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Mai G, Jiang Z, Wang X, Tachtsidis I, Howell P. Neuroplasticity of Speech-in-Noise Processing in Older Adults Assessed by Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS). Brain Topogr 2024; 37:1139-1157. [PMID: 39042322 PMCID: PMC11408581 DOI: 10.1007/s10548-024-01070-2] [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: 11/11/2023] [Accepted: 07/13/2024] [Indexed: 07/24/2024]
Abstract
Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), a non-invasive optical neuroimaging technique that is portable and acoustically silent, has become a promising tool for evaluating auditory brain functions in hearing-vulnerable individuals. This study, for the first time, used fNIRS to evaluate neuroplasticity of speech-in-noise processing in older adults. Ten older adults, most of whom had moderate-to-mild hearing loss, participated in a 4-week speech-in-noise training. Their speech-in-noise performances and fNIRS brain responses to speech (auditory sentences in noise), non-speech (spectrally-rotated speech in noise) and visual (flashing chequerboards) stimuli were evaluated pre- (T0) and post-training (immediately after training, T1; and after a 4-week retention, T2). Behaviourally, speech-in-noise performances were improved after retention (T2 vs. T0) but not immediately after training (T1 vs. T0). Neurally, we intriguingly found brain responses to speech vs. non-speech decreased significantly in the left auditory cortex after retention (T2 vs. T0 and T2 vs. T1) for which we interpret as suppressed processing of background noise during speech listening alongside the significant behavioural improvements. Meanwhile, functional connectivity within and between multiple regions of temporal, parietal and frontal lobes was significantly enhanced in the speech condition after retention (T2 vs. T0). We also found neural changes before the emergence of significant behavioural improvements. Compared to pre-training, responses to speech vs. non-speech in the left frontal/prefrontal cortex were decreased significantly both immediately after training (T1 vs. T0) and retention (T2 vs. T0), reflecting possible alleviation of listening efforts. Finally, connectivity was significantly decreased between auditory and higher-level non-auditory (parietal and frontal) cortices in response to visual stimuli immediately after training (T1 vs. T0), indicating decreased cross-modal takeover of speech-related regions during visual processing. The results thus showed that neuroplasticity can be observed not only at the same time with, but also before, behavioural changes in speech-in-noise perception. To our knowledge, this is the first fNIRS study to evaluate speech-based auditory neuroplasticity in older adults. It thus provides important implications for current research by illustrating the promises of detecting neuroplasticity using fNIRS in hearing-vulnerable individuals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Guangting Mai
- National Institute for Health and Care Research Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre, Nottingham, UK.
- Academic Unit of Mental Health and Clinical Neurosciences, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
- Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, UK.
- Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, University College London, London, UK.
| | - Zhizhao Jiang
- Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, UK
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Xinran Wang
- Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, UK
| | - Ilias Tachtsidis
- Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, University College London, London, UK
| | - Peter Howell
- Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, UK
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2
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Kovács P, Szalárdy O, Winkler I, Tóth B. Two effects of perceived speaker similarity in resolving the cocktail party situation - ERPs and functional connectivity. Biol Psychol 2023; 182:108651. [PMID: 37517603 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2023.108651] [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: 04/14/2023] [Revised: 07/15/2023] [Accepted: 07/24/2023] [Indexed: 08/01/2023]
Abstract
Following a speaker in multi-talker environments requires the listener to separate the speakers' voices and continuously focus attention on one speech stream. While the dissimilarity of voices may make speaker separation easier, it may also affect maintaining the focus of attention. To assess these effects, electrophysiological (EEG) and behavioral data were collected from healthy young adults while they listened to two concurrent speech streams performing an online lexical detection task and an offline recognition memory task. Perceptual speaker similarity was manipulated on four levels: identical, similar, dissimilar, and opposite-gender speakers. Behavioral and electrophysiological data suggested that, while speaker similarity hinders auditory stream segregation, dissimilarity hinders maintaining the focus of attention by making the to-be-ignored speech stream more distracting. Thus, resolving the cocktail party situation poses different problems at different levels of perceived speaker similarity, resulting in different listening strategies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Petra Kovács
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Budapest, Hungary; Department of Cognitive Science, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Orsolya Szalárdy
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Budapest, Hungary; Institute of Behavioural Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary
| | - István Winkler
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Brigitta Tóth
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Budapest, Hungary.
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3
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Liu D, Chang Y, Dai G, Guo Z, Jones JA, Li T, Chen X, Chen M, Li J, Wu X, Liu P, Liu H. Right, but not left, posterior superior temporal gyrus is causally involved in vocal feedback control. Neuroimage 2023; 278:120282. [PMID: 37468021 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120282] [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: 05/01/2023] [Revised: 06/25/2023] [Accepted: 07/16/2023] [Indexed: 07/21/2023] Open
Abstract
The posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG) has been implicated in the integration of auditory feedback and motor system for controlling vocal production. However, the question as to whether and how the pSTG is causally involved in vocal feedback control is currently unclear. To this end, the present study selectively stimulated the left or right pSTG with continuous theta burst stimulation (c-TBS) in healthy participants, then used event-related potentials to investigate neurobehavioral changes in response to altered auditory feedback during vocal pitch regulation. The results showed that, compared to control (vertex) stimulation, c-TBS over the right pSTG led to smaller vocal compensations for pitch perturbations accompanied by smaller cortical N1 and larger P2 responses. Enhanced P2 responses received contributions from the right-lateralized temporal and parietal regions as well as the insula, and were significantly correlated with suppressed vocal compensations. Surprisingly, these effects were not found when comparing c-TBS over the left pSTG with control stimulation. Our findings provide evidence, for the first time, that supports a causal relationship between right, but not left, pSTG and auditory-motor integration for vocal pitch regulation. This lends support to a right-lateralized contribution of the pSTG in not only the bottom-up detection of vocal feedback errors but also the involvement of driving motor commands for error correction in a top-down manner.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dongxu Liu
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Yichen Chang
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Guangyan Dai
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Zhiqiang Guo
- School of Computer, Zhuhai College of Science and Technology, Zhuhai, China
| | - Jeffery A Jones
- Department of Psychology and Laurier Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3C5, Canada
| | - Tingni Li
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China; Centre for Eye and Vision Research, 17W Science Park, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Xi Chen
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Mingyun Chen
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Jingting Li
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Xiuqin Wu
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
| | - Peng Liu
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
| | - Hanjun Liu
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
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Landsiedel J, Koldewyn K. Auditory dyadic interactions through the "eye" of the social brain: How visual is the posterior STS interaction region? IMAGING NEUROSCIENCE (CAMBRIDGE, MASS.) 2023; 1:1-20. [PMID: 37719835 PMCID: PMC10503480 DOI: 10.1162/imag_a_00003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/16/2023] [Accepted: 05/17/2023] [Indexed: 09/19/2023]
Abstract
Human interactions contain potent social cues that meet not only the eye but also the ear. Although research has identified a region in the posterior superior temporal sulcus as being particularly sensitive to visually presented social interactions (SI-pSTS), its response to auditory interactions has not been tested. Here, we used fMRI to explore brain response to auditory interactions, with a focus on temporal regions known to be important in auditory processing and social interaction perception. In Experiment 1, monolingual participants listened to two-speaker conversations (intact or sentence-scrambled) and one-speaker narrations in both a known and an unknown language. Speaker number and conversational coherence were explored in separately localised regions-of-interest (ROI). In Experiment 2, bilingual participants were scanned to explore the role of language comprehension. Combining univariate and multivariate analyses, we found initial evidence for a heteromodal response to social interactions in SI-pSTS. Specifically, right SI-pSTS preferred auditory interactions over control stimuli and represented information about both speaker number and interactive coherence. Bilateral temporal voice areas (TVA) showed a similar, but less specific, profile. Exploratory analyses identified another auditory-interaction sensitive area in anterior STS. Indeed, direct comparison suggests modality specific tuning, with SI-pSTS preferring visual information while aSTS prefers auditory information. Altogether, these results suggest that right SI-pSTS is a heteromodal region that represents information about social interactions in both visual and auditory domains. Future work is needed to clarify the roles of TVA and aSTS in auditory interaction perception and further probe right SI-pSTS interaction-selectivity using non-semantic prosodic cues.
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Affiliation(s)
- Julia Landsiedel
- Department of Psychology, School of Human and Behavioural Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor, United Kingdom
| | - Kami Koldewyn
- Department of Psychology, School of Human and Behavioural Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor, United Kingdom
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5
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Alexander RG, Macknik SL, Martinez-Conde S. What the Neuroscience and Psychology of Magic Reveal about Misinformation. PUBLICATIONS 2022; 10:33. [PMID: 36275197 PMCID: PMC9583043 DOI: 10.3390/publications10040033] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 09/07/2024] Open
Abstract
When we believe misinformation, we have succumbed to an illusion: our perception or interpretation of the world does not match reality. We often trust misinformation for reasons that are unrelated to an objective, critical interpretation of the available data: Key facts go unnoticed or unreported. Overwhelming information prevents the formulation of alternative explanations. Statements become more believable every time they are repeated. Events are reframed or given "spin" to mislead audiences. In magic shows, illusionists apply similar techniques to convince spectators that false and even seemingly impossible events have happened. Yet, many magicians are "honest liars," asking audiences to suspend their disbelief only during the performance, for the sole purpose of entertainment. Magic misdirection has been studied in the lab for over a century. Psychological research has sought to understand magic from a scientific perspective and to apply the tools of magic to the understanding of cognitive and perceptual processes. More recently, neuroscientific investigations have also explored the relationship between magic illusions and their underlying brain mechanisms. We propose that the insights gained from such studies can be applied to understanding the prevalence and success of misinformation. Here, we review some of the common factors in how people experience magic during a performance and are subject to misinformation in their daily lives. Considering these factors will be important in reducing misinformation and encouraging critical thinking in society.
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Affiliation(s)
- Robert G. Alexander
- Departments of Ophthalmology, Neurology, and Physiology & Pharmacology, State University of New York Downstate Health Sciences University, Brooklyn, NY 11203, USA
| | - Stephen L. Macknik
- Departments of Ophthalmology, Neurology, and Physiology & Pharmacology, State University of New York Downstate Health Sciences University, Brooklyn, NY 11203, USA
| | - Susana Martinez-Conde
- Departments of Ophthalmology, Neurology, and Physiology & Pharmacology, State University of New York Downstate Health Sciences University, Brooklyn, NY 11203, USA
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6
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Li Z, Hong B, Wang D, Nolte G, Engel AK, Zhang D. Speaker-listener neural coupling reveals a right-lateralized mechanism for non-native speech-in-noise comprehension. Cereb Cortex 2022; 33:3701-3714. [PMID: 35975617 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhac302] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/03/2022] [Revised: 07/08/2022] [Accepted: 07/09/2022] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
While the increasingly globalized world has brought more and more demands for non-native language communication, the prevalence of background noise in everyday life poses a great challenge to non-native speech comprehension. The present study employed an interbrain approach based on functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to explore how people adapt to comprehend non-native speech information in noise. A group of Korean participants who acquired Chinese as their non-native language was invited to listen to Chinese narratives at 4 noise levels (no noise, 2 dB, -6 dB, and - 9 dB). These narratives were real-life stories spoken by native Chinese speakers. Processing of the non-native speech was associated with significant fNIRS-based listener-speaker neural couplings mainly over the right hemisphere at both the listener's and the speaker's sides. More importantly, the neural couplings from the listener's right superior temporal gyrus, the right middle temporal gyrus, as well as the right postcentral gyrus were found to be positively correlated with their individual comprehension performance at the strongest noise level (-9 dB). These results provide interbrain evidence in support of the right-lateralized mechanism for non-native speech processing and suggest that both an auditory-based and a sensorimotor-based mechanism contributed to the non-native speech-in-noise comprehension.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhuoran Li
- Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.,Tsinghua Laboratory of Brain and Intelligence, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Bo Hong
- Tsinghua Laboratory of Brain and Intelligence, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.,Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Daifa Wang
- School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100083, China
| | - Guido Nolte
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg Eppendorf, 20246 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Andreas K Engel
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg Eppendorf, 20246 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Dan Zhang
- Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.,Tsinghua Laboratory of Brain and Intelligence, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
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7
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Distracting Linguistic Information Impairs Neural Tracking of Attended Speech. CURRENT RESEARCH IN NEUROBIOLOGY 2022; 3:100043. [DOI: 10.1016/j.crneur.2022.100043] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/16/2021] [Revised: 04/27/2022] [Accepted: 05/24/2022] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
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8
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Bsharat-Maalouf D, Karawani H. Bilinguals' speech perception in noise: Perceptual and neural associations. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0264282. [PMID: 35196339 PMCID: PMC8865662 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0264282] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/05/2021] [Accepted: 02/07/2022] [Indexed: 01/26/2023] Open
Abstract
The current study characterized subcortical speech sound processing among monolinguals and bilinguals in quiet and challenging listening conditions and examined the relation between subcortical neural processing and perceptual performance. A total of 59 normal-hearing adults, ages 19–35 years, participated in the study: 29 native Hebrew-speaking monolinguals and 30 Arabic-Hebrew-speaking bilinguals. Auditory brainstem responses to speech sounds were collected in a quiet condition and with background noise. The perception of words and sentences in quiet and background noise conditions was also examined to assess perceptual performance and to evaluate the perceptual-physiological relationship. Perceptual performance was tested among bilinguals in both languages (first language (L1-Arabic) and second language (L2-Hebrew)). The outcomes were similar between monolingual and bilingual groups in quiet. Noise, as expected, resulted in deterioration in perceptual and neural responses, which was reflected in lower accuracy in perceptual tasks compared to quiet, and in more prolonged latencies and diminished neural responses. However, a mixed picture was observed among bilinguals in perceptual and physiological outcomes in noise. In the perceptual measures, bilinguals were significantly less accurate than their monolingual counterparts. However, in neural responses, bilinguals demonstrated earlier peak latencies compared to monolinguals. Our results also showed that perceptual performance in noise was related to subcortical resilience to the disruption caused by background noise. Specifically, in noise, increased brainstem resistance (i.e., fewer changes in the fundamental frequency (F0) representations or fewer shifts in the neural timing) was related to better speech perception among bilinguals. Better perception in L1 in noise was correlated with fewer changes in F0 representations, and more accurate perception in L2 was related to minor shifts in auditory neural timing. This study delves into the importance of using neural brainstem responses to speech sounds to differentiate individuals with different language histories and to explain inter-subject variability in bilinguals’ perceptual abilities in daily life situations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dana Bsharat-Maalouf
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
| | - Hanin Karawani
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
- * E-mail:
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9
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Agmon G, Yahav PHS, Ben-Shachar M, Golumbic EZ. Attention to Speech: Mapping Distributed and Selective Attention Systems. Cereb Cortex 2021; 32:3763-3776. [PMID: 34875678 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhab446] [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: 05/02/2021] [Revised: 11/02/2021] [Accepted: 11/03/2021] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
When faced with situations where many people talk at once, individuals can employ different listening strategies to deal with the cacophony of speech sounds and to achieve different goals. In this fMRI study, we investigated how the pattern of neural activity is affected by the type of attention applied to speech in a simulated "cocktail party." Specifically, we compared brain activation patterns when listeners "attended selectively" to only one speaker and ignored all others, versus when they "distributed their attention" and followed several concurrent speakers. Conjunction analysis revealed a highly overlapping network of regions activated for both types of attention, including auditory association cortex (bilateral STG/STS) and frontoparietal regions related to speech processing and attention (bilateral IFG/insula, right MFG, left IPS). Activity within nodes of this network, though, was modulated by the type of attention required as well as the number of competing speakers. Auditory and speech-processing regions exhibited higher activity during distributed attention, whereas frontoparietal regions were activated more strongly during selective attention. These results suggest a common "attention to speech" network, which provides the computational infrastructure to deal effectively with multi-speaker input, but with sufficient flexibility to implement different prioritization strategies and to adapt to different listener goals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Galit Agmon
- Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 5290002, Israel
| | - Paz Har-Shai Yahav
- Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 5290002, Israel
| | - Michal Ben-Shachar
- Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 5290002, Israel.,Department of English Literature and Linguistics, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 5290002, Israel
| | - Elana Zion Golumbic
- Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 5290002, Israel
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10
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Zhang M, Denison RN, Pelli DG, Le TTC, Ihlefeld A. An auditory-visual tradeoff in susceptibility to clutter. Sci Rep 2021; 11:23540. [PMID: 34876580 PMCID: PMC8651672 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-00328-0] [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: 04/30/2021] [Accepted: 08/12/2021] [Indexed: 01/13/2023] Open
Abstract
Sensory cortical mechanisms combine auditory or visual features into perceived objects. This is difficult in noisy or cluttered environments. Knowing that individuals vary greatly in their susceptibility to clutter, we wondered whether there might be a relation between an individual's auditory and visual susceptibilities to clutter. In auditory masking, background sound makes spoken words unrecognizable. When masking arises due to interference at central auditory processing stages, beyond the cochlea, it is called informational masking. A strikingly similar phenomenon in vision, called visual crowding, occurs when nearby clutter makes a target object unrecognizable, despite being resolved at the retina. We here compare susceptibilities to auditory informational masking and visual crowding in the same participants. Surprisingly, across participants, we find a negative correlation (R = -0.7) between susceptibility to informational masking and crowding: Participants who have low susceptibility to auditory clutter tend to have high susceptibility to visual clutter, and vice versa. This reveals a tradeoff in the brain between auditory and visual processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Min Zhang
- grid.260896.30000 0001 2166 4955Department of Biomedical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ USA ,grid.430387.b0000 0004 1936 8796Department of Biomedical Engineering, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Newark, NJ USA
| | - Rachel N Denison
- grid.189504.10000 0004 1936 7558Department of Psychology, Boston University, Boston, MA USA
| | - Denis G Pelli
- grid.137628.90000 0004 1936 8753Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY USA
| | - Thuy Tien C Le
- grid.260896.30000 0001 2166 4955Department of Biomedical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ USA ,grid.430387.b0000 0004 1936 8796Department of Biomedical Engineering, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Newark, NJ USA
| | - Antje Ihlefeld
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, USA.
