Dataset Information

Understanding environmental sounds in sentence context.

ABSTRACT: There is debate about how individuals use context to successfully predict and recognize words. One view argues that context supports neural predictions that make use of the speech motor system, whereas other views argue for a sensory or conceptual level of prediction. While environmental sounds can convey clear referential meaning, they are not linguistic signals, and are thus neither produced with the vocal tract nor typically encountered in sentence context. We compared the effect of spoken sentence context on recognition and comprehension of spoken words versus nonspeech, environmental sounds. In Experiment 1, sentence context decreased the amount of signal needed for recognition of spoken words and environmental sounds in similar fashion. In Experiment 2, listeners judged sentence meaning in both high and low contextually constraining sentence frames, when the final word was present or replaced with a matching environmental sound. Results showed that sentence constraint affected decision time similarly for speech and nonspeech, such that high constraint sentences (i.e., frame plus completion) were processed faster than low constraint sentences for speech and nonspeech. Linguistic context facilitates the recognition and understanding of nonspeech sounds in much the same way as for spoken words. This argues against a simple form of a speech-motor explanation of predictive coding in spoken language understanding, and suggests support for conceptual-level predictions.

SUBMITTER: Uddin S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6309373 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Understanding environmental sounds in sentence context.

Uddin Sophia S Heald Shannon L M SLM Van Hedger Stephen C SC Klos Serena S Nusbaum Howard C HC

Cognition 20171219

There is debate about how individuals use context to successfully predict and recognize words. One view argues that context supports neural predictions that make use of the speech motor system, whereas other views argue for a sensory or conceptual level of prediction. While environmental sounds can convey clear referential meaning, they are not linguistic signals, and are thus neither produced with the vocal tract nor typically encountered in sentence context. We compared the effect of spoken se ...[more]

PMID: 29272740

Similar Datasets

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.

Project description:Cognitive ageing is often associated with slower lexical processing, which might influence both language production and comprehension. Words are typically used in context, which can further influence word processing and potential age differences. However, it remains unclear how older adults are affected by context during reading. Older adults are reported to have in-tact semantic knowledge, which could potentially help them to process words predicted by semantic information in the preceding context. However, potential difficulties with semantic control might mean older adults have greater difficulty suppressing interfering information from mismatching contexts. In this study we examined the influence of contexts that either predicted a specific target word ("matched", e.g., "The man watched the lava erupt from the volcano") or predicted another word than the target ("mismatched", e.g., "The swimmer dived into the volcano") as compared to neutral contexts (e.g., "They went to see the volcano"). We also examined the potential role of task demands by asking participants to either just read the sentences for comprehension or to answer questions. Forty younger adults (18-35 years old) and forty older adults (65-80 years old) completed a self-paced reading task in which we measured reading times for the target words. Older adults showed slower reading times overall. Matched sentence contexts facilitated reading times in both age groups. Surprisingly, mismatched sentence contexts did not hinder reading times in either age group. Furthermore, reading times were not influenced by task demands. Together, this shows the importance of studying language in context. While interference from mismatching sentence contexts might have not been substantial enough to delay reading, reading was faster when processing expected words. This suggests older adults can indeed benefit from semantic knowledge to facilitate word processing during comprehension. This occurred even when no additional task was presented and people were purely reading for comprehension.

Dataset Information

Understanding environmental sounds in sentence context.

Publications

Understanding environmental sounds in sentence context.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets