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Ear and HearingThe Children's English and Spanish Speech Recognition (ChEgSS) test is a computer-based tool for assessing closed-set word recognition in English and in Spanish, with a...
OBJECTIVES
The Children's English and Spanish Speech Recognition (ChEgSS) test is a computer-based tool for assessing closed-set word recognition in English and in Spanish, with a masker that is either speech-shaped noise or competing speech. The present study was conducted to (1) characterize the psychometric properties of the ChEgSS test, (2) evaluate feasibility and reliability for a large cohort of Spanish/English bilingual children with normal hearing, and (3) establish normative data.
DESIGN
Three experiments were conducted to evaluate speech perception in children (4-17 years) and adults (19-40 years) with normal hearing using the ChEgSS test. In Experiment 1, data were collected from Spanish/English bilingual and English monolingual adults at multiple, fixed signal-to-noise ratios. Psychometric functions were fitted to the word-level data to characterize variability across target words in each language and in each masker condition. In Experiment 2, Spanish/English bilingual adults were tested using an adaptive tracking procedure to evaluate the influence of different target-word normalization approaches on the reliability of estimates of masked-speech recognition thresholds corresponding to 70.7% correct word recognition and to determine the optimal number of reversals needed to obtain reliable estimates. In Experiment 3, Spanish/English bilingual and English monolingual children completed speech perception testing using the ChEgSS test to (1) characterize feasibility across age and language group, (2) evaluate test-retest reliability, and (3) establish normative data.
RESULTS
Experiments 1 and 2 yielded data that are essential for stimulus normalization, optimizing threshold estimation procedures, and interpreting threshold data across test language and masker type. Findings obtained from Spanish/English bilingual and English monolingual children with normal hearing in Experiment 3 support feasibility and demonstrate reliability for use with children as young as 4 years of age. Equivalent results for testing in English and Spanish were observed for Spanish/English bilingual children, contingent on adequate proficiency in the target language. Regression-based threshold norms were established for Spanish/English bilingual and English monolingual children between 4 and 17 years of age.
CONCLUSIONS
The present findings indicate the ChEgSS test is appropriate for testing a wide age range of children with normal hearing in either Spanish, English, or both languages. The ChEgSS test is currently being evaluated in a large cohort of patients with hearing loss at pediatric audiology clinics across the United States. Results will be compared with normative data established in the present study and with established clinical measures used to evaluate English- and Spanish-speaking children. Questionnaire data from parents and clinician feedback will be used to further improve test procedures.
Topics: Humans; Child; Multilingualism; Adolescent; Feasibility Studies; Psychometrics; Child, Preschool; Male; Female; Adult; Young Adult; Reproducibility of Results; Speech Perception; Reference Values; Speech Reception Threshold Test; Perceptual Masking; Language
PubMed: 38334698
DOI: 10.1097/AUD.0000000000001480 -
International Archives of... Jan 2024The voice and hearing can be affected to different degrees by aging, which can cause communication difficulties for elderly people. Vocal production requires...
The voice and hearing can be affected to different degrees by aging, which can cause communication difficulties for elderly people. Vocal production requires effective temporal auditory processing at central levels within the nervous system, which can be compromised by the aging process. To analyze the correlation between voice and temporal auditory processing in older adults. A total of 40 elderly people aged 60 years or older were subdivided into 2 groups according to the presence or absence of vocal symptoms measured by the Voice Symptom Scale. All of the participants were submitted to auditory temporal tests, vocal self-assessment, and acoustic and perceptual auditory analyses of voice. Most of the subjects assessed had decreased voice intensity and normal variability in terms of vocal quality. The performance was normal in the Pitch Pattern Sequence test and altered in the Random Gap Detection test. In the Masking Period Pattern test, the detection thresholds for the target signal were increased in the presence of masking in different temporal target signal positions. Only pitch differed between the two groups. There were differences between the genders regarding frequency, shimmer, the overall severity of the alteration, and roughness. There was a correlation regarding temporal resolution ability and the overall severity of the alteration and roughness of the voice. There is a central auditory impairment in temporal resolution which is correlated with vocal alterations in the elderly.
