Speech Intensity Response to Altered Intensity Feedback in Individuals With Parkinson's Disease

Abstract

Purpose Hypophonia (low speech intensity) is the most common speech symptom experienced by individuals with Parkinson's disease (IWPD). Previous research suggests that, in IWPD, there may be abnormal integration of sensory information for motor production of speech intensity. In the current study, intensity of auditory feedback was systematically manipulated (altered in both positive and negative directions) during sensorimotor conditions that are known to modulate speech intensity in everyday contexts in order to better understand the role of auditory feedback for speech intensity regulation. Method Twenty-six IWPD and 24 neurologically healthy controls were asked to complete the following tasks: converse with the experimenter, start vowel production, and read sentences at a comfortable loudness, while hearing their own speech intensity randomly altered. Altered intensity feedback conditions included 5-, 10-, and 15-dB reductions and increases in the feedback intensity. Speech tasks were completed in no noise and in background noise. Results IWPD displayed a reduced response to the altered intensity feedback compared to control participants. This reduced response was most apparent when participants were speaking in background noise. Specific task-based differences in responses were observed such that the reduced response by IWPD was most pronounced during the conversation task. Conclusions The current study suggests that IWPD have abnormal processing of auditory information for speech intensity regulation, and this disruption particularly impacts their ability to regulate speech intensity in the context of speech tasks with clear communicative goals (i.e., conversational speech) and speaking in background noise.

LaDIVA: A neurocomputational model providing laryngeal motor control for speech acquisition and production

“…Hyperactive auditory feedback responses in persons with PD who are off medication have been noted by multiple altered auditory feedback behavioral studies for vocal f o [72][73][74][75] and for vocal SPL [73]. Reduced adaptive responses were also observed in several studies carried out with persons with PD (vocal f o : [69], vocal SPL: [87]). Overall, these studies suggest that persons with PD have hyperactive auditory feedback and weakened auditory-motor integration that causes impaired feedforward motor control.…”

Speech's syllabic rhythm and articulatory features produced under different auditory feedback conditions identify Parkinsonism

“…On the one hand, although it has been shown that modi ed auditory feedback impacts PD patients differently from controls [14][15][16] , this observation has not been previously included in the design of speechbased screening tests. We integrate this observation by asking participants to complete the classic DDK task under different auditory feedback conditions.…”

“…In addition to dysarthria, it has been shown that the effects produced on the ongoing speech by an unexpected modulation of the auditory feedback differ between PD patients and healthy controls [14][15][16] . This result made researchers hypothesize that PD patients have abnormal speech auditory-motor integration.…”

Naturaleza del input y procesamiento de la sílaba en palabras en la enfermedad de Parkinson

“…El deterioro motor temprano propicia dificultades para la articulación del habla y para la escritura; los movimientos manuales anormales aparecen desde el inicio, característica que hace que el deterioro de la escritura en la EP sea atribuido al déficit motor (Mollaei et al, 2019;Senthinathan et al, 2021). Sin embargo, la escritura ha sido un terreno que sólo recientemente ha sido explorado dentro de este tipo de patología.…”