scholarly journals Spoken word recognition in listeners with mild dementia symptoms

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrina Sue McClannahan ◽  
Amelia Mainardi ◽  
Austin Luor ◽  
Yi-Fang Chiu ◽  
Mitchell S. Sommers ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Word Recognition ◽  
Background Noise ◽  
Word Identification ◽  
Spoken Word Recognition ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
Neighborhood Density ◽  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
Mild Dementia ◽  
The Impact

BackgroundDifficulty understanding speech is a common complaint of older adults. In quiet, speech perception is often assumed to be relatively automatic. In background noise, however, higher-level cognitive processes play a more substantial role in successful communication. Cognitive resources are often limited in adults with dementia, which may therefore hamper word recognition. ObjectiveThe goal of this study was to determine the impact of mild dementia on spoken word recognition in quiet and noise.MethodsParticipants were adults aged 53–86 years with (n=16) or without (n=32) dementia symptoms as classified by a clinical dementia rating scale. Participants performed a word identification task with two levels of neighborhood density in quiet and in speech shaped noise at two signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs), +6 dB and +3 dB. Our hypothesis was that listeners with mild dementia would have more difficulty with speech perception in noise under conditions that tax cognitive resources. ResultsListeners with mild dementia had poorer speech perception accuracy in both quiet and noise, which held after accounting for differences in age and hearing level. Notably, even in quiet, adults with dementia symptoms correctly identified words only about 80% of the time. However, phonological neighborhood density was not a factor in the identification task performance for either group.ConclusionThese results affirm the difficulty that listeners with mild dementia have with spoken word recognition, both in quiet and in background noise, consistent with a key role of cognitive resources in spoken word identification. However, the impact of neighborhood density in these listeners is less clear.

Relations Among Linguistic and Cognitive Skills and Spoken Word Recognition in Adults With Cochlear Implants

2004 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 496-508 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Collison ◽  
Benjamin Munson ◽  
Arlene Earley Carney
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Word Recognition ◽  
Cochlear Implants ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Spoken Word Recognition ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
Neighborhood Density ◽  
Hearing Sensitivity

This study examined spoken word recognition in adults with cochlear implants (CIs) to determine the extent to which linguistic and cognitive abilities predict variability in speech-perception performance. Both a traditional consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC)-repetition measure and a gated-word recognition measure (F. Grosjean, 1996) were used. Stimuli in the gated-word-recognition task varied in neighborhood density. Adults with CIs repeated CVC words less accurately than did age-matched adults with normal hearing sensitivity (NH). In addition, adults with CIs required more acoustic information to recognize gated words than did adults with NH. Neighborhood density had a smaller influence on gated-word recognition by adults with CIs than on recognition by adults with NH. With the exception of 1 outlying participant, standardized, norm-referenced measures of cognitive and linguistic abilities were not correlated with word-recognition measures. Taken together, these results do not support the hypothesis that cognitive and linguistic abilities predict variability in speech-perception performance in a heterogeneous group of adults with CIs. Findings are discussed in light of the potential role of auditory perception in mediating relations among cognitive and linguistic skill and spoken word recognition.

Representations and representational specificity in speech perception and spoken word recognition

2007 ◽  
pp. 2-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
David B. Pisoni ◽  
Susannah V. Levi
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Word Recognition ◽  
Spoken Word Recognition ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
Lexical Knowledge ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
Abstract Representations ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Learning And Adaptation ◽  
New Framework

This article examines how new approaches—coupled with previous insights—provide a new framework for questions that deal with the nature of phonological and lexical knowledge and representation, processing of stimulus variability, and perceptual learning and adaptation. First, it outlines the traditional view of speech perception and identifies some problems with assuming such a view, in which only abstract representations exist. The article then discusses some new approaches to speech perception that retain detailed information in the representations. It also considers a view which rejects abstraction altogether, but shows that such a view has difficulty dealing with a range of linguistic phenomena. After providing a brief discussion of some new directions in linguistics that encode both detailed information and abstraction, the article concludes by discussing the coupling of speech perception and spoken word recognition.

Lexical neighborhoods and phonological confusability in cross-dialect word recognition in noise

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia G. Clopper ◽  
Janet B. Pierrehumbert ◽  
Terrin N. Tamati
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Target Word ◽  
Recognition Performance ◽  
Spoken Word Recognition ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
Neighborhood Density ◽  
Minimal Pair ◽  
Dialect Variation ◽  
Vowel Recognition ◽  
Stimulus Materials

AbstractLexical neighborhood density is a well-known factor affecting phonological categorization in spoken word recognition. The current study examined the interaction between lexical neighborhood density and dialect variation in spoken word recognition in noise. The stimulus materials were real English words produced in two regional American English dialects. To manipulate lexical neighborhood density, target words were selected so that predicted phonological confusions across dialects resulted in real English words in the word-competitor condition and did not result in real English words in the nonword-competitor condition. Word and vowel recognition performance were more accurate in the nonword-competitor condition than the word-competitor condition for both talker dialects. An examination of the responses to specific vowels revealed the role of dialect variation in eliciting this effect. When the predicted phonological confusions were real lexical neighbors, listeners could respond with either the target word or the confusable minimal pair, and were more likely than expected to produce a minimal pair differing from the target by one vowel. When the predicted phonological confusions were not real words, however, the listeners exhibited less lexical competition and responded with the target word or a minimal pair differing by one consonant.

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