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Fu Y, Yan X, Mao J, Su H, Cao F. Abnormal brain activation during speech perception and production in children and adults with reading difficulty. NPJ SCIENCE OF LEARNING 2024; 9:53. [PMID: 39181867 PMCID: PMC11344838 DOI: 10.1038/s41539-024-00266-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/15/2023] [Accepted: 08/15/2024] [Indexed: 08/27/2024]
Abstract
Reading difficulty (RD) is associated with phonological deficits; however, it remains unknown whether the phonological deficits are different in children and adults with RD as reflected in foreign speech perception and production. In the current study, using functional Near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), we found less difference between Chinese adults and Chinese children in the RD groups than the control groups in the activation of the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during Spanish speech perception, suggesting slowed development in these regions associated with RD. Furthermore, using multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA), we found that activation patterns in the left middle temporal gyrus (MTG), premotor, supplementary motor area (SMA), and IFG could serve as reliable markers of RD. We provide both behavioral and neurological evidence for impaired speech perception and production in RD readers which can serve as markers of RD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yang Fu
- Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
- State Key Lab of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
| | - Xiaohui Yan
- Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
- State Key Lab of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
| | - Jiaqi Mao
- Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, BCBL, San Sebastian, Spain
| | - Haibin Su
- Department of Chemistry, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong, China
| | - Fan Cao
- Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
- State Key Lab of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
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Caprini F, Zhao S, Chait M, Agus T, Pomper U, Tierney A, Dick F. Generalization of auditory expertise in audio engineers and instrumental musicians. Cognition 2024; 244:105696. [PMID: 38160651 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105696] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/02/2021] [Revised: 12/04/2023] [Accepted: 12/13/2023] [Indexed: 01/03/2024]
Abstract
From auditory perception to general cognition, the ability to play a musical instrument has been associated with skills both related and unrelated to music. However, it is unclear if these effects are bound to the specific characteristics of musical instrument training, as little attention has been paid to other populations such as audio engineers and designers whose auditory expertise may match or surpass that of musicians in specific auditory tasks or more naturalistic acoustic scenarios. We explored this possibility by comparing students of audio engineering (n = 20) to matched conservatory-trained instrumentalists (n = 24) and to naive controls (n = 20) on measures of auditory discrimination, auditory scene analysis, and speech in noise perception. We found that audio engineers and performing musicians had generally lower psychophysical thresholds than controls, with pitch perception showing the largest effect size. Compared to controls, audio engineers could better memorise and recall auditory scenes composed of non-musical sounds, whereas instrumental musicians performed best in a sustained selective attention task with two competing streams of tones. Finally, in a diotic speech-in-babble task, musicians showed lower signal-to-noise-ratio thresholds than both controls and engineers; however, a follow-up online study did not replicate this musician advantage. We also observed differences in personality that might account for group-based self-selection biases. Overall, we showed that investigating a wider range of forms of auditory expertise can help us corroborate (or challenge) the specificity of the advantages previously associated with musical instrument training.
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Affiliation(s)
- Francesco Caprini
- Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, UK.
| | - Sijia Zhao
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK
| | - Maria Chait
- University College London (UCL) Ear Institute, UK
| | - Trevor Agus
- School of Arts, English and Languages, Queen's University Belfast, UK
| | - Ulrich Pomper
- Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology, Universität Wien, Austria
| | - Adam Tierney
- Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, UK
| | - Fred Dick
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London (UCL), UK
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Meyer L, Araiza-Illan G, Rachman L, Gaudrain E, Başkent D. Evaluating speech-in-speech perception via a humanoid robot. Front Neurosci 2024; 18:1293120. [PMID: 38406584 PMCID: PMC10884269 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2024.1293120] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/12/2023] [Accepted: 01/15/2024] [Indexed: 02/27/2024] Open
Abstract
Introduction Underlying mechanisms of speech perception masked by background speakers, a common daily listening condition, are often investigated using various and lengthy psychophysical tests. The presence of a social agent, such as an interactive humanoid NAO robot, may help maintain engagement and attention. However, such robots potentially have limited sound quality or processing speed. Methods As a first step toward the use of NAO in psychophysical testing of speech- in-speech perception, we compared normal-hearing young adults' performance when using the standard computer interface to that when using a NAO robot to introduce the test and present all corresponding stimuli. Target sentences were presented with colour and number keywords in the presence of competing masker speech at varying target-to-masker ratios. Sentences were produced by the same speaker, but voice differences between the target and masker were introduced using speech synthesis methods. To assess test performance, speech intelligibility and data collection duration were compared between the computer and NAO setups. Human-robot interaction was assessed using the Negative Attitude Toward Robot Scale (NARS) and quantification of behavioural cues (backchannels). Results Speech intelligibility results showed functional similarity between the computer and NAO setups. Data collection durations were longer when using NAO. NARS results showed participants had a relatively positive attitude toward "situations of interactions" with robots prior to the experiment, but otherwise showed neutral attitudes toward the "social influence" of and "emotions in interaction" with robots. The presence of more positive backchannels when using NAO suggest higher engagement with the robot in comparison to the computer. Discussion Overall, the study presents the potential of the NAO for presenting speech materials and collecting psychophysical measurements for speech-in-speech perception.
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Affiliation(s)
- Luke Meyer
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
- University Medical Center Groningen, W.J. Kolff Institute for Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
| | - Gloria Araiza-Illan
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
- University Medical Center Groningen, W.J. Kolff Institute for Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
| | - Laura Rachman
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
- University Medical Center Groningen, W.J. Kolff Institute for Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
- Pento Audiology Centre, Zwolle, Netherlands
| | - Etienne Gaudrain
- Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, CNRS UMR 5292, INSERM UMRS 1028, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Université de Lyon, Lyon, France
| | - Deniz Başkent
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
- University Medical Center Groningen, W.J. Kolff Institute for Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
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Breadmore HL, Halliday LF, Carroll JM. Variability in auditory processing performance is associated with reading difficulties rather than with history of otitis media. DYSLEXIA (CHICHESTER, ENGLAND) 2024; 30:e1760. [PMID: 38262626 DOI: 10.1002/dys.1760] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/23/2023] [Revised: 10/05/2023] [Accepted: 12/13/2023] [Indexed: 01/25/2024]
Abstract
The nature and cause of auditory processing deficits in dyslexic individuals have been debated for decades. Auditory processing deficits were argued to be the first step in a causal chain of difficulties, leading to difficulties in speech perception and thereby phonological processing and literacy difficulties. More recently, it has been argued that auditory processing difficulties may not be causally related to language and literacy difficulties. This study compares two groups who have phonological processing impairments for different reasons: dyslexia and a history of otitis media (OM). We compared their discrimination thresholds and response variability to chronological age- and reading age-matched controls, across three auditory processing tasks: frequency discrimination, rise-time discrimination and speech perception. Dyslexic children showed raised frequency discrimination thresholds in comparison with age-matched controls but did not differ from reading age-matched controls or individuals with a history of OM. There were no group differences on speech perception or rise-time tasks. For the dyslexic children, there was an association between phonological awareness and frequency discrimination response variability, but no association with thresholds. These findings are not consistent with a 'causal chain' explanation but could be accounted for within a multiple deficits view of literacy difficulties.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Lorna F Halliday
- Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, UK
| | - Julia M Carroll
- Centre for Global Learning, Coventry University, Coventry, UK
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Bianco R, Chait M. No Link Between Speech-in-Noise Perception and Auditory Sensory Memory - Evidence From a Large Cohort of Older and Younger Listeners. Trends Hear 2023; 27:23312165231190688. [PMID: 37828868 PMCID: PMC10576936 DOI: 10.1177/23312165231190688] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/12/2022] [Revised: 07/06/2023] [Accepted: 07/11/2023] [Indexed: 10/14/2023] Open
Abstract
A growing literature is demonstrating a link between working memory (WM) and speech-in-noise (SiN) perception. However, the nature of this correlation and which components of WM might underlie it, are being debated. We investigated how SiN reception links with auditory sensory memory (aSM) - the low-level processes that support the short-term maintenance of temporally unfolding sounds. A large sample of old (N = 199, 60-79 yo) and young (N = 149, 20-35 yo) participants was recruited online and performed a coordinate response measure-based speech-in-babble task that taps listeners' ability to track a speech target in background noise. We used two tasks to investigate implicit and explicit aSM. Both were based on tone patterns overlapping in processing time scales with speech (presentation rate of tones 20 Hz; of patterns 2 Hz). We hypothesised that a link between SiN and aSM may be particularly apparent in older listeners due to age-related reduction in both SiN reception and aSM. We confirmed impaired SiN reception in the older cohort and demonstrated reduced aSM performance in those listeners. However, SiN and aSM did not share variability. Across the two age groups, SiN performance was predicted by a binaural processing test and age. The results suggest that previously observed links between WM and SiN may relate to the executive components and other cognitive demands of the used tasks. This finding helps to constrain the search for the perceptual and cognitive factors that explain individual variability in SiN performance.
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Affiliation(s)
- Roberta Bianco
- Ear Institute, University College London, London, UK
- Neuroscience of Perception and Action Lab, Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), Rome, Italy
| | - Maria Chait
- Ear Institute, University College London, London, UK
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Later but Not Weaker: Neural Categorization of Native Vowels of Children at Familial Risk of Dyslexia. Brain Sci 2022; 12:brainsci12030412. [PMID: 35326368 PMCID: PMC8946763 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci12030412] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/14/2022] [Revised: 03/11/2022] [Accepted: 03/11/2022] [Indexed: 02/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Although allophonic speech processing has been hypothesized to be a contributing factor in developmental dyslexia, experimental evidence is limited and inconsistent. The current study compared the categorization of native similar sounding vowels of typically developing (TD) children and children at familial risk (FR) of dyslexia. EEG response was collected in a non-attentive passive oddball paradigm from 35 TD and 35 FR Dutch 20-month-old infants who were matched on vocabulary. The children were presented with two nonwords “giep” [ɣip] and “gip” [ɣIp] that contrasted solely with respect to the vowel. In the multiple-speaker condition, both nonwords were produced by twelve different speakers while in the single-speaker condition, single tokens of each word were used as stimuli. For both conditions and for both groups, infant positive mismatch response (p-MMR) was elicited, and the p-MMR amplitude was comparable between the two groups, although the FR children had a later p-MMR peak than the TD children in the multiple-speaker condition. These findings indicate that FR children are able to categorize speech sounds, but that they may do so in a more effortful way than TDs.
