Extended high-frequency hearing enhances speech perception in noise

Zadeh, Lina Motlagh; Silbert, Noah H.; Sternasty, Katherine; Swanepoel, De Wet; Hunter, Lisa L.; Moore, David R.

doi:10.1073/pnas.1903315116

Cited by 142 publications

(121 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…Previous studies 4 have identified that hearing loss, as measured by the pure-tone audiogram, is a strong correlate of SiN ability among people with hearing loss, and may also explain some of the variability in SiN performance among people who have audiometric thresholds at clinically measured frequencies (0.25–8 kHz) in the normal hearing range. There is also evidence that extended high-frequency hearing (8–20 kHz) can enhance SiN perception 19 . Although pure-tone audiometric thresholds may be used synonymously with ‘hearing loss’, this test measures tone-sensitivity in quiet, which is different from SiN.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, we were interested in SiN in people with normal hearing and we utilised a stringent criterion to exclude participants with mild tone sensitivity impairment in the high-frequency range. We did not measure audiometric thresholds above 8 kHz, which may have some effect on SiN 19 because these thresholds are not measured routinely in clinical practice. Although, there was a relationship between high-frequency (4–8 kHz) audiometric thresholds and SiN in the full sample, consistent with the results of Holmes and Griffiths 4 , we did not find a significant correlation between audiometric hearing thresholds and SiN performance after excluding participants with audiometric thresholds > 15 dB HL.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Speech-in-noise detection is related to auditory working memory precision for frequency

Lad

Holmes

Chu

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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Speech-in-noise (SiN) perception is a critical aspect of natural listening, deficits in which are a major contributor to the hearing handicap in cochlear hearing loss. Studies suggest that Sin perception correlates with cognitive skills, particularly phonological working memory: the ability to hold and manipulate phonemes or words in mind. We consider here the idea that Sin perception is linked to a more general ability to hold sound objects in mind, auditory working memory, irrespective of whether the objects are speech sounds. This process might help combine foreground elements, like speech, over seconds to aid their separation from the background of an auditory scene. We investigated the relationship between auditory working memory precision and Sin thresholds in listeners with normal hearing. We used a novel paradigm that tests auditory working memory for non-speech sounds that vary in frequency and amplitude modulation (AM) rate. the paradigm yields measures of precision in frequency and AM domains, based on the distribution of participants' estimates of the target. Across participants, frequency precision correlated significantly with SiN thresholds. Frequency precision also correlated with the number of years of musical training. Measures of phonological working memory did not correlate with SiN detection ability. Our results demonstrate a specific relationship between working memory for frequency and Sin. We suggest that working memory for frequency facilitates the identification and tracking of foreground objects like speech during natural listening. Working memory performance for frequency also correlated with years of musical instrument experience suggesting that the former is potentially modifiable. Speech-in-noise (SiN) perception is the ability to identify spoken words when background noise is present. Deficits in SiN are one of the most common problems in patients with cochlear hearing loss, but there has been increasing interest in cognitive abilities that determine SiN perception 1. Akeroyd 2 summarised studies describing the relationship of ccognitive measures to speech-in-noise performance. Phonological working measures such as the reading span and digit span were found to have an effect on SiN detection after accounting for hearing loss. However, other studies have suggested that phonological working memory only comes into play in older participants or when a participant has high-frequency hearing loss 3. We consider here the idea that more fundamental forms of working memory that apply to all sounds, including speech, are relevant to SiN perception. From first principles, the ability to hold in mind sound features that are characteristic of particular sources, including voices, might aid SiN perception by allowing sequential outputs from a particular source to be grouped. Previous work has shown that fundamental auditory grouping processes involved in separating non-speech figures from an acoustic background ('figure-ground perception') explains a sizable portion of individual differences in ...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Speech-in-noise detection is related to auditory working memory precision for frequency

Lad

Holmes

Chu

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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“…Badri et al (2011) showed that listeners who self-reported and exhibited speech-in-noise difficulties had elevated EHF thresholds at 12.5 and 14 kHz compared with a control group. Motlagh Zadeh et al (2019) also found grouplevel differences in self-reported speech-in-noise difficulty, with greater likelihood of reporting difficulty for groups with more severe EHF hearing loss (measured at 10, 12.5, 14, and 16 kHz). They also reported a correlation between EHF pure-tone averages (PTAs) and speech-in-noise scores when the noise masker was a broadband speech-shaped noise, although, surprisingly, no such relationship was observed when the noise masker was bandlimited to 8 kHz.…”

