while theta-band entrainment occurred mainly at early, perceptual processing stages (< 160 ms). This indicates that, compared to theta-band entrainment, delta-band entrainment may reflect increased involvement of higher-order cognitive functions during interactions between phonological and semantic processing. As such, we conclude that neural entrainment is not only associated with speech intelligibility, but also with the hierarchy of linguistic (phonological and semantic) content. The present study thus provide a new insight into cognitive mechanisms of neural entrainment for spoken language processing.HighlightsLow-frequency neural entrainment was examined via mTRF models in EEG during phonological and semantic processing.Delta entrainment take roles in effortful listening for phonological recognitionTheta entrainment take roles in tracking syllabic and subsyllabic patterns for phonological processingDelta and theta entrainment sustain at different timescales of neural processing

scholarly journals Transcranial alternating current stimulation with speech envelopes modulates speech comprehension

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Wilsch ◽  
Toralf Neuling ◽  
Jonas Obleser ◽  
Christoph S. Herrmann
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Speech Signal ◽  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Average Frequency ◽  
Speech Comprehension ◽  
Time Lags ◽  
Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation ◽  
Speech Envelope ◽  
Cortical Entrainment

AbstractCortical entrainment of the auditory cortex to the broadband temporal envelope of a speech signal is crucial for speech comprehension. Entrainment results in phases of high and low neural excitability, which structure and decode the incoming speech signal. Entrainment to speech is strongest in the theta frequency range (4–8 Hz), the average frequency of the speech envelope. If a speech signal is degraded, entrainment to the speech envelope is weaker and speech intelligibility declines. Besides perceptually evoked cortical entrainment, transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) entrains neural oscillations by applying an electric signal to the brain. Accordingly, tACS-induced entrainment in auditory cortex has been shown to improve auditory perception. The aim of the current study was to modulate speech intelligibility externally by means of tACS such that the electric current corresponds to the envelope of the presented speech stream (i.e., envelope-tACS). Participants performed the Oldenburg sentence test with sentences presented in noise in combination with envelope-tACS. Critically, tACS was induced at time lags of 0 to 250 ms in 50-ms steps relative to sentence onset (auditory stimuli were simultaneous to or preceded tACS). We performed single-subject sinusoidal, linear, and quadratic fits to the sentence comprehension performance across the time lags. We could show that the sinusoidal fit described the modulation of sentence comprehension best. Importantly, the average frequency of the sinusoidal fit was 5.12 Hz, corresponding to the peaks of the amplitude spectrum of the stimulated envelopes. This finding was supported by a significant 5-Hz peak in the average power spectrum of individual performance time series. Altogether, envelope tACS modulates intelligibility of speech in noise, presumably by enhancing and disrupting (time lag with in-or out-of-phase stimulation, respectively) cortical entrainment to the speech envelope in auditory cortex.

Magnetoencephalography and the Cortical Dynamics of Language Processing

2019 ◽  
pp. 114-153
Author(s):  
Riitta Salmelin ◽  
Jan Kujala ◽  
Mia Liljeström
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Language Disorders ◽  
Scientific Data ◽  
Neural Processing ◽  
Powerful Method ◽  
Cortical Dynamics ◽  
Brain Correlates ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Selection Of

When seeking to uncover the brain correlates of language processing, timing and location are of the essence. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) offers them both, with the highest sensitivity to cortical activity. MEG has shown its worth in revealing cortical dynamics of reading, speech perception, and speech production in adults and children, in unimpaired language processing as well as developmental and acquired language disorders. The MEG signals, once recorded, provide an extensive selection of measures for examination of neural processing. Like all other neuroimaging tools, MEG has its own strengths and limitations of which the user should be aware in order to make the best possible use of this powerful method and to generate meaningful and reliable scientific data. This chapter reviews MEG methodology and how MEG has been used to study the cortical dynamics of language.

scholarly journals The Spatial Selective Auditory Attention of Cochlear Implant Users in Different Conversational Sound Levels

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (14) ◽  
pp. 3078
Author(s):  
Sara Akbarzadeh ◽  
Sungmin Lee ◽  
Chin-Tuan Tan
Keyword(s):  
Cochlear Implant ◽  
Sound Level ◽  
Auditory Attention ◽  
Impaired Hearing ◽  
Speech Stimuli ◽  
Electric Hearing ◽  
Sound Levels ◽  
Acoustic Hearing ◽  
Speech Envelope ◽  
Different Levels

In multi-speaker environments, cochlear implant (CI) users may attend to a target sound source in a different manner from normal hearing (NH) individuals during a conversation. This study attempted to investigate the effect of conversational sound levels on the mechanisms adopted by CI and NH listeners in selective auditory attention and how it affects their daily conversation. Nine CI users (five bilateral, three unilateral, and one bimodal) and eight NH listeners participated in this study. The behavioral speech recognition scores were collected using a matrix sentences test, and neural tracking to speech envelope was recorded using electroencephalography (EEG). Speech stimuli were presented at three different levels (75, 65, and 55 dB SPL) in the presence of two maskers from three spatially separated speakers. Different combinations of assisted/impaired hearing modes were evaluated for CI users, and the outcomes were analyzed in three categories: electric hearing only, acoustic hearing only, and electric + acoustic hearing. Our results showed that increasing the conversational sound level degraded the selective auditory attention in electrical hearing. On the other hand, increasing the sound level improved the selective auditory attention for the acoustic hearing group. In the NH listeners, however, increasing the sound level did not cause a significant change in the auditory attention. Our result implies that the effect of the sound level on selective auditory attention varies depending on the hearing modes, and the loudness control is necessary for the ease of attending to the conversation by CI users.