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Evans S, Rosen S. Who is Right? A Word-Identification-in-Noise Test for Young Children Using Minimal Pair Distracters. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2022; 65:159-168. [PMID: 34910569 DOI: 10.1044/2021_jslhr-20-00658] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE Many children have difficulties understanding speech. At present, there are few assessments that test for subtle impairments in speech perception with normative data from U.K. children. We present a new test that evaluates children's ability to identify target words in background noise by choosing between minimal pair alternatives that differ by a single articulatory phonetic feature. This task (a) is tailored to testing young children, but also readily applicable to adults; (b) has minimal memory demands; (c) adapts to the child's ability; and (d) does not require reading or verbal output. METHOD We tested 155 children and young adults aged from 5 to 25 years on this new test of single word perception. RESULTS Speech-in-noise abilities in this particular task develop rapidly through childhood until they reach maturity at around 9 years of age. CONCLUSIONS We make this test freely available and provide associated normative data. We hope that it will be useful to researchers and clinicians in the assessment of speech perception abilities in children who are hard of hearing or have developmental language disorder, dyslexia, or auditory processing disorder. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.17155934.
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Affiliation(s)
- Samuel Evans
- Department of Psychology, University of Westminster, London, United Kingdom
| | - Stuart Rosen
- Department of Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences, University College London, United Kingdom
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Coughler C, Hamel EM, Cardy JO, Archibald LMD, Purcell DW. Compensation to Altered Auditory Feedback in Children With Developmental Language Disorder and Typical Development. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2021; 64:2363-2376. [PMID: 33769836 DOI: 10.1044/2020_jslhr-20-00374] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
Purpose Developmental language disorder (DLD), an unexplained problem using and understanding spoken language, has been hypothesized to have an underlying auditory processing component. Auditory feedback plays a key role in speech motor control. The current study examined whether auditory feedback is used to regulate speech production in a similar way by children with DLD and their typically developing (TD) peers. Method Participants aged 6-11 years completed tasks measuring hearing, language, first formant (F1) discrimination thresholds, partial vowel space, and responses to altered auditory feedback with F1 perturbation. Results Children with DLD tended to compensate more than TD children for the positive F1 manipulation and compensated less than TD children in the negative shift condition. Conclusion Our findings suggest that children with DLD make atypical use of auditory feedback.
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Affiliation(s)
- Caitlin Coughler
- Graduate Program in Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada
| | - Emily Michaela Hamel
- Graduate Program in Neuroscience, The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada
- Doctor of Medicine Program, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
| | - Janis Oram Cardy
- School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada
- National Centre for Audiology, The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada
| | - Lisa M D Archibald
- School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada
| | - David W Purcell
- School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada
- National Centre for Audiology, The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada
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Van Hirtum T, Ghesquière P, Wouters J. A Bridge over Troubled Listening: Improving Speech-in-Noise Perception by Children with Dyslexia. J Assoc Res Otolaryngol 2021; 22:465-480. [PMID: 33861393 DOI: 10.1007/s10162-021-00793-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/08/2020] [Accepted: 02/26/2021] [Indexed: 10/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Developmental dyslexia is most commonly associated with phonological processing difficulties. However, children with dyslexia may experience poor speech-in-noise perception as well. Although there is an ongoing debate whether a speech perception deficit is inherent to dyslexia or acts as an aggravating risk factor compromising learning to read indirectly, improving speech perception might boost reading-related skills and reading acquisition. In the current study, we evaluated advanced speech technology as applied in auditory prostheses, to promote and eventually normalize speech perception of school-aged children with dyslexia, i.e., envelope enhancement (EE). The EE strategy automatically detects and emphasizes onset cues and consequently reinforces the temporal structure of the speech envelope. Our results confirmed speech-in-noise perception difficulties by children with dyslexia. However, we found that exaggerating temporal "landmarks" of the speech envelope (i.e., amplitude rise time and modulations)-by using EE-passively and instantaneously improved speech perception in noise for children with dyslexia. Moreover, the benefit derived from EE was large enough to completely bridge the initial gap between children with dyslexia and their typical reading peers. Taken together, the beneficial outcome of EE suggests an important contribution of the temporal structure of the envelope to speech perception in noise difficulties in dyslexia, providing an interesting foundation for future intervention studies based on auditory and speech rhythm training.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tilde Van Hirtum
- Department of Neurosciences, Research Group Experimental ORL, KU Leuven University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. .,Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Parenting and Special Education Research Unit, KU Leuven University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
| | - Pol Ghesquière
- Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Parenting and Special Education Research Unit, KU Leuven University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
| | - Jan Wouters
- Department of Neurosciences, Research Group Experimental ORL, KU Leuven University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
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de Klerk M, de Bree E, Veen D, Wijnen F. Speech discrimination in infants at family risk of dyslexia: Group and individual-based analyses. J Exp Child Psychol 2021; 206:105066. [PMID: 33571710 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2020.105066] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/07/2020] [Revised: 11/10/2020] [Accepted: 11/30/2020] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
Abstract
Deficiencies in discriminating and identifying speech sounds have been widely attested in individuals with dyslexia as well as in young children at family risk (FR) of dyslexia. A speech perception deficit has been hypothesized to be causally related to reading and spelling difficulties. So far, however, early speech perception of FR infants has not been assessed at different ages within a single experimental design. Furthermore, a combination of group- and individual-based analyses has not been made. In this cross-sectional study, vowel discrimination of 6-, 8-, and 10-month-old Dutch FR infants and their nonrisk (no-FR) peers was assessed. Infants (N = 196) were tested on a native English /aː/-/eː/ and non-native English /ɛ/-/æ/ contrast using a hybrid visual habituation paradigm. Frequentist analyses were used to interpret group differences. Bayesian hierarchical modeling was used to classify individuals as speech sound discriminators. FR and no-FR infants discriminated the native contrast at all ages. However, individual classification of the no-FR infants suggests improved discrimination with age, but not for the FR infants. No-FR infants discriminated the non-native contrast at 6 and 10 months, but not at 8 months. FR infants did not show evidence of discriminating the contrast at any of the ages, with 0% being classified as discriminators. The group- and individual-based data are complementary and together point toward speech perception differences between the groups. The findings also indicate that conducting individual analyses on hybrid visual habituation outcomes is possible. These outcomes form a fruitful avenue for gaining more understanding of development, group differences, and prospective relationships.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maartje de Klerk
- Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS, Utrecht University, 3512 JK Utrecht, the Netherlands.
| | - Elise de Bree
- Research Institute of Child Development and Education, University of Amsterdam, 1001 NG Amsterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Duco Veen
- Department of Methodology and Statistics, Utrecht University, 3584 CH Utrecht, the Netherlands
| | - Frank Wijnen
- Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS, Utrecht University, 3512 JK Utrecht, the Netherlands
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Bianco R, Mills G, de Kerangal M, Rosen S, Chait M. Reward Enhances Online Participants' Engagement With a Demanding Auditory Task. Trends Hear 2021; 25:23312165211025941. [PMID: 34170748 PMCID: PMC8246484 DOI: 10.1177/23312165211025941] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/10/2021] [Revised: 05/06/2021] [Accepted: 05/28/2021] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Online recruitment platforms are increasingly used for experimental research. Crowdsourcing is associated with numerous benefits but also notable constraints, including lack of control over participants' environment and engagement. In the context of auditory experiments, these limitations may be particularly detrimental to threshold-based tasks that require effortful listening. Here, we ask whether incorporating a performance-based monetary bonus improves speech reception performance of online participants. In two experiments, participants performed an adaptive matrix-type speech-in-noise task (where listeners select two key words out of closed sets). In Experiment 1, our results revealed worse performance in online (N = 49) compared with in-lab (N = 81) groups. Specifically, relative to the in-lab cohort, significantly fewer participants in the online group achieved very low thresholds. In Experiment 2 (N = 200), we show that a monetary reward improved listeners' thresholds to levels similar to those observed in the lab setting. Overall, the results suggest that providing a small performance-based bonus increases participants' task engagement, facilitating a more accurate estimation of auditory ability under challenging listening conditions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Roberta Bianco
- UCL Ear Institute, University College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Gordon Mills
- UCL Ear Institute, University College London, London, United Kingdom
- National Institute for Health Research UCL Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre, Deafness and Hearing Problems Theme, London, United Kingdom
| | | | - Stuart Rosen
- UCL Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences, University College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Maria Chait
- UCL Ear Institute, University College London, London, United Kingdom
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O'Brien GE, Gijbels L, Yeatman JD. Context effects on phoneme categorization in children with dyslexia. THE JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2020; 148:2209. [PMID: 33138541 PMCID: PMC7575329 DOI: 10.1121/10.0002181] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/09/2019] [Revised: 09/23/2020] [Accepted: 09/28/2020] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
Research shows that, on average, children with dyslexia behave less categorically in phoneme categorization tasks. This study investigates three subtle ways that struggling readers may perform differently than their typically developing peers in this experimental context: sensitivity to the frequency distribution from which speech tokens are drawn, bias induced by previous stimulus presentations, and fatigue during the course of the task. We replicate findings that reading skill is related to categorical labeling, but we do not find evidence that sensitivity to the stimulus frequency distribution, the influence of previous stimulus presentations, and a measure of task engagement differs in children with dyslexia. It is, therefore, unlikely that the reliable relationship between reading skill and categorical labeling is attributable to artifacts of the task design, abnormal neural encoding, or executive function. Rather, categorical labeling may index a general feature of linguistic development whose causal relationship to literacy remains to be ascertained.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gabrielle E O'Brien
- Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98105, USA
| | - Liesbeth Gijbels
- Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98105, USA
| | - Jason D Yeatman
- Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA
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de Kerangal M, Vickers D, Chait M. The effect of healthy aging on change detection and sensitivity to predictable structure in crowded acoustic scenes. Hear Res 2020; 399:108074. [PMID: 33041093 DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2020.108074] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/27/2020] [Revised: 08/01/2020] [Accepted: 09/01/2020] [Indexed: 01/25/2023]
Abstract
The auditory system plays a critical role in supporting our ability to detect abrupt changes in our surroundings. Here we study how this capacity is affected in the course of healthy ageing. Artifical acoustic 'scenes', populated by multiple concurrent streams of pure tones ('sources') were used to capture the challenges of listening in complex acoustic environments. Two scene conditions were included: REG scenes consisted of sources characterized by a regular temporal structure. Matched RAND scenes contained sources which were temporally random. Changes, manifested as the abrupt disappearance of one of the sources, were introduced to a subset of the trials and participants ('young' group N = 41, age 20-38 years; 'older' group N = 41, age 60-82 years) were instructed to monitor the scenes for these events. Previous work demonstrated that young listeners exhibit better change detection performance in REG scenes, reflecting sensitivity to temporal structure. Here we sought to determine: (1) Whether 'baseline' change detection ability (i.e. in RAND scenes) is affected by age. (2) Whether aging affects listeners' sensitivity to temporal regularity. (3) How change detection capacity relates to listeners' hearing and cognitive profile (a battery of tests that capture hearing and cognitive abilities hypothesized to be affected by aging). The results demonstrated that healthy aging is associated with reduced sensitivity to abrupt scene changes in RAND scenes but that performance does not correlate with age or standard audiological measures such as pure tone audiometry or speech in noise performance. Remarkably older listeners' change detection performance improved substantially (up to the level exhibited by young listeners) in REG relative to RAND scenes. This suggests that the ability to extract and track the regularity associated with scene sources, even in crowded acoustic environments, is relatively preserved in older listeners.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mathilde de Kerangal
- Ear Institute, University College London, 332 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1 X 8EE, UK
| | - Deborah Vickers
- Ear Institute, University College London, 332 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1 X 8EE, UK; Cambridge Hearing Group, Clinical Neurosciences Department, University of Cambridge, UK
| | - Maria Chait
- Ear Institute, University College London, 332 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1 X 8EE, UK.
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Conant LL, Liebenthal E, Desai A, Seidenberg MS, Binder JR. Differential activation of the visual word form area during auditory phoneme perception in youth with dyslexia. Neuropsychologia 2020; 146:107543. [PMID: 32598966 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107543] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/17/2019] [Revised: 03/16/2020] [Accepted: 06/21/2020] [Indexed: 12/12/2022]
Abstract
Developmental dyslexia is a learning disorder characterized by difficulties reading words accurately and/or fluently. Several behavioral studies have suggested the presence of anomalies at an early stage of phoneme processing, when the complex spectrotemporal patterns in the speech signal are analyzed and assigned to phonemic categories. In this study, fMRI was used to compare brain responses associated with categorical discrimination of speech syllables (P) and acoustically matched nonphonemic stimuli (N) in children and adolescents with dyslexia and in typically developing (TD) controls, aged 8-17 years. The TD group showed significantly greater activation during the P condition relative to N in an area of the left ventral occipitotemporal cortex that corresponds well with the region referred to as the "visual word form area" (VWFA). Regression analyses using reading performance as a continuous variable across the full group of participants yielded similar results. Overall, the findings are consistent with those of previous neuroimaging studies using print stimuli in individuals with dyslexia that found reduced activation in left occipitotemporal regions; however, the current study shows that these activation differences seen during reading are apparent during auditory phoneme discrimination in youth with dyslexia, suggesting that the primary deficit in at least a subset of children may lie early in the speech processing stream and that categorical perception may be an important target of early intervention in children at risk for dyslexia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lisa L Conant
- Department of Neurology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA.
| | - Einat Liebenthal
- Department of Neurology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA; Department of Psychiatry, McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Anjali Desai
- Department of Neurology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA
| | - Mark S Seidenberg
- Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA
| | - Jeffrey R Binder
- Department of Neurology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA
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15
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Lifshitz-Ben-Basat A, Fostick L. Music-related abilities among readers with dyslexia. ANNALS OF DYSLEXIA 2019; 69:318-334. [PMID: 31446571 DOI: 10.1007/s11881-019-00185-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/16/2019] [Accepted: 08/14/2019] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Research suggests that a central difficulty in dyslexia may be impaired rapid temporal processing. Good temporal processing is also needed for musical perception, which relies on the ability to detect rapid changes. Our study is the first to measure the perception of adults with and without dyslexia on all three dimensions of music (rhythm, pitch, and spectrum), as well as their capacity for auditory imagery and detection of slow changes, while controlling for working memory. Participants were undergraduate students, aged 20-35 years: 26 readers with dyslexia and 30 typical readers. Participants completed a battery of tests measuring aptitude for recognizing the similarity/difference in tone pitch or rhythm, spectral resolution, vividness/control of auditory imagination, the ability to detect slow changes in auditory stimuli, and working memory. As expected, readers with dyslexia showed poorer performance in pitch and rhythm than controls, but outperformed them in spectral perception. The data for each test was analyzed separately while controlling for the letter-number sequencing score. No differences between groups were found in slow-change detection or auditory imagery. Our results demonstrated that rapid temporal processing appears to be the main difficulty of readers with dyslexia, who demonstrated poorer performance when stimuli were presented quickly rather than slowly and better performance on a task when no temporal component was involved. These findings underscore the need for further study of temporal processing in readers with dyslexia. Remediation of temporal processing deficits may unmask the preserved or even superior abilities of people with dyslexia, leading to enhanced ability in all areas that utilize the temporal component.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Leah Fostick
- Department of Communication Disorders, Ariel University, Ariel, Israel
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16
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Cooper HE, Kaden E, Halliday LF, Bamiou DE, Mankad K, Peters C, Clark CA. White matter microstructural abnormalities in children with severe congenital hypothyroidism. NEUROIMAGE-CLINICAL 2019; 24:101980. [PMID: 31446316 PMCID: PMC6713841 DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2019.101980] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/22/2018] [Revised: 07/29/2019] [Accepted: 08/08/2019] [Indexed: 12/30/2022]
Abstract
This study assessed white matter microstructural integrity and behavioral correlates for children with severe congenital hypothyroidism (CH) who were identified and treated early following newborn screening. Eighteen children with severe CH and 21 healthy controls underwent a battery of behavioral measures of hearing, language and communication, along with diffusion MR imaging. Tract-based spatial statistics were performed on standard diffusion parameters of fractional anisotropy and diffusivity metrics. Microscopic diffusion anisotropy mapping based on the Spherical Mean Technique was also used to evaluate biologically specific metrics. Compared with age-matched controls, children with severe CH had poorer hearing and communication skills, albeit generally within normal limits. Children with severe CH had fractional anisotropy that was significantly lower in the cerebellum, bilateral thalami and right temporal lobe, and radial diffusivity that was significantly higher in the cerebellum and bilateral thalami. Microscopic fractional anisotropy and intra-neurite volume fraction were also significantly decreased, and transverse microscopic diffusivity was significantly increased, in the CH group in areas including the cerebellum, thalamus, occipital lobe, and corpus callosum, and in the white matter adjacent to sensorimotor cortex, particularly in the left hemisphere. Significant and widespread correlations were observed between behavioral measures and measures of white matter microstructural integrity in children with CH. The results indicate that children with severe CH who are identified through newborn screening may have significant brain white matter microstructural abnormalities despite early treatment. Children with severe CH show reductions in white matter microstructural integrity. Hearing and communication abilities are impaired for some children with severe CH. White matter abnormalities are associated with communication abilities in CH.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hannah E Cooper
- Developmental Imaging and Biophysics Section, UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, London, UK; Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, Reading, UK.
| | - Enrico Kaden
- Centre for Medical Image Computing, Department of Computer Science, University College London, London, UK
| | - Lorna F Halliday
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Doris-Eva Bamiou
- UCL Ear Institute, Faculty of Brain Sciences, University College London, London, UK; National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre, London, UK
| | - Kshitij Mankad
- Department of Neuroradiology, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London, UK
| | - Catherine Peters
- Department of Endocrinology, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London, UK
| | - Christopher A Clark
- Developmental Imaging and Biophysics Section, UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, London, UK
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17
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Bidelman GM, Walker B. Plasticity in auditory categorization is supported by differential engagement of the auditory-linguistic network. Neuroimage 2019; 201:116022. [PMID: 31310863 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/13/2019] [Revised: 06/30/2019] [Accepted: 07/12/2019] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
To construct our perceptual world, the brain categorizes variable sensory cues into behaviorally-relevant groupings. Categorical representations are apparent within a distributed fronto-temporo-parietal brain network but how this neural circuitry is shaped by experience remains undefined. Here, we asked whether speech and music categories might be formed within different auditory-linguistic brain regions depending on listeners' auditory expertise. We recorded EEG in highly skilled (musicians) vs. less experienced (nonmusicians) perceivers as they rapidly categorized speech and musical sounds. Musicians showed perceptual enhancements across domains, yet source EEG data revealed a double dissociation in the neurobiological mechanisms supporting categorization between groups. Whereas musicians coded categories in primary auditory cortex (PAC), nonmusicians recruited non-auditory regions (e.g., inferior frontal gyrus, IFG) to generate category-level information. Functional connectivity confirmed nonmusicians' increased left IFG involvement reflects stronger routing of signal from PAC directed to IFG, presumably because sensory coding is insufficient to construct categories in less experienced listeners. Our findings establish auditory experience modulates specific engagement and inter-regional communication in the auditory-linguistic network supporting categorical perception. Whereas early canonical PAC representations are sufficient to generate categories in highly trained ears, less experienced perceivers broadcast information downstream to higher-order linguistic brain areas (IFG) to construct abstract sound labels.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gavin M Bidelman
- Institute for Intelligent Systems, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA; School of Communication Sciences & Disorders, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA; University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center, Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Memphis, TN, USA.
