Predicting language under difficult conditions: Effects of cognitive load, noise, and hearing impairment

在困难条件下预测语言：认知负荷、噪音和听力障碍的影响

• 批准号: ES/X001148/1
• 负责人: Martin Pickering
• 金额: $ 87.93万
• 依托单位: University of Edinburgh
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FX001148%2F1
• 关键词: Predicting; language; under; difficult; conditions; Predicting; language; under; difficult; conditions

Understanding speech is extraordinarily complex, yet people can generally understand what somebody has said as soon as they hear it. They manage to do so, in part, because they predict what the speaker is going to say next. For example, if a speaker says "I would like to go outside to fly a...", then the listener may predict that the speaker's next word will likely be "kite". Listeners use these predictions to "get ahead of the game", making comprehension more rapid and efficient. But we do not know what happens when listeners are unable to make these predictions (because their efforts are elsewhere), such as when they have to concentrate hard to hear the utterance, when they are paying attention to another task, or when they have a hearing impairment. In fact, given that people with hearing impairment already receive degraded auditory information and have to apply extra effort to understand what is being said, they could particularly benefit from predictions to "stay on the front foot". In this project, we investigate the factors that disrupt prediction when listening to speech to better understand the how prediction works in listeners with and without hearing impairment. By identifying the types of difficulty that impair prediction, we can start to identify methods to help resolve these difficulties and improve speech understanding, both for people with normal hearing in challenging listening situations, and for older adults with hearing impairment. We use a well-established technique known as the visual-world paradigm, in which participants listen to sentences and view objects on a screen while their eye movements are recorded. In previous studies, people heard (for example) the sentence "I would like to wear..." while seeing pictures of a tie, a dress, a drill, and a hairdryer. They tended to look at pictures of wearable objects (i.e., the tie or dress) before the speaker actually named the object, and they did so very quickly. We call this associative prediction, because it is dependent on simple associations with the word "wear". However, our work has shown that people also take their knowledge of the speaker into account when predicting. For example, they tended to look at the picture of a tie (a stereotypically masculine object) when they heard a male speaker say "I would like to wear...", but the picture of a dress (a stereotypically feminine object) when it was said by a female speaker. We call this strategic prediction, because it requires the listener to additionally take the perspective of the speaker. These strategic predictions are particularly valuable because they more accurately estimate what the speaker is likely to say, but they are slow and effortful.Our goal is to investigate the factors that hinder both simple associative predictions, and more complex strategic predictions. In a series of experiments, participants perform the visual-world paradigm under conditions of hearing difficulty (by listening to sentences in background noise) and increased task difficulty (by completing a second task while listening). Some of our experiments use young participants with normal hearing (conducted at the University of Edinburgh). Other experiments use older participants with and without hearing impairment (conducted at Hearing Sciences - Scottish Section, part of the University of Nottingham located in Glasgow). The studies address the following questions: (1) How do adverse listening conditions and increased task difficulty affect the two types of prediction?; (2) Does difficulty affect people with and without hearing impairment in the same or different ways?; and (3) Are the effects of hearing loss comparable to perceptual difficulty, cognitive difficulty, or a combination of both?Answering these questions will allow us to identify methods for overcoming such difficulties to improve speech understanding, particularly for people who struggle because of hearing loss.

理解言语非常复杂，但是人们通常可以一听到某人的意见就可以理解。他们设法在某种程度上这样做是因为他们预测说话者接下来要说的话。例如，如果一位发言人说“我想出去飞行...”，那么听众可能会预测说话者的下一个单词可能是“风筝”。听众使用这些预测来“领先游戏”，从而使理解更加快速有效。但是我们不知道当听众无法做出这些预测时（因为他们的努力在其他地方），例如当他们不得不努力地听到话语，当他们注意另一个任务或遇到听力障碍时。实际上，鉴于有听力障碍的人已经收到了降级的听觉信息，并且必须采取额外的努力来了解所说的话，因此他们可以从“停留在前脚”的预测中受益。在这个项目中，我们调查了聆听语音时破坏预测的因素，以更好地了解预测在听众和没有听力障碍的情况下的工作方式。通过确定损害预测的困难类型，我们可以开始识别有助于解决这些困难并改善语音理解的方法，包括在挑战性聆听情况下正常听力的人，以及对于有听力障碍的老年人。我们使用一种公认的技术，称为“视觉世界”范式，参与者在记录眼睛动作时会在屏幕上聆听句子和查看对象。在先前的研究中，人们（例如）在看到领带，连衣裙，演习和吹风机的照片时听到了“我想穿的……”句子。他们倾向于在扬声器实际命名对象之前查看可穿戴物体（即领带或连衣裙）的图片，并且它们做得非常快。我们称这个关联预测，因为它取决于与“磨损”一词的简单关联。但是，我们的工作表明，人们在预测时也考虑了对说话者的了解。例如，当他们听到一位男发言人说“我想穿的……”时，他们倾向于看一下领带的图片（刻板印象的男性对象），但是当女性演讲者说，这是一件衣服（刻板印象女性的物体）的照片。我们称这一战略性预测，因为它要求听众额外采取演讲者的观点。这些战略预测特别有价值，因为它们更准确地估计说话者可能说的话，但是它们却缓慢而努力。我们的目标是调查阻碍简单的关联预测和更复杂的战略预测的因素。在一系列实验中，参与者在听力难度条件下（通过听背景噪声中的句子）和增加任务难度（通过在聆听时完成第二个任务），执行视觉世界范式。我们的一些实验将年轻参与者进行正常听力（在爱丁堡大学进行）。其他实验使用有或没有听力障碍的老年参与者（在听力科学 - 苏格兰分区，位于格拉斯哥的诺丁汉大学的一部分）。研究解决了以下问题：（1）不利的听力条件和增加任务难度如何影响两种类型的预测？ （2）难度是否会以相同或不同的方式影响和没有听力障碍的人？ （3）听力损失与感知难度，认知困难或两者结合的影响是否相当？回答这些问题将使我们能够确定克服这种困难来改善语音理解的方法，特别是对于因听力损失而挣扎的人而言。