Noise-vocoded speech is a valuable research tool for testing experimental hypotheses about the ef... more Noise-vocoded speech is a valuable research tool for testing experimental hypotheses about the effects of spectral degradation on speech recognition in adults with normal hearing (NH). However, very little research has utilized noise-vocoded speech with children with NH. Earlier studies with children with NH focused primarily on the amount of spectral information needed for speech recognition without assessing the contribution of neurocognitive processes to speech perception and spoken word recognition. In this study, we first replicated the seminal findings reported by Eisenberg et al. (2002) who investigated effects of lexical density and word frequency on noise-vocoded speech perception in a small group of children with NH. We then extended the research to investigate relations between noise-vocoded speech recognition abilities and five neurocognitive measures: auditory attention (AA) and response set, talker discrimination, and verbal and nonverbal short-term working memory. Thi...
Journal of the American Academy of Audiology, 2015
Background: There is a pressing clinical need for the development of ecologically valid and robus... more Background: There is a pressing clinical need for the development of ecologically valid and robust assessment measures of speech recognition. Perceptually Robust English Sentence Test Open-set (PRESTO) is a new high-variability sentence recognition test that is sensitive to individual differences and was designed for use with several different clinical populations. PRESTO differs from other sentence recognition tests because the target sentences differ in talker, gender, and regional dialect. Increasing interest in using PRESTO as a clinical test of spoken word recognition dictates the need to establish equivalence across test lists. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to establish list equivalency of PRESTO for clinical use. Research Design: PRESTO sentence lists were presented to three groups of normal-hearing listeners in noise (multitalker babble [MTB] at 0 dB signal-to-noise ratio) or under eight-channel cochlear implant simulation (CI-Sim). Study Sample: Ninety-one young na...
Many post-lingually deafened cochlear implant (CI) users report that they no longer enjoy listeni... more Many post-lingually deafened cochlear implant (CI) users report that they no longer enjoy listening to music, which could possibly contribute to a perceived reduction in quality of life. One aspect of music perception, vocal timbre perception, may be difficult for CI users because they may not be able to use the same timbral cues available to normal hearing listeners. Vocal tract resonance frequencies have been shown to provide perceptual cues to voice categories such as baritone, tenor, mezzo-soprano, and soprano, while changes in glottal source spectral slope are believed to be related to perception of vocal quality dimensions such as fluty vs. brassy. As a first step toward understanding vocal timbre perception in CI users, we employed an 8-channel noise-band vocoder to test how vocoding can alter the timbral perception of female synthetic sung vowels across pitches. Non-vocoded and vocoded stimuli were synthesized with vibrato using 3 excitation source spectral slopes and 3 voca...
Many post-lingually deafened cochlear implant (CI) users report that they no longer enjoy listeni... more Many post-lingually deafened cochlear implant (CI) users report that they no longer enjoy listening to music, which could possibly contribute to a perceived reduction in quality of life. One aspect of music perception, vocal timbre perception, may be difficult for CI users because they may not be able to use the same timbral cues available to normal hearing listeners. Vocal tract resonance frequencies have been shown to provide perceptual cues to voice categories such as baritone, tenor, mezzo-soprano, and soprano, while changes in glottal source spectral slope are believed to be related to perception of vocal quality dimensions such as fluty vs. brassy. As a first step toward understanding vocal timbre perception in CI users, we employed an 8-channel noise-band vocoder to test how vocoding can alter the timbral perception of female synthetic sung vowels across pitches. Non-vocoded and vocoded stimuli were synthesized with vibrato using 3 excitation source spectral slopes and 3 vocal tract transfer functions (mezzo-soprano, intermediate, soprano) at the pitches C4, B4, and F5. Six multi-dimensional scaling experiments were conducted: C4 not vocoded, C4 vocoded, B4 not vocoded, B4 vocoded, F5 not vocoded, and F5 vocoded. At the pitch C4, for both non-vocoded and vocoded conditions, dimension 1 grouped stimuli according to voice category and was most strongly predicted by spectral centroid from 0 to 2 kHz. While dimension 2 grouped stimuli according to excitation source spectral slope, it was organized slightly differently and predicted by different acoustic parameters in the non-vocoded and vocoded conditions. For pitches B4 and F5 spectral centroid from 0 to 2 kHz most strongly predicted dimension 1. However, while dimension 1 separated all 3 voice categories in the vocoded condition, dimension 1 only separated the soprano stimuli from the intermediate and mezzo-soprano stimuli in the non-vocoded condition. While it is unclear how these results predict timbre perception in CI listeners, in general, these results suggest that perhaps some aspects of vocal timbre may remain.
