The recognition of time-compressed speech as a function of age in listeners with cochlear implants or normal hearing

Abstract

Speech recognition is diminished when a listener has an auditory temporal processing deficit. Such deficits occur in listeners over 65 years old with normal hearing (NH) and with age-related hearing loss, but their source is still unclear. These deficits may be especially apparent when speech occurs at a rapid rate and when a listener is mostly reliant on temporal information to recognize speech, such as when listening with a cochlear implant (CI) or to vocoded speech (a CI simulation). Assessment of the auditory temporal processing abilities of adults with CIs across a wide range of ages should better reveal central or cognitive sources of age-related deficits with rapid speech because CI stimulation bypasses much of the cochlear encoding that is affected by age-related peripheral hearing loss. This study used time-compressed speech at four different degrees of time compression (0, 20, 40, and 60%) to challenge the auditory temporal processing abilities of younger, middle-aged, and older listeners with CIs or with NH. Listeners with NH were presented vocoded speech at four degrees of spectral resolution (unprocessed, 16, 8, and 4 channels). Results showed an interaction between age and degree of time compression. The reduction in speech recognition associated with faster rates of speech was greater for older adults than younger adults. The performance of the middle-aged listeners was more similar to that of the older listeners than to that of the younger listeners, especially at higher degrees of time compression. A measure of cognitive processing speed did not predict the effects of time compression. These results suggest that central auditory changes related to the aging process are at least partially responsible for the auditory temporal processing deficits seen in older listeners, rather than solely peripheral age-related changes.

Cochlear-implant listeners benefit from training with time-compressed speech, even at advanced ages

“…1(A) and 1(B) ]. A 5% improvement in time-compressed speech recognition threshold would move trained older and middle-aged CI listeners closer to the performance of untrained younger CI listeners ( Tinnemore et al , 2022 ). Furthermore, a significant 6.3% improvement in speech recognition in noise was observed between pretest and posttest [Fig.…”

“…Like older acoustic-hearing listeners, older CI listeners may experience greatly diminished speech recognition in challenging situations such as in the presence of background noise, competing speech, reverberation, and with time-compressed speech (e.g., Ji et al , 2013 ). Furthermore, the spectral degradation that occurs with a CI exacerbates the age-related deficits in time-compressed speech recognition ( Tinnemore et al , 2022 ).…”

“…However, the benefit of auditory training focused on improving the processing of speech signals that stress rapid temporal processing has yet to be assessed in older CI listeners. As noted above, one form of challenging speech for older CI listeners is time-compressed speech ( Ji et al , 2013 ; Tinnemore et al , 2022 ), which may be appropriate as a training stimulus to improve auditory temporal processing in older adults ( Manheim et al , 2018 ).…”

How to vocode: Using channel vocoders for cochlear-implant research

“…). This creates a potential confound in experimental design because the ability to perceive vocoded stimuli decreases with age (Jaekel et al, 2018;Schvartz et al, 2008;Sheldon et al, 2008;Tinnemore et al, 2022). Some studies have suggested that the age effect could be a result of small differences in hearing thresholds (Shader et al, 2020), but there are alternative explanations.…”

Percepção auditiva da fala nas modalidades gravada e à viva voz em usuários de implante coclear e/ou aparelho de amplificação sonora individual

“…Além disso, a velocidade de fala irá influenciar na clareza da mensagem a ser transmitida. Nesse sentido, estudos demonstraram que independente do timbre vocal do locutor, ao falar com maior clareza e articulação o receptor da mensagem tende a ter melhoras significativas no diz respeito ao reconhecimento da fala (Picheny et al, 1989;Payton et al, 1994;Smiljanić and Bradlow, 2009) Pesquisas verificaram que a redução na velocidade da fala do locutor pode melhorar significativamente o reconhecimento da fala em deficientes auditivos e idosos (Gordon-Salant e Fitzgibbons, 1993;Schneider et al, 2005;Lessa and Costa, 2013;Winn e Teece, 2021;Tinnemore et al, 2022).…”