PubMed: 38322429
DOI: 10.1055/s-0043-1768139 -
Translational Vision Science &... Jan 2024Perceptual learning (PL) has shown promising performance in restoring visual function in adolescent amblyopes. We retrospectively compared the effect of a well-accepted...
PURPOSE
Perceptual learning (PL) has shown promising performance in restoring visual function in adolescent amblyopes. We retrospectively compared the effect of a well-accepted PL paradigm on patients with anisometropic amblyopia with or without a patching therapy history (patching therapy [PT] group versus no patching therapy [NPT] group).
METHODS
Eighteen PT and 13 NPT patients with anisometropic amblyopia underwent monocular PL for 3 months. During training, patients practiced a Gabor detection task following the lateral masking paradigm by applying a temporal two-alternative forced choice procedure with the amblyopic eye. Monocular contrast sensitivity functions (CSF), visual acuity, interocular differences in visual function metrics, and stereoacuity were compared before and after training.
RESULTS
PL improved the visual acuity of the amblyopia eyes by 0.5 lines on average in the PT group and 1.5 lines in the NPT group. A significant reduction in the interocular difference in visual acuity was observed in the NPT group (P < 0.01) but not in the PT group (P = 0.05). Regarding CSF metrics, the area under the log CSF and cutoff in the amblyopic eyes of the NPT groups increased after training (P < 0.05). In addition, the interocular differences of the CSF metrics (P < 0.05) in the NPT group were significantly reduced. However, in the PT group, all the CSF metrics were unchanged after training. A total of 27 of 31 patients in both groups had no measurable stereopsis pretraining, and recovery after training was not significant.
CONCLUSIONS
PL based on a lateral masking training paradigm improved visual function in anisometropic amblyopia. Patients without a patching history achieved greater benefits.
TRANSLATIONAL RELEVANCE
PL based on a lateral masking training paradigm could be a new treatment for amblyopia.
Topics: Adolescent; Humans; Amblyopia; Retrospective Studies; Eye; Visual Acuity
PubMed: 38236190
DOI: 10.1167/tvst.13.1.16 -
Biology Letters Jan 2024Many vertebrates eavesdrop on alarm calls of other species, as well as responding to their own species' calls, but eavesdropping on heterospecific alarm calls might be...
Many vertebrates eavesdrop on alarm calls of other species, as well as responding to their own species' calls, but eavesdropping on heterospecific alarm calls might be harder than conspecific reception when environmental conditions make perception or recognition of calls difficult. This could occur because individuals lack hearing specializations for heterospecific calls, have less familiarity with them, or require more details of call structure to identify calls they have learned to recognize. We used a field playback experiment to provide a direct test of whether noise, as an environmental perceptual challenge, reduces response to heterospecific compared to conspecific alarm calls. We broadcast superb fairy-wren () and white-browed scrubwren () flee alarm calls to each species with or without simultaneous broadcast of ambient noise. Using two species allows isolation of the challenge of heterospecific eavesdropping independently of any effect of call structure on acoustic masking. As predicted, birds were less likely to flee to heterospecific than conspecific alarm calls during noise. We conclude that eavesdropping was harder in noise, which means that noise could disrupt information on danger in natural eavesdropping webs and so compromise survival. This is particularly significant in a world with increasing anthropogenic noise.
Topics: Humans; Animals; Vocalization, Animal; Noise; Songbirds; Passeriformes; Learning
PubMed: 38228188
DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2023.0410 -
Frontiers in Neuroscience 2023Many previous studies have reported that speech segregation performance in multi-talker environments can be enhanced by two major acoustic cues: (1) voice-characteristic...