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11
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Kiremitçi I, Yilmaz Ö, Çelik E, Shahdloo M, Huth AG, Çukur T. Attentional Modulation of Hierarchical Speech Representations in a Multitalker Environment. Cereb Cortex 2021; 31:4986-5005. [PMID: 34115102 PMCID: PMC8491717 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhab136] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/03/2020] [Revised: 04/01/2021] [Accepted: 04/21/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Humans are remarkably adept in listening to a desired speaker in a crowded environment, while filtering out nontarget speakers in the background. Attention is key to solving this difficult cocktail-party task, yet a detailed characterization of attentional effects on speech representations is lacking. It remains unclear across what levels of speech features and how much attentional modulation occurs in each brain area during the cocktail-party task. To address these questions, we recorded whole-brain blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) responses while subjects either passively listened to single-speaker stories, or selectively attended to a male or a female speaker in temporally overlaid stories in separate experiments. Spectral, articulatory, and semantic models of the natural stories were constructed. Intrinsic selectivity profiles were identified via voxelwise models fit to passive listening responses. Attentional modulations were then quantified based on model predictions for attended and unattended stories in the cocktail-party task. We find that attention causes broad modulations at multiple levels of speech representations while growing stronger toward later stages of processing, and that unattended speech is represented up to the semantic level in parabelt auditory cortex. These results provide insights on attentional mechanisms that underlie the ability to selectively listen to a desired speaker in noisy multispeaker environments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ibrahim Kiremitçi
- Neuroscience Program, Sabuncu Brain Research Center, Bilkent University, Ankara TR-06800, Turkey
- National Magnetic Resonance Research Center (UMRAM), Bilkent University, Ankara TR-06800, Turkey
| | - Özgür Yilmaz
- National Magnetic Resonance Research Center (UMRAM), Bilkent University, Ankara TR-06800, Turkey
- Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Bilkent University, Ankara TR-06800, Turkey
| | - Emin Çelik
- Neuroscience Program, Sabuncu Brain Research Center, Bilkent University, Ankara TR-06800, Turkey
- National Magnetic Resonance Research Center (UMRAM), Bilkent University, Ankara TR-06800, Turkey
| | - Mo Shahdloo
- National Magnetic Resonance Research Center (UMRAM), Bilkent University, Ankara TR-06800, Turkey
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 9DU, UK
| | - Alexander G Huth
- Department of Neuroscience, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
- Department of Computer Science, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
- Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94702, USA
| | - Tolga Çukur
- Neuroscience Program, Sabuncu Brain Research Center, Bilkent University, Ankara TR-06800, Turkey
- National Magnetic Resonance Research Center (UMRAM), Bilkent University, Ankara TR-06800, Turkey
- Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Bilkent University, Ankara TR-06800, Turkey
- Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94702, USA
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12
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Zhang M, Alamatsaz N, Ihlefeld A. Hemodynamic Responses Link Individual Differences in Informational Masking to the Vicinity of Superior Temporal Gyrus. Front Neurosci 2021; 15:675326. [PMID: 34366772 PMCID: PMC8339305 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2021.675326] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2021] [Accepted: 05/13/2021] [Indexed: 01/20/2023] Open
Abstract
Suppressing unwanted background sound is crucial for aural communication. A particularly disruptive type of background sound, informational masking (IM), often interferes in social settings. However, IM mechanisms are incompletely understood. At present, IM is identified operationally: when a target should be audible, based on suprathreshold target/masker energy ratios, yet cannot be heard because target-like background sound interferes. We here confirm that speech identification thresholds differ dramatically between low- vs. high-IM background sound. However, speech detection thresholds are comparable across the two conditions. Moreover, functional near infrared spectroscopy recordings show that task-evoked blood oxygenation changes near the superior temporal gyrus (STG) covary with behavioral speech detection performance for high-IM but not low-IM background sound, suggesting that the STG is part of an IM-dependent network. Moreover, listeners who are more vulnerable to IM show increased hemodynamic recruitment near STG, an effect that cannot be explained based on differences in task difficulty across low- vs. high-IM. In contrast, task-evoked responses near another auditory region of cortex, the caudal inferior frontal sulcus (cIFS), do not predict behavioral sensitivity, suggesting that the cIFS belongs to an IM-independent network. Results are consistent with the idea that cortical gating shapes individual vulnerability to IM.
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Affiliation(s)
- Min Zhang
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, United States
- Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, United States
| | - Nima Alamatsaz
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, United States
- Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, United States
| | - Antje Ihlefeld
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, United States
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13
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Marsh JE, Threadgold E, Barker ME, Litchfield D, Degno F, Ball LJ. The susceptibility of compound remote associate problems to disruption by irrelevant sound: a Window onto the component processes underpinning creative cognition? JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 2021. [DOI: 10.1080/20445911.2021.1900201] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- John E. Marsh
- School of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK
- Engineering Psychology, Humans and Technology, Department of Business Administration, Technology and Social Sciences, Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, Sweden
| | - Emma Threadgold
- School of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK
| | - Melissa E. Barker
- School of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK
- Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, UK
| | | | - Federica Degno
- School of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK
| | - Linden J. Ball
- School of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK
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14
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Swanborough H, Staib M, Frühholz S. Neurocognitive dynamics of near-threshold voice signal detection and affective voice evaluation. SCIENCE ADVANCES 2020; 6:6/50/eabb3884. [PMID: 33310844 PMCID: PMC7732184 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abb3884] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/20/2020] [Accepted: 10/29/2020] [Indexed: 05/10/2023]
Abstract
Communication and voice signal detection in noisy environments are universal tasks for many species. The fundamental problem of detecting voice signals in noise (VIN) is underinvestigated especially in its temporal dynamic properties. We investigated VIN as a dynamic signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) problem to determine the neurocognitive dynamics of subthreshold evidence accrual and near-threshold voice signal detection. Experiment 1 showed that dynamic VIN, including a varying SNR and subthreshold sensory evidence accrual, is superior to similar conditions with nondynamic SNRs or with acoustically matched sounds. Furthermore, voice signals with affective meaning have a detection advantage during VIN. Experiment 2 demonstrated that VIN is driven by an effective neural integration in an auditory cortical-limbic network at and beyond the near-threshold detection point, which is preceded by activity in subcortical auditory nuclei. This demonstrates the superior recognition advantage of communication signals in dynamic noise contexts, especially when carrying socio-affective meaning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Huw Swanborough
- Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
- Neuroscience Center Zurich, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Matthias Staib
- Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Neuroscience Center Zurich, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Sascha Frühholz
- Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
- Neuroscience Center Zurich, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
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15
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Abstract
Being able to pick out particular sounds, such as speech, against a background of other sounds represents one of the key tasks performed by the auditory system. Understanding how this happens is important because speech recognition in noise is particularly challenging for older listeners and for people with hearing impairments. Central to this ability is the capacity of neurons to adapt to the statistics of sounds reaching the ears, which helps to generate noise-tolerant representations of sounds in the brain. In more complex auditory scenes, such as a cocktail party — where the background noise comprises other voices, sound features associated with each source have to be grouped together and segregated from those belonging to other sources. This depends on precise temporal coding and modulation of cortical response properties when attending to a particular speaker in a multi-talker environment. Furthermore, the neural processing underlying auditory scene analysis is shaped by experience over multiple timescales.
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16
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Tóth B, Honbolygó F, Szalárdy O, Orosz G, Farkas D, Winkler I. The effects of speech processing units on auditory stream segregation and selective attention in a multi-talker (cocktail party) situation. Cortex 2020; 130:387-400. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2020.06.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/11/2019] [Revised: 03/24/2020] [Accepted: 06/08/2020] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
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17
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Yuriko Santos Kawata N, Hashimoto T, Kawashima R. Neural mechanisms underlying concurrent listening of simultaneous speech. Brain Res 2020; 1738:146821. [PMID: 32259518 DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2020.146821] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/21/2019] [Revised: 03/31/2020] [Accepted: 04/03/2020] [Indexed: 10/24/2022]
Abstract
Can we identify what two people are saying at the same time? Although it is difficult to perfectly repeat two or more simultaneous messages, listeners can report information from both speakers. In a concurrent/divided listening task, enhanced attention and segregation of speech can be required rather than selection and suppression. However, the neural mechanisms of concurrent listening to multi-speaker concurrent speech has yet to be clarified. The present study utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the neural responses of healthy young adults listening to concurrent male and female speakers in an attempt to reveal the mechanism of concurrent listening. After practice and multiple trials testing concurrent listening, 31 participants achieved performance comparable with that of selective listening. Furthermore, compared to selective listening, concurrent listening induced greater activation in the anterior cingulate cortex, bilateral anterior insula, frontoparietal regions, and the periaqueductal gray region. In addition to the salience network for multi-speaker listening, attentional modulation and enhanced segregation of these signals could be used to achieve successful concurrent listening. These results indicate the presence of a potential mechanism by which one can listen to two voices with enhanced attention to saliency signals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Natasha Yuriko Santos Kawata
- Department of Functional Brain Imaging, Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer (IDAC), Tohoku University, Japan
| | - Teruo Hashimoto
- Division of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer (IDAC), Tohoku University, Japan.
| | - Ryuta Kawashima
- Department of Functional Brain Imaging, Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer (IDAC), Tohoku University, Japan; Division of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer (IDAC), Tohoku University, Japan
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18
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Abstract
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) reportedly possess preserved or superior music-processing skills compared to their typically developing counterparts. We examined auditory imagery and earworms (tunes that get "stuck" in the head) in adults with ASD and controls. Both groups completed a short earworm questionnaire together with the Bucknell Auditory Imagery Scale. Results showed poorer auditory imagery in the ASD group for all types of auditory imagery. However, the ASD group did not report fewer earworms than matched controls. These data suggest a possible basis in poor auditory imagery for poor prosody in ASD, but also highlight a separability between auditory imagery and control of musical memories. The separability is present in the ASD group but not in typically developing individuals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alex Bacon
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Earley Gate, Whiteknights, Reading, RG6 6AL, UK
| | - C Philip Beaman
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Earley Gate, Whiteknights, Reading, RG6 6AL, UK.
