Research Question: Do age and working memory capacity affect performance on a naturalistic test of speech perception in noise?

1. Effects of age and working memory capacity on understanding speech in conversational noise
Julie Beadle, Christopher Davis, Jeesun Kim
The MARCS Institute, Western Sydney University
Background
• Adults 40+ with good audiograms report
difficulties understanding speech in
background noise5.
• Differences in Working Memory Capacity
(WMC) are associated with the ability to
understand speech in noise (SiN) among
listeners with hearing impairment. However,
with normal hearing listeners, the relationship
is unclear3.
• SiN tests used to evaluate the relationship
between WMC and SiN understanding do not
reflect real life communication, thus, previous
research may have underestimated the effect
of WMC1.
General Procedure
• Individuals with normal hearing (i.e., pure-tone thresholds of 25 dB HL or better at
octave frequencies from 0.25 to 4 kHz in both ears and at 6 kHz in at least one ear) are
assigned to 1 of 6 groups based on their age and WMC4.
creating sound value www.hearingcrc.org
Research Question
Do age and working memory capacity affect performance on a
naturalistic test of speech perception in noise?
Experiments
The same general procedure will be used to
evaluate:
a) If age and working memory capacity affect
performance on a naturalistic SiN test
a) If WMC is more important for performance on a
naturalistic SiN test compared to a traditional
SiN test
b) If access to visual speech changes how WMC
and age effect performance on a naturalistic
SiN test
References
1. Best, V., Keidser, G., Freeston, K., & Buchholz, J. M. (2016). A Dynamic
Speech Comprehension Test for Assessing Real-World Listening Ability.
Journal of the American Academy of Audiology, 27(7), 515-526.
2. Best, V., Roverud, E., Streeter, T., Mason, C. M., Kidd, Jr. G., (2016.
August). Evaluation of a visually guided hearing aid using a dynamic
question/answer task. Poster presented at the International Hearing Aid
Research Conference, Tahoe City, California.
3. Füllgrabe, C., & Rosen, S. (2016). On the (un) importance of working
memory in speech-in-noise processing for listeners with normal hearing
thresholds. Frontiers in Psychology, 7.
4. Gordon-Salant, S., & Cole, S. S. (2016). Effects of Age and Working
Memory Capacity on Speech Recognition Performance in Noise Among
Listeners With Normal Hearing. Ear and hearing.
5. Moore, D. R., Edmondson-Jones, M., Dawes, P., Fortnum, H.,
McCormack, A., Pierzycki, R. H., & Munro, K. J. (2014). Relation between
speech-in-noise threshold, hearing loss and cognition from 40–69 years of
age. PloS one, 9(9), e107720.
Research supported by the HEARing CRC and the MARCS Institute for
Brain, Behaviour and Development.
WMC
(i.e., LSPAN score)
Age Young (18-25) Old (60+)Middle-Aged (40-55)
Low (1-4) High (5-8) High (5-8) High (5-8)Low (1-4) Low (1-4)
Question/Answer Task
Procedure:
• Listeners are presented with a question-
answer pair; answers are correct or incorrect.
• Listeners must verbally indicate if the answer
is correct or not.
Signal:
• Questions and answers are dynamically
presented at +15° and -15° azimuth (i.e., If a
question comes from +15° then the answer
comes from -15° and vice versa).
• Q and A voice gender varies across trials.
• Presented at 65dB SPL.
Noise:
Conversational Babble
• Conversations from 3 male-female talker
pairs.
• Both sides of each conversation (i.e., male
and female) presented simultaneously
from 6 loudspeakers located to the side
and behind the listener (C1,C2,C3; see
example trial).
• Silence within conversations will be
removed to ensure consistent SNRs.
Example Trial
Which is bigger,
an elephant or a
mouse?
I think a mouse is
the correct option.
Q A
The answer is
correct.
C1
C1
C3 C3
C2
C2
Category Question Correct Answer* Incorrect Answer*
Days What day comes after Monday? Tuesday Friday
Months What month comes before
April?
March October
Colours What colour is the sky? Blue Green
Opposites What is the opposite of up? Down Inside
Sizes Which is bigger, an elephant or
a mouse?
Elephant Mouse
Numbers What is two plus two? Four Three
Question/Answer Examples
* Answers will be presented as part of a natural response (see example trial).
Useful features of this task:
• Requires speech
understanding, not verbatim
recall
• Realistic variations in talker
voice and location
• Eyes free response format
facilitates the addition of
visual speech
Traditional SiN Tests Real Life
Communication in Noise
Listen to a syllable, word,
or sentence presented in
noise
Report verbatim what was
heard
Often only auditory stimuli
Listen to one person or
multiple people speak in
noise
Extract meaning from
speech and produce a
valid, verbal response
Auditory and visual stimuli
Are traditional SiN tests as cognitively
demanding as trying to understand
speech in noise in real life?
Impact
• Results will inform the development of new
assessment and remediation techniques for
clinical practice that better capture the role of
cognition in speech understanding.
j.beadle@westernsydney.edu.au
• All participants complete a dynamic Question/Answer task2.
Noise level
adjusted to
compare 3
SNRs: -6, -8,
& -10 dB.