| | - Breya Walker
- Institute for Intelligent Systems, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA; Department of Psychology, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA; Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA
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O'Brien GE, McCloy DR, Yeatman JD. Categorical phoneme labeling in children with dyslexia does not depend on stimulus duration. THE JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2019; 146:245. [PMID: 31370631 PMCID: PMC6639114 DOI: 10.1121/1.5116568] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/09/2018] [Revised: 06/20/2019] [Accepted: 06/25/2019] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
It is established that individuals with dyslexia are less consistent at auditory phoneme categorization than typical readers. One hypothesis attributes these differences in phoneme labeling to differences in auditory cue integration over time, suggesting that the performance of individuals with dyslexia would improve with longer exposure to informative phonetic cues. Here, the relationship between phoneme labeling and reading ability was investigated while manipulating the duration of steady-state auditory information available in a consonant-vowel syllable. Children with dyslexia obtained no more benefit from longer cues than did children with typical reading skills, suggesting that poor task performance is not explained by deficits in temporal integration or temporal sampling.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gabrielle E O'Brien
- Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98105, USA
| | - Daniel R McCloy
- Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98105, USA
| | - Jason D Yeatman
- Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98105, USA
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19
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Bidelman GM, Sigley L, Lewis GA. Acoustic noise and vision differentially warp the auditory categorization of speech. THE JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2019; 146:60. [PMID: 31370660 PMCID: PMC6786888 DOI: 10.1121/1.5114822] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/18/2019] [Revised: 06/05/2019] [Accepted: 06/07/2019] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Speech perception requires grouping acoustic information into meaningful linguistic-phonetic units via categorical perception (CP). Beyond shrinking observers' perceptual space, CP might aid degraded speech perception if categories are more resistant to noise than surface acoustic features. Combining audiovisual (AV) cues also enhances speech recognition, particularly in noisy environments. This study investigated the degree to which visual cues from a talker (i.e., mouth movements) aid speech categorization amidst noise interference by measuring participants' identification of clear and noisy speech (0 dB signal-to-noise ratio) presented in auditory-only or combined AV modalities (i.e., A, A+noise, AV, AV+noise conditions). Auditory noise expectedly weakened (i.e., shallower identification slopes) and slowed speech categorization. Interestingly, additional viseme cues largely counteracted noise-related decrements in performance and stabilized classification speeds in both clear and noise conditions suggesting more precise acoustic-phonetic representations with multisensory information. Results are parsimoniously described under a signal detection theory framework and by a reduction (visual cues) and increase (noise) in the precision of perceptual object representation, which were not due to lapses of attention or guessing. Collectively, findings show that (i) mapping sounds to categories aids speech perception in "cocktail party" environments; (ii) visual cues help lattice formation of auditory-phonetic categories to enhance and refine speech identification.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gavin M Bidelman
- School of Communication Sciences & Disorders, University of Memphis, 4055 North Park Loop, Memphis, Tennessee 38152, USA
| | - Lauren Sigley
- School of Communication Sciences & Disorders, University of Memphis, 4055 North Park Loop, Memphis, Tennessee 38152, USA
| | - Gwyneth A Lewis
- School of Communication Sciences & Disorders, University of Memphis, 4055 North Park Loop, Memphis, Tennessee 38152, USA
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20
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Snowling MJ, Lervåg A, Nash HM, Hulme C. Longitudinal relationships between speech perception, phonological skills and reading in children at high-risk of dyslexia. Dev Sci 2019; 22:e12723. [PMID: 30207641 PMCID: PMC6492008 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12723] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/24/2017] [Accepted: 07/09/2018] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Speech perception deficits are commonly reported in dyslexia but longitudinal evidence that poor speech perception compromises learning to read is scant. We assessed the hypothesis that phonological skills, specifically phoneme awareness and RAN, mediate the relationship between speech perception and reading. We assessed longitudinal predictive relationships between categorical speech perception, phoneme awareness, RAN, language, attention and reading at ages 5½ and 6½ years in 237 children many of whom were at high risk of reading difficulties. Speech perception at 5½ years correlated with language, attention, phoneme awareness and RAN concurrently and was a predictor of reading at 6½ years. There was no significant indirect effect of speech perception on reading via phoneme awareness, suggesting that its effects are separable from those of phoneme awareness. Children classified with dyslexia at 8 years had poorer speech perception than age-controls at 5½ years and children with language disorders (with or without dyslexia) had more severe difficulties with both speech perception and attention control. Categorical speech perception tasks tap factors extraneous to perception, including decision-making skills. Further longitudinal studies are needed to unravel the complex relationships between categorical speech perception tasks and measures of reading and language and attention.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Arne Lervåg
- Department of EducationUniversity of OsloOsloNorway
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21
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Speech Envelope Enhancement Instantaneously Effaces Atypical Speech Perception in Dyslexia. Ear Hear 2019; 40:1242-1252. [DOI: 10.1097/aud.0000000000000706] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/21/2023]
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22
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O'Brien GE, McCloy DR, Kubota EC, Yeatman JD. Reading ability and phoneme categorization. Sci Rep 2018; 8:16842. [PMID: 30442952 PMCID: PMC6237901 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-34823-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/22/2018] [Accepted: 10/18/2018] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
Dyslexia is associated with abnormal performance on many auditory psychophysics tasks, particularly those involving the categorization of speech sounds. However, it is debated whether those apparent auditory deficits arise from (a) reduced sensitivity to particular acoustic cues, (b) the difficulty of experimental tasks, or (c) unmodeled lapses of attention. Here we investigate the relationship between phoneme categorization and reading ability, with special attention to the nature of the cue encoding the phoneme contrast (static versus dynamic), differences in task paradigm difficulty, and methodological details of psychometric model fitting. We find a robust relationship between reading ability and categorization performance, show that task difficulty cannot fully explain that relationship, and provide evidence that the deficit is not restricted to dynamic cue contrasts, contrary to prior reports. Finally, we demonstrate that improved modeling of behavioral responses suggests that performance does differ between children with dyslexia and typical readers, but that the difference may be smaller than previously reported.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gabrielle E O'Brien
- Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences and Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
| | - Daniel R McCloy
- Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences and Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Emily C Kubota
- Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences and Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Jason D Yeatman
- Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences and Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
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23
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Ronen M, Lifshitz-Ben-Basat A, Taitelbaum-Swead R, Fostick L. Auditory temporal processing, reading, and phonological awareness among aging adults. Acta Psychol (Amst) 2018; 190:1-10. [PMID: 29986206 DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2018.06.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/25/2018] [Revised: 06/25/2018] [Accepted: 06/25/2018] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Auditory temporal processing (ATP) has been related in the literature to both speech perception as well as reading and phonological awareness. In aging adults, it is known to be related to difficulties in speech perception. In the present study, we aimed to test whether an age-related deficit in ATP would also be accompanied by poor reading and phonological awareness. Thirty-eight aging adults were compared to 55 readers with dyslexia and 42 young normal readers on temporal order judgment (TOJ), speech perception, reading, and phonological awareness tests. Aging adults had longer TOJ thresholds than young normal readers, but shorter than readers with dyslexia; however, they had lower speech perception accuracy than both groups. Phonological awareness of the aging adults was better than readers with dyslexia, but poorer than young normal readers, although their reading accuracy was similar to that of the young controls. This is the first report on poor phonological awareness among aging adults. Suprisingly, it was not accompanied by difficulties in reading ability, and might instead be related to aging adults' difficulties in speech perception. This newly discovered relationship between ATP and phonological awareness among aging adults appears to extend the existing understanding of this relationship, and suggests it should be explored in other groups with ATP deficits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michal Ronen
- Department of Psychology, Ariel University, Israel
| | | | | | - Leah Fostick
- Department of Communication Disorders, Ariel University, Israel.
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24
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White-Schwoch T, Nicol T, Warrier CM, Abrams DA, Kraus N. Individual Differences in Human Auditory Processing: Insights From Single-Trial Auditory Midbrain Activity in an Animal Model. Cereb Cortex 2018; 27:5095-5115. [PMID: 28334187 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhw293] [Citation(s) in RCA: 30] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/01/2016] [Accepted: 08/29/2016] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Auditory-evoked potentials are classically defined as the summations of synchronous firing along the auditory neuraxis. Converging evidence supports a model whereby timing jitter in neural coding compromises listening and causes variable scalp-recorded potentials. Yet the intrinsic noise of human scalp recordings precludes a full understanding of the biological origins of individual differences in listening skills. To delineate the mechanisms contributing to these phenomena, in vivo extracellular activity was recorded from inferior colliculus in guinea pigs to speech in quiet and noise. Here we show that trial-by-trial timing jitter is a mechanism contributing to auditory response variability. Identical variability patterns were observed in scalp recordings in human children, implicating jittered timing as a factor underlying reduced coding of dynamic speech features and speech in noise. Moreover, intertrial variability in human listeners is tied to language development. Together, these findings suggest that variable timing in inferior colliculus blurs the neural coding of speech in noise, and propose a consequence of this timing jitter for human behavior. These results hint both at the mechanisms underlying speech processing in general, and at what may go awry in individuals with listening difficulties.