| | - Fang Liu
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Earley Gate, Whiteknights, Reading, RG6 6AL, UK
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19
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Abstract
Human speech perception is a paradigm example of the complexity of human linguistic processing; however, it is also the dominant way of expressing vocal identity and is critically important for social interactions. Here, I review the ways that the speech, the talker, and the social nature of speech interact and how this may be computed in the human brain, using models and approaches from nonhuman primate studies. I explore the extent to which domain-general approaches may be able to account for some of these neural findings. Finally, I address the importance of extending these findings into a better understanding of the social use of speech in conversations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sophie K Scott
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
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20
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Ghaffarvand Mokari P, Werner S. On the Role of Cognitive Abilities in Second Language Vowel Learning. LANGUAGE AND SPEECH 2019; 62:260-280. [PMID: 29589808 DOI: 10.1177/0023830918764517] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
This study investigated the role of different cognitive abilities-inhibitory control, attention control, phonological short-term memory (PSTM), and acoustic short-term memory (AM)-in second language (L2) vowel learning. The participants were 40 Azerbaijani learners of Standard Southern British English. Their perception of L2 vowels was tested through a perceptual discrimination task before and after five sessions of high-variability phonetic training. Inhibitory control was significantly correlated with gains from training in the discrimination of L2 vowel pairs. However, there were no significant correlations between attention control, AM, PSTM, and gains from training. These findings suggest the potential role of inhibitory control in L2 phonological learning. We suggest that inhibitory control facilitates the processing of L2 sounds by allowing learners to ignore the interfering information from L1 during training, leading to better L2 segmental learning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Payam Ghaffarvand Mokari
- Department of General Linguistics and Language Technology, School of Humanities, University of Eastern Finland, Finland
| | - Stefan Werner
- Department of General Linguistics and Language Technology, School of Humanities, University of Eastern Finland, Finland
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21
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Tóth B, Farkas D, Urbán G, Szalárdy O, Orosz G, Hunyadi L, Hajdu B, Kovács A, Szabó BT, Shestopalova LB, Winkler I. Attention and speech-processing related functional brain networks activated in a multi-speaker environment. PLoS One 2019; 14:e0212754. [PMID: 30818389 PMCID: PMC6394951 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0212754] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/13/2018] [Accepted: 02/10/2019] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Human listeners can focus on one speech stream out of several concurrent ones. The present study aimed to assess the whole-brain functional networks underlying a) the process of focusing attention on a single speech stream vs. dividing attention between two streams and 2) speech processing on different time-scales and depth. Two spoken narratives were presented simultaneously while listeners were instructed to a) track and memorize the contents of a speech stream and b) detect the presence of numerals or syntactic violations in the same ("focused attended condition") or in the parallel stream ("divided attended condition"). Speech content tracking was found to be associated with stronger connectivity in lower frequency bands (delta band- 0,5-4 Hz), whereas the detection tasks were linked with networks operating in the faster alpha (8-10 Hz) and beta (13-30 Hz) bands. These results suggest that the oscillation frequencies of the dominant brain networks during speech processing may be related to the duration of the time window within which information is integrated. We also found that focusing attention on a single speaker compared to dividing attention between two concurrent speakers was predominantly associated with connections involving the frontal cortices in the delta (0.5-4 Hz), alpha (8-10 Hz), and beta bands (13-30 Hz), whereas dividing attention between two parallel speech streams was linked with stronger connectivity involving the parietal cortices in the delta and beta frequency bands. Overall, connections strengthened by focused attention may reflect control over information selection, whereas connections strengthened by divided attention may reflect the need for maintaining two streams in parallel and the related control processes necessary for performing the tasks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brigitta Tóth
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Dávid Farkas
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
- Department of Cognitive Science, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Gábor Urbán
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
- Department of Cognitive Science, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Orsolya Szalárdy
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
- Institute of Behavioural Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Gábor Orosz
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
- Department of Social and Educational Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
| | - László Hunyadi
- Department of General and Applied Linguistic, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary
| | - Botond Hajdu
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Annamária Kovács
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
- Department of Telecommunication and Media Informatics, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Beáta Tünde Szabó
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
- Faculty of Information Technology and Bionics, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Piliscsaba, Hungary
| | | | - István Winkler
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
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22
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Tang W, Wang XJ, Li JQ, Liu C, Dong Q, Nan Y. Vowel and tone recognition in quiet and in noise among Mandarin-speaking amusics. Hear Res 2018. [DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2018.03.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
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23
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Brainstem-cortical functional connectivity for speech is differentially challenged by noise and reverberation. Hear Res 2018; 367:149-160. [PMID: 29871826 DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2018.05.018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 32] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/25/2018] [Revised: 05/18/2018] [Accepted: 05/23/2018] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
Everyday speech perception is challenged by external acoustic interferences that hinder verbal communication. Here, we directly compared how different levels of the auditory system (brainstem vs. cortex) code speech and how their neural representations are affected by two acoustic stressors: noise and reverberation. We recorded multichannel (64 ch) brainstem frequency-following responses (FFRs) and cortical event-related potentials (ERPs) simultaneously in normal hearing individuals to speech sounds presented in mild and moderate levels of noise and reverb. We matched signal-to-noise and direct-to-reverberant ratios to equate the severity between classes of interference. Electrode recordings were parsed into source waveforms to assess the relative contribution of region-specific brain areas [i.e., brainstem (BS), primary auditory cortex (A1), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG)]. Results showed that reverberation was less detrimental to (and in some cases facilitated) the neural encoding of speech compared to additive noise. Inter-regional correlations revealed associations between BS and A1 responses, suggesting subcortical speech representations influence higher auditory-cortical areas. Functional connectivity analyses further showed that directed signaling toward A1 in both feedforward cortico-collicular (BS→A1) and feedback cortico-cortical (IFG→A1) pathways were strong predictors of degraded speech perception and differentiated "good" vs. "poor" perceivers. Our findings demonstrate a functional interplay within the brain's speech network that depends on the form and severity of acoustic interference. We infer that in addition to the quality of neural representations within individual brain regions, listeners' success at the "cocktail party" is modulated based on how information is transferred among subcortical and cortical hubs of the auditory-linguistic network.
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24
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Ohlenforst B, Wendt D, Kramer SE, Naylor G, Zekveld AA, Lunner T. Impact of SNR, masker type and noise reduction processing on sentence recognition performance and listening effort as indicated by the pupil dilation response. Hear Res 2018; 365:90-99. [PMID: 29779607 DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2018.05.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 56] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/19/2017] [Revised: 05/01/2018] [Accepted: 05/03/2018] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Recent studies have shown that activating the noise reduction scheme in hearing aids results in a smaller peak pupil dilation (PPD), indicating reduced listening effort, at 50% and 95% correct sentence recognition with a 4-talker masker. The objective of this study was to measure the effect of the noise reduction scheme (on or off) on PPD and sentence recognition across a wide range of signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) from +16 dB to -12 dB and two masker types (4-talker and stationary noise). Relatively low PPDs were observed at very low (-12 dB) and very high (+16 dB to +8 dB) SNRs presumably due to 'giving up' and 'easy listening', respectively. The maximum PPD was observed with SNRs at approximately 50% correct sentence recognition. Sentence recognition with both masker types was significantly improved by the noise reduction scheme, which corresponds to the shift in performance from SNR function at approximately 5 dB toward a lower SNR. This intelligibility effect was accompanied by a corresponding effect on the PPD, shifting the peak by approximately 4 dB toward a lower SNR. In addition, with the 4-talker masker, when the noise reduction scheme was active, the PPD was smaller overall than that when the scheme was inactive. We conclude that with the 4-talker masker, noise reduction scheme processing provides a listening effort benefit in addition to any effect associated with improved intelligibility. Thus, the effect of the noise reduction scheme on listening effort incorporates more than can be explained by intelligibility alone, emphasizing the potential importance of measuring listening effort in addition to traditional speech reception measures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Barbara Ohlenforst
- Section Ear & Hearing, Dept. of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, VU University Medical Center and Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Eriksholm Research Center, Oticon A/S, Denmark.
| | - Dorothea Wendt
- Eriksholm Research Center, Oticon A/S, Denmark; Department of Electrical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark
| | - Sophia E Kramer
- Section Ear & Hearing, Dept. of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, VU University Medical Center and Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Graham Naylor
- MRC/CSO Institute of Hearing Research, Scottish Section, Glasgow, United Kingdom, Part of the University of Nottingham
| | - Adriana A Zekveld
- Section Ear & Hearing, Dept. of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, VU University Medical Center and Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Department of Behavioral Sciences and Learning, Linköping University, Sweden; Linnaeus Centre HEAD, The Swedish Institute for Disability Research, Linköping and Örebro Universities, Sweden
| | - Thomas Lunner
- Department of Behavioral Sciences and Learning, Linköping University, Sweden; Linnaeus Centre HEAD, The Swedish Institute for Disability Research, Linköping and Örebro Universities, Sweden; Eriksholm Research Center, Oticon A/S, Denmark; Department of Electrical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark
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25
