Auditory Neural Processing and Cognitive Predictors of Speech In Noise Understanding

Authors: Ilsa Kloiber, Mishaela DiNino

SUNY Campus: SUNY Buffalo

Presentation Type: Poster

Location: Old Union Hall

Presentation #: 17

Timeslot: Session D 3:00-4:00 PM

Abstract: Understanding speech in background noise requires precise neural coding of auditory signals. It has thus been thought that young adults with difficulty perceiving speech in background noise have impaired neural processing, but evidence in previous studies has been mixed. This study delved deeper into a potential relationship by using a test of speech-in-noise perception particularly sensitive to neural processing. Sixteen young adults with normal hearing attended to a sentence spoken by a target talker and ignored a simultaneously presented sentence spoken by a competing talker. Both talkers were canonically male but differed in voice pitch. Participants heard the word “and” spoken by the target talker at the beginning of each trial, cueing them to which voice pitch they should attend. However, sentences were filtered to remove sounds encoded by the cochlea, so only neurally encoded sounds remained. Participants indicated what the target talker said on each trial, representing their ability to use pitch coded by the auditory nerve to differentiate between the two talkers. Each participant also underwent recording of auditory brainstem responses to assess subcortical processing of sound and completed NIH Cognitive Toolbox tasks to assess executive function/attention and memory. Statistical analysis compared those measures to speech perception task performance. Surprisingly, cognitive factors were a much stronger predictor of speech perception scores. Executive function and attention best predicted speech perception task performance.