The Intelligibility of Time Compressed Words as a Function of Age and Hearing Loss

Sticht, Thomas G.; Gray, Burl B.

doi:10.1044/jshr.1202.443

Cited by 61 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This observation, however, applies only to young normal-hearing adults. Research has shown that both the elderly and the hearingimpaired (young and old) exhibit a marked decrement in their understanding of high-rate speech (Sticht & Gray, 1969;Working Group on Speech Understanding and Aging, 1988).…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The use of time during lexical processing and segmentation: A review

Mattys

1997

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Speech, by its very nature, is a time-based phenomenon. Speech sounds are temporally distributed, with the presentation of one sound roughly conditioned by the fading of the previous one. In this review, three classes of models are discussed with respect to the sequential nature of speech. It is argued that the three resulting conceptions of time are linked to the type of segmentation process proposed by these models to deal with speech continuity. In the first one, lexical activation is viewed as perfectly synchronized with the temporal deployment of speech. This type of model corresponds to the traditionalleft-to-right (proactive) account of lexical processing. Because serious segmentation problems exist for such an approach (e.g., car and card are embedded in cardinal), the second type of model treats word recognition as the result of a mechanism that sometimes delays commitment on word identity beyond word offset. Lexical activation, instead of shadowing the unfolding of time, lags behind it until an unambiguous decision can be made. The temporarily unprocessed information is stored in a memory buffer. In the third approach, a prosodic cue (lexical stress) contributes actively to speech segmentation and lexical processing. Every stressed syllable encountered in the signal is postulated as a word onset and thus constitutes the starting point of lexical activation. However, with non-initial-stressed words, retroactive procedures going "back in time" must be used. Finally,the use oftime (including proactive, delayed, and retroactive procedures) is discussed in light of cross-linguistic phonological differences.How spoken words are recognized is a major concern in psycho linguistics. Models posited to explain this complex cognitive skill have traditionally ascribed a central position to the notion of lexical processing, which corresponds to the multiple steps that lead to the recognition of a word (Frauenfelder & Tyler, 1987). Lexical processing includes three stages: (l) the initial contact between the input signal and the mental lexicon, (2) the activation ofcandidates in the lexicon and their progressive selection, and (3) the recognition of the actual word. The term lexical access is usually reserved to describe the moment at which lexical information becomes available to the speech processor.Approaching lexical processing and segmentation from a time perspective is unconventional in the field of word recognition. Traditionally, research has mainly focused on the informational side ofspeech processing (amount of information, number of phonemes, type of perceptual units, quality of the input, etc.). However, it is possible to examine and classify the models built on this type of evidence along a time-based typology. In this review, I have This work was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant ROI MH516630 I. I am very grateful to Arty Samuel for his supervision of this work and to the following members of the speech laboratory: Donna Kat and Lee Wurm. Thanks are also due Susan Brennan, Richard G...

show abstract

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The use of time during lexical processing and segmentation: A review

Mattys

1997

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Time-compressed speech also poses difficulties for older listeners (Bergman, 1971;Bergman et al, 1976;Konkle, Beasley, & Bess, 1977;Sticht & Gray, 1969), although this may be related to high-frequency hearing loss (see Working Group, 1988, p. 878). Some researchers (e.g., Wingfield, Poon, Lombardi, & Lowe, 1985) attribute this difficulty to reduced processing speed (i.e., central dysfunction) in the elderly rather than to degradation of the signal (i.e., peripheral dysfunction).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Aging and auditory temporal sequencing: Ordering the elements of repeating tone patterns

