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Description
Working memory and cognitive functions contribute to speech recognition in normal hearing and hearing impaired listeners. In this study, auditory and cognitive functions are measured in young adult normal hearing, elderly normal hearing, and elderly cochlear implant subjects. The effects of age and hearing on the different measures are investigated.

Working memory and cognitive functions contribute to speech recognition in normal hearing and hearing impaired listeners. In this study, auditory and cognitive functions are measured in young adult normal hearing, elderly normal hearing, and elderly cochlear implant subjects. The effects of age and hearing on the different measures are investigated. The correlations between auditory/cognitive functions and speech/music recognition are examined. The results may demonstrate which factors can better explain the variable performance across elderly cochlear implant users.
ContributorsKolberg, Courtney Elizabeth (Author) / Luo, Xin (Thesis director) / Azuma, Tamiko (Committee member) / Department of Speech and Hearing Science (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
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Description
When listeners hear sentences presented simultaneously, the listeners are better able to discriminate between speakers when there is a difference in fundamental frequency (F0). This paper explores the use of a pulse train vocoder to simulate cochlear implant listening. A pulse train vocoder, rather than a noise or tonal vocoder,

When listeners hear sentences presented simultaneously, the listeners are better able to discriminate between speakers when there is a difference in fundamental frequency (F0). This paper explores the use of a pulse train vocoder to simulate cochlear implant listening. A pulse train vocoder, rather than a noise or tonal vocoder, was used so the fundamental frequency (F0) of speech would be well represented. The results of this experiment showed that listeners are able to use the F0 information to aid in speaker segregation. As expected, recognition performance is the poorest when there was no difference in F0 between speakers, and listeners performed better as the difference in F0 increased. The type of errors that the listeners made was also analyzed. The results show that when an error was made in identifying the correct word from the target sentence, the response was usually (~60%) a word that was uttered in the competing sentence.
ContributorsStanley, Nicole Ernestine (Author) / Yost, William (Thesis director) / Dorman, Michael (Committee member) / Liss, Julie (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Speech and Hearing Science (Contributor) / Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description

Vocal emotion production is important for social interactions in daily life. Previous studies found that pre-lingually deafened cochlear implant (CI) children without residual acoustic hearing had significant deficits in producing pitch cues for vocal emotions as compared to post-lingually deafened CI adults, normal-hearing (NH) children, and NH adults. In light

Vocal emotion production is important for social interactions in daily life. Previous studies found that pre-lingually deafened cochlear implant (CI) children without residual acoustic hearing had significant deficits in producing pitch cues for vocal emotions as compared to post-lingually deafened CI adults, normal-hearing (NH) children, and NH adults. In light of the importance of residual acoustic hearing for the development of vocal emotion production, this study tested whether pre-lingually deafened CI children with residual acoustic hearing may produce similar pitch cues for vocal emotions as the other participant groups. Sixteen pre-lingually deafened CI children with residual acoustic hearing, nine post-lingually deafened CI adults with residual acoustic hearing, twelve NH children, and eleven NH adults were asked to produce ten semantically neutral sentences in happy or sad emotion. The results showed that there was no significant group effect for the ratio of mean fundamental frequency (F0) and the ratio of F0 standard deviation between emotions. Instead, CI children showed significantly greater intensity difference between emotions than CI adults, NH children, and NH adults. In CI children, aided pure-tone average hearing threshold of acoustic ear was correlated with the ratio of mean F0 and the ratio of duration between emotions. These results suggest that residual acoustic hearing with low-frequency pitch cues may facilitate the development of vocal emotion production in pre-lingually deafened CI children.

ContributorsMacdonald, Andrina Elizabeth (Author) / Luo, Xin (Thesis director) / Pittman, Andrea (Committee member) / College of Health Solutions (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05