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confidence: 82%

“…For example, the average young, normal-hearing listener can detect the absence of speech energy beyond approximately 13 kHz, although listeners with better 16-kHz pure-tone thresholds can detect losses at even higher frequencies ( Monson & Caravello, 2019 ). It has also been demonstrated that EHF audibility contributes to speech localization ( Best et al., 2005 ), speech quality ( Monson et al., 2014b ; Moore & Tan, 2003 ), talker head orientation discrimination ( Monson et al., 2019 ), and speech recognition in the presence of background speech ( Monson et al., 2019 ) and noise ( Motlagh Zadeh et al., 2019 ).…”

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confidence: 99%

Extended High Frequencies Provide Both Spectral and Temporal Information to Improve Speech-in-Speech Recognition

Trine

Monson

2020

Trends in Hearing

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Several studies have demonstrated that extended high frequencies (EHFs; >8 kHz) in speech are not only audible but also have some utility for speech recognition, including for speech-in-speech recognition when maskers are facing away from the listener. However, the contribution of EHF spectral versus temporal information to speech recognition is unknown. Here, we show that access to EHF temporal information improved speech-in-speech recognition relative to speech bandlimited at 8 kHz but that additional access to EHF spectral detail provided an additional small but significant benefit. Results suggest that both EHF spectral structure and the temporal envelope contribute to the observed EHF benefit. Speech recognition performance was quite sensitive to masker head orientation, with a rotation of only 15° providing a highly significant benefit. An exploratory analysis indicated that pure-tone thresholds at EHFs are better predictors of speech recognition performance than low-frequency pure-tone thresholds.

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“…Computer-based sensory and cognitive training has long held the promise of dramatic improvements on real world abilities. However, finding an auditory training task that successfully leads to improved speech perception in noise, a frequently reported auditory disability 1 , 2 , remains elusive. Two problems have frequently occurred when training paradigms meant to improve such skills have been examined via carefully controlled experiments.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Auditory cognition and perception of action video game players

Stewart

Martinez

Perdew

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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A training method to improve speech hearing in noise has proven elusive, with most methods failing to transfer to untrained tasks. one common approach to identify potentially viable training paradigms is to make use of cross-sectional designs. For instance, the consistent finding that people who chose to avidly engage with action video games as part of their normal life also show enhanced performance on non-game visual tasks has been used as a foundation to test the causal impact of such game play via true experiments (e.g., in more translational designs). However, little work has examined the association between action video game play and untrained auditory tasks, which would speak to the possible utility of using such games to improve speech hearing in noise. To examine this possibility, 80 participants with mixed action video game experience were tested on a visual reaction time task that has reliably shown superior performance in action video game players (AVGPs) compared to non-players (≤ 5 h/week across game categories) and multi-genre video game players (> 5 h/week across game categories). Auditory cognition and perception were tested using auditory reaction time and two speech-in-noise tasks. Performance of AVGPs on the visual task replicated previous positive findings. However, no significant benefit of action video game play was found on the auditory tasks. We suggest that, while AVGPs interact meaningfully with a rich visual environment during play, they may not interact with the games' auditory environment. these results suggest that far transfer learning during action video game play is modality-specific and that an acoustically relevant auditory environment may be needed to improve auditory probabilistic thinking. Computer-based sensory and cognitive training has long held the promise of dramatic improvements on real world abilities. However, finding an auditory training task that successfully leads to improved speech perception in noise, a frequently reported auditory disability 1,2 , remains elusive. Two problems have frequently occurred when training paradigms meant to improve such skills have been examined via carefully controlled experiments. The paradigms have either: (A) failed to produce benefits above and beyond those seen from placebo control conditions e.g., Ref. 3 ; or (B) produced improvements on trained tasks, but with little improvement on untrained tasks, particularly those that were quite different from the trained task. Indeed, in a recent review of training studies aiming to improve auditory performance in adults with hearing loss, Ferguson and Henshaw 4 clearly noted a general trend of improvement in the trained task ('on-task' learning) with little or no improvement in off-task abilities. Off-task abilities similar to those trained improved in some cases, a process termed 'near transfer' , but there was little evidence of 'far transfer' to complex, off-task abilities. As an example of this latter situation, in one RCT 5 , training on a speech (phoneme) discrimination task 6 prod...

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Extended high-frequency hearing enhances speech perception in noise

Cited by 142 publications

References 61 publications

Speech-in-noise detection is related to auditory working memory precision for frequency

Speech-in-noise detection is related to auditory working memory precision for frequency

Extended High Frequencies Provide Both Spectral and Temporal Information to Improve Speech-in-Speech Recognition

Auditory cognition and perception of action video game players

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