Speech comprehension in noisy environments: Evidence from the predictability effects on the N400 and LPC

Hsin, Cheng-Hung; Chao, Pei-Chun; Lee, Chia‐Ying

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1105346

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 70 publications

(122 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…There is relatively little empirical evidence demonstrating how background noise affects listeners’ ability to generate predictions based on linguistic context. Evidence from electroencephalography (EEG) suggests that background noise disrupts listeners’ ability to generate predictions: brain wave responses to unexpected semantic input (i.e., N400 effects) tend to be delayed when speech is presented in background noise ( Connolly et al, 1992 ; Silcox and Payne, 2021 ; Hsin et al, 2023 ). On this account, listeners may be less efficient when facing greater perceptual complexity (i.e., acoustic-phonetic similarity) associated with informational masking (e.g., babble noise) as compared to energetic masking (e.g., SSN).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of linguistic context and noise type on speech comprehension

Fitzgerald,

DeDe,

Shen

2024

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

IntroductionUnderstanding speech in background noise is an effortful endeavor. When acoustic challenges arise, linguistic context may help us fill in perceptual gaps. However, more knowledge is needed regarding how different types of background noise affect our ability to construct meaning from perceptually complex speech input. Additionally, there is limited evidence regarding whether perceptual complexity (e.g., informational masking) and linguistic complexity (e.g., occurrence of contextually incongruous words) interact during processing of speech material that is longer and more complex than a single sentence. Our first research objective was to determine whether comprehension of spoken sentence pairs is impacted by the informational masking from a speech masker. Our second objective was to identify whether there is an interaction between perceptual and linguistic complexity during speech processing.MethodsWe used multiple measures including comprehension accuracy, reaction time, and processing effort (as indicated by task-evoked pupil response), making comparisons across three different levels of linguistic complexity in two different noise conditions. Context conditions varied by final word, with each sentence pair ending with an expected exemplar (EE), within-category violation (WV), or between-category violation (BV). Forty young adults with typical hearing performed a speech comprehension in noise task over three visits. Each participant heard sentence pairs presented in either multi-talker babble or spectrally shaped steady-state noise (SSN), with the same noise condition across all three visits.ResultsWe observed an effect of context but not noise on accuracy. Further, we observed an interaction of noise and context in peak pupil dilation data. Specifically, the context effect was modulated by noise type: context facilitated processing only in the more perceptually complex babble noise condition.DiscussionThese findings suggest that when perceptual complexity arises, listeners make use of the linguistic context to facilitate comprehension of speech obscured by background noise. Our results extend existing accounts of speech processing in noise by demonstrating how perceptual and linguistic complexity affect our ability to engage in higher-level processes, such as construction of meaning from speech segments that are longer than a single sentence.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of linguistic context and noise type on speech comprehension

Fitzgerald,

DeDe,

Shen

2024

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Causal evidence for a coordinated temporal interplay within the language network

Schroën,

Gunter,

Numssen

et al. 2023

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent neurobiological models on language suggest that auditory sentence comprehension is supported by a coordinated temporal interplay within a left-dominant brain network, including the posterior inferior frontal gyrus (pIFG), posterior superior temporal gyrus and sulcus (pSTG/STS), and angular gyrus (AG). Here, we probed the timing and causal relevance of the interplay between these regions by means of concurrent transcranial magnetic stimulation and electroencephalography (TMS-EEG). Our TMS-EEG experiments reveal region- and time-specific causal evidence for a bidirectional information flow from left pSTG/STS to left pIFG and back during auditory sentence processing. Adapting a condition-and-perturb approach, our findings further suggest that the left pSTG/STS can be supported by the left AG in a state-dependent manner.

show abstract

The Costs (and Benefits?) of Effortful Listening for Older Adults: Insights from Simultaneous Electrophysiology, Pupillometry, and Memory

Silcox,

Bennett,

Copeland

et al. 2024

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although the impact of acoustic challenge on speech processing and memory increases as a person ages, older adults may engage in strategies that help them compensate for these demands. In the current preregistered study, older adults (n = 48) listened to sentences—presented in quiet or in noise—that were high constraint with either expected or unexpected endings or were low constraint with unexpected endings. Pupillometry and EEG were simultaneously recorded, and subsequent sentence recognition and word recall were measured. Like young adults in prior work, we found that noise led to increases in pupil size, delayed and reduced ERP responses, and decreased recall for unexpected words. However, in contrast to prior work in young adults where a larger pupillary response predicted a recovery of the N400 at the cost of poorer memory performance in noise, older adults did not show an associated recovery of the N400 despite decreased memory performance. Instead, we found that in quiet, increases in pupil size were associated with delays in N400 onset latencies and increased recognition memory performance. In conclusion, we found that transient variation in pupil-linked arousal predicted trade-offs between real-time lexical processing and memory that emerged at lower levels of task demand in aging. Moreover, with increased acoustic challenge, older adults still exhibited costs associated with transient increases in arousal without the corresponding benefits.

show abstract

Speech comprehension in noisy environments: Evidence from the predictability effects on the N400 and LPC

Cited by 3 publications

References 70 publications

Effects of linguistic context and noise type on speech comprehension

Effects of linguistic context and noise type on speech comprehension

Causal evidence for a coordinated temporal interplay within the language network

The Costs (and Benefits?) of Effortful Listening for Older Adults: Insights from Simultaneous Electrophysiology, Pupillometry, and Memory

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About