Many previous studies have reported that speech segregation performance in multi-talker environments can be enhanced by two major acoustic cues: (1) voice-characteristic differences between talkers; (2) spatial separation between talkers. Here, the improvement they can provide for speech segregation is referred to as "release from masking." The goal of this study was to investigate how masking release performance with two cues is affected by various target presentation levels. Sixteen normal-hearing listeners participated in the speech recognition in noise experiment. Speech-on-speech masking performance was measured as the threshold target-to-masker ratio needed to understand a target talker in the presence of either same- or different-gender masker talkers to manipulate the voice-gender difference cue. These target-masker gender combinations were tested with five spatial configurations (maskers co-located or 15°, 30°, 45°, and 60° symmetrically spatially separated from the target) to manipulate the spatial separation cue. In addition, those conditions were repeated at three target presentation levels (30, 40, and 50 dB sensation levels). Results revealed that the amount of masking release by either voice-gender difference or spatial separation cues was significantly affected by the target level, especially at the small target-masker spatial separation (±15°). Further, the results showed that the intersection points between two masking release types (equal perceptual weighting) could be varied by the target levels. These findings suggest that the perceptual weighting of masking release from two cues is non-linearly related to the target levels. The target presentation level could be one major factor associated with masking release performance in normal-hearing listeners.
PubMed: 38192513
DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2023.1282764 -
Journal of Child Language May 2024Young children today are exposed to masks on a regular basis. However, there is limited empirical evidence on how masks may affect word learning. The study explored the...
Young children today are exposed to masks on a regular basis. However, there is limited empirical evidence on how masks may affect word learning. The study explored the effect of masks on infants' abilities to fast-map and generalize new words. Seventy-two Chinese infants (43 males, = 18.26 months) were taught two novel word-object pairs by a speaker with or without a mask. They then heard the words and had to visually identify the correct objects and also generalize words to a different speaker and objects from the same category. Eye-tracking results indicate that infants looked longer at the target regardless of whether a speaker wore a mask. They also looked longer at the speaker's eyes than at the mouth only when words were taught through a mask. Thus, fast-mapping and generalization occur in both masked and not masked conditions as infants can flexibly access different visual cues during word-learning.
Topics: Humans; Infant; Male; Female; Masks; Language Development; Verbal Learning; Eye-Tracking Technology; Perceptual Masking; Generalization, Psychological
PubMed: 38189211
DOI: 10.1017/S0305000923000697 -
European Archives of... Mar 2024Previous studies have shown that levels for 50% speech intelligibility in quiet and in noise differ for different languages. Here, we aimed to find out whether these...
PURPOSE
Previous studies have shown that levels for 50% speech intelligibility in quiet and in noise differ for different languages. Here, we aimed to find out whether these differences may relate to different auditory processing of temporal sound features in different languages, and to determine the influence of tinnitus on speech comprehension in different languages.
METHODS
We measured speech intelligibility under various conditions (words in quiet, sentences in babble noise, interrupted sentences) along with tone detection thresholds in quiet [PTA] and in noise [PTA], gap detection thresholds [GDT], and detection thresholds for frequency modulation [FMT], and compared them between Czech and Swiss subjects matched in mean age and PTA.
RESULTS
The Swiss subjects exhibited higher speech reception thresholds in quiet, higher threshold speech-to-noise ratio, and shallower slope of performance-intensity function for the words in quiet. Importantly, the intelligibility of temporally gated speech was similar in the Czech and Swiss subjects. The PTA, GDT, and FMT were similar in the two groups. The Czech subjects exhibited correlations of the speech tests with GDT and FMT, which was not the case in the Swiss group. Qualitatively, the results of comparisons between the Swiss and Czech populations were not influenced by presence of subjective tinnitus.
CONCLUSION
The results support the notion of language-specific differences in speech comprehension which persists also in tinnitus subjects, and indicates different associations with the elementary measures of auditory temporal processing.
Topics: Humans; Tinnitus; Speech Intelligibility; Time Perception; Czech Republic; Switzerland; Auditory Threshold; Speech Perception; Perceptual Masking; Auditory Perception; Language
PubMed: 38175264
DOI: 10.1007/s00405-023-08398-8 -
Journal of Behavior Therapy and... Jun 2024Research that used counterconditioning (CC) to reduce women's negative body image has led to mixed results. One explanation could be that the negative responses elicited... (Randomized Controlled Trial)
Randomized Controlled Trial
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Research that used counterconditioning (CC) to reduce women's negative body image has led to mixed results. One explanation could be that the negative responses elicited by own body pictures hinder the effectiveness of CC procedures in adjusting overly negative attitudes towards the own body. In this study we therefore tried to prevent the impact of negative responses by limiting women's perceptual awareness of the own body pictures during the CC procedure.