Objectives: Noise-vocoded speech is a valuable research tool for testing experimental hypotheses ... more Objectives: Noise-vocoded speech is a valuable research tool for testing experimental hypotheses about the effects of spectral degradation on speech recognition in adults with normal hearing (NH). However, very little research has utilized noise-vocoded speech with children with NH. Earlier studies with children with NH focused primarily on the amount of spectral information needed for speech recognition without assessing the contribution of neurocognitive processes to speech perception and spoken word recognition. In this study, we first replicated the seminal findings reported by Eisenberg et al. (2002) who investigated effects of lexical density and word frequency on noise-vocoded speech perception in a small group of children with NH. We then extended the research to investigate relations between noise-vocoded speech recognition abilities and five neurocognitive measures: auditory attention (AA) and response set, talker discrimination, and verbal and nonverbal short-term working memory.
Design: Thirty-one children with NH between 5 and 13 years of age were assessed on their ability to perceive lexically controlled words in isolation and in sentences that were noise-vocoded to four spectral channels. Children were also administered vocabulary assessments (Peabody Picture Vocabulary test-4th Edition and Expressive Vocabulary test-2nd Edition) and measures of AA (NEPSY AA and response set and a talker discrimination task) and short-term memory (visual digit and symbol spans).
Results: Consistent with the findings reported in the original Eisenberg et al. (2002) study, we found that children perceived noise-vocoded lexically easy words better than lexically hard words. Words in sentences were also recognized better than the same words presented in isolation. No significant correlations were observed between noise-vocoded speech recognition scores and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary test-4th Edition using language quotients to control for age effects. However, children who scored higher on the Expressive Vocabulary test-2nd Edition recognized lexically easy words better than lexically hard words in sentences. Older children perceived noise-vocoded speech better than younger children. Finally, we found that measures of AA and short-term memory capacity were significantly correlated with a child's ability to perceive noise-vocoded isolated words and sentences.
Conclusions: First, we successfully replicated the major findings from the Eisenberg et al. (2002) study. Because familiarity, phonological distinctiveness and lexical competition affect word recognition, these findings provide additional support for the proposal that several foundational elementary neurocognitive processes underlie the perception of spectrally degraded speech. Second, we found strong and significant correlations between performance on neurocognitive measures and children's ability to recognize words and sentences noise-vocoded to four spectral channels. These findings extend earlier research suggesting that perception of spectrally degraded speech reflects early peripheral auditory processes, as well as additional contributions of executive function, specifically, selective attention and short-term memory processes in spoken word recognition. The present findings suggest that AA and short-term memory support robust spoken word recognition in children with NH even under compromised and challenging listening conditions. These results are relevant to research carried out with listeners who have hearing loss, because they are routinely required to encode, process, and understand spectrally degraded acoustic signals.
Background: There is a pressing clinical need for the development of ecologically valid and robus... more Background: There is a pressing clinical need for the development of ecologically valid and robust assessment measures of speech recognition. Perceptually Robust English Sentence Test Open-set (PRESTO) is a new high-variability sentence recognition test that is sensitive to individual differences and was designed for use with several different clinical populations. PRESTO differs from other sentence recognition tests because the target sentences differ in talker, gender, and regional dialect. Increasing interest in using PRESTO as a clinical test of spoken word recognition dictates the need to establish equivalence across test lists.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to establish list equivalency of PRESTO for clinical use.
Research Design: PRESTO sentence lists were presented to three groups of normal-hearing listeners in noise (multitalker babble [MTB] at 0 dB signal-to-noise ratio) or under eight-channel cochlear implant simulation (CI-Sim).