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Zheng Y, Wu C, Li J, Li R, Peng H, She S, Ning Y, Li L. Schizophrenia alters intra-network functional connectivity in the caudate for detecting speech under informational speech masking conditions. BMC Psychiatry 2018; 18:90. [PMID: 29618332 PMCID: PMC5885301 DOI: 10.1186/s12888-018-1675-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/10/2017] [Accepted: 03/26/2018] [Indexed: 01/17/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Speech recognition under noisy "cocktail-party" environments involves multiple perceptual/cognitive processes, including target detection, selective attention, irrelevant signal inhibition, sensory/working memory, and speech production. Compared to health listeners, people with schizophrenia are more vulnerable to masking stimuli and perform worse in speech recognition under speech-on-speech masking conditions. Although the schizophrenia-related speech-recognition impairment under "cocktail-party" conditions is associated with deficits of various perceptual/cognitive processes, it is crucial to know whether the brain substrates critically underlying speech detection against informational speech masking are impaired in people with schizophrenia. METHODS Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), this study investigated differences between people with schizophrenia (n = 19, mean age = 33 ± 10 years) and their matched healthy controls (n = 15, mean age = 30 ± 9 years) in intra-network functional connectivity (FC) specifically associated with target-speech detection under speech-on-speech-masking conditions. RESULTS The target-speech detection performance under the speech-on-speech-masking condition in participants with schizophrenia was significantly worse than that in matched healthy participants (healthy controls). Moreover, in healthy controls, but not participants with schizophrenia, the strength of intra-network FC within the bilateral caudate was positively correlated with the speech-detection performance under the speech-masking conditions. Compared to controls, patients showed altered spatial activity pattern and decreased intra-network FC in the caudate. CONCLUSIONS In people with schizophrenia, the declined speech-detection performance under speech-on-speech masking conditions is associated with reduced intra-caudate functional connectivity, which normally contributes to detecting target speech against speech masking via its functions of suppressing masking-speech signals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yingjun Zheng
- 0000 0000 8653 1072grid.410737.6The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (Guangzhou Huiai Hospital), Guangzhou, 510370 China
| | - Chao Wu
- 0000 0004 1789 9964grid.20513.35Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875 China
| | - Juanhua Li
- 0000 0000 8653 1072grid.410737.6The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (Guangzhou Huiai Hospital), Guangzhou, 510370 China
| | - Ruikeng Li
- 0000 0000 8653 1072grid.410737.6The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (Guangzhou Huiai Hospital), Guangzhou, 510370 China
| | - Hongjun Peng
- 0000 0000 8653 1072grid.410737.6The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (Guangzhou Huiai Hospital), Guangzhou, 510370 China
| | - Shenglin She
- 0000 0000 8653 1072grid.410737.6The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (Guangzhou Huiai Hospital), Guangzhou, 510370 China
| | - Yuping Ning
- 0000 0000 8653 1072grid.410737.6The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (Guangzhou Huiai Hospital), Guangzhou, 510370 China
| | - Liang Li
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Key Laboratory on Machine Perception (Ministry of Education), Peking University, 5 Yiheyuan Road, Beijing, 100080, People's Republic of China. .,Beijing Institute for Brain Disorder, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
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26
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Wu C, Zheng Y, Li J, She S, Peng H, Li L. Cortical Gray Matter Loss, Augmented Vulnerability to Speech-on-Speech Masking, and Delusion in People With Schizophrenia. Front Psychiatry 2018; 9:287. [PMID: 30022955 PMCID: PMC6040158 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00287] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/21/2018] [Accepted: 06/12/2018] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
People with schizophrenia exhibit impairments in target-speech recognition (TSR) against multiple-talker-induced informational speech masking. Up to date, the underlying neural mechanisms and its relationships with psychotic symptoms remain largely unknown. This study aimed to investigate whether the schizophrenia-associated TSR impairment contribute to certain psychotic symptoms by sharing underlying alternations in cortical gray-matter volume (GMV) with the psychotic symptoms. Participants with schizophrenia (N = 34) and their matched healthy controls (N = 29) were tested for TSR against a two-talker-speech masker. Psychotic symptoms of participants with schizophrenia were evaluated using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. The regional GMV across various cortical regions was assessed using the voxel-based morphometry. The results of partial-correlation and mediation analyses showed that in participants with schizophrenia, the TSR was negatively correlated with the delusion severity, but positively with the GMV in the bilateral superior/middle temporal cortex, bilateral insular, left medial orbital frontal gyrus, left Rolandic operculum, left mid-cingulate cortex, left posterior fusiform, and left cerebellum. Moreover, the association between GMV and delusion was based on the mediating role played by the TSR performance. Thus, in people with schizophrenia, both delusions and the augmented vulnerability of TSR to informational masking are associated with each other and share the underlying cortical GMV reduction, suggesting that the origin of delusion in schizophrenia may be related to disorganized or limited informational processing (e.g., the incapability of adequately filtering information from multiple sources at the perceptual level). The TSR impairment can be a potential marker for predicting delusion severity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chao Wu
- Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
| | - Yingjun Zheng
- Guangzhou Brain Hospital, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Juanhua Li
- Guangzhou Brain Hospital, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Shenglin She
- Guangzhou Brain Hospital, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Hongjun Peng
- Guangzhou Brain Hospital, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Liang Li
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Key Laboratory on Machine Perception, Ministry of Education, Peking University, Beijing, China.,Beijing Institute for Brain Disorder, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China
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27
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Zhang M, Mary Ying YL, Ihlefeld A. Spatial Release From Informational Masking: Evidence From Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy. Trends Hear 2018; 22:2331216518817464. [PMID: 30558491 PMCID: PMC6299332 DOI: 10.1177/2331216518817464] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/28/2018] [Revised: 10/31/2018] [Accepted: 11/13/2018] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Informational masking (IM) can greatly reduce speech intelligibility, but the neural mechanisms underlying IM are not understood. Binaural differences between target and masker can improve speech perception. In general, improvement in masked speech intelligibility due to provision of spatial cues is called spatial release from masking. Here, we focused on an aspect of spatial release from masking, specifically, the role of spatial attention. We hypothesized that in a situation with IM background sound (a) attention to speech recruits lateral frontal cortex (LFCx) and (b) LFCx activity varies with direction of spatial attention. Using functional near infrared spectroscopy, we assessed LFCx activity bilaterally in normal-hearing listeners. In Experiment 1, two talkers were simultaneously presented. Listeners either attended to the target talker (speech task) or they listened passively to an unintelligible, scrambled version of the acoustic mixture (control task). Target and masker differed in pitch and interaural time difference (ITD). Relative to the passive control, LFCx activity increased during attentive listening. Experiment 2 measured how LFCx activity varied with ITD, by testing listeners on the speech task in Experiment 1, except that talkers either were spatially separated by ITD or colocated. Results show that directing of auditory attention activates LFCx bilaterally. Moreover, right LFCx is recruited more strongly in the spatially separated as compared with colocated configurations. Findings hint that LFCx function contributes to spatial release from masking in situations with IM.
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Affiliation(s)
- Min Zhang
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, USA
- Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, USA
| | - Yu-Lan Mary Ying
- Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Newark, NJ, USA
| | - Antje Ihlefeld
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, USA
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28
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Magnified Neural Envelope Coding Predicts Deficits in Speech Perception in Noise. J Neurosci 2017; 37:7727-7736. [PMID: 28694336 PMCID: PMC5551064 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.2722-16.2017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 37] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/29/2016] [Revised: 05/09/2017] [Accepted: 05/23/2017] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Verbal communication in noisy backgrounds is challenging. Understanding speech in background noise that fluctuates in intensity over time is particularly difficult for hearing-impaired listeners with a sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL). The reduction in fast-acting cochlear compression associated with SNHL exaggerates the perceived fluctuations in intensity in amplitude-modulated sounds. SNHL-induced changes in the coding of amplitude-modulated sounds may have a detrimental effect on the ability of SNHL listeners to understand speech in the presence of modulated background noise. To date, direct evidence for a link between magnified envelope coding and deficits in speech identification in modulated noise has been absent. Here, magnetoencephalography was used to quantify the effects of SNHL on phase locking to the temporal envelope of modulated noise (envelope coding) in human auditory cortex. Our results show that SNHL enhances the amplitude of envelope coding in posteromedial auditory cortex, whereas it enhances the fidelity of envelope coding in posteromedial and posterolateral auditory cortex. This dissociation was more evident in the right hemisphere, demonstrating functional lateralization in enhanced envelope coding in SNHL listeners. However, enhanced envelope coding was not perceptually beneficial. Our results also show that both hearing thresholds and, to a lesser extent, magnified cortical envelope coding in left posteromedial auditory cortex predict speech identification in modulated background noise. We propose a framework in which magnified envelope coding in posteromedial auditory cortex disrupts the segregation of speech from background noise, leading to deficits in speech perception in modulated background noise. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT People with hearing loss struggle to follow conversations in noisy environments. Background noise that fluctuates in intensity over time poses a particular challenge. Using magnetoencephalography, we demonstrate anatomically distinct cortical representations of modulated noise in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners. This work provides the first link among hearing thresholds, the amplitude of cortical representations of modulated sounds, and the ability to understand speech in modulated background noise. In light of previous work, we propose that magnified cortical representations of modulated sounds disrupt the separation of speech from modulated background noise in auditory cortex.
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Li J, Wu C, Zheng Y, Li R, Li X, She S, Wu H, Peng H, Ning Y, Li L. Schizophrenia affects speech-induced functional connectivity of the superior temporal gyrus under cocktail-party listening conditions. Neuroscience 2017; 359:248-257. [PMID: 28673720 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2017.06.043] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/14/2017] [Revised: 06/02/2017] [Accepted: 06/22/2017] [Indexed: 12/31/2022]
Abstract
The superior temporal gyrus (STG) is involved in speech recognition against informational masking under cocktail-party-listening conditions. Compared to healthy listeners, people with schizophrenia perform worse in speech recognition under informational speech-on-speech masking conditions. It is not clear whether the schizophrenia-related vulnerability to informational masking is associated with certain changes in FC of the STG with some critical brain regions. Using sparse-sampling fMRI design, this study investigated the differences between people with schizophrenia and healthy controls in FC of the STG for target-speech listening against informational speech-on-speech masking, when a listening condition with either perceived spatial separation (PSS, with a spatial release of informational masking) or perceived spatial co-location (PSC, without the spatial release) between target speech and masking speech was introduced. The results showed that in healthy participants, but not participants with schizophrenia, the contrast of either the PSS or PSC condition against the masker-only condition induced an enhancement of functional connectivity (FC) of the STG with the left superior parietal lobule and the right precuneus. Compared to healthy participants, participants with schizophrenia showed declined FC of the STG with the bilateral precuneus, right SPL, and right supplementary motor area. Thus, FC of the STG with the parietal areas is normally involved in speech listening against informational masking under either the PSS or PSC conditions, and declined FC of the STG in people with schizophrenia with the parietal areas may be associated with the increased vulnerability to informational masking.
