Implicit learning and individual differences in speech recognition: an exploratory study.

Individual differences in speech recognition in challenging listening environments are pronounced. Studies suggest that implicit learning is one variable that may contribute to this variability. Here, we explored the unique contributions of three indices of implicit learning to individual differences in the recognition of challenging speech.

Are Current Data Sufficient to Infer that Hearing Aids Contribute to Postural Control and Balance in Older Adults? A Systematic Review.

Introduction: Balance and postural control are related to hearing and hearing loss, but whether they can be improved with hearing aid use in older adults is not clear. We systematically reviewed controlled studies in which balance and hearing were tested in experienced older hearing aid users to determine the potential effects of hearing aid use on balance.

Methods: The review was pre-registered in PROSPERO and performed in accordance with PRISMA.

Rapid but specific perceptual learning partially explains individual differences in the recognition of challenging speech.

Perceptual learning for speech, defined as long-lasting changes in speech recognition following exposure or practice occurs under many challenging listening conditions. However, this learning is also highly specific to the conditions in which it occurred, such that its function in adult speech recognition is not clear. We used a time-compressed speech task to assess learning following either brief exposure (rapid learning) or additional training (training-induced learning).

One Size Does Not Fit All: Examining the Effects of Working Memory Capacity on Spoken Word Recognition in Older Adults Using Eye Tracking.

Difficulties understanding speech form one of the most prevalent complaints among older adults. Successful speech perception depends on top-down linguistic and cognitive processes that interact with the bottom-up sensory processing of the incoming acoustic information. The relative roles of these processes in age-related difficulties in speech perception, especially when listening conditions are not ideal, are still unclear.

Speech Perception in Older Adults: An Interplay of Hearing, Cognition, and Learning?

Older adults with age-related hearing loss exhibit substantial individual differences in speech perception in adverse listening conditions. We propose that the ability to rapidly adapt to changes in the auditory environment (i.e.

Plastic changes in speech perception in older adults with hearing impairment following hearing aid use: a systematic review.

Objective: Whether hearing aid use in older adults modifies speech perception over time is not clear. To address this question, we systematically reviewed studies in which older first-time hearing aid users and controls were followed over time.

Design: The review was pre-registered in PROSPERO and performed in accordance with the statement on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA).

Rapid Perceptual Learning: A Potential Source of Individual Differences in Speech Perception Under Adverse Conditions?

Challenging listening situations (e.g., when speech is rapid or noisy) result in substantial individual differences in speech perception.

A role for incidental auditory learning in auditory-visual word learning among kindergarten children.

This study focused on the potential role of incidental, auditory perceptual learning in among children learning new words. To this end, we examined how irrelevant auditory similarities across words, that provide no cues regarding their visual or conceptual attributes, influence pseudo-word learning in a name/picture matching paradigm. Two types of irrelevant auditory similarities were used: shared sequences of vowels or consonants.

Buteyko Breathing Technique for Exertion-Induced Paradoxical Vocal Fold Motion (EI-PVFM).

Purpose: The primary purpose of the current study was to determine the usefulness of Buteyko breathing technique (BBT) in reducing dyspnea in patients with one form of Paradoxical Vocal Fold Motion (PVFM), exertion-induced PVFM (EI-PVFM), concomitant with hyperventilation. The secondary purpose was to determine whether BBT had an effect on physiological markers of hyperventilation, as speculated by BBT theory: respiratory tidal minute volume (RTMV), end-tidal carbon dioxide (ETCO), and resting heart rate (HR).

Methods: Using a within-subjects, repeated measures group design, 12 participants with EI-PVFM and hyperventilation underwent 12 weeks of BBT, following an initial no-treatment control condition.

Effects of stimulus repetition and training schedule on the perceptual learning of time-compressed speech and its transfer.

Perceptual learning can facilitate the recognition of hard-to-perceive (e.g., time-compressed or spectrally-degraded) speech.

Learning to decipher time-compressed speech: Robust acquisition with a slight difficulty in generalization among young adults with developmental dyslexia.

Learning to decipher acoustically distorted speech serves as a test case for the study of language-related skill acquisition in persons with developmental dyslexia (DD). Deciphering this type of input is rarely learned explicitly and does not yield conscious insights. Problems in implicit and procedural skill learning have been proposed as possible causes of DD.

Age, Hearing, and the Perceptual Learning of Rapid Speech.

The effects of aging and age-related hearing loss on the ability to learn degraded speech are not well understood. This study was designed to compare the perceptual learning of time-compressed speech and its generalization to natural-fast speech across young adults with normal hearing, older adults with normal hearing, and older adults with age-related hearing loss. Early learning (following brief exposure to time-compressed speech) and later learning (following further training) were compared across groups.

Listening under difficult conditions: An activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis.

The brain networks supporting speech identification and comprehension under difficult listening conditions are not well specified. The networks hypothesized to underlie effortful listening include regions responsible for executive control. We conducted meta-analyses of auditory neuroimaging studies to determine whether a common activation pattern of the frontal lobe supports effortful listening under different speech manipulations.

