Hierarchical Encoding of Attended Auditory Objects in Multi-talker Speech Perception.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: O'Sullivan J
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8082956 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:This work examines the computational architecture used by the brain during the analysis of the spectral envelope of sounds, an important acoustic feature for defining auditory objects. Dynamic causal modelling and Bayesian model selection were used to evaluate a family of 16 network models explaining functional magnetic resonance imaging responses in the right temporal lobe during spectral envelope analysis. The models encode different hypotheses about the effective connectivity between Heschl's Gyrus (HG), containing the primary auditory cortex, planum temporale (PT), and superior temporal sulcus (STS), and the modulation of that coupling during spectral envelope analysis. In particular, we aimed to determine whether information processing during spectral envelope analysis takes place in a serial or parallel fashion. The analysis provides strong support for a serial architecture with connections from HG to PT and from PT to STS and an increase of the HG to PT connection during spectral envelope analysis. The work supports a computational model of auditory object processing, based on the abstraction of spectro-temporal "templates" in the PT before further analysis of the abstracted form in anterior temporal lobe areas.
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Project description:Speech processing is slower and less accurate when listeners encounter speech from multiple talkers compared to one continuous talker. However, interference from multiple talkers has been investigated only using immediate speech recognition or long-term memory recognition tasks. These tasks reveal opposite effects of speech processing time on speech recognition - while fast processing of multi-talker speech impedes immediate recognition, it also results in more abstract and less talker-specific long-term memories for speech. Here, we investigated whether and how processing multi-talker speech disrupts working memory maintenance, an intermediate stage between perceptual recognition and long-term memory. In a digit sequence recall task, listeners encoded seven-digit sequences and recalled them after a 5-s delay. Sequences were spoken by either a single talker or multiple talkers at one of three presentation rates (0-, 200-, and 500-ms inter-digit intervals). Listeners' recall was slower and less accurate for sequences spoken by multiple talkers than a single talker. Especially for the fastest presentation rate, listeners were less efficient when recalling sequences spoken by multiple talkers. Our results reveal that talker-specificity effects for speech working memory are most prominent when listeners must rapidly encode speech. These results suggest that, like immediate speech recognition, working memory for speech is susceptible to interference from variability across talkers. While many studies ascribe effects of talker variability to the need to calibrate perception to talker-specific acoustics, these results are also consistent with the idea that a sudden change of talkers disrupts attentional focus, interfering with efficient working-memory processing.
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Project description:Perceptual recalibration allows listeners to adapt to talker-specific pronunciations, such as atypical realizations of specific sounds. Such recalibration can facilitate robust speech recognition. However, indiscriminate recalibration following any atypically pronounced words also risks interpreting pronunciations as characteristic of a talker that are in reality because of incidental, short-lived factors (such as a speech error). We investigate whether the mechanisms underlying perceptual recalibration involve inferences about the causes for unexpected pronunciations. In 5 experiments, we ask whether perceptual recalibration is blocked if the atypical pronunciations of an unfamiliar talker can also be attributed to other incidental causes. We investigated 3 type of incidental causes for atypical pronunciations: the talker is intoxicated, the talker speaks unusually fast, or the atypical pronunciations occur only in the context of tongue twisters. In all 5 experiments, we find robust evidence for perceptual recalibration, but little evidence that the presence of incidental causes block perceptual recalibration. We discuss these results in light of other recent findings that incidental causes can block perceptual recalibration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
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Project description:In social settings, speech waveforms from nearby speakers mix together in our ear canals. Normally, the brain unmixes the attended speech stream from the chorus of background speakers using a combination of fast temporal processing and cognitive active listening mechanisms. Of >100,000 patient records,~10% of adults visited our clinic because of reduced hearing, only to learn that their hearing was clinically normal and should not cause communication difficulties. We found that multi-talker speech intelligibility thresholds varied widely in normal hearing adults, but could be predicted from neural phase-locking to frequency modulation (FM) cues measured with ear canal EEG recordings. Combining neural temporal fine structure processing, pupil-indexed listening effort, and behavioral FM thresholds accounted for 78% of the variability in multi-talker speech intelligibility. The disordered bottom-up and top-down markers of poor multi-talker speech perception identified here could inform the design of next-generation clinical tests for hidden hearing disorders.
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