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Affiliation(s)
- Travis White-Schwoch
- Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory (www.brainvolts.northwestern.edu) & Department of Communication Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA
| | - Trent Nicol
- Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory (www.brainvolts.northwestern.edu) & Department of Communication Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA
| | - Catherine M Warrier
- Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory (www.brainvolts.northwestern.edu) & Department of Communication Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA
| | - Daniel A Abrams
- Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory (www.brainvolts.northwestern.edu) & Department of Communication Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA.,Stanford Cognitive & Systems Neuroscience Laboratory, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, 94304, USA
| | - Nina Kraus
- Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory (www.brainvolts.northwestern.edu) & Department of Communication Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA.,Department of Neurobiology & Physiology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA.,Department of Otolaryngology, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, 60611, USA
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25
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Nittrouer S, Krieg LM, Lowenstein JH. Speech Recognition in Noise by Children with and without Dyslexia: How is it Related to Reading? RESEARCH IN DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES 2018; 77:98-113. [PMID: 29724639 PMCID: PMC5947872 DOI: 10.1016/j.ridd.2018.04.014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/20/2017] [Revised: 12/20/2017] [Accepted: 04/11/2018] [Indexed: 05/08/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE Developmental dyslexia is commonly viewed as a phonological deficit that makes it difficult to decode written language. But children with dyslexia typically exhibit other problems, as well, including poor speech recognition in noise. The purpose of this study was to examine whether the speech-in-noise problems of children with dyslexia are related to their reading problems, and if so, if a common underlying factor might explain both. The specific hypothesis examined was that a spectral processing disorder results in these children receiving smeared signals, which could explain both the diminished sensitivity to phonological structure - leading to reading problems - and the speech recognition in noise difficulties. The alternative hypothesis tested in this study was that children with dyslexia simply have broadly based language deficits. PARTICIPANTS Ninety-seven children between the ages of 7 years; 10 months and 12 years; 9 months participated: 46 with dyslexia and 51 without dyslexia. METHODS Children were tested on two dependent measures: word reading and recognition in noise with two types of sentence materials: as unprocessed (UP) signals, and as spectrally smeared (SM) signals. Data were collected for four predictor variables: phonological awareness, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, and digit span. RESULTS Children with dyslexia showed deficits on both dependent and all predictor variables. Their scores for speech recognition in noise were poorer than those of children without dyslexia for both the UP and SM signals, but by equivalent amounts across signal conditions indicating that they were not disproportionately hindered by spectral distortion. Correlation analyses on scores from children with dyslexia showed that reading ability and speech-in-noise recognition were only mildly correlated, and each skill was related to different underlying abilities. CONCLUSIONS No substantial evidence was found to support the suggestion that the reading and speech recognition in noise problems of children with dyslexia arise from a single factor that could be defined as a spectral processing disorder. The reading and speech recognition in noise deficits of these children appeared to be largely independent.
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26
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Serniclaes W, Seck M. Enhanced Sensitivity to Subphonemic Segments in Dyslexia: A New Instance of Allophonic Perception. Brain Sci 2018; 8:brainsci8040054. [PMID: 29587419 PMCID: PMC5924390 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci8040054] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/28/2018] [Revised: 03/16/2018] [Accepted: 03/22/2018] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Although dyslexia can be individuated in many different ways, it has only three discernable sources: a visual deficit that affects the perception of letters, a phonological deficit that affects the perception of speech sounds, and an audio-visual deficit that disturbs the association of letters with speech sounds. However, the very nature of each of these core deficits remains debatable. The phonological deficit in dyslexia, which is generally attributed to a deficit of phonological awareness, might result from a specific mode of speech perception characterized by the use of allophonic (i.e., subphonemic) units. Here we will summarize the available evidence and present new data in support of the “allophonic theory” of dyslexia. Previous studies have shown that the dyslexia deficit in the categorical perception of phonemic features (e.g., the voicing contrast between /t/ and /d/) is due to the enhanced sensitivity to allophonic features (e.g., the difference between two variants of /d/). Another consequence of allophonic perception is that it should also give rise to an enhanced sensitivity to allophonic segments, such as those that take place within a consonant cluster. This latter prediction is validated by the data presented in this paper.
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Affiliation(s)
- Willy Serniclaes
- Speech Perception Lab., CNRS & Paris Descartes University, 75006 Paris, France.
| | - M'ballo Seck
- Human & Artificial Cognition Lab., Paris 8 University, 93526 Saint-Denis, France.
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27
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Auditory processing deficits are sometimes necessary and sometimes sufficient for language difficulties in children: Evidence from mild to moderate sensorineural hearing loss. Cognition 2017; 166:139-151. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2017.04.014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/05/2015] [Revised: 04/26/2017] [Accepted: 04/30/2017] [Indexed: 12/12/2022]
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28
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Kapnoula EC, Winn MB, Kong EJ, Edwards J, McMurray B. Evaluating the sources and functions of gradiency in phoneme categorization: An individual differences approach. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 2017; 43:1594-1611. [PMID: 28406683 PMCID: PMC5561468 DOI: 10.1037/xhp0000410] [Citation(s) in RCA: 35] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
During spoken language comprehension listeners transform continuous acoustic cues into categories (e.g., /b/ and /p/). While long-standing research suggests that phonetic categories are activated in a gradient way, there are also clear individual differences in that more gradient categorization has been linked to various communication impairments such as dyslexia and specific language impairments (Joanisse, Manis, Keating, & Seidenberg, 2000; López-Zamora, Luque, Álvarez, & Cobos, 2012; Serniclaes, Van Heghe, Mousty, Carré, & Sprenger-Charolles, 2004; Werker & Tees, 1987). Crucially, most studies have used 2-alternative forced choice (2AFC) tasks to measure the sharpness of between-category boundaries. Here we propose an alternative paradigm that allows us to measure categorization gradiency in a more direct way. Furthermore, we follow an individual differences approach to (a) link this measure of gradiency to multiple cue integration, (b) explore its relationship to a set of other cognitive processes, and (c) evaluate its role in individuals' ability to perceive speech in noise. Our results provide validation for this new method of assessing phoneme categorization gradiency and offer preliminary insights into how different aspects of speech perception may be linked to each other and to more general cognitive processes. (PsycINFO Database Record
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Affiliation(s)
- Efthymia C Kapnoula
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, DeLTA Center, University of Iowa
| | - Matthew B Winn
- Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington
| | | | - Jan Edwards
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison
| | - Bob McMurray
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, DeLTA Center, University of Iowa
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29
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Calcus A, Deltenre P, Colin C, Kolinsky R. Peripheral and central contribution to the difficulty of speech in noise perception in dyslexic children. Dev Sci 2017; 21:e12558. [PMID: 28256107 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12558] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/08/2015] [Accepted: 01/18/2017] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Axelle Calcus
- Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique - FNRS (FRS-FNRS); France
- Unité de Recherche en Neurosciences Cognitives (UNESCOG); Center for Research in Cognition & Neurosciences (CRCN); Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB); Brussels Belgium
- Laboratoire de Neurophysiologie Sensorielle et Cognitive; Hôpital Brugmann; Brussels Belgium
| | - Paul Deltenre
- Laboratoire de Neurophysiologie Sensorielle et Cognitive; Hôpital Brugmann; Brussels Belgium
| | - Cécile Colin
- Unité de Recherche en Neurosciences Cognitives (UNESCOG); Center for Research in Cognition & Neurosciences (CRCN); Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB); Brussels Belgium
- Laboratoire de Neurophysiologie Sensorielle et Cognitive; Hôpital Brugmann; Brussels Belgium
| | - Régine Kolinsky
- Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique - FNRS (FRS-FNRS); France
- Unité de Recherche en Neurosciences Cognitives (UNESCOG); Center for Research in Cognition & Neurosciences (CRCN); Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB); Brussels Belgium
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Perception-production relations in later development of American English rhotics. PLoS One 2017; 12:e0172022. [PMID: 28207800 PMCID: PMC5313169 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0172022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/02/2016] [Accepted: 01/30/2017] [Indexed: 01/17/2023] Open
Abstract
It is known that some adult listeners have more sharply defined perceptual categories than others, and listeners with more precise auditory targets are also more precise in their production of contrasts. There is additionally evidence that children who have not yet mastered production of a contrast show diminished performance on perceptual measures of the same contrast. To date, however, few studies have investigated developmental perception-production relations using the fine-grained measures typical of adult studies. Existing evidence suggests that perception and production can be closely connected in development, but this relationship may break down as perception and articulation mature at different rates. This study evaluated perception and production of the English /r-w/ contrast in 40 typically-developing children aged 9-14. Perceptual sensitivity was measured with a logistic function fitted over responses in a forced-choice identification task using two synthetic 10-step continua from rake to wake. Participants also produced rhotic and non-rhotic words. Across participants, there was a significant correlation between perceptual acuity and rhoticity in production, although this effect was only observed for one of two continua tested. These results provide preliminary evidence compatible with the hypothesis that children with a more refined auditory target for a sound also produce that sound more accurately.
