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

电声处理和听觉感知中的谱时相互作用

• 批准号: 9059210
• 负责人: Andrew J. Oxenham
• 金额: $ 5.4万
• 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 2016-02-29
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9059210
• 关键词: Acoustics; Address; Afterimage; Algorithms; Auditory; Auditory Perception; Clinical; Cochlear Implants; Communication; Complex; Control Groups; Development; Economics; Environment; Exhibits; Frequencies; Goals; Health; 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; signal processing; social; sound; success; temporal measurement; 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）：尽管人工耳蜗（CI）技术和性能取得了巨大进展，但在过去的三十年中，通过CI的语音感知仍然比正常听力（NH）差得多，尤其是在嘈杂的背景下。即使在听力援助之后，听力受损的听众也会遇到类似的困难。这项研究的长期目标是通过更了解有助于和限制在挑战性的声学环境中对语音的感知的基本机制，从而改善通过CI和助听器的听觉和语音感知。第一个目的研究听觉增强和上下文效应 - 类似于视觉中的负余形和颜色恒定效应。这些效果可能有助于“正常化”传入的声音，并在面对不同房间，不同的说话者和不同声学背景的广泛不同的声学上产生感知不变性。在HI或CI听众中，这些效果知之甚少。如果可以在CI用户中测量增强和上下文效应，则结果将根据对耳蜗增益的传出控制提供证据，以反对最近的理论。如果HI和/或CI听众没有表现出增强效应，那么我们的结果将指导新型的信号处理方案，这些方案将通过信号处理“重现”感知归一化的重要方面。第二个目的检验了以下假设：光谱分辨率有助于用不同的光谱含量隔离声音，并且在频谱匹配的噪声中通常的语音感知度量低估了在许多现实世界中光谱分辨率的重要性，在许多现实世界中，掩盖声音通常与目标声音不匹配。然后，我们将根据AIM 1的发现进行调查光谱分辨率和时间依赖的光谱增益变化之间的相互作用。结果应导致新的语音感知临床测量的发展，以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性能。这些措施将用于指导和验证AIM 1下开发的新信号处理方案。在第二部分中，我们将测试以下假设：“稳定”噪声中固有的时间包膜波动在限制CI听众的语音感知方面起着重要作用。我们将衡量噪声中的语音感知，并将其与不会产生振幅波动的宽带掩护者中的语音感知进行比较。对不同时间振幅调制频带对语音感知的影响的参数研究，在没有虚假的固有噪声波动的情况下，将为CI使用者提供估计的CI使用者，即不同振幅频率对语音掩盖的相对贡献的相对贡献。总体而言，拟议的工作将进一步我们对正常，受损和电气听力中光谱和时间处理动态方面的基本知识，并将导致信号处理的新方法，这些方法具有改善听力受损的语音感知和复杂和不同声学背景的CI听众的希望。