Study Sample: Ninety-one young native speakers of English who were undergraduate students from the Indiana University community participated in this study.
Data Collection and Analysis: Participants completed a sentence recognition task using different PRESTO sentence lists. They listened to sentences presented over headphones and typed in the words they heard on a computer. Keyword scoring was completed offline. Equivalency for sentence lists was determined based on the list intelligibility (mean keyword accuracy for each list compared with all other lists) and listener consistency (the relation between mean keyword accuracy on each list for each listener).
Results: Based on measures of list equivalency and listener consistency, ten PRESTO lists were found to be equivalent in the MTB condition, nine lists were equivalent in the CI-Sim condition, and six PRESTO lists were equivalent in both conditions.
Conclusions: PRESTO is a valuable addition to the clinical toolbox for assessing sentence recognition across different populations. Because the test condition influenced the overall intelligibility of lists, researchers and clinicians should take the presentation conditions into consideration when selecting the best PRESTO lists for their research or clinical protocols.
Noise-vocoded speech is a valuable research tool for testing experimental hypotheses about the ef... more Noise-vocoded speech is a valuable research tool for testing experimental hypotheses about the effects of spectral degradation on speech recognition in adults with normal hearing (NH). However, very little research has utilized noise-vocoded speech with children with NH. Earlier studies with children with NH focused primarily on the amount of spectral information needed for speech recognition without assessing the contribution of neurocognitive processes to speech perception and spoken word recognition. In this study, we first replicated the seminal findings reported by Eisenberg et al. (2002) who investigated effects of lexical density and word frequency on noise-vocoded speech perception in a small group of children with NH. We then extended the research to investigate relations between noise-vocoded speech recognition abilities and five neurocognitive measures: auditory attention (AA) and response set, talker discrimination, and verbal and nonverbal short-term working memory. Thi...
Journal of the American Academy of Audiology, 2015
Background: There is a pressing clinical need for the development of ecologically valid and robus... more Background: There is a pressing clinical need for the development of ecologically valid and robust assessment measures of speech recognition. Perceptually Robust English Sentence Test Open-set (PRESTO) is a new high-variability sentence recognition test that is sensitive to individual differences and was designed for use with several different clinical populations. PRESTO differs from other sentence recognition tests because the target sentences differ in talker, gender, and regional dialect. Increasing interest in using PRESTO as a clinical test of spoken word recognition dictates the need to establish equivalence across test lists. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to establish list equivalency of PRESTO for clinical use. Research Design: PRESTO sentence lists were presented to three groups of normal-hearing listeners in noise (multitalker babble [MTB] at 0 dB signal-to-noise ratio) or under eight-channel cochlear implant simulation (CI-Sim). Study Sample: Ninety-one young na...
Many post-lingually deafened cochlear implant (CI) users report that they no longer enjoy listeni... more Many post-lingually deafened cochlear implant (CI) users report that they no longer enjoy listening to music, which could possibly contribute to a perceived reduction in quality of life. One aspect of music perception, vocal timbre perception, may be difficult for CI users because they may not be able to use the same timbral cues available to normal hearing listeners. Vocal tract resonance frequencies have been shown to provide perceptual cues to voice categories such as baritone, tenor, mezzo-soprano, and soprano, while changes in glottal source spectral slope are believed to be related to perception of vocal quality dimensions such as fluty vs. brassy. As a first step toward understanding vocal timbre perception in CI users, we employed an 8-channel noise-band vocoder to test how vocoding can alter the timbral perception of female synthetic sung vowels across pitches. Non-vocoded and vocoded stimuli were synthesized with vibrato using 3 excitation source spectral slopes and 3 voca...
Many post-lingually deafened cochlear implant (CI) users report that they no longer enjoy listeni... more Many post-lingually deafened cochlear implant (CI) users report that they no longer enjoy listening to music, which could possibly contribute to a perceived reduction in quality of life. One aspect of music perception, vocal timbre perception, may be difficult for CI users because they may not be able to use the same timbral cues available to normal hearing listeners. Vocal tract resonance frequencies have been shown to provide perceptual cues to voice categories such as baritone, tenor, mezzo-soprano, and soprano, while changes in glottal source spectral slope are believed to be related to perception of vocal quality dimensions such as fluty vs. brassy. As a first step toward understanding vocal timbre perception in CI users, we employed an 8-channel noise-band vocoder to test how vocoding can alter the timbral perception of female synthetic sung vowels across pitches. Non-vocoded and vocoded stimuli were synthesized with vibrato using 3 excitation source spectral slopes and 3 vocal tract transfer functions (mezzo-soprano, intermediate, soprano) at the pitches C4, B4, and F5. Six multi-dimensional scaling experiments were conducted: C4 not vocoded, C4 vocoded, B4 not vocoded, B4 vocoded, F5 not vocoded, and F5 vocoded. At the pitch C4, for both non-vocoded and vocoded conditions, dimension 1 grouped stimuli according to voice category and was most strongly predicted by spectral centroid from 0 to 2 kHz. While dimension 2 grouped stimuli according to excitation source spectral slope, it was organized slightly differently and predicted by different acoustic parameters in the non-vocoded and vocoded conditions. For pitches B4 and F5 spectral centroid from 0 to 2 kHz most strongly predicted dimension 1. However, while dimension 1 separated all 3 voice categories in the vocoded condition, dimension 1 only separated the soprano stimuli from the intermediate and mezzo-soprano stimuli in the non-vocoded condition. While it is unclear how these results predict timbre perception in CI listeners, in general, these results suggest that perhaps some aspects of vocal timbre may remain.
Objectives: Noise-vocoded speech is a valuable research tool for testing experimental hypotheses ... more Objectives: Noise-vocoded speech is a valuable research tool for testing experimental hypotheses about the effects of spectral degradation on speech recognition in adults with normal hearing (NH). However, very little research has utilized noise-vocoded speech with children with NH. Earlier studies with children with NH focused primarily on the amount of spectral information needed for speech recognition without assessing the contribution of neurocognitive processes to speech perception and spoken word recognition. In this study, we first replicated the seminal findings reported by Eisenberg et al. (2002) who investigated effects of lexical density and word frequency on noise-vocoded speech perception in a small group of children with NH. We then extended the research to investigate relations between noise-vocoded speech recognition abilities and five neurocognitive measures: auditory attention (AA) and response set, talker discrimination, and verbal and nonverbal short-term working memory.
Design: Thirty-one children with NH between 5 and 13 years of age were assessed on their ability to perceive lexically controlled words in isolation and in sentences that were noise-vocoded to four spectral channels. Children were also administered vocabulary assessments (Peabody Picture Vocabulary test-4th Edition and Expressive Vocabulary test-2nd Edition) and measures of AA (NEPSY AA and response set and a talker discrimination task) and short-term memory (visual digit and symbol spans).
Results: Consistent with the findings reported in the original Eisenberg et al. (2002) study, we found that children perceived noise-vocoded lexically easy words better than lexically hard words. Words in sentences were also recognized better than the same words presented in isolation. No significant correlations were observed between noise-vocoded speech recognition scores and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary test-4th Edition using language quotients to control for age effects. However, children who scored higher on the Expressive Vocabulary test-2nd Edition recognized lexically easy words better than lexically hard words in sentences. Older children perceived noise-vocoded speech better than younger children. Finally, we found that measures of AA and short-term memory capacity were significantly correlated with a child's ability to perceive noise-vocoded isolated words and sentences.
Conclusions: First, we successfully replicated the major findings from the Eisenberg et al. (2002) study. Because familiarity, phonological distinctiveness and lexical competition affect word recognition, these findings provide additional support for the proposal that several foundational elementary neurocognitive processes underlie the perception of spectrally degraded speech. Second, we found strong and significant correlations between performance on neurocognitive measures and children's ability to recognize words and sentences noise-vocoded to four spectral channels. These findings extend earlier research suggesting that perception of spectrally degraded speech reflects early peripheral auditory processes, as well as additional contributions of executive function, specifically, selective attention and short-term memory processes in spoken word recognition. The present findings suggest that AA and short-term memory support robust spoken word recognition in children with NH even under compromised and challenging listening conditions. These results are relevant to research carried out with listeners who have hearing loss, because they are routinely required to encode, process, and understand spectrally degraded acoustic signals.