The perceptual learning of time-compressed speech: A comparison of training protocols with different levels of difficulty.

Speech perception can improve substantially with practice (perceptual learning) even in adults. Here we compared the effects of four training protocols that differed in whether and how task difficulty was changed during a training session, in terms of the gains attained and the ability to apply (transfer) these gains to previously un-encountered items (tokens) and to different talkers. Participants trained in judging the semantic plausibility of sentences presented as time-compressed speech and were tested on their ability to reproduce, in writing, the target sentences; trail-by-trial feedback was afforded in all training conditions.

The effects of exposure and training on the perception of time-compressed speech in native versus nonnative listeners.

The present study investigated the effects of language experience on the perceptual learning induced by either brief exposure to or more intensive training with time-compressed speech. Native (n = 30) and nonnative (n = 30) listeners were each divided to three groups with different experiences with time-compressed speech: A trained group who trained on the semantic verification of time-compressed sentences for three sessions, an exposure group briefly exposed to 20 time-compressed sentences, and a group of naive listeners. Recognition was assessed with three sets of time-compressed sentences intended to evaluate exposure-induced and training-induced learning as well as across-token and across-talker generalization.

Auditory Perceptual Learning in Adults with and without Age-Related Hearing Loss.

Introduction : Speech recognition in adverse listening conditions becomes more difficult as we age, particularly for individuals with age-related hearing loss (ARHL). Whether these difficulties can be eased with training remains debated, because it is not clear whether the outcomes are sufficiently general to be of use outside of the training context. The aim of the current study was to compare training-induced learning and generalization between normal-hearing older adults and those with ARHL.

Perceptual context and individual differences in the language proficiency of preschool children.

Although the contribution of perceptual processes to language skills during infancy is well recognized, the role of perception in linguistic processing beyond infancy is not well understood. In the experiments reported here, we asked whether manipulating the perceptual context in which stimuli are presented across trials influences how preschool children perform visual (shape-size identification; Experiment 1) and auditory (syllable identification; Experiment 2) tasks. Another goal was to determine whether the sensitivity to perceptual context can explain part of the variance in oral language skills in typically developing preschool children.

Phonological memory and word learning deficits in children with specific language impairment: A role for perceptual context?

Background: Sensitivity to perceptual context (anchoring) has been suggested to contribute to the development of both oral- and written-language skills, but studies of this idea in children have been rare.

Aims: To determine whether deficient anchoring contributes to the phonological memory and word learning deficits of children with specific language impairment (SLI).

Methods And Procedures: 84 preschool children with and without SLI participated in the study.

Hearing Aid-Induced Plasticity in the Auditory System of Older Adults: Evidence From Speech Perception.

Purpose: We tested whether using hearing aids can improve unaided performance in speech perception tasks in older adults with hearing impairment.

Method: Unaided performance was evaluated in dichotic listening and speech-in-noise tests in 47 older adults with hearing impairment; 36 participants in 3 study groups were tested before hearing aid fitting and after 4, 8, and 14 weeks of hearing-aid use. The remaining 11 participants served as a control group and were similarly evaluated but were not fitted with hearing aids.

The effects of stimulus variability on the perceptual learning of speech and non-speech stimuli.

Previous studies suggest fundamental differences between the perceptual learning of speech and non-speech stimuli. One major difference is in the way variability in the training set affects learning and its generalization to untrained stimuli: training-set variability appears to facilitate speech learning, while slowing or altogether extinguishing non-speech auditory learning. We asked whether the reason for this apparent difference is a consequence of the very different methodologies used in speech and non-speech studies.

The effects of training length on the perceptual learning of time-compressed speech and its generalization.

Brief exposure to time-compressed speech yields both learning and generalization. Whether such learning continues over the course of multi-session training and if so whether it is more or less specific than exposure-induced learning is not clear, because the outcomes of intensive practice with time-compressed speech have rarely been reported. The goal here was to determine whether prolonged training on time-compressed speech yields additional learning and generalization beyond that induced by brief exposure.

How difficult is difficult? Speech perception in noise in the elderly hearing impaired.

Background: Perception of speech in the presence of competing multitalker noise is difficult for most individuals with sensory hearing loss, and in particular, for the elderly hearing impaired. Elderly people frequently report that these difficulties are poorly compensated for by hearing aids, albeit the algorithms and technologies aiming to improve speech perception in noise. The aim of the current study was therefore to assess competing speech signals processing by measuring the amount of signal to noise ratio (SNR) loss experienced by elderly hearing impaired individuals and their performance in dichotic listening tests.

Rapid adaptation to time-compressed speech in young and older adults.

Background: The ability of human listeners to comprehend rapid speech improves quickly with experience, a process known as adaptation. Whether inefficient adaptation to rapid speech partially accounts for the marked difficulties of older listeners with rapid speech is not clear.

Methods: Two conditions of adaptation to time-compressed speech were used.