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Affiliation(s)
- Juanhua Li
- The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (Guangzhou Huiai Hospital), Guangzhou 510370, China
| | - Chao Wu
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Key Laboratory on Machine Perception (Ministry of Education), Peking University, Beijing 100080, China; School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
| | - Yingjun Zheng
- The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (Guangzhou Huiai Hospital), Guangzhou 510370, China
| | - Ruikeng Li
- The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (Guangzhou Huiai Hospital), Guangzhou 510370, China
| | - Xuanzi Li
- The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (Guangzhou Huiai Hospital), Guangzhou 510370, China
| | - Shenglin She
- The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (Guangzhou Huiai Hospital), Guangzhou 510370, China
| | - Haibo Wu
- The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (Guangzhou Huiai Hospital), Guangzhou 510370, China
| | - Hongjun Peng
- The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (Guangzhou Huiai Hospital), Guangzhou 510370, China
| | - Yuping Ning
- The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (Guangzhou Huiai Hospital), Guangzhou 510370, China
| | - Liang Li
- The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (Guangzhou Huiai Hospital), Guangzhou 510370, China; School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Key Laboratory on Machine Perception (Ministry of Education), Peking University, Beijing 100080, China; Beijing Institute for Brain Disorder, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
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30
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Functional neuroanatomy of speech signal decoding in primary progressive aphasias. Neurobiol Aging 2017; 56:190-201. [PMID: 28571652 PMCID: PMC5476347 DOI: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2017.04.026] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/01/2017] [Revised: 04/26/2017] [Accepted: 04/28/2017] [Indexed: 01/01/2023]
Abstract
The pathophysiology of primary progressive aphasias remains poorly understood. Here, we addressed this issue using activation fMRI in a cohort of 27 patients with primary progressive aphasia (nonfluent, semantic, and logopenic variants) versus 15 healthy controls. Participants listened passively to sequences of spoken syllables in which we manipulated 3-key auditory speech signal characteristics: temporal regularity, phonemic spectral structure, and pitch sequence entropy. Relative to healthy controls, nonfluent variant patients showed reduced activation of medial Heschl's gyrus in response to any auditory stimulation and reduced activation of anterior cingulate to temporal irregularity. Semantic variant patients had relatively reduced activation of caudate and anterior cingulate in response to increased entropy. Logopenic variant patients showed reduced activation of posterior superior temporal cortex to phonemic spectral structure. Taken together, our findings suggest that impaired processing of core speech signal attributes may drive particular progressive aphasia syndromes and could index a generic physiological mechanism of reduced computational efficiency relevant to all these syndromes, with implications for development of new biomarkers and therapeutic interventions.
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Wu C, Zheng Y, Li J, Wu H, She S, Liu S, Ning Y, Li L. Brain substrates underlying auditory speech priming in healthy listeners and listeners with schizophrenia. Psychol Med 2017; 47:837-852. [PMID: 27894376 DOI: 10.1017/s0033291716002816] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/19/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Under 'cocktail party' listening conditions, healthy listeners and listeners with schizophrenia can use temporally pre-presented auditory speech-priming (ASP) stimuli to improve target-speech recognition, even though listeners with schizophrenia are more vulnerable to informational speech masking. METHOD Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, this study searched for both brain substrates underlying the unmasking effect of ASP in 16 healthy controls and 22 patients with schizophrenia, and brain substrates underlying schizophrenia-related speech-recognition deficits under speech-masking conditions. RESULTS In both controls and patients, introducing the ASP condition (against the auditory non-speech-priming condition) not only activated the left superior temporal gyrus (STG) and left posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG), but also enhanced functional connectivity of the left STG/pMTG with the left caudate. It also enhanced functional connectivity of the left STG/pMTG with the left pars triangularis of the inferior frontal gyrus (TriIFG) in controls and that with the left Rolandic operculum in patients. The strength of functional connectivity between the left STG and left TriIFG was correlated with target-speech recognition under the speech-masking condition in both controls and patients, but reduced in patients. CONCLUSIONS The left STG/pMTG and their ASP-related functional connectivity with both the left caudate and some frontal regions (the left TriIFG in healthy listeners and the left Rolandic operculum in listeners with schizophrenia) are involved in the unmasking effect of ASP, possibly through facilitating the following processes: masker-signal inhibition, target-speech encoding, and speech production. The schizophrenia-related reduction of functional connectivity between the left STG and left TriIFG augments the vulnerability of speech recognition to speech masking.
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Affiliation(s)
- C Wu
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health,Key Laboratory on Machine Perception (Ministry of Education),Peking University,Beijing,People's Republic of China
| | - Y Zheng
- The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University,Guangzhou,People's Republic of China
| | - J Li
- The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University,Guangzhou,People's Republic of China
| | - H Wu
- The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University,Guangzhou,People's Republic of China
| | - S She
- The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University,Guangzhou,People's Republic of China
| | - S Liu
- The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University,Guangzhou,People's Republic of China
| | - Y Ning
- The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University,Guangzhou,People's Republic of China
| | - L Li
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health,Key Laboratory on Machine Perception (Ministry of Education),Peking University,Beijing,People's Republic of China
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32
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Speech-in-noise perception in musicians: A review. Hear Res 2017; 352:49-69. [PMID: 28213134 DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2017.02.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 83] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/26/2016] [Revised: 02/01/2017] [Accepted: 02/05/2017] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
Abstract
The ability to understand speech in the presence of competing sound sources is an important neuroscience question in terms of how the nervous system solves this computational problem. It is also a critical clinical problem that disproportionally affects the elderly, children with language-related learning disorders, and those with hearing loss. Recent evidence that musicians have an advantage on this multifaceted skill has led to the suggestion that musical training might be used to improve or delay the decline of speech-in-noise (SIN) function. However, enhancements have not been universally reported, nor have the relative contributions of different bottom-up versus top-down processes, and their relation to preexisting factors been disentangled. This information that would be helpful to establish whether there is a real effect of experience, what exactly is its nature, and how future training-based interventions might target the most relevant components of cognitive processes. These questions are complicated by important differences in study design and uneven coverage of neuroimaging modality. In this review, we aim to systematize recent results from studies that have specifically looked at musician-related differences in SIN by their study design properties, to summarize the findings, and to identify knowledge gaps for future work.
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Meekings S, Evans S, Lavan N, Boebinger D, Krieger-Redwood K, Cooke M, Scott SK. Distinct neural systems recruited when speech production is modulated by different masking sounds. THE JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2016; 140:8. [PMID: 27475128 DOI: 10.1121/1.4948587] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
When talkers speak in masking sounds, their speech undergoes a variety of acoustic and phonetic changes. These changes are known collectively as the Lombard effect. Most behavioural research and neuroimaging research in this area has concentrated on the effect of energetic maskers such as white noise on Lombard speech. Previous fMRI studies have argued that neural responses to speaking in noise are driven by the quality of auditory feedback-that is, the audibility of the speaker's voice over the masker. However, we also frequently produce speech in the presence of informational maskers such as another talker. Here, speakers read sentences over a range of maskers varying in their informational and energetic content: speech, rotated speech, speech modulated noise, and white noise. Subjects also spoke in quiet and listened to the maskers without speaking. When subjects spoke in masking sounds, their vocal intensity increased in line with the energetic content of the masker. However, the opposite pattern was found neurally. In the superior temporal gyrus, activation was most strongly associated with increases in informational, rather than energetic, masking. This suggests that the neural activations associated with speaking in noise are more complex than a simple feedback response.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sophie Meekings
- 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
| | - Nadine Lavan
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom
| | - Dana Boebinger
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom
| | - Katya Krieger-Redwood
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom
| | - Martin Cooke
- University of the Basque Country, Facultad de Letras, Universidad del País Vasco/EHU, Paseo de la Universidad 5, Vitoria, Alava 01006, Spain
| | - Sophie K Scott
- Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom
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Evans S, McGettigan C, Agnew ZK, Rosen S, Scott SK. Getting the Cocktail Party Started: Masking Effects in Speech Perception. J Cogn Neurosci 2015; 28:483-500. [PMID: 26696297 DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_00913] [Citation(s) in RCA: 42] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Abstract
Spoken conversations typically take place in noisy environments, and different kinds of masking sounds place differing demands on cognitive resources. Previous studies, examining the modulation of neural activity associated with the properties of competing sounds, have shown that additional speech streams engage the superior temporal gyrus. However, the absence of a condition in which target speech was heard without additional masking made it difficult to identify brain networks specific to masking and to ascertain the extent to which competing speech was processed equivalently to target speech. In this study, we scanned young healthy adults with continuous fMRI, while they listened to stories masked by sounds that differed in their similarity to speech. We show that auditory attention and control networks are activated during attentive listening to masked speech in the absence of an overt behavioral task. We demonstrate that competing speech is processed predominantly in the left hemisphere within the same pathway as target speech but is not treated equivalently within that stream and that individuals who perform better in speech in noise tasks activate the left mid-posterior superior temporal gyrus more. Finally, we identify neural responses associated with the onset of sounds in the auditory environment; activity was found within right lateralized frontal regions consistent with a phasic alerting response. Taken together, these results provide a comprehensive account of the neural processes involved in listening in noise.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Zarinah K Agnew
- University College London.,University of California, San Francisco
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35
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Marsh JE, Hughes RW, Sörqvist P, Beaman CP, Jones DM. Erroneous and veridical recall are not two sides of the same coin: Evidence from semantic distraction in free recall. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 2015; 41:1728-40. [PMID: 25938326 PMCID: PMC4629522 DOI: 10.1037/xlm0000121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/04/2014] [Revised: 08/18/2014] [Accepted: 01/30/2015] [Indexed: 11/11/2022]
Abstract
Two experiments examined the extent to which erroneous recall blocks veridical recall using, as a vehicle for study, the disruptive impact of distractors that are semantically similar to a list of words presented for free recall. Instructing participants to avoid erroneous recall of to-be-ignored spoken distractors attenuated their recall but this did not influence the disruptive effect of those distractors on veridical recall (Experiment 1). Using an externalized output-editing procedure-whereby participants recalled all items that came to mind and identified those that were erroneous-the usual between-sequences semantic similarity effect on erroneous and veridical recall was replicated but the relationship between the rate of erroneous and veridical recall was weak (Experiment 2). The results suggest that forgetting is not due to veridical recall being blocked by similar events.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Patrik Sörqvist
- Department of Building, Energy, and Environmental Engineering
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36
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Bidelman GM, Howell M. Functional changes in inter- and intra-hemispheric cortical processing underlying degraded speech perception. Neuroimage 2015; 124:581-590. [PMID: 26386346 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.09.020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 70] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/06/2015] [Revised: 07/29/2015] [Accepted: 09/09/2015] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Previous studies suggest that at poorer signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs), auditory cortical event-related potentials are weakened, prolonged, and show a shift in the functional lateralization of cerebral processing from left to right hemisphere. Increased right hemisphere involvement during speech-in-noise (SIN) processing may reflect the recruitment of additional brain resources to aid speech recognition or alternatively, the progressive loss of involvement from left linguistic brain areas as speech becomes more impoverished (i.e., nonspeech-like). To better elucidate the brain basis of SIN perception, we recorded neuroelectric activity in normal hearing listeners to speech sounds presented at various SNRs. Behaviorally, listeners obtained superior SIN performance for speech presented to the right compared to the left ear (i.e., right ear advantage). Source analysis of neural data assessed the relative contribution of region-specific neural generators (linguistic and auditory brain areas) to SIN processing. We found that left inferior frontal brain areas (e.g., Broca's areas) partially disengage at poorer SNRs but responses do not right lateralize with increasing noise. In contrast, auditory sources showed more resilience to noise in left compared to right primary auditory cortex but also a progressive shift in dominance from left to right hemisphere at lower SNRs. Region- and ear-specific correlations revealed that listeners' right ear SIN advantage was predicted by source activity emitted from inferior frontal gyrus (but not primary auditory cortex). Our findings demonstrate changes in the functional asymmetry of cortical speech processing during adverse acoustic conditions and suggest that "cocktail party" listening skills depend on the quality of speech representations in the left cerebral hemisphere rather than compensatory recruitment of right hemisphere mechanisms.
