Listening back in time: Does attention to memory facilitate word-in-noise identification?

Abstract

The ephemeral nature of spoken words creates a challenge for oral communications where incoming speech sounds must be processed in relation to representations of just-perceived sounds stored in short-term memory. This can be particularly taxing in noisy environments where perception of speech is often impaired or initially incorrect. Usage of prior contextual information (e.g., a semantically related word) has been shown to improve speech in noise identification. In three experiments, we demonstrate a comparable effect of a semantically related cue word placed after an energetically masked target word in improving accuracy of target-word identification. This effect persisted irrespective of cue modality (visual or auditory cue word) and, in the case of cues after the target, lasted even when the cue word was presented up to 4 seconds after the target. The results are framed in the context of an attention to memory model that seeks to explain the cognitive and neural mechanisms behind processing of items in auditory memory.

Retrospective cueing mediates flexible conscious access to past spoken words.

“…This suggested that the retrospective semantic link between the target and retro-cue allowed to disambiguate the noisy representation of the target. An important difference between these findings and the current study is that, in Chan and Alain (2019), the target word always received full attention: there was a single auditory stream, which onset was always preceded by a 3 s visual countdown, so that there was no spatial nor temporal uncertainty. The target was therefore presumably always detected, but its identity could be ambiguous.…”

“…While the influence of retrospective cueing has been largely investigated in vision, to date only a few studies have explored this topic in audition (Backer & Alain, 2012; Chan & Alain, 2019, 2021; Lim et al, 2015). Some of these studies showed an auditory equivalent of the classical Sperling effect, using several auditory sources at various locations, as described in the introductory part (Backer & Alain, 2012).…”

“…Experiment 2 tested both objective performance and subjective report. In both experiments, we analyzed the interaction between the effect of cueing and response delay on performance in order to assess the contribution of memory processes (Chan & Alain, 2019, 2021; Lim et al, 2015) previously invoked as underlying the retro-cue effect (Souza & Oberauer, 2016). In Experiment 2, an additional model was fitted to the audibility data to test whether the cue globally increased audibility, or whether it specifically changed the balance between “not heard” and “fully heard” trials (Sergent, 2018; Sergent et al, 2013).…”

Illusory sound texture reveals multi-second statistical completion in auditory scene analysis

“…By contrast, a gap before the masker most often eliminated the illusory texture percept (two-tailed paired t -test comparing the proportion of continuous responses in the contiguous and gap-before-noise conditions, t(9) = 4.98, p < 0.001), but illusory texture was heard to fade in more often than when gaps were both before and after the noise (two-tailed paired t -test comparing the proportion of fade-in responses in the gap-before-and-after and gap-before-noise conditions, t(9) = 3.40, p = 0.0078). The latter effect suggests some degree of “retrospective” filling-in 23–25 driven by the texture occurring after the noise.…”

Correspondence Between Cognitive and Audiological Evaluations Among the Elderly: A Preliminary Report of an Audiological Screening Model of Subjects at Risk of Cognitive Decline With Slight to Moderate Hearing Loss

“…Each list used in the present study consisted of 10 randomly selected logatomes. The choice to use this type of speech audiometry aims to minimize the mnemonic effort of the subjects: the speech intelligibility tends to differ between logatomes and words because they are not supported by semantic and long-term memory (Pisoni, 1996;Chan and Alain, 2018). The average of the intrasubject differences has been estimated between 5 and 20% (in favor of words) of recognized signals, even in the best hearing conditions.…”