Audiomotor Perceptual Training Enhances Speech Intelligibility in Background Noise

Abstract

Summary Sensory and motor skills can be improved with training, but learning is often restricted to practice stimuli. As an exception, training on closed-loop (CL) sensorimotor interfaces, such as action video games and musical instruments, can impart a broad spectrum of perceptual benefits. Here we ask whether computerized CL auditory training can enhance speech understanding in levels of background noise that approximate a crowded restaurant. Elderly hearing impaired subjects trained for eight weeks on a CL game that, like a musical instrument, challenged them to monitor subtle deviations between predicted and actual auditory feedback as they moved their fingertip through a virtual soundscape. We performed our study as a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial by training other subjects in an auditory working memory (WM) task. Subjects in both groups improved at their respective auditory tasks and reported comparable expectations for improved speech processing, thereby controlling for placebo effects. Whereas speech intelligibility was unchanged after WM training, subjects in the CL training group could correctly identify 25% more words in spoken sentences or digit sequences presented in high levels of background noise. Numerically, CL audiomotor training provided more than three times the benefit of our subjects’ hearing aids for speech processing in noisy listening conditions. Gains in speech intelligibility could be predicted from gameplay accuracy and baseline inhibitory control. However, benefits did not persist in the absence of continuing practice. These studies employ stringent clinical standards to demonstrate that perceptual learning on a computerized audiogame can transfer to “real world” communication challenges.

Neurofeedback training of auditory selective attention enhances speech-in-noise perception

“…Our Experimental group training was differentiated from the Placebo training in that the feedback reward was determined by participants' neural activity, not by behavioral performance. Similarly to the reports by Whitton et al (2014) and Whitton et al (2017), the present study showed that the effect of neurofeedback training was transferred to SiN performance, while the Placebo group did not show such generalizability. The generalizability of the training effect observed in the present study may indicate that the reinforcement of attentional modulation on cortical responses may improve a key neural strategy for the SiN understanding.…”

“…Conventional hearing remediations through amplification cannot improve SiN understanding ability (Bentler et al, 2008). Instead, perceptual training is often considered as a solution for SiN difficulties (Whitton et al, 2014;Whitton et al, 2017).…”

Neural signatures of disordered multi-talker speech perception in adults with normal hearing

“…is striking and has now been documented by several independent groups using a variety of speech-on-29 speech masking paradigms, but not with non-speech maskers (Whitton et al, 2017;Strelcyk and Dau, 30 2009;Johannesen et al, 2016). The exact mechanism of FM coding by the auditory pathway is not entirely 31 clear, with some studies suggesting that these FM cues are converted to amplitude modulation cues in 32 the early stages of auditory processing, and hence that the perception of FM relies more on neural 33 envelope cues rather than the neural phase locking to sTFS (Ghitza, 2001;Whiteford, Kreft and Oxenham, 34 2017; Whiteford and Oxenham, 2015).…”

Reproducibility in Cognitive Hearing Research: Theoretical Considerations and Their Practical Application in Multi-Lab Studies

“…For example, participants may be required to respond to the speaker's gender regardless of the word spoken, which in the control condition will be neutral (e.g., "cat") and in the incongruent condition will be conflicting (e.g., "woman" spoken by a man). In addition to gender, other auditory dimensions have been used including pitch ("high" vs. "low"), location ("left" vs. "right"), loudness ("loud" vs. "soft"), and even time ("fast" vs. "slow") (Hamers and Lambert, 1972;Pieters, 1981;Morgan and Brandt, 1989;Roberts and Hall, 2008;Whitton et al, 2017). As well as fewer studies reporting the use of the task, there are also direct reports of non-replication.…”