Jessica R. Sullivan

Children's Auditory Working Memory Performance in Degraded Listening Conditions

PURPOSE The objectives of this study were to determine (a) whether school-age children with typical hearing demonstrate poorer auditory working memory performance in multitalker babble at degraded signal-to-noise ratios than in quiet; and (b) whether the amount of cognitive demand of the task contributed to differences in performance in noise. It was hypothesized that stressing the working memory system with the presence of noise would impede working memory processes in real time and result in poorer working memory performance in degraded conditions. METHOD Twenty children with typical hearing between 8 and 10 years old were tested using 4 auditory working memory tasks (Forward Digit Recall, Backward Digit Recall, Listening Recall Primary, and Listening Recall Secondary). Stimuli were from the standardized Working Memory Test Battery for Children. Each task was administered in quiet and in 4-talker babble noise at 0 dB and -5 dB signal-to-noise ratios. RESULTS Childrens auditory working memory performance was systematically decreased in the presence of multitalker babble noise compared with quiet. Differences between low-complexity and high-complexity tasks were observed, with children performing more poorly on tasks with greater storage and processing demands. There was no interaction between noise and complexity of task. All tasks were negatively impacted similarly by the addition of noise. CONCLUSIONS Auditory working memory performance was negatively impacted by the presence of multitalker babble noise. Regardless of complexity of task, noise had a similar effect on performance. These findings suggest that the addition of noise inhibits auditory working memory processes in real time for school-age children.

The Effect of Noise on the Relationship Between Auditory Working Memory and Comprehension in School-Age Children

PURPOSE The objectives of the current study were to examine the effect of noise (-5 dB SNR) on auditory comprehension and to examine its relationship with working memory. It was hypothesized that noise has a negative impact on information processing, auditory working memory, and comprehension. METHOD Children with normal hearing between the ages of 8 and 10 years were administered working memory and comprehension tasks in quiet and noise. The comprehension measure comprised 5 domains: main idea, details, reasoning, vocabulary, and understanding messages. RESULTS Performance on auditory working memory and comprehension tasks were significantly poorer in noise than in quiet. The reasoning, details, understanding, and vocabulary subtests were particularly affected in noise (p < .05). The relationship between auditory working memory and comprehension was stronger in noise than in quiet, suggesting an increased contribution of working memory. CONCLUSIONS These data suggest that school-age childrens auditory working memory and comprehension are negatively affected by noise. Performance on comprehension tasks in noise is strongly related to demands placed on working memory, supporting the theory that degrading listening conditions draws resources away from the primary task.

Auditory training of speech recognition with interrupted and continuous noise maskers by children with hearing impairment

Previous studies have indicated that individuals with normal hearing (NH) experience a perceptual advantage for speech recognition in interrupted noise compared to continuous noise. In contrast, adults with hearing impairment (HI) and younger children with NH receive a minimal benefit. The objective of this investigation was to assess whether auditory training in interrupted noise would improve speech recognition in noise for children with HI and perhaps enhance their utilization of glimpsing skills. A partially-repeated measures design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of seven 1-h sessions of auditory training in interrupted and continuous noise. Speech recognition scores in interrupted and continuous noise were obtained from pre-, post-, and 3 months post-training from 24 children with moderate-to-severe hearing loss. Children who participated in auditory training in interrupted noise demonstrated a significantly greater improvement in speech recognition compared to those who trained in continuous noise. Those who trained in interrupted noise demonstrated similar improvements in both noise conditions while those who trained in continuous noise only showed modest improvements in the interrupted noise condition. This study presents direct evidence that auditory training in interrupted noise can be beneficial in improving speech recognition in noise for children with HI.

The Effect of Noise on Relationships Between Speech Intelligibility and Self-Reported Communication Measures in Tracheoesophageal Speakers

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to examine how sentence intelligibility relates to self-reported communication in tracheoesophageal speakers when speech intelligibility is measured in quiet and noise. METHOD Twenty-four tracheoesophageal speakers who were at least 1 year postlaryngectomy provided audio recordings of 5 sentences from the Sentence Intelligibility Test. Speakers also completed self-reported measures of communication-the Voice Handicap Index-10 and the Communicative Participation Item Bank short form. Speech recordings were presented to 2 groups of inexperienced listeners who heard sentences in quiet or noise. Listeners transcribed the sentences to yield speech intelligibility scores. RESULTS Very weak relationships were found between intelligibility in quiet and measures of voice handicap and communicative participation. Slightly stronger, but still weak and nonsignificant, relationships were observed between measures of intelligibility in noise and both self-reported measures. However, 12 speakers who were more than 65% intelligible in noise showed strong and statistically significant relationships with both self-reported measures (R2 = .76-.79). CONCLUSIONS Speech intelligibility in quiet is a weak predictor of self-reported communication measures in tracheoesophageal speakers. Speech intelligibility in noise may be a better metric of self-reported communicative function for speakers who demonstrate higher speech intelligibility in noise.

