Spectro-temporal interactions in electric and acoustic processing and auditory pe

电声处理和听觉pe中的谱时相互作用

• 批准号: 8628829
• 负责人: Andrew J. Oxenham
• 金额: $ 31.61万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-03-01 至 2018-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8628829
• 关键词: Acoustics; Address; Afterimage; Algorithms; Auditory; Auditory Perception; Clinical; Cochlear Implants; Communication; Complex; Control Groups; Development; Economics; Environment; Exhibits; Frequencies; Goals; Hearing; Hearing Aids; Knowledge; Lead; Masks; Measures; Noise; Outcome; Output; Perception; Performance; Play; Process; Psychophysics; Relative (related person); Research; Resolution; Role; Scheme; Speech; Speech Perception; Techniques; Technology; Testing; Time; Vision; Work; base; color constancy; deafness; design; experience; hearing impairment; improved; neural prosthesis; novel; novel strategies; public health relevance; signal processing; social; sound; success; theories

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Despite tremendous progress in cochlear implant (CI) technology and performance over the past three decades, speech perception through a CI remains considerably poorer than in normal hearing (NH), particularly in noisy backgrounds. Similar difficulties are experienced by hearing-impaired (HI) listeners, even after hearing-aid fitting. The long-term goal of this research is to improve auditory and speech perception via CIs and hearing aids, through a greater understanding of the basic mechanisms that contribute to, and limit, the perception of speech in challenging acoustic environments. The first aim studies auditory enhancement and context effects - similar to the negative afterimage and color constancy effects in vision. These effects may help "normalize" the incoming sound and produce perceptual invariance in the face of the widely varying acoustics produced by different rooms, different talkers, and different acoustic backgrounds. Little is known about these effects in either HI or CI listeners. If enhancement and context effects can be measured in CI users, the results will provide evidence against recent theories based on efferent control of cochlear gain. If HI and/or CI listeners do not exhibit enhancement effects, then our results will guide novel signal processing schemes that will "recreate" important aspects of perceptual normalization through signal processing. The second aim tests the hypothesis that spectral resolution helps segregate sounds with different spectral content, and that the usual measures of speech perception in spectrally matched noise underestimate the importance of spectral resolution in many real-world situations, where masking sounds are not usually matched to target sounds. We will then investigate the interaction between spectral resolution and time-dependent spectral gain changes based on the findings from Aim 1. The results should lead to the development of new clinical measures of speech perception that provide information regarding static and dynamic aspects of spectral resolution, and predict performance in everyday listening conditions. These measures will be used to guide and validate the new signal processing schemes developed under Aim 1. In the second part, we will test the hypothesis that the temporal envelope fluctuations inherent in "steady" noise play an important role in limiting speech perception of CI listeners. We will measure speech perception in noise and compare it to speech perception in broadband maskers that produce no amplitude fluctuations. A parametric study of the effect of different temporal amplitude modulation frequency bands on speech perception, in the absence of spurious inherent noise fluctuations will provide estimates in CI users of the relative contributions of different amplitude frequencies to speech masking. Overall, the proposed work will further our fundamental knowledge about dynamic aspects of spectral and temporal processing in normal, impaired, and electric hearing, and will lead to new approaches in signal processing that hold the promise of improving speech perception for hearing- impaired and CI listeners in complex and varying acoustic backgrounds.

描述（由申请人提供）：尽管过去三十年人工耳蜗 (CI) 技术和性能取得了巨大进步，但通过 CI 的语音感知仍然比正常听力 (NH) 差得多，特别是在嘈杂的背景下。即使在验配助听器后，听力受损 (HI) 的听众也会遇到类似的困难。这项研究的长期目标是通过深入了解在具有挑战性的声学环境中促进和限制语音感知的基本机制，通过 CI 和助听器改善听觉和语音感知。第一个目标是研究听觉增强和情境效应——类似于视觉中的负残像和颜色恒常效应。这些效果可能有助于“规范化”传入的声音，并在面对不同房间、不同说话者和不同声学背景产生的广泛变化的声学效果时产生感知不变性。对于 HI 或 CI 听众的这些影响知之甚少。如果可以在 CI 用户中测量增强和情境效应，那么结果将为基于耳蜗增益传出控制的最新理论提供证据。如果 HI 和/或 CI 听众没有表现出增强效果，那么我们的结果将指导新颖的信号处理方案，该方案将通过信号处理“重建”感知标准化的重要方面。第二个目标测试这样的假设：频谱分辨率有助于分离具有不同频谱内容的声音，并且频谱匹配噪声中的语音感知的常用测量方法低估了频谱分辨率在许多现实情况下的重要性，在这些情况下，掩蔽声音通常与目标声音。然后，我们将根据目标 1 的发现，研究光谱分辨率和随时间变化的光谱增益变化之间的相互作用。结果应导致开发新的语音感知临床测量方法，提供有关光谱分辨率的静态和动态方面的信息，并预测日常聆听条件下的表现。这些措施将用于指导和验证目标 1 下开发的新信号处理方案。在第二部分中，我们将测试“稳定”噪声固有的时间包络波动在限制 CI 语音感知方面发挥重要作用的假设。听众。我们将测量噪声中的语音感知，并将其与不产生幅度波动的宽带掩蔽器中的语音感知进行比较。在没有杂散固有噪声波动的情况下，不同时间幅度调制频带对语音感知的影响的参数研究将为 CI 用户提供不同幅度频率对语音掩蔽的相对贡献的估计。总体而言，拟议的工作将进一步加深我们对正常听力、受损听力和电听力频谱和时间处理动态方面的基础知识，并将带来信号处理的新方法，有望改善听力受损和 CI 的语音感知。听众处于复杂且变化的声学背景中。