Background: There is a pressing clinical need for the development of ecologically valid and robus... more Background: There is a pressing clinical need for the development of ecologically valid and robust assessment measures of speech recognition. Perceptually Robust English Sentence Test Open-set (PRESTO) is a new high-variability sentence recognition test that is sensitive to individual differences and was designed for use with several different clinical populations. PRESTO differs from other sentence recognition tests because the target sentences differ in talker, gender, and regional dialect. Increasing interest in using PRESTO as a clinical test of spoken word recognition dictates the need to establish equivalence across test lists.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to establish list equivalency of PRESTO for clinical use.
Research Design: PRESTO sentence lists were presented to three groups of normal-hearing listeners in noise (multitalker babble [MTB] at 0 dB signal-to-noise ratio) or under eight-channel cochlear implant simulation (CI-Sim).
Study Sample: Ninety-one young native speakers of English who were undergraduate students from the Indiana University community participated in this study.
Data Collection and Analysis: Participants completed a sentence recognition task using different PRESTO sentence lists. They listened to sentences presented over headphones and typed in the words they heard on a computer. Keyword scoring was completed offline. Equivalency for sentence lists was determined based on the list intelligibility (mean keyword accuracy for each list compared with all other lists) and listener consistency (the relation between mean keyword accuracy on each list for each listener).
Results: Based on measures of list equivalency and listener consistency, ten PRESTO lists were found to be equivalent in the MTB condition, nine lists were equivalent in the CI-Sim condition, and six PRESTO lists were equivalent in both conditions.
Conclusions: PRESTO is a valuable addition to the clinical toolbox for assessing sentence recognition across different populations. Because the test condition influenced the overall intelligibility of lists, researchers and clinicians should take the presentation conditions into consideration when selecting the best PRESTO lists for their research or clinical protocols.
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Papers by Katie Faulkner
Design: Thirty-one children with NH between 5 and 13 years of age were assessed on their ability to perceive lexically controlled words in isolation and in sentences that were noise-vocoded to four spectral channels. Children were also administered vocabulary assessments (Peabody Picture Vocabulary test-4th Edition and Expressive Vocabulary test-2nd Edition) and measures of AA (NEPSY AA and response set and a talker discrimination task) and short-term memory (visual digit and symbol spans).
Results: Consistent with the findings reported in the original Eisenberg et al. (2002) study, we found that children perceived noise-vocoded lexically easy words better than lexically hard words. Words in sentences were also recognized better than the same words presented in isolation. No significant correlations were observed between noise-vocoded speech recognition scores and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary test-4th Edition using language quotients to control for age effects. However, children who scored higher on the Expressive Vocabulary test-2nd Edition recognized lexically easy words better than lexically hard words in sentences. Older children perceived noise-vocoded speech better than younger children. Finally, we found that measures of AA and short-term memory capacity were significantly correlated with a child's ability to perceive noise-vocoded isolated words and sentences.
Conclusions: First, we successfully replicated the major findings from the Eisenberg et al. (2002) study. Because familiarity, phonological distinctiveness and lexical competition affect word recognition, these findings provide additional support for the proposal that several foundational elementary neurocognitive processes underlie the perception of spectrally degraded speech. Second, we found strong and significant correlations between performance on neurocognitive measures and children's ability to recognize words and sentences noise-vocoded to four spectral channels. These findings extend earlier research suggesting that perception of spectrally degraded speech reflects early peripheral auditory processes, as well as additional contributions of executive function, specifically, selective attention and short-term memory processes in spoken word recognition. The present findings suggest that AA and short-term memory support robust spoken word recognition in children with NH even under compromised and challenging listening conditions. These results are relevant to research carried out with listeners who have hearing loss, because they are routinely required to encode, process, and understand spectrally degraded acoustic signals.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to establish list equivalency of PRESTO for clinical use.
Research Design: PRESTO sentence lists were presented to three groups of normal-hearing listeners in noise (multitalker babble [MTB] at 0 dB signal-to-noise ratio) or under eight-channel cochlear implant simulation (CI-Sim).
