Πέμπτη 25 Οκτωβρίου 2018
Spontaneous Otoacoustic Emissions Reveal an Efficient Auditory Efferent Network
Purpose
Understanding speech often involves processing input from multiple modalities. The availability of visual information may make auditory input less critical for comprehension. This study examines whether the auditