Improving older adults’ understanding of challenging speech: Auditory training, rapid adaptation and perceptual learning

Bieber, Rebecca E.; Gordon‐Salant, Sandra

doi:10.1016/j.heares.2020.108054

Cited by 28 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 137 publications

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“…There have been numerous works showing that understanding speech in suboptimal acoustic conditions, such as e.g., speech in noise, noise-vocoded speech, time-compressed speech, can be trained. At the same time, however, the reported transfer of the training effects to novel speech inputs or contexts has been found to be limited 63 – 66 . In that respect, our findings are novel, as we show not only significant benefits for speech understanding (> 10 dB in SRT) but also generalization of both training types to all three testing conditions ( audio only, audio-tactile matching, audio-tactile nonmatching ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is probably due to the fact that the auditory input was present in both of them and thus practiced to a similar extent. Indeed, rapid perceptual learning and adaptation have been shown through repeated exposure for various acoustic contexts and distortions of the auditory signal, including natural speech presented in background noise, as well synthetically manipulated vocoded/time-compressed speech 2 , 3 , 55 , 63 , 66 . This also explains why we saw some improvement in speech understanding in the control test condition, i.e., when the auditory sentences were paired with vibro-tactile inputs corresponding to a different sentence than the one presented through audition (ATnm).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of training and using an audio-tactile sensory substitution device on speech-in-noise understanding

Cieśla

Wolak

Lorens

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

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Understanding speech in background noise is challenging. Wearing face-masks, imposed by the COVID19-pandemics, makes it even harder. We developed a multi-sensory setup, including a sensory substitution device (SSD) that can deliver speech simultaneously through audition and as vibrations on the fingertips. The vibrations correspond to low frequencies extracted from the speech input. We trained two groups of non-native English speakers in understanding distorted speech in noise. After a short session (30–45 min) of repeating sentences, with or without concurrent matching vibrations, we showed comparable mean group improvement of 14–16 dB in Speech Reception Threshold (SRT) in two test conditions, i.e., when the participants were asked to repeat sentences only from hearing and also when matching vibrations on fingertips were present. This is a very strong effect, if one considers that a 10 dB difference corresponds to doubling of the perceived loudness. The number of sentence repetitions needed for both types of training to complete the task was comparable. Meanwhile, the mean group SNR for the audio-tactile training (14.7 ± 8.7) was significantly lower (harder) than for the auditory training (23.9 ± 11.8), which indicates a potential facilitating effect of the added vibrations. In addition, both before and after training most of the participants (70–80%) showed better performance (by mean 4–6 dB) in speech-in-noise understanding when the audio sentences were accompanied with matching vibrations. This is the same magnitude of multisensory benefit that we reported, with no training at all, in our previous study using the same experimental procedures. After training, performance in this test condition was also best in both groups (SRT ~ 2 dB). The least significant effect of both training types was found in the third test condition, i.e. when participants were repeating sentences accompanied with non-matching tactile vibrations and the performance in this condition was also poorest after training. The results indicate that both types of training may remove some level of difficulty in sound perception, which might enable a more proper use of speech inputs delivered via vibrotactile stimulation. We discuss the implications of these novel findings with respect to basic science. In particular, we show that even in adulthood, i.e. long after the classical “critical periods” of development have passed, a new pairing between a certain computation (here, speech processing) and an atypical sensory modality (here, touch) can be established and trained, and that this process can be rapid and intuitive. We further present possible applications of our training program and the SSD for auditory rehabilitation in patients with hearing (and sight) deficits, as well as healthy individuals in suboptimal acoustic situations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of training and using an audio-tactile sensory substitution device on speech-in-noise understanding

Cieśla

Wolak

Lorens

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The improvement in SNR threshold in the second administration on the same test day may reflect, in part, a simple effect of learning the task (as sentences were not repeated). However, performance improved significantly more for the NS talkers than the NE talkers (effect size was strong for NS talkers and moderate for NE talkers), and may be one manifestation of rapid adaptation to foreign-accented speech reported previously (Clarke and Garrett, 2004;Bradlow and Bent, 2008;Gordon-Salant et al, 2010c;Bieber and Gordon-Salant, 2021). The effect of listener group did not interact with test time nor talker accent, indicating that both groups showed the same improvement with the second administration of the adaptive procedure.…”