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Hakvoort B, de Bree E, van der Leij A, Maassen B, van Setten E, Maurits N, van Zuijen TL. The Role of Categorical Speech Perception and Phonological Processing in Familial Risk Children With and Without Dyslexia. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2016; 59:1448-1460. [PMID: 27942706 DOI: 10.1044/2016_jslhr-l-15-0306] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/02/2015] [Accepted: 05/09/2016] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE This study assessed whether a categorical speech perception (CP) deficit is associated with dyslexia or familial risk for dyslexia, by exploring a possible cascading relation from speech perception to phonology to reading and by identifying whether speech perception distinguishes familial risk (FR) children with dyslexia (FRD) from those without dyslexia (FRND). METHOD Data were collected from 9-year-old FRD (n = 37) and FRND (n = 41) children and age-matched controls (n = 49) on CP identification and discrimination and on the phonological processing measures rapid automatized naming, phoneme awareness, and nonword repetition. RESULTS The FRD group performed more poorly on CP than the FRND and control groups. Findings on phonological processing align with the literature in that (a) phonological processing related to reading and (b) the FRD group showed the lowest phonological processing outcomes. Furthermore, CP correlated weakly with reading, but this relationship was fully mediated by rapid automatized naming. CONCLUSION Although CP phonological skills are related to dyslexia, there was no strong evidence for a cascade from CP to phonology to reading. Deficits in CP at the behavioral level are not directly associated with dyslexia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Britt Hakvoort
- Research Institute of Child Development and Education, Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Elise de Bree
- Research Institute of Child Development and Education, Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Aryan van der Leij
- Research Institute of Child Development and Education, Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Ben Maassen
- Centre for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG) & University Medical Centre Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands
| | - Ellie van Setten
- Centre for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG) & University Medical Centre Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands
| | - Natasha Maurits
- Department of Neurology, University Medical Centre Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands
| | - Titia L van Zuijen
- Research Institute of Child Development and Education, Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
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Calcus A, Lorenzi C, Collet G, Colin C, Kolinsky R. Is There a Relationship Between Speech Identification in Noise and Categorical Perception in Children With Dyslexia? JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2016; 59:835-52. [PMID: 27556908 DOI: 10.1044/2016_jslhr-h-15-0076] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/23/2015] [Accepted: 01/14/2016] [Indexed: 05/21/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE Children with dyslexia have been suggested to experience deficits in both categorical perception (CP) and speech identification in noise (SIN) perception. However, results regarding both abilities are inconsistent, and the relationship between them is still unclear. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between CP and the psychometric function of SIN perception. METHOD Sixteen children with dyslexia, 16 chronological-age controls, and 16 reading-level controls were evaluated in CP of a voicing continuum and in consonant identification in both stationary and fluctuating noises. RESULTS There was a small but significant impairment in speech identification performance of children with dyslexia in stationary noise compared with chronological age-matched controls (but not reading level-matched controls). However, their performance increased in a fluctuating background, hence suggesting normal masking and unmasking effects and preserved sensory processing of speech information. Regarding CP, location of the phoneme boundary differed in the children with dyslexia compared with both control groups. However, scrutinizing individual profiles failed to reveal consistently poor performance in SIN and CP tasks. In addition, there was no significant correlation between CP, SIN perception, and reading scores in the group with dyslexia. CONCLUSIONS The relationship between the SIN deficit and CP, and how they potentially affect reading in children with dyslexia, remains unclear. However, these results are inconsistent with the notion that children with dyslexia suffer from a low-level temporal processing deficit and rather suggest a role of nonsensory (e.g., attentional) factors in their speech perception difficulties.
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Direct Viewing of Dyslexics' Compensatory Strategies in Speech in Noise Using Auditory Classification Images. PLoS One 2016; 11:e0153781. [PMID: 27100662 PMCID: PMC4839691 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0153781] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/25/2015] [Accepted: 04/04/2016] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
A vast majority of dyslexic children exhibit a phonological deficit, particularly noticeable in phonemic identification or discrimination tasks. The gap in performance between dyslexic and normotypical listeners appears to decrease into adulthood, suggesting that some individuals with dyslexia develop compensatory strategies. Some dyslexic adults however remain impaired in more challenging listening situations such as in the presence of background noise. This paper addresses the question of the compensatory strategies employed, using the recently developed Auditory Classification Image (ACI) methodology. The results of 18 dyslexics taking part in a phoneme categorization task in noise were compared with those of 18 normotypical age-matched controls. By fitting a penalized Generalized Linear Model on the data of each participant, we obtained his/her ACI, a map of the time-frequency regions he/she relied on to perform the task. Even though dyslexics performed significantly less well than controls, we were unable to detect a robust difference between the mean ACIs of the two groups. This is partly due to the considerable heterogeneity in listening strategies among a subgroup of 7 low-performing dyslexics, as confirmed by a complementary analysis. When excluding these participants to restrict our comparison to the 11 dyslexics performing as well as their average-reading peers, we found a significant difference in the F3 onset of the first syllable, and a tendency of difference on the F4 onset, suggesting that these listeners can compensate for their deficit by relying upon additional allophonic cues.
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White-Schwoch T, Davies EC, Thompson EC, Woodruff Carr K, Nicol T, Bradlow AR, Kraus N. Auditory-neurophysiological responses to speech during early childhood: Effects of background noise. Hear Res 2015; 328:34-47. [PMID: 26113025 DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2015.06.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/21/2015] [Revised: 05/30/2015] [Accepted: 06/12/2015] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Abstract
Early childhood is a critical period of auditory learning, during which children are constantly mapping sounds to meaning. But this auditory learning rarely occurs in ideal listening conditions-children are forced to listen against a relentless din. This background noise degrades the neural coding of these critical sounds, in turn interfering with auditory learning. Despite the importance of robust and reliable auditory processing during early childhood, little is known about the neurophysiology underlying speech processing in children so young. To better understand the physiological constraints these adverse listening scenarios impose on speech sound coding during early childhood, auditory-neurophysiological responses were elicited to a consonant-vowel syllable in quiet and background noise in a cohort of typically-developing preschoolers (ages 3-5 yr). Overall, responses were degraded in noise: they were smaller, less stable across trials, slower, and there was poorer coding of spectral content and the temporal envelope. These effects were exacerbated in response to the consonant transition relative to the vowel, suggesting that the neural coding of spectrotemporally-dynamic speech features is more tenuous in noise than the coding of static features-even in children this young. Neural coding of speech temporal fine structure, however, was more resilient to the addition of background noise than coding of temporal envelope information. Taken together, these results demonstrate that noise places a neurophysiological constraint on speech processing during early childhood by causing a breakdown in neural processing of speech acoustics. These results may explain why some listeners have inordinate difficulties understanding speech in noise. Speech-elicited auditory-neurophysiological responses offer objective insight into listening skills during early childhood by reflecting the integrity of neural coding in quiet and noise; this paper documents typical response properties in this age group. These normative metrics may be useful clinically to evaluate auditory processing difficulties during early childhood.
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Affiliation(s)
- Travis White-Schwoch
- Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory & Department of Communication Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA(1)
| | - Evan C Davies
- Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory & Department of Communication Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA(1)
| | - Elaine C Thompson
- Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory & Department of Communication Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA(1)
| | - Kali Woodruff Carr
- Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory & Department of Communication Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA(1)
| | - Trent Nicol
- Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory & Department of Communication Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA(1)
| | - Ann R Bradlow
- Department of Linguistics, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA
| | - Nina Kraus
- Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory & Department of Communication Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA(1); Department of Neurobiology & Physiology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL and Department of Otolaryngology, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA.
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Calcus A, Colin C, Deltenre P, Kolinsky R. Informational masking of speech in dyslexic children. THE JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2015; 137:EL496-EL502. [PMID: 26093461 DOI: 10.1121/1.4922012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/04/2023]
Abstract
Studies evaluating speech perception in noise have reported inconsistent results regarding a potential deficit in dyslexic children. So far, most of them investigated energetic masking. The present study evaluated situations inducing mostly informational masking, which reflects cognitive interference induced by the masker. Dyslexic children were asked to identify a female target syllable presented in quiet, babble, unmodulated, and modulated speech-shaped noise. Whereas their performance was comparable to normal-reading children in quiet, it dropped significantly in all noisy conditions compared to age-, but not reading level-matched controls. Interestingly, noise affected similarly the reception of voicing, place, and manner of articulation in dyslexic and normal-reading children.
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Affiliation(s)
- Axelle Calcus
- Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique-FNRS (FRS-FNRS), Unité de Recherche en Neurosciences Cognitives (UNESCOG), Center for Research in Cognition and Neurosciences (CRCN), Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels, Belgium
| | - Cécile Colin
- Unité de Recherche en Neurosciences Cognitives (UNESCOG), Center for Research in Cognition and Neurosciences (CRCN), Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
| | - Paul Deltenre
- Laboratoire de Neurophysiologie Sensorielle et Cognitive, Hôpital Brugmann, Brussels, Belgium
| | - Régine Kolinsky
- Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique-FNRS (FRS-FNRS), Unité de Recherche en Neurosciences Cognitives (UNESCOG), Center for Research in Cognition and Neurosciences (CRCN), Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels, Belgium
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Serniclaes W, Collet G, Sprenger-Charolles L. Review of neural rehabilitation programs for dyslexia: how can an allophonic system be changed into a phonemic one? Front Psychol 2015; 6:190. [PMID: 25759679 PMCID: PMC4338600 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00190] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/16/2014] [Accepted: 02/05/2015] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Neural investigations suggest that there are three possible core deficits in dyslexia: phonemic, grapho-phonemic, and graphemic. These investigations also suggest that the phonemic deficit resides in a different mode of speech perception which is based on allophonic (subphonemic) units rather than phonemic units. Here we review the results of remediation methods that tap into each of these core deficits, and examine how the methods that tap into the phonemic deficit might contribute to the remediation of allophonic perception. Remediation of grapho-phonemic deficiencies with a new computerized phonics training program (GraphoGame) might be able to surpass the limits of classical phonics training programs, particularly with regard to reading fluency. Remediation of visuo-graphemic deficiencies through exposure to enhanced letter spacing is also promising, although children with dyslexia continued to read more slowly than typical readers after this type of training. Remediation of phonemic deficiencies in dyslexia with programs based solely on phonemic awareness has a limited impact on reading. This might be due to the persistence of a covert deficit in phonemic perception. Methods based on slowed speech enhance the perception not only of phonemic features but also of allophonic features, and this is probably why they have not been found to be effective in meta-analyses. Training of phonemic perception with a perceptual fading paradigm, a method that improves precision in identification and discrimination around phonemic boundaries, has yielded promising results. However, studies with children at risk for dyslexia and dyslexic adults have found that even when behavioral data do not reflect allophonic perception, it can nevertheless be present in neural recordings. Further investigations should seek to confirm that the perceptual fading paradigm is beneficial for reading, and that it renders perception truly phonemic.
