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Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations
Published on: July 1, 2015
Individual differences in the processing of speech and nonspeech sounds by normal-hearing listeners
1Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA. aimee@psych.purdue.edu
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
|October 30, 2001
Summary
Individual differences in speech recognition are not fully explained by hearing ability alone. Auditory acuity for non-speech sounds does not strongly predict speech processing skills, suggesting current tests may be insufficient.
Area of Science:
- Auditory Neuroscience
- Psychoacoustics
- Speech Perception
Background:
- Speech recognition varies significantly among individuals, partly due to audibility but not solely predictable by audiograms.
- Individual differences in spectral or temporal resolving power are hypothesized to influence speech processing accuracy.
- Existing psychoacoustic measures of spectral-temporal acuity using non-speech stimuli show weak correlations with speech processing.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between spectral-temporal acuity measured with non-speech stimuli and speech recognition abilities.
- To replicate and extend previous findings on the dissociation between non-speech auditory skills and speech perception.
- To identify the underlying abilities contributing to individual differences in speech recognition.
Main Methods:
- Ninety-three normal-hearing college students participated in the study.
- Participants completed speech perception tasks (nonsense syllables, words, sentences in noise) and six spectral-temporal discrimination tasks with non-speech stimuli.
- Factor analysis was employed to analyze the distinct abilities underlying performance on speech and non-speech tasks.
Main Results:
- Factor analysis revealed distinct sets of abilities for speech processing tasks and non-speech spectral-temporal discrimination tasks.
- Performance on speech tasks was significantly correlated within the speech domain.
- Performance on non-speech tasks was significantly correlated within the non-speech domain.
Conclusions:
- Auditory spectral-temporal acuity for non-speech sounds appears largely independent of speech processing abilities.
- The findings suggest that either non-speech acuity is orthogonal to speech abilities, or current non-speech tasks/stimuli do not adequately capture the relevant auditory skills for speech recognition.
- Further research is needed to identify appropriate non-speech measures that correlate with speech recognition performance.
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