Section: Signal-to-noise Ratio Thresholdsmentioning

confidence: 56%

Detection and Recognition of Asynchronous Auditory/Visual Speech: Effects of Age, Hearing Loss, and Talker Accent

et al. 2022

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This investigation examined age-related differences in auditory-visual (AV) integration as reflected on perceptual judgments of temporally misaligned AV English sentences spoken by native English and native Spanish talkers. In the detection task, it was expected that slowed auditory temporal processing of older participants, relative to younger participants, would be manifest as a shift in the range over which participants would judge asynchronous stimuli as synchronous (referred to as the “AV simultaneity window”). The older participants were also expected to exhibit greater declines in speech recognition for asynchronous AV stimuli than younger participants. Talker accent was hypothesized to influence listener performance, with older listeners exhibiting a greater narrowing of the AV simultaneity window and much poorer recognition of asynchronous AV foreign-accented speech compared to younger listeners. Participant groups included younger and older participants with normal hearing and older participants with hearing loss. Stimuli were video recordings of sentences produced by native English and native Spanish talkers. The video recordings were altered in 50 ms steps by delaying either the audio or video onset. Participants performed a detection task in which they judged whether the sentences were synchronous or asynchronous, and performed a recognition task for multiple synchronous and asynchronous conditions. Both the detection and recognition tasks were conducted at the individualized signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) corresponding to approximately 70% correct speech recognition performance for synchronous AV sentences. Older listeners with and without hearing loss generally showed wider AV simultaneity windows than younger listeners, possibly reflecting slowed auditory temporal processing in auditory lead conditions and reduced sensitivity to asynchrony in auditory lag conditions. However, older and younger listeners were affected similarly by misalignment of auditory and visual signal onsets on the speech recognition task. This suggests that older listeners are negatively impacted by temporal misalignments for speech recognition, even when they do not notice that the stimuli are asynchronous. Overall, the findings show that when listener performance is equated for simultaneous AV speech signals, age effects are apparent in detection judgments but not in recognition of asynchronous speech.

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“…In other words, we can attempt to refute our hypothesis by finding examples of good rapid learning in populations known for their poor speech perception under challenging conditions, such as older adults with hearing loss and nonnative listeners. Older adults appear to display reduced and more specific learning than young adults (see Bieber & Gordon-Salant, 2020 for a recent review). For time-compressed speech, Peelle and Wingfield (2005) reported intact rapid learning, but reduced transfer of learning across compression rates in older compared to younger adults.…”

Section: Rapid Perceptual Learning Seems Reduced In Groups With Speech Perception Difficultiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rapid Perceptual Learning and Individual Differences in Speech Perception: The Good, the Bad, and the Sad

Banai

Lavie

2020

Auditory Perception & Cognition

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The function of rapid perceptual learning for speech in adult listeners is poorly understood. On the one hand, perceptual learning of speech results in rapid and long-lasting improvements in the perception of many types of distorted and degraded speech signals.On the other hand, this learning is highly specific to stimuli that were encountered during its acquisition. Therefore, it is unclear whether past perceptual learning could support future speech perception under ecological conditions. Here, we hypothesize that rapid perceptual learning is a resource that is recruited when new speech challenges are encountered and used to support perception under those specific conditions. We review three lines of evidence related to aspects of this hypothesis -about the specificity of learning, the general nature of associations between rapid perceptual learning and speech perception and rapid perceptual-learning in populations with poor perception under adverse conditions.

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Improving older adults’ understanding of challenging speech: Auditory training, rapid adaptation and perceptual learning

Cited by 28 publications

References 137 publications

Effects of training and using an audio-tactile sensory substitution device on speech-in-noise understanding

Effects of training and using an audio-tactile sensory substitution device on speech-in-noise understanding

Detection and Recognition of Asynchronous Auditory/Visual Speech: Effects of Age, Hearing Loss, and Talker Accent

Rapid Perceptual Learning and Individual Differences in Speech Perception: The Good, the Bad, and the Sad

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