scholarly journals Neural markers of speech comprehension: measuring EEG tracking of linguistic speech representations, controlling the speech acoustics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlies Gillis ◽  
Jonas Vanthornhout ◽  
Jonathan Z Simon ◽  
Tom Francart ◽  
Christian Brodbeck
Keyword(s):  
Word Frequency ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Acoustic Properties ◽  
Speech Comprehension ◽  
Speech Acoustics ◽  
Brain Responses ◽  
Cortical Responses ◽  
Linguistic Representations ◽  
Acoustic Processing

When listening to speech, brain responses time-lock to acoustic events in the stimulus. Recent studies have also reported that cortical responses track linguistic representations of speech. However, tracking of these representations is often described without controlling for acoustic properties. Therefore, the response to these linguistic representations might reflect unaccounted acoustic processing rather than language processing. Here we tested several recently proposed linguistic representations, using audiobook speech, while controlling for acoustic and other linguistic representations. Indeed, some of these linguistic representations were not significantly tracked after controlling for acoustic properties. However, phoneme surprisal, cohort entropy, word surprisal and word frequency were significantly tracked over and beyond acoustic properties. Additionally, these linguistic representations are tracked similarly across different stories, spoken by different readers. Together, this suggests that these representations characterize processing of the linguistic content of speech and might allow a behaviour-free evaluation of the speech intelligibility.

scholarly journals Neural Entrainment Meets Behavior: The Stability Index as a Neural Outcome Measure of Auditory-Motor Coupling

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mattia Rosso ◽  
Marc Leman ◽  
Lousin Moumdjian
Keyword(s):  
Outcome Measure ◽  
Pathological Condition ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Behavioral Outcomes ◽  
Stability Index ◽  
Behavioral Measures ◽  
Neural Entrainment ◽  
Entrainment Effect ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Impact

Understanding rhythmic behavior in the context of coupled auditory and motor systems has been of interest to neurological rehabilitation, in particular, to facilitate walking. Recent work based on behavioral measures revealed an entrainment effect of auditory rhythms on motor rhythms. In this study, we propose a method to compute the neural component of such a process from an electroencephalographic (EEG) signal. A simple auditory-motor synchronization paradigm was used, where 28 healthy participants were instructed to synchronize their finger-tapping with a metronome. The computation of the neural outcome measure was carried out in two blocks. In the first block, we used Generalized Eigendecomposition (GED) to reduce the data dimensionality to the component which maximally entrained to the metronome frequency. The scalp topography pointed at brain activity over contralateral sensorimotor regions. In the second block, we computed instantaneous frequency from the analytic signal of the extracted component. This returned a time-varying measure of frequency fluctuations, whose standard deviation provided our “stability index” as a neural outcome measure of auditory-motor coupling. Finally, the proposed neural measure was validated by conducting a correlation analysis with a set of behavioral outcomes from the synchronization task: resultant vector length, relative phase angle, mean asynchrony, and tempo matching. Significant moderate negative correlations were found with the first three measures, suggesting that the stability index provided a quantifiable neural outcome measure of entrainment, with selectivity towards phase-correction mechanisms. We address further adoption of the proposed approach, especially with populations where sensorimotor abilities are compromised by an underlying pathological condition. The impact of using stability index can potentially be used as an outcome measure to assess rehabilitation protocols, and possibly provide further insight into neuropathological models of auditory-motor coupling.

Research of Enhanced Speech Signal Based on MATLAB Simulation Platform

2013 ◽  
Vol 278-280 ◽  
pp. 1124-1128
Author(s):  
Yi Long You ◽  
Fei Zhang ◽  
Bu Lei Zuo ◽  
Feng Xiang You
Keyword(s):  
Speech Signal ◽  
Speech Intelligibility ◽  
Voice Quality ◽  
Signal Enhancement ◽  
Experimental Simulation ◽  
Simulation Platform ◽  
Matlab Simulation ◽  
Threshold Method ◽  
The Voice

Although traditional algorithms can led to suppressed voice in the noise, but the distortion of the voice is inevitable. An introduction is made as to the speech signal enhancement with an improved threshold method. Compared MATLAB experimental simulation on simulated platform with traditional enhanced algorithm, this paper aims to verify this method can effectively remove the noise in the signal, enhanced voice quality, improve speech intelligibility, and achieve the effect of the enhanced speech signal.

Information processing and a computational approach to the study of simultaneous interpretation

Interpreting ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 2 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 13-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominic W. Massaro ◽  
Miriam Shlesinger
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
General Information ◽  
Information Processing Model ◽  
Behavioral Measures ◽  
Simultaneous Interpretation ◽  
Simultaneous Interpreting ◽  
Psychological Inquiry ◽  
Hypothesis Testing Approach ◽  
Experimental And Theoretical Studies

We begin by describing some challenges to psychological inquiry and to the understanding of simultaneous interpretation. We then articulate the computational and hypothesis-testing approach to inquiry, and illustrate a general information-processing model. We discuss some experimental and theoretical studies of language processing carried out within the information-processing approach. We analyze not only behavioral measures of language processing but also its phenomenal experience. We close with a review of two current hypotheses about simultaneous interpreting and consider some methodological hurdles in the study of this fascinating skill.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document