Dataset Information

Auditory and cognitive effects of aging on perception of environmental sounds in natural auditory scenes.

ABSTRACT: Previously, Gygi and Shafiro (2011) found that when environmental sounds are semantically incongruent with the background scene (e.g., horse galloping in a restaurant), they can be identified more accurately by young normal-hearing listeners (YNH) than sounds congruent with the scene (e.g., horse galloping at a racetrack). This study investigated how age and high-frequency audibility affect this Incongruency Advantage (IA) effect.In Experiments 1a and 1b, elderly listeners ( N = 18 for 1a; N = 10 for 1b) with age-appropriate hearing (EAH) were tested on target sounds and auditory scenes in 5 sound-to-scene ratios (So/Sc) between -3 and -18 dB. Experiment 2 tested 11 YNH on the same sound-scene pairings lowpass-filtered at 4 kHz (YNH-4k).The EAH and YNH-4k groups exhibited an almost identical pattern of significant IA effects, but both were at approximately 3.9 dB higher So/Sc than the previously tested YNH listeners. However, the psychometric functions revealed a shallower slope for EAH listeners compared with YNH listeners for the congruent stimuli only, suggesting a greater difficulty for the EAH listeners in attending to sounds expected to occur in a scene.These findings indicate that semantic relationships between environmental sounds in soundscapes are mediated by both audibility and cognitive factors and suggest a method for dissociating these factors.

SUBMITTER: Gygi B

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3839956 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Auditory and cognitive effects of aging on perception of environmental sounds in natural auditory scenes.

Gygi Brian B Shafiro Valeriy V

Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR 20130807 5

<h4>Purpose</h4>Previously, Gygi and Shafiro (2011) found that when environmental sounds are semantically incongruent with the background scene (e.g., horse galloping in a restaurant), they can be identified more accurately by young normal-hearing listeners (YNH) than sounds congruent with the scene (e.g., horse galloping at a racetrack). This study investigated how age and high-frequency audibility affect this Incongruency Advantage (IA) effect.<h4>Method</h4>In Experiments 1a and 1b, elderly l ...[more]

PMID: 23926291

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Project description:Human listeners must identify and orient themselves to auditory objects and events in their environment. What acoustic features support a listener's ability to differentiate the great variety of natural sounds they might encounter? Studies of auditory object perception typically examine identification (and confusion) responses or dissimilarity ratings between pairs of objects and events. However, the majority of this prior work has been conducted within single categories of sound. This separation has precluded a broader understanding of the general acoustic attributes that govern auditory object and event perception within and across different behaviorally relevant sound classes. The present experiments take a broader approach by examining multiple categories of sound relative to one another. This approach bridges critical gaps in the literature and allows us to identify (and assess the relative importance of) features that are useful for distinguishing sounds within, between and across behaviorally relevant sound categories. To do this, we conducted behavioral sound identification (Experiment 1) and dissimilarity rating (Experiment 2) studies using a broad set of stimuli that leveraged the acoustic variability within and between different sound categories via a diverse set of 36 sound tokens (12 utterances from different speakers, 12 instrument timbres, and 12 everyday objects from a typical human environment). Multidimensional scaling solutions as well as analyses of item-pair-level responses as a function of different acoustic qualities were used to understand what acoustic features informed participants' responses. In addition to the spectral and temporal envelope qualities noted in previous work, listeners' dissimilarity ratings were associated with spectrotemporal variability and aperiodicity. Subsets of these features (along with fundamental frequency variability) were also useful for making specific within or between sound category judgments. Dissimilarity ratings largely paralleled sound identification performance, however the results of these tasks did not completely mirror one another. In addition, musical training was related to improved sound identification performance.

Project description:Objectives: Improved perception of environmental sounds (PES) is one of the primary benefits of cochlear implantation (CI). However, past research contains mixed findings on PES ability in contemporary CI users, which at times contrast with anecdotal clinical reports. The present review examined extant PES research to provide an evidence basis for clinical counseling, identify knowledge gaps, and suggest directions for future work in this area of CI outcome assessment. Methods: Six electronic databases were searched using medical subject headings (MeSH) and keywords broadly identified to reference CI and environmental sounds. Records published between 2000 and 2021 were screened by two independent reviewers in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) statement to identify studies that met the inclusion criteria. Data were subsequently extracted and evaluated according to synthesis without-meta-analysis (SWiM) guidelines. Results: Nineteen studies met the inclusion criteria. Most examined PES in post-lingually implanted adults, with one study focused on pre/perilingual adults. Environmental sound identification (ESI) in quiet using open- or closed-set response format was most commonly used in PES assessment, included in all selected studies. ESI accuracy in CI children (3 studies) and adults (16 studies), was highly variable but generally mediocre (means range: 31-87%). Only two studies evaluated ESI performance prospectively before and after CI, while most studies were cross-sectional. Overall, CI performance was consistently lower than that of normal-hearing peers. No significant differences in identification accuracy were reported between CI candidates and CI users. Environmental sound identification correlated in CI users with measures of speech perception, music and spectro-temporal processing. Conclusion: The findings of this systematic review indicate considerable limitations in the current knowledge of PES in contemporary CI users, especially in pre/perilingual late-implanted adults and children. Although no overall improvement in PES following implantation was found, large individual variability and existing methodological limitations in PES assessment may potentially obscure potential CI benefits for PES. Further research in this ecologically relevant area of assessment is needed to establish a stronger evidence basis, identify CI users with significant deficits, and improve CI users' safety and satisfaction through targeted PES rehabilitation.

Dataset Information

Auditory and cognitive effects of aging on perception of environmental sounds in natural auditory scenes.

Publications

Auditory and cognitive effects of aging on perception of environmental sounds in natural auditory scenes.

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