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Affiliation(s)
- Willy Serniclaes
- Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception (UMR 8242), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Université Paris Descartes , Paris, France ; Unité de Recherche en Neurosciences Cognitives, Centre de Recherche en Cognition et Neurosciences, Université Libre de Bruxelles , Brussels, Belgium
| | - Gregory Collet
- Unité de Recherche en Neurosciences Cognitives, Centre de Recherche en Cognition et Neurosciences, Université Libre de Bruxelles , Brussels, Belgium
| | - Liliane Sprenger-Charolles
- Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive (UMR 7920), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Aix-Marseille Université , Marseille, France
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Calcus A, Colin C, Deltenre P, Kolinsky R. Informational masking of complex tones in dyslexic children. Neurosci Lett 2015; 584:71-6. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neulet.2014.10.026] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/24/2014] [Revised: 09/06/2014] [Accepted: 10/13/2014] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
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Boebinger D, Evans S, Rosen S, Lima CF, Manly T, Scott SK. Musicians and non-musicians are equally adept at perceiving masked speech. THE JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2015; 137:378-87. [PMID: 25618067 PMCID: PMC4434218 DOI: 10.1121/1.4904537] [Citation(s) in RCA: 98] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/19/2023]
Abstract
There is much interest in the idea that musicians perform better than non-musicians in understanding speech in background noise. Research in this area has often used energetic maskers, which have their effects primarily at the auditory periphery. However, masking interference can also occur at more central auditory levels, known as informational masking. This experiment extends existing research by using multiple maskers that vary in their informational content and similarity to speech, in order to examine differences in perception of masked speech between trained musicians (n = 25) and non-musicians (n = 25). Although musicians outperformed non-musicians on a measure of frequency discrimination, they showed no advantage in perceiving masked speech. Further analysis revealed that non-verbal IQ, rather than musicianship, significantly predicted speech reception thresholds in noise. The results strongly suggest that the contribution of general cognitive abilities needs to be taken into account in any investigations of individual variability for perceiving speech in noise.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dana Boebinger
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom
| | - Samuel Evans
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom
| | - Stuart Rosen
- Speech, Hearing & Phonetic Sciences, University College London, 2 Wakefield Street, London WC1N 2PF, United Kingdom
| | - César F Lima
- Centre for Psychology at University of Porto, Rua Alfredo Allen, 4200-135 Porto, Portugal
| | - Tom Manly
- Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge CB2 7EF, United Kingdom
| | - Sophie K Scott
- Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom
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Sharma M, Dhamani I, Leung J, Carlile S. Attention, memory, and auditory processing in 10- to 15-year-old children with listening difficulties. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2014; 57:2308-2321. [PMID: 25198800 DOI: 10.1044/2014_jslhr-h-13-0226] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/03/2013] [Accepted: 08/20/2014] [Indexed: 06/03/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE The aim of this study was to examine attention, memory, and auditory processing in children with reported listening difficulty in noise (LDN) despite having clinically normal hearing. METHOD Twenty-one children with LDN and 15 children with no listening concerns (controls) participated. The clinically normed auditory processing tests included the Frequency/Pitch Pattern Test (FPT; Musiek, 2002), the Dichotic Digits Test (Musiek, 1983), the Listening in Spatialized Noise-Sentences (LiSN-S) test (Dillon, Cameron, Glyde, Wilson, & Tomlin, 2012), gap detection in noise (Baker, Jayewardene, Sayle, & Saeed, 2008), and masking level difference (MLD; Wilson, Moncrieff, Townsend, & Pillion, 2003). Also included were research-based psychoacoustic tasks, such as auditory stream segregation, localization, sinusoidal amplitude modulation (SAM), and fine structure perception. All were also evaluated on attention and memory test batteries. RESULTS The LDN group was significantly slower switching their auditory attention and had poorer inhibitory control. Additionally, the group mean results showed significantly poorer performance on FPT, MLD, 4-Hz SAM, and memory tests. Close inspection of the individual data revealed that only 5 participants (out of 21) in the LDN group showed significantly poor performance on FPT compared with clinical norms. Further testing revealed the frequency discrimination of these 5 children to be significantly impaired. CONCLUSION Thus, the LDN group showed deficits in attention switching and inhibitory control, whereas only a subset of these participants demonstrated an additional frequency resolution deficit.
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Steinbrink C, Klatte M, Lachmann T. Phonological, temporal and spectral processing in vowel length discrimination is impaired in German primary school children with developmental dyslexia. RESEARCH IN DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES 2014; 35:3034-3045. [PMID: 25128788 DOI: 10.1016/j.ridd.2014.07.049] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/16/2014] [Accepted: 07/23/2014] [Indexed: 06/03/2023]
Abstract
It is still unclear whether phonological processing deficits are the underlying cause of developmental dyslexia, or rather a consequence of basic auditory processing impairments. To avoid methodological confounds, in the current study the same task and stimuli of comparable complexity were used to investigate both phonological and basic auditory (temporal and spectral) processing in dyslexia. German dyslexic children (Grades 3 and 4) were compared to age- and grade-matched controls in a vowel length discrimination task with three experimental conditions: In a phonological condition, natural vowels were used, differing both with respect to temporal and spectral information (in German, vowel length is phonemic, and vowel length differences are characterized by both temporal and spectral information). In a temporal condition, spectral information differentiating between the two vowels of a pair was eliminated, whereas in a spectral condition, temporal differences were removed. As performance measure, the sensitivity index d' was computed. At the group level, dyslexic children's performance was inferior to that of controls for phonological as well as temporal and spectral vowel length discrimination. At an individual level, nearly half of the dyslexic sample was characterized by deficits in all three conditions, but there were also some children showing no deficits at all. These results reveal on the one hand that phonological processing deficits in dyslexia may stem from impairments in processing temporal and spectral information in the speech signal. On the other hand they indicate, however, that not all dyslexic children might be characterized by phonological or auditory processing deficits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Claudia Steinbrink
- Department of Psychology II (Cognitive and Developmental Psychology), University of Kaiserslautern, Erwin-Schroedinger-Strasse, Building 57, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany.
| | - Maria Klatte
- Department of Psychology II (Cognitive and Developmental Psychology), University of Kaiserslautern, Erwin-Schroedinger-Strasse, Building 57, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany
| | - Thomas Lachmann
- Department of Psychology II (Cognitive and Developmental Psychology), University of Kaiserslautern, Erwin-Schroedinger-Strasse, Building 57, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany
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McMurray B, Munson C, Tomblin JB. Individual differences in language ability are related to variation in word recognition, not speech perception: evidence from eye movements. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2014; 57:1344-62. [PMID: 24687026 PMCID: PMC4126886 DOI: 10.1044/2014_jslhr-l-13-0196] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/20/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE The authors examined speech perception deficits associated with individual differences in language ability, contrasting auditory, phonological, or lexical accounts by asking whether lexical competition is differentially sensitive to fine-grained acoustic variation. METHOD Adolescents with a range of language abilities (N = 74, including 35 impaired) participated in an experiment based on McMurray, Tanenhaus, and Aslin (2002). Participants heard tokens from six 9-step voice onset time (VOT) continua spanning 2 words (beach/peach, beak/peak, etc.) while viewing a screen containing pictures of those words and 2 unrelated objects. Participants selected the referent while eye movements to each picture were monitored as a measure of lexical activation. Fixations were examined as a function of both VOT and language ability. RESULTS Eye movements were sensitive to within-category VOT differences: As VOT approached the boundary, listeners made more fixations to the competing word. This did not interact with language ability, suggesting that language impairment is not associated with differential auditory sensitivity or phonetic categorization. Listeners with poorer language skills showed heightened competitors fixations overall, suggesting a deficit in lexical processes. CONCLUSION Language impairment may be better characterized by a deficit in lexical competition (inability to suppress competing words), rather than differences in phonological categorization or auditory abilities.
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Canale A, Dagna F, Favero E, Lacilla M, Montuschi C, Albera R. The role of the efferent auditory system in developmental dyslexia. Int J Pediatr Otorhinolaryngol 2014; 78:455-8. [PMID: 24424293 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijporl.2013.12.016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/19/2013] [Revised: 12/12/2013] [Accepted: 12/13/2013] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE To assess the role of the efferent auditory system by inhibition of contralateral otoacoustic emission in dyslexic children with auditory processing disorders. METHODS The study sample was 34 children: 17 with dyslexia and 17 age-matched controls. Sensitive speech tests (low-pass filtered, time-compressed, distorted and dichotic) were performed to assess coexisting auditory processing disorder. Distortion-product otoacoustic emission (DPOAE) values were measured in basal condition and with contralateral broadband noise signal delivered via an earphone transducer at 60 dB SPL. RESULTS The lower scores at sensitive speech testing confirmed the association of an auditory processing disorder in the dyslexic children. DPOAE values were significantly attenuated by contralateral inhibition only in the control group (p=0.001; dyslexics, p=0.19); attenuation was not significant at any frequency in the dyslexic group. CONCLUSIONS The differences in DPOAE attenuation between the groups, although not statistically significant, suggest alterations in the auditory efferent system in the dyslexic population. These alterations may affect language perception. If confirmed in further studies with larger samples, these results could provide insight into a possible pathophysiological background of dyslexia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrea Canale
- ENT Department, University of Torino, via Genova 3, 10126 Torino, Italy
| | - Federico Dagna
- ENT Department, University of Torino, via Genova 3, 10126 Torino, Italy.