Study Sample: Ninety-one young native speakers of English who were undergraduate students from the Indiana University community participated in this study.
Data Collection and Analysis: Participants completed a sentence recognition task using different PRESTO sentence lists. They listened to sentences presented over headphones and typed in the words they heard on a computer. Keyword scoring was completed offline. Equivalency for sentence lists was determined based on the list intelligibility (mean keyword accuracy for each list compared with all other lists) and listener consistency (the relation between mean keyword accuracy on each list for each listener).
Results: Based on measures of list equivalency and listener consistency, ten PRESTO lists were found to be equivalent in the MTB condition, nine lists were equivalent in the CI-Sim condition, and six PRESTO lists were equivalent in both conditions.
Conclusions: PRESTO is a valuable addition to the clinical toolbox for assessing sentence recognition across different populations. Because the test condition influenced the overall intelligibility of lists, researchers and clinicians should take the presentation conditions into consideration when selecting the best PRESTO lists for their research or clinical protocols.
Design: Thirty-one children with NH between 5 and 13 years of age were assessed on their ability to perceive lexically controlled words in isolation and in sentences that were noise-vocoded to four spectral channels. Children were also administered vocabulary assessments (Peabody Picture Vocabulary test-4th Edition and Expressive Vocabulary test-2nd Edition) and measures of AA (NEPSY AA and response set and a talker discrimination task) and short-term memory (visual digit and symbol spans).
Results: Consistent with the findings reported in the original Eisenberg et al. (2002) study, we found that children perceived noise-vocoded lexically easy words better than lexically hard words. Words in sentences were also recognized better than the same words presented in isolation. No significant correlations were observed between noise-vocoded speech recognition scores and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary test-4th Edition using language quotients to control for age effects. However, children who scored higher on the Expressive Vocabulary test-2nd Edition recognized lexically easy words better than lexically hard words in sentences. Older children perceived noise-vocoded speech better than younger children. Finally, we found that measures of AA and short-term memory capacity were significantly correlated with a child's ability to perceive noise-vocoded isolated words and sentences.
Conclusions: First, we successfully replicated the major findings from the Eisenberg et al. (2002) study. Because familiarity, phonological distinctiveness and lexical competition affect word recognition, these findings provide additional support for the proposal that several foundational elementary neurocognitive processes underlie the perception of spectrally degraded speech. Second, we found strong and significant correlations between performance on neurocognitive measures and children's ability to recognize words and sentences noise-vocoded to four spectral channels. These findings extend earlier research suggesting that perception of spectrally degraded speech reflects early peripheral auditory processes, as well as additional contributions of executive function, specifically, selective attention and short-term memory processes in spoken word recognition. The present findings suggest that AA and short-term memory support robust spoken word recognition in children with NH even under compromised and challenging listening conditions. These results are relevant to research carried out with listeners who have hearing loss, because they are routinely required to encode, process, and understand spectrally degraded acoustic signals.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to establish list equivalency of PRESTO for clinical use.
Research Design: PRESTO sentence lists were presented to three groups of normal-hearing listeners in noise (multitalker babble [MTB] at 0 dB signal-to-noise ratio) or under eight-channel cochlear implant simulation (CI-Sim).
Study Sample: Ninety-one young native speakers of English who were undergraduate students from the Indiana University community participated in this study.
Data Collection and Analysis: Participants completed a sentence recognition task using different PRESTO sentence lists. They listened to sentences presented over headphones and typed in the words they heard on a computer. Keyword scoring was completed offline. Equivalency for sentence lists was determined based on the list intelligibility (mean keyword accuracy for each list compared with all other lists) and listener consistency (the relation between mean keyword accuracy on each list for each listener).
Results: Based on measures of list equivalency and listener consistency, ten PRESTO lists were found to be equivalent in the MTB condition, nine lists were equivalent in the CI-Sim condition, and six PRESTO lists were equivalent in both conditions.
Conclusions: PRESTO is a valuable addition to the clinical toolbox for assessing sentence recognition across different populations. Because the test condition influenced the overall intelligibility of lists, researchers and clinicians should take the presentation conditions into consideration when selecting the best PRESTO lists for their research or clinical protocols.