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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.
| | - Megan Howell
- School of Communication Sciences & Disorders, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA
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37
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Lizarazu M, Lallier M, Molinaro N, Bourguignon M, Paz-Alonso PM, Lerma-Usabiaga G, Carreiras M. Developmental evaluation of atypical auditory sampling in dyslexia: Functional and structural evidence. Hum Brain Mapp 2015; 36:4986-5002. [PMID: 26356682 DOI: 10.1002/hbm.22986] [Citation(s) in RCA: 55] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/10/2015] [Revised: 08/21/2015] [Accepted: 08/25/2015] [Indexed: 11/07/2022] Open
Abstract
Whether phonological deficits in developmental dyslexia are associated with impaired neural sampling of auditory information at either syllabic- or phonemic-rates is still under debate. In addition, whereas neuroanatomical alterations in auditory regions have been documented in dyslexic readers, whether and how these structural anomalies are linked to auditory sampling and reading deficits remains poorly understood. In this study, we measured auditory neural synchronization at different frequencies corresponding to relevant phonological spectral components of speech in children and adults with and without dyslexia, using magnetoencephalography. Furthermore, structural MRI was used to estimate cortical thickness of the auditory cortex of participants. Dyslexics showed atypical brain synchronization at both syllabic (slow) and phonemic (fast) rates. Interestingly, while a left hemispheric asymmetry in cortical thickness was functionally related to a stronger left hemispheric lateralization of neural synchronization to stimuli presented at the phonemic rate in skilled readers, the same anatomical index in dyslexics was related to a stronger right hemispheric dominance for neural synchronization to syllabic-rate auditory stimuli. These data suggest that the acoustic sampling deficit in development dyslexia might be linked to an atypical specialization of the auditory cortex to both low and high frequency amplitude modulations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mikel Lizarazu
- Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL), Donostia/San Sebastian, Spain
| | - Marie Lallier
- Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL), Donostia/San Sebastian, Spain
| | - Nicola Molinaro
- Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL), Donostia/San Sebastian, Spain.,Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain
| | - Mathieu Bourguignon
- Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL), Donostia/San Sebastian, Spain.,Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland
| | - Pedro M Paz-Alonso
- Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL), Donostia/San Sebastian, Spain
| | | | - Manuel Carreiras
- Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL), Donostia/San Sebastian, Spain.,Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain
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38
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Lima CF, Lavan N, Evans S, Agnew Z, Halpern AR, Shanmugalingam P, Meekings S, Boebinger D, Ostarek M, McGettigan C, Warren JE, Scott SK. Feel the Noise: Relating Individual Differences in Auditory Imagery to the Structure and Function of Sensorimotor Systems. Cereb Cortex 2015; 25:4638-50. [PMID: 26092220 PMCID: PMC4816805 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhv134] [Citation(s) in RCA: 39] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Humans can generate mental auditory images of voices or songs, sometimes perceiving them almost as vividly as perceptual experiences. The functional networks supporting auditory imagery have been described, but less is known about the systems associated with interindividual differences in auditory imagery. Combining voxel-based morphometry and fMRI, we examined the structural basis of interindividual differences in how auditory images are subjectively perceived, and explored associations between auditory imagery, sensory-based processing, and visual imagery. Vividness of auditory imagery correlated with gray matter volume in the supplementary motor area (SMA), parietal cortex, medial superior frontal gyrus, and middle frontal gyrus. An analysis of functional responses to different types of human vocalizations revealed that the SMA and parietal sites that predict imagery are also modulated by sound type. Using representational similarity analysis, we found that higher representational specificity of heard sounds in SMA predicts vividness of imagery, indicating a mechanistic link between sensory- and imagery-based processing in sensorimotor cortex. Vividness of imagery in the visual domain also correlated with SMA structure, and with auditory imagery scores. Altogether, these findings provide evidence for a signature of imagery in brain structure, and highlight a common role of perceptual–motor interactions for processing heard and internally generated auditory information.
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Affiliation(s)
- César F Lima
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience Center for Psychology, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
| | - Nadine Lavan
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway University of London, London, UK
| | | | - Zarinah Agnew
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience Department of Otolaryngology, University of California, San Francisco, USA
| | | | | | | | | | | | - Carolyn McGettigan
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway University of London, London, UK
| | - Jane E Warren
- Faculty of Brain Sciences, University College London, London, UK
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39
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Prediction in speech and language processing. Cortex 2015; 68:1-7. [PMID: 26048658 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2015.05.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/24/2015] [Revised: 05/03/2015] [Accepted: 05/03/2015] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
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40
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Golden HL, Agustus JL, Goll JC, Downey LE, Mummery CJ, Schott JM, Crutch SJ, Warren JD. Functional neuroanatomy of auditory scene analysis in Alzheimer's disease. Neuroimage Clin 2015; 7:699-708. [PMID: 26029629 PMCID: PMC4446369 DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2015.02.019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/20/2014] [Revised: 01/16/2015] [Accepted: 02/24/2015] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Auditory scene analysis is a demanding computational process that is performed automatically and efficiently by the healthy brain but vulnerable to the neurodegenerative pathology of Alzheimer's disease. Here we assessed the functional neuroanatomy of auditory scene analysis in Alzheimer's disease using the well-known 'cocktail party effect' as a model paradigm whereby stored templates for auditory objects (e.g., hearing one's spoken name) are used to segregate auditory 'foreground' and 'background'. Patients with typical amnestic Alzheimer's disease (n = 13) and age-matched healthy individuals (n = 17) underwent functional 3T-MRI using a sparse acquisition protocol with passive listening to auditory stimulus conditions comprising the participant's own name interleaved with or superimposed on multi-talker babble, and spectrally rotated (unrecognisable) analogues of these conditions. Name identification (conditions containing the participant's own name contrasted with spectrally rotated analogues) produced extensive bilateral activation involving superior temporal cortex in both the AD and healthy control groups, with no significant differences between groups. Auditory object segregation (conditions with interleaved name sounds contrasted with superimposed name sounds) produced activation of right posterior superior temporal cortex in both groups, again with no differences between groups. However, the cocktail party effect (interaction of own name identification with auditory object segregation processing) produced activation of right supramarginal gyrus in the AD group that was significantly enhanced compared with the healthy control group. The findings delineate an altered functional neuroanatomical profile of auditory scene analysis in Alzheimer's disease that may constitute a novel computational signature of this neurodegenerative pathology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hannah L Golden
- Dementia Research Centre, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK
| | - Jennifer L Agustus
- Dementia Research Centre, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK
| | - Johanna C Goll
- Dementia Research Centre, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK
| | - Laura E Downey
- Dementia Research Centre, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK
| | - Catherine J Mummery
- Dementia Research Centre, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK
| | - Jonathan M Schott
- Dementia Research Centre, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK
| | - Sebastian J Crutch
- Dementia Research Centre, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK
| | - Jason D Warren
- Dementia Research Centre, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK
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41
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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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Zekveld AA, Heslenfeld DJ, Johnsrude IS, Versfeld NJ, Kramer SE. The eye as a window to the listening brain: Neural correlates of pupil size as a measure of cognitive listening load. Neuroimage 2014; 101:76-86. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.06.069] [Citation(s) in RCA: 100] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/15/2014] [Revised: 06/26/2014] [Accepted: 06/28/2014] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
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43
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Alpha and theta brain oscillations index dissociable processes in spoken word recognition. Neuroimage 2014; 97:387-95. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.04.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 68] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/18/2013] [Revised: 03/26/2014] [Accepted: 04/03/2014] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
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44
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Functional correlates of the speech-in-noise perception impairment in dyslexia: An MRI study. Neuropsychologia 2014; 60:103-14. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.05.016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/24/2013] [Revised: 05/23/2014] [Accepted: 05/24/2014] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
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45
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Scarbel L, Beautemps D, Schwartz JL, Sato M. The shadow of a doubt? Evidence for perceptuo-motor linkage during auditory and audiovisual close-shadowing. Front Psychol 2014; 5:568. [PMID: 25009512 PMCID: PMC4068292 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00568] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/19/2014] [Accepted: 05/22/2014] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
One classical argument in favor of a functional role of the motor system in speech perception comes from the close-shadowing task in which a subject has to identify and to repeat as quickly as possible an auditory speech stimulus. The fact that close-shadowing can occur very rapidly and much faster than manual identification of the speech target is taken to suggest that perceptually induced speech representations are already shaped in a motor-compatible format. Another argument is provided by audiovisual interactions often interpreted as referring to a multisensory-motor framework. In this study, we attempted to combine these two paradigms by testing whether the visual modality could speed motor response in a close-shadowing task. To this aim, both oral and manual responses were evaluated during the perception of auditory and audiovisual speech stimuli, clear or embedded in white noise. Overall, oral responses were faster than manual ones, but it also appeared that they were less accurate in noise, which suggests that motor representations evoked by the speech input could be rough at a first processing stage. In the presence of acoustic noise, the audiovisual modality led to both faster and more accurate responses than the auditory modality. No interaction was however, observed between modality and response. Altogether, these results are interpreted within a two-stage sensory-motor framework, in which the auditory and visual streams are integrated together and with internally generated motor representations before a final decision may be available.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lucie Scarbel