METHODS
Women with a negative body image were randomly assigned to an experimental (n = 75) or control (n = 71) condition. In the experimental condition, participants' masked body pictures were systematically followed by visible social approval cues (i.e., smiling faces), whereas neutral body-unrelated control pictures were followed by a blank screen. In the control condition, both own body and control pictures were followed by a blank screen.
RESULTS
Participants in the experimental condition did not report a more positive evaluation of the own body (pictures) after CC than participants in the control condition. Also, the strength of automatic affective body evaluations as indexed by a single-target Implicit Association Test did not differ between conditions.
LIMITATIONS
Many participants did not remain fully unaware of their body pictures during conditioning.
CONCLUSIONS
The findings provided no support for the idea that CC with masked own body pictures can be used in women with body dissatisfaction to improve their body image.
Topics: Humans; Female; Body Image; Body Dissatisfaction; Implosive Therapy; Cues; Smiling
PubMed: 38113806
DOI: 10.1016/j.jbtep.2023.101938 -
The Journal of the Acoustical Society... Dec 2023Computational models are used to predict the performance of human listeners for carefully specified signal and noise conditions. However, there may be substantial...
Computational models are used to predict the performance of human listeners for carefully specified signal and noise conditions. However, there may be substantial discrepancies between the conditions under which listeners are tested and those used for model predictions. Thus, models may predict better performance than exhibited by the listeners, or they may "fail" to capture the ability of the listener to respond to subtle stimulus conditions. This study tested a computational model devised to predict a listener's ability to detect an aircraft in various soundscapes. The model and listeners processed the same sound recordings under carefully specified testing conditions. Details of signal and masker calibration were carefully matched, and the model was tested using the same adaptive tracking paradigm. Perhaps most importantly, the behavioral results were not available to the modeler before the model predictions were presented. Recordings from three different aircraft were used as the target signals. Maskers were derived from recordings obtained at nine locations ranging from very quiet rural environments to suburban and urban settings. Overall, with a few exceptions, model predictions matched the performance of the listeners very well. Discussion focuses on those differences and possible reasons for their occurrence.
Topics: Humans; Auditory Threshold; Perceptual Masking; Noise; Aircraft; Computer Simulation; Speech Perception
PubMed: 38109404
DOI: 10.1121/10.0023933 -
Scientific Reports Nov 2023Previous research has shown that neural activity in the primary visual cortex (V1) and V1 surface area may be linked with subjective experience of size illusions. Here,...
Previous research has shown that neural activity in the primary visual cortex (V1) and V1 surface area may be linked with subjective experience of size illusions. Here, we behaviorally measured the hallway illusion with experimental manipulations as a proxy of V1's influence on size perception. We first tested whether the hallway illusion can persist without further recurrent processing by using backward masking. Next, we examined relations among the hallway illusion magnitude and other perceptual measures that have been suggested to be correlated with V1 surface area. In Experiment 1, the magnitude of the hallway illusion was not affected by the stimulus duration and visual masking when the hallway context was previewed (i.e., complex depth information is already processed). It suggests that V1 activity could support the size illusion to some extent even when recurrent processing between V1 and higher areas is disturbed. In Experiment 2, the hallway illusion magnitude was correlated with the Vernier acuity threshold, but not with physical size discriminability. Our results provide converging evidence with the previous findings in that neural activity in V1 may contribute to size illusions and that V1 surface area is not the sole factor that mediates size perception and visual precision.
Topics: Humans; Illusions; Visual Cortex; Primary Visual Cortex; Photic Stimulation; Size Perception; Visual Perception
PubMed: 38036762
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-48632-1