Voice gender and the segregation of competing talkers: Perceptual learning in cochlear implant simulations

Two experiments explored the role of differences in voice gender in the recognition of speech masked by a competing talker in cochlear implant simulations. Experiment 1 confirmed that listeners with normal hearing receive little benefit from differences in voice gender between a target and masker sentence in four- and eight-channel simulations, consistent with previous findings that cochlear implants deliver an impoverished representation of the cues for voice gender. However, gender differences led to small but significant improvements in word recognition with 16 and 32 channels. Experiment 2 assessed the benefits of perceptual training on the use of voice gender cues in an eight-channel simulation. Listeners were assigned to one of four groups: (1) word recognition training with target and masker differing in gender; (2) word recognition training with same-gender target and masker; (3) gender recognition training; or (4) control with no training. Significant improvements in word recognition were observed from pre- to post-test sessions for all three training groups compared to the control group. These improvements were maintained at the late session (one week following the last training session) for all three groups. There was an overall improvement in masked word recognition performance provided by gender mismatch following training, but the amount of benefit did not differ as a function of the type of training. The training effects observed here are consistent with a form of rapid perceptual learning that contributes to the segregation of competing voices but does not specifically enhance the benefits provided by voice gender cues.

The role of auditory working memory In the development of glimpsing skills in children

Glimpsing is a complex process involving lower-and higher level auditory skills required for speech understanding in noise. However, little is know the role of working memory as glimpsing develops in children. The present study aimed to determine the extent to which auditory working memory contributes across the continuum of auditory perception skills in children. This study investigated the role working memory plays in speech recognition and auditory comprehension task in the presences of noise. We measured working memory, speech recognition and auditory comprehension performance with noise in 20 seven-to-nine year old children with normal hearing. Backward digit recall was used to assess working memory. Speech recognition in noise performance was measure using the Hearing In Noise Test. Comprehension was measured by a child’s ability to answer five questions associated to auditorily-presented stories. Each question evaluated a different level of comprehension. In general, there are no relationships betw...

An analysis of error patterns in children's backward digit recall in noise.

The purpose of the study was to determine whether perceptual masking or cognitive processing accounts for a decline in working memory performance in the presence of competing speech. The types and patterns of errors made on the backward digit span in quiet and multitalker babble at -5 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) were analyzed. The errors were classified into two categories: item (if digits that were not presented in a list were repeated) and order (if correct digits were repeated but in an incorrect order). Fifty five children with normal hearing were included. All the children were aged between 7 years and 10 years. Repeated measures of analysis of variance (RM-ANOVA) revealed the main effects for error type and digit span length. In terms of listening condition interaction, it was found that the order errors occurred more frequently than item errors in the degraded listening condition compared to quiet. In addition, children had more difficulty recalling the correct order of intermediate items, supporting strong primacy and recency effects. Decline in children′s working memory performance was not primarily related to perceptual difficulties alone. The majority of errors was related to the maintenance of sequential order information, which suggests that reduced performance in competing speech may result from increased cognitive processing demands in noise.

Working Memory and Speech Recognition Performance in Noise: Implicationsfor Classroom Accommodations

Purpose: The aim of this study was to compare children’s performance on speech recognition and working memory tasks with two noise source configurations: back and side. Method: Children with normal hearing between the ages of 8-10 years of age participated in this study. Working memory and speech recognition in noise were administered in a counterbalanced manner across listening conditions. Results: Speech recognition performance in noise was significantly poorer when presented at 180 than from 90 degrees azimuth. There was no effect of noise source configuration on working memory performance. However, working memory performance in noise, regardless of position, were significantly poorer compared to quiet. No relationship was present between auditory working memory in noise and speech recognition in noise, when noise was presented at 90° azimuth. Conclusion: Children use perceptual cues and cognitive resources based on the difficulty of the task and audibility of the signal, Cognitive resources are largely called upon when listening conditions are more adverse and tasks become complex.

Benefits of voice gender and perceptual learning on the perception of masked speech processed through cochlear implant simulations.

Cochlear implant simulations were used to investigate the potential benefits of auditory perceptual training for cochlear implant users. Listeners with normal hearing attended to speech masked by a competing talker, processed through a simulation of an eight‐channel cochlear implant. The aim was to determine whether perceptual training would enable listeners to benefit from differences in voice gender between target and masker. Thirty adults with normal hearing were randomly assigned to one of three training groups: matched‐gender word recognition, mismatched‐gender word recognition, or gender recognition. Participants completed 2 h of training within a 1‐week period then returned 1 week later for a late‐post testing session. Training sessions consisted of ten blocks during which the SNR (−6, 0, 6 dB) was adapted based on performance. Significant speech intelligibility improvements were observed from pre‐ to post‐sessions for all three training groups, and these improvements were maintained at the late‐po...