Author(s)
Chad V. Ruffin, MD
Taylor Curry, BS
Janice Farlow, BS
Cullen Taylor, BS
Charles W. Yates, MD
Affiliation(s)
Abstract:
Background: Perception of the words in spectrally degraded speech requires high cognitive load that mayinterfere with simultaneous perception of indexical speech cues.Hypothesis: The number of indexical cues that a listener perceives while simultaneously maintaining maximallevels of linguistic speech perception is significantly less than if assessed as a single outcome measure.Subjects: Three different subgroups (N = 15 each) of normal hearing native speakers of American English.Methods: The AzBio Sentence Lists were re-recorded to include greater indexical variation and more speakers.These stimuli were processed through a noise band vocoder. All three groups listened to the same sentence lists.The Sentence-only subgroup (N = 15) performed sentence discrimination. The Indexical-only subgroup (N =15) identified indexical cues. The primary task of the Sentences+Indexical subgroup (N = 10 of targeted 15)was sentence perception followed by the secondary task of identifying indexical cues.Results: The Sentences-only and Sentences+Indexical group exhibited high and similar levels of linguisticspeech perception (94.7% ± 2.6 vs. 92.9% ± 2.7; p = 0.12). Indexical performance was significantly better in theIndexical-only vs. the Sentences+Indexical subgroup on gender discrimination (80.2% ± 4.7 vs. 72.5% ±7.2; p =0.005) and emotion discrimination (41.8% ± 4.9 vs. 33.0% ± 7.2; p = 0.001). There were no differences inspeaker identification between groups (40.9% ±11 vs. 37.3 ±9.3; p= 0.42)Conclusions: Under spectrally degraded conditions, listeners are significantly less fluent at integratinglinguistic and indexical speech cues. This has important implications in designing outcome measures for CIs.Define Professional Practice Gap & Educational Need: Highlight the insufficiency of traditional methods ofassessing speech perception.Learning Objective: The learner will identify alternative methods of assessing speech perception.Desired Result: The learner will identify the gap inIndicate IRB or IACUC Approval: Approved