| | - Elena Favero
- ENT Department, University of Torino, via Genova 3, 10126 Torino, Italy
| | | | - Carla Montuschi
- ENT Department, University of Torino, via Genova 3, 10126 Torino, Italy
| | - Roberto Albera
- ENT Department, University of Torino, via Genova 3, 10126 Torino, Italy
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Pammer K. Temporal sampling in vision and the implications for dyslexia. Front Hum Neurosci 2014; 7:933. [PMID: 24596549 PMCID: PMC3925989 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00933] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/31/2013] [Accepted: 12/23/2013] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
It has recently been suggested that dyslexia may manifest as a deficit in the neural synchrony underlying language-based codes (Goswami, 2011), such that the phonological deficits apparent in dyslexia occur as a consequence of poor synchronisation of oscillatory brain signals to the sounds of language. There is compelling evidence to support this suggestion, and it provides an intriguing new development in understanding the aetiology of dyslexia. It is undeniable that dyslexia is associated with poor phonological coding, however, reading is also a visual task, and dyslexia has also been associated with poor visual coding, particularly visuo-spatial sensitivity. It has been hypothesized for some time that specific frequency oscillations underlie visual perception. Although little research has been done looking specifically at dyslexia and cortical frequency oscillations, it is possible to draw on converging evidence from visual tasks to speculate that similar deficits could occur in temporal frequency oscillations in the visual domain in dyslexia. Thus, here the plausibility of a visual correlate of the Temporal Sampling Framework is considered, leading to specific hypotheses and predictions for future research. A common underlying neural mechanism in dyslexia, may subsume qualitatively different manifestations of reading difficulty, which is consistent with the heterogeneity of the disorder, and may open the door for a new generation of exciting research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kristen Pammer
- The Research School of Psychology, The Australian National University Canberra, ACT, Australia
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Lallier M, Donnadieu S, Valdois S. Investigating the role of visual and auditory search in reading and developmental dyslexia. Front Hum Neurosci 2013; 7:597. [PMID: 24093014 PMCID: PMC3782690 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00597] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/22/2013] [Accepted: 09/03/2013] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
It has been suggested that auditory and visual sequential processing deficits contribute to phonological disorders in developmental dyslexia. As an alternative explanation to a phonological deficit as the proximal cause for reading disorders, the visual attention span hypothesis (VA Span) suggests that difficulties in processing visual elements simultaneously lead to dyslexia, regardless of the presence of a phonological disorder. In this study, we assessed whether deficits in processing simultaneously displayed visual or auditory elements is linked to dyslexia associated with a VA Span impairment. Sixteen children with developmental dyslexia and 16 age-matched skilled readers were assessed on visual and auditory search tasks. Participants were asked to detect a target presented simultaneously with 3, 9, or 15 distracters. In the visual modality, target detection was slower in the dyslexic children than in the control group on a “serial” search condition only: the intercepts (but not the slopes) of the search functions were higher in the dyslexic group than in the control group. In the auditory modality, although no group difference was observed, search performance was influenced by the number of distracters in the control group only. Within the dyslexic group, not only poor visual search (high reaction times and intercepts) but also low auditory search performance (d′) strongly correlated with poor irregular word reading accuracy. Moreover, both visual and auditory search performance was associated with the VA Span abilities of dyslexic participants but not with their phonological skills. The present data suggests that some visual mechanisms engaged in “serial” search contribute to reading and orthographic knowledge via VA Span skills regardless of phonological skills. The present results further open the question of the role of auditory simultaneous processing in reading as well as its link with VA Span skills.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marie Lallier
- Basque Center on Cognition Brain and Language Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain
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McFarland DJ. Modeling individual subtests of the WAIS IV with multiple latent factors. PLoS One 2013; 8:e74980. [PMID: 24058643 PMCID: PMC3772883 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0074980] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/18/2012] [Accepted: 08/13/2013] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Performance on a cognitive test can be viewed either as measuring a unitary function or as reflecting the operation of multiple factors. Individual subtests in batteries designed to measure human abilities are commonly modeled as a single latent factor. Several latent factors are then used to model groups of subtests. However these latent factors are not independent as they are related through hierarchical or oblique structures. As a result, the simple structure of subtest performance results in complex latent factors. The present study used structural equation modeling to evaluate several multidimensional models of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scales-fourth edition (WAIS-IV) subtests. Multidimensional models of subtest performance provided better model fit as compared to several previously proposed one dimensional models. These multidimensional models also generalized well to new samples of populations differing in age from that used to estimate the model parameters. Overall these results show that models that describe subtests as multidimensional functions of uncorrelated factors provided a better fit to the WAIS-IV correlations than models that describe subtests as one dimensional functions of correlated factors. There appears to be a trade-off in modeling subtests as one dimensional and modeling with homogeneous latent traits. More consideration should be given to models that include multiple uncorrelated latent factors as determinants of the performance on a given subtest. These results support the view that performance on any given cognitive test is potentially the result of multiple factors. Simple structure may be too simple.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dennis J. McFarland
- Laboratory of Neural Injury and Repair, Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health, Albany, New York, United States of America
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Abstract
OBJECTIVE A key ingredient to academic success is being able to read. Deaf individuals have historically failed to develop literacy skills comparable with those of their normal-hearing (NH) peers, but early identification and cochlear implants (CIs) have improved prospects such that these children can learn to read at the levels of their peers. The goal of this study was to examine early, or emergent, literacy in these children. METHOD Twenty-seven deaf children with CIs, who had just completed kindergarten were tested on emergent literacy, and on cognitive and linguistic skills that support emergent literacy, specifically ones involving phonological awareness, executive functioning, and oral language. Seventeen kindergartners with NH and eight with hearing loss, but who used hearing aids served as controls. Outcomes were compared for these three groups of children, regression analyses were performed to see whether predictor variables for emergent literacy differed for children with NH and those with CIs, and factors related to the early treatment of hearing loss and prosthesis configuration were examined for children with CIs. RESULTS The performance of children with CIs was roughly 1 SD or more below the mean performance of children with NH on all tasks, except for syllable counting, reading fluency, and rapid serial naming. Oral language skills explained more variance in emergent literacy for children with CIs than for children with NH. Age of first implant explained moderate amounts of variance for several measures. Having one or two CIs had no effect, but children who had some amount of bimodal experience outperformed children who had none on several measures. CONCLUSIONS Even deaf children who have benefitted from early identification, intervention, and implantation are still at risk for problems with emergent literacy that could affect their academic success. This finding means that intensive language support needs to continue through at least the early elementary grades. Also, a period of bimodal stimulation during the preschool years can help boost emergent literacy skills to some extent.
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Hazan V, Messaoud-Galusi S, Rosen S. The effect of talker and intonation variability on speech perception in noise in children with dyslexia. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2013; 56:44-62. [PMID: 22761322 PMCID: PMC3678076 DOI: 10.1044/1092-4388(2012/10-0107)] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/08/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE In this study, the authors aimed to determine whether children with dyslexia (hereafter referred to as "DYS children") are more affected than children with average reading ability (hereafter referred to as "AR children") by talker and intonation variability when perceiving speech in noise. METHOD Thirty-four DYS and 25 AR children were tested on their perception of consonants in naturally produced CV tokens in multitalker babble. Twelve CVs were presented for identification in four conditions varying in the degree of talker and intonation variability. Consonant place (/bi/-/di/) and voicing (/bi/-/pi/) discrimination were investigated with the same conditions. RESULTS DYS children made slightly more identification errors than AR children but only for conditions with variable intonation. Errors were more frequent for a subset of consonants, generally weakly encoded for AR children, for tokens with intonation patterns (steady and rise-fall) that occur infrequently in connected discourse. In discrimination tasks, which have a greater memory and cognitive load, DYS children scored lower than AR children across all conditions. CONCLUSIONS Unusual intonation patterns had a disproportionate (but small) effect on consonant intelligibility in noise for DYS children, but adding talker variability did not. DYS children do not appear to have a general problem in perceiving speech in degraded conditions, which makes it unlikely that they lack robust phonological representations.
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Berent I, Vaknin-Nusbaum V, Balaban E, Galaburda AM. Dyslexia impairs speech recognition but can spare phonological competence. PLoS One 2012; 7:e44875. [PMID: 23028654 PMCID: PMC3447000 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0044875] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/07/2012] [Accepted: 08/09/2012] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Dyslexia is associated with numerous deficits to speech processing. Accordingly, a large literature asserts that dyslexics manifest a phonological deficit. Few studies, however, have assessed the phonological grammar of dyslexics, and none has distinguished a phonological deficit from a phonetic impairment. Here, we show that these two sources can be dissociated. Three experiments demonstrate that a group of adult dyslexics studied here is impaired in phonetic discrimination (e.g., ba vs. pa), and their deficit compromises even the basic ability to identify acoustic stimuli as human speech. Remarkably, the ability of these individuals to generalize grammatical phonological rules is intact. Like typical readers, these Hebrew-speaking dyslexics identified ill-formed AAB stems (e.g., titug) as less wordlike than well-formed ABB controls (e.g., gitut), and both groups automatically extended this rule to nonspeech stimuli, irrespective of reading ability. The contrast between the phonetic and phonological capacities of these individuals demonstrates that the algebraic engine that generates phonological patterns is distinct from the phonetic interface that implements them. While dyslexia compromises the phonetic system, certain core aspects of the phonological grammar can be spared.
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Affiliation(s)
- Iris Berent
- Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
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Dole M, Hoen M, Meunier F. Speech-in-noise perception deficit in adults with dyslexia: effects of background type and listening configuration. Neuropsychologia 2012; 50:1543-52. [PMID: 22445915 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.03.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 48] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/25/2011] [Revised: 02/29/2012] [Accepted: 03/06/2012] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Developmental dyslexia is associated with impaired speech-in-noise perception. The goal of the present research was to further characterize this deficit in dyslexic adults. In order to specify the mechanisms and processing strategies used by adults with dyslexia during speech-in-noise perception, we explored the influence of background type, presenting single target-words against backgrounds made of cocktail party sounds, modulated speech-derived noise or stationary noise. We also evaluated the effect of three listening configurations differing in terms of the amount of spatial processing required. In a monaural condition, signal and noise were presented to the same ear while in a dichotic situation, target and concurrent sound were presented to two different ears, finally in a spatialised configuration, target and competing signals were presented as if they originated from slightly differing positions in the auditory scene. Our results confirm the presence of a speech-in-noise perception deficit in dyslexic adults, in particular when the competing signal is also speech, and when both signals are presented to the same ear, an observation potentially relating to phonological accounts of dyslexia. However, adult dyslexics demonstrated better levels of spatial release of masking than normal reading controls when the background was speech, suggesting that they are well able to rely on denoising strategies based on spatial auditory scene analysis strategies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marjorie Dole
- INSERM U1028, CNRS UMR5292, Lyon Neuroscience Research Centre, Brain Dynamics and Cognition Team, Lyon F-69500, France
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