Trainor

Trehub

1989

Perception & Psychophysics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In a sJries of experiments, we examined age-related differences in adults' ability to order sequences oftones presented at various speeds and in contexts designed to promote or to impede stream segregation. In Experiment 1, 32 listeners (16 young, 16 old) were required to identify two repeating sequences that consisted of four tones (two from a high and two from a low frequency range) in different order. In Experiment 2,32 listeners were required to judge whether the two recycled patterns from Experiment 1 were the same or different. In Experiment 3, four young and four old listeners were tested on the tasks of Experiment 2 over an extended period. In Experiment 4, 16 young and 16 old listeners were tested with sequences that were not recycled and were composed of tones drawn from a narrow frequency range. Elderly adults were less able than young adults to distinguish between tone sequences with contrasting order, regardless ofthe speed of presentation, the nature of the task (identification vs. same/different), the amount of practice, the frequency separation of the tones, or the presence or absence of recycling. These findings provide evidence of a temporal sequencing impairment in elderly listeners but reveal no indication of age differences in streaming processes.There is little understanding of the speech comprehension deficits that occur in later life. Although age-related changes in auditory sensitivity are apparent (for a review, see Robinson & Sutton, 1979), these changes in peripheral processing cannot account for the magnitude of the speech perception problems experienced by elderly listeners (Feldman & Reger, 1967;Hayes, 1981;Olsho, Harkins, & Lenhardt, 1985; Working Group on Speech Understanding and Aging, 1988). Central deficits seem to be implicated (Hawkins & Presson, 1986), but progress in the specification of relevant mechanisms or processes has been limited.Temporal sequencing ability, which is critical to the speech perception process, has been linked to developmental language delays and learning disabilities (Tallal & Stark, 1985a, 1985b. Proficiency in temporal sequencing tasks seems to depend on many factors, including the number of elements in the test sequences, the occurrence of single or repeating sequences (e.g., Warren, 1972), and practice (Divenyi & Hirsh, 1974), as well as on whether the stimuli are speech sounds (Warren, Obusek, Farmer, & Warren, 1969). The response measure is also relevant, with judgments of order yielding poorer performance than same/different judgments (Warren & Byrnes, 1975), and verbal responses yielding poorer performance than nonverbal responses (Warren & Obusek, 1972). In the present investigation, we examined the possibility of temporal sequencing deficits in later life. Grouping mechanisms are also critical to the perception of sound sequences such as speech. The auditory stimuli that reach our ears do not contain separate information from different sound sources, but rather a combination of information from all sources, creating the need for parsing or ...

show abstract

“…Time compressed speech has been used in differential site of lesion testing with results similar to those obtained using accelerated speech . Sticht and Gray (1969) support the use of compressed speech as a central rather than peripheral test. Using young and old subjects with normal hearing and·sensorineural hearing losses, they attempted to isolate the effects of diffuse central changes while controlling for cochlear lesions.…”

Section: Mild Hearing Losses In Childrenmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Time compression as a method of degrading the speech stimulus was developed in 1954 by Fairbanks, Everitt and Jaeger (Sticht and Gray, 1969). The process of compression involves periodic time sampling of the input signal, cutting out small segments.…”

Section: Mild Hearing Losses In Childrenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Central auditory processing in children with a history of chronic middle ear problems

Schnabel

2000

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The purpose of this study was to investigate the Qentral auditory processing of children who had sustained chronic middle ear problems during their early language-learning years. A 60% compressed recording of the NU-6 speech discrimination word lists was administered to twenty eight and nine year old normal hearing public school children, reported by their parents to have qad repeated middle ear problems during their early years, and to twenty control subjects matched for age from the same public schopl classes. · Differences in compressed and uncompressed word discrimination scores between the experimental and control groups were not found to be statistically significant. These results indicate that the experimental subjects' ability to process compressed speech was not impaired by early middle ear difficulties. The alternative was suggested that if these children actually sustained central damage due to distorted or degraded input during their hearing deficit episodes, then such effects may be neutralized by subsequent auditory exerience and neurological maturity. A significant difference for both groups of children was noted between scores obtained with NU-6 lists 2A and 3A at 60% compression. While apparently equivalent in the uncompressed form, list 3 was found to ~e significantly ~ore difficult than list 2 when compressed. Implications for further research are discussed.

show abstract

The Intelligibility of Time Compressed Words as a Function of Age and Hearing Loss

Cited by 61 publications

References 0 publications

The use of time during lexical processing and segmentation: A review

The use of time during lexical processing and segmentation: A review

Aging and auditory temporal sequencing: Ordering the elements of repeating tone patterns

Central auditory processing in children with a history of chronic middle ear problems

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About