- CNRS, Grenoble Images Parole Signal Automatique-Lab, Speech and Cognition Department, UMR 5216, Grenoble University Grenoble, France
| | - Denis Beautemps
- CNRS, Grenoble Images Parole Signal Automatique-Lab, Speech and Cognition Department, UMR 5216, Grenoble University Grenoble, France
| | - Jean-Luc Schwartz
- CNRS, Grenoble Images Parole Signal Automatique-Lab, Speech and Cognition Department, UMR 5216, Grenoble University Grenoble, France
| | - Marc Sato
- CNRS, Grenoble Images Parole Signal Automatique-Lab, Speech and Cognition Department, UMR 5216, Grenoble University Grenoble, France
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46
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Strauß A, Wöstmann M, Obleser J. Cortical alpha oscillations as a tool for auditory selective inhibition. Front Hum Neurosci 2014; 8:350. [PMID: 24904385 PMCID: PMC4035601 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00350] [Citation(s) in RCA: 68] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/27/2014] [Accepted: 05/08/2014] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Listening to speech is often demanding because of signal degradations and the presence of distracting sounds (i.e., "noise"). The question how the brain achieves the task of extracting only relevant information from the mixture of sounds reaching the ear (i.e., "cocktail party problem") is still open. In analogy to recent findings in vision, we propose cortical alpha (~10 Hz) oscillations measurable using M/EEG as a pivotal mechanism to selectively inhibit the processing of noise to improve auditory selective attention to task-relevant signals. We review initial evidence of enhanced alpha activity in selective listening tasks, suggesting a significant role of alpha-modulated noise suppression in speech. We discuss the importance of dissociating between noise interference in the auditory periphery (i.e., energetic masking) and noise interference with more central cognitive aspects of speech processing (i.e., informational masking). Finally, we point out the adverse effects of age-related hearing loss and/or cognitive decline on auditory selective inhibition. With this perspective article, we set the stage for future studies on the inhibitory role of alpha oscillations for speech processing in challenging listening situations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Antje Strauß
- Max Planck Research Group "Auditory Cognition", Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences Leipzig, Germany
| | - Malte Wöstmann
- Max Planck Research Group "Auditory Cognition", Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences Leipzig, Germany ; International Max Planck Research School on Neuroscience of Communication, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences Leipzig, Germany
| | - Jonas Obleser
- Max Planck Research Group "Auditory Cognition", Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences Leipzig, Germany
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47
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Dole M, Meunier F, Hoen M. Gray and white matter distribution in dyslexia: a VBM study of superior temporal gyrus asymmetry. PLoS One 2013; 8:e76823. [PMID: 24098565 PMCID: PMC3788100 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0076823] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/19/2012] [Accepted: 09/03/2013] [Indexed: 01/18/2023] Open
Abstract
In the present study, we investigated brain morphological signatures of dyslexia by using a voxel-based asymmetry analysis. Dyslexia is a developmental disorder that affects the acquisition of reading and spelling abilities and is associated with a phonological deficit. Speech perception disabilities have been associated with this deficit, particularly when listening conditions are challenging, such as in noisy environments. These deficits are associated with known neurophysiological correlates, such as a reduction in the functional activation or a modification of functional asymmetry in the cortical regions involved in speech processing, such as the bilateral superior temporal areas. These functional deficits have been associated with macroscopic morphological abnormalities, which potentially include a reduction in gray and white matter volumes, combined with modifications of the leftward asymmetry along the perisylvian areas. The purpose of this study was to investigate gray/white matter distribution asymmetries in dyslexic adults using automated image processing derived from the voxel-based morphometry technique. Correlations with speech-in-noise perception abilities were also investigated. The results confirmed the presence of gray matter distribution abnormalities in the superior temporal gyrus (STG) and the superior temporal Sulcus (STS) in individuals with dyslexia. Specifically, the gray matter of adults with dyslexia was symmetrically distributed over one particular region of the STS, the temporal voice area, whereas normal readers showed a clear rightward gray matter asymmetry in this area. We also identified a region in the left posterior STG in which the white matter distribution asymmetry was correlated to speech-in-noise comprehension abilities in dyslexic adults. These results provide further information concerning the morphological alterations observed in dyslexia, revealing the presence of both gray and white matter distribution anomalies and the potential involvement of these defects in speech-in-noise deficits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marjorie Dole
- Laboratoire de Psychologie et NeuroCognition, CNRS UMR 5105, université Pierre Mendès France, Grenoble, France
- * E-mail:
| | - Fanny Meunier
- L2C2, CNRS UMR 5304, Institut des Sciences Cognitives, Lyon, France
- Université de Lyon, Université Lyon 1, Lyon, France
| | - Michel Hoen
- INSERM U1028, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Brain Dynamics and Cognition Team, Lyon, France
- CNRS UMR 5292, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Brain Dynamics and Cognition Team, Lyon, France
- Université de Lyon, Université Lyon 1, Lyon, France
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48
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Scott SK, McGettigan C. Do temporal processes underlie left hemisphere dominance in speech perception? BRAIN AND LANGUAGE 2013; 127:36-45. [PMID: 24125574 PMCID: PMC4083253 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2013.07.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 41] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/17/2012] [Revised: 07/18/2013] [Accepted: 07/22/2013] [Indexed: 05/27/2023]
Abstract
It is not unusual to find it stated as a fact that the left hemisphere is specialized for the processing of rapid, or temporal aspects of sound, and that the dominance of the left hemisphere in the perception of speech can be a consequence of this specialization. In this review we explore the history of this claim and assess the weight of this assumption. We will demonstrate that instead of a supposed sensitivity of the left temporal lobe for the acoustic properties of speech, it is the right temporal lobe which shows a marked preference for certain properties of sounds, for example longer durations, or variations in pitch. We finish by outlining some alternative factors that contribute to the left lateralization of speech perception.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sophie K Scott
- Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, UK.
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49
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Rönnberg J, Lunner T, Zekveld A, Sörqvist P, Danielsson H, Lyxell B, Dahlström O, Signoret C, Stenfelt S, Pichora-Fuller MK, Rudner M. The Ease of Language Understanding (ELU) model: theoretical, empirical, and clinical advances. Front Syst Neurosci 2013; 7:31. [PMID: 23874273 PMCID: PMC3710434 DOI: 10.3389/fnsys.2013.00031] [Citation(s) in RCA: 566] [Impact Index Per Article: 51.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/12/2013] [Accepted: 06/24/2013] [Indexed: 12/28/2022] Open
Abstract
Working memory is important for online language processing during conversation. We use it to maintain relevant information, to inhibit or ignore irrelevant information, and to attend to conversation selectively. Working memory helps us to keep track of and actively participate in conversation, including taking turns and following the gist. This paper examines the Ease of Language Understanding model (i.e., the ELU model, Rönnberg, 2003; Rönnberg et al., 2008) in light of new behavioral and neural findings concerning the role of working memory capacity (WMC) in uni-modal and bimodal language processing. The new ELU model is a meaning prediction system that depends on phonological and semantic interactions in rapid implicit and slower explicit processing mechanisms that both depend on WMC albeit in different ways. It is based on findings that address the relationship between WMC and (a) early attention processes in listening to speech, (b) signal processing in hearing aids and its effects on short-term memory, (c) inhibition of speech maskers and its effect on episodic long-term memory, (d) the effects of hearing impairment on episodic and semantic long-term memory, and finally, (e) listening effort. New predictions and clinical implications are outlined. Comparisons with other WMC and speech perception models are made.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jerker Rönnberg
- Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning, Linköping University Linköping, Sweden ; Linnaeus Centre HEAD, Swedish Institute for Disability Research, Linköping University Linköping, Sweden
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50
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Rönnberg J, Lunner T, Zekveld A, Sörqvist P, Danielsson H, Lyxell B, Dahlström O, Signoret C, Stenfelt S, Pichora-Fuller MK, Rudner M. The Ease of Language Understanding (ELU) model: theoretical, empirical, and clinical advances. Front Syst Neurosci 2013; 7:31. [PMID: 23874273 DOI: 10.3389/fnsys] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/12/2013] [Accepted: 06/24/2013] [Indexed: 05/28/2023] Open
Abstract
Working memory is important for online language processing during conversation. We use it to maintain relevant information, to inhibit or ignore irrelevant information, and to attend to conversation selectively. Working memory helps us to keep track of and actively participate in conversation, including taking turns and following the gist. This paper examines the Ease of Language Understanding model (i.e., the ELU model, Rönnberg, 2003; Rönnberg et al., 2008) in light of new behavioral and neural findings concerning the role of working memory capacity (WMC) in uni-modal and bimodal language processing. The new ELU model is a meaning prediction system that depends on phonological and semantic interactions in rapid implicit and slower explicit processing mechanisms that both depend on WMC albeit in different ways. It is based on findings that address the relationship between WMC and (a) early attention processes in listening to speech, (b) signal processing in hearing aids and its effects on short-term memory, (c) inhibition of speech maskers and its effect on episodic long-term memory, (d) the effects of hearing impairment on episodic and semantic long-term memory, and finally, (e) listening effort. New predictions and clinical implications are outlined. Comparisons with other WMC and speech perception models are made.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jerker Rönnberg
- Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning, Linköping University Linköping, Sweden ; Linnaeus Centre HEAD, Swedish Institute for Disability Research, Linköping University Linköping, Sweden
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