Do linguistic and cognitive processing differences impact vocoded speech understanding?

• Published in: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2017-05, Vol.141 (5), p.3521-3521
• Main Authors: Waked, Arifi N., Goupell, Matthew
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0001-4966; 1520-8524
• DOI: 10.1121/1.4987411

Normal-hearing individuals presented vocoded speech show great variability, even after explicit training. Assuming similar neural encoding, this variability might be explained by linguistic and cognitive factors. Therefore, we measured vocoded speech understanding in participants that should show a range of linguistic and cognitive abilities; namely, children (8-10 years) and adults (≥18 years), and monolingual English speakers and bilingual Spanish-English speakers. We hypothesized that bilingual adults have a “cognitive advantage” in their understanding of vocoded speech, related to reinforcement of executive function skills by using multiple languages. We also hypothesized that children may rely relatively more on their linguistic knowledge, as they may not have developed these same cognitive skills and strategies. Participants were trained on speech understanding simulating shallow cochlear implant insertion depth (6-mm frequency-to-place mismatch) with auditory and visual feedback. Between training trials, participants were tested without feedback on standard (0-mm) or shallow (6-mm) simulated insertion depths. Participants were then tested on measures of phonological awareness and vocabulary in English and/or Spanish and the five cognitive measures of the NIH Cognitive Toolbox. Associations between these measures and speech perception may allow us to better tailor therapy methods to members of particular age/language groups. [Work supported by NIH grant R01AG051603.]