Winn MB, Teece KH. Effortful Listening Despite Correct Responses: The Cost of Mental Repair in Sentence Recognition by Listeners With Cochlear Implants.
JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2022;
65:3966-3980. [PMID:
36112516 PMCID:
PMC9927629 DOI:
10.1044/2022_jslhr-21-00631]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/28/2021] [Revised: 04/20/2022] [Accepted: 06/24/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE
Speech recognition percent correct scores fail to capture the effort of mentally repairing the perception of speech that was initially misheard. This study measured the effort of listening to stimuli specifically designed to elicit mental repair in adults who use cochlear implants (CIs).
METHOD
CI listeners heard and repeated sentences in which specific words were distorted or masked by noise but recovered based on later context: a signature of mental repair. Changes in pupil dilation were tracked as an index of effort and time-locked with specific landmarks during perception.
RESULTS
Effort significantly increases when a listener needs to repair a misperceived word, even if the verbal response is ultimately correct. Mental repair of words in a sentence was accompanied by greater prevalence of errors elsewhere in the same sentence, suggesting that effort spreads to consume resources across time. The cost of mental repair in CI listeners was essentially the same as that observed in listeners with normal hearing in previous work.
CONCLUSIONS
Listening effort as tracked by pupil dilation is better explained by the mental repair and reconstruction of words rather than the appearance of correct or incorrect perception. Linguistic coherence drives effort more heavily than the mere presence of mistakes, highlighting the importance of testing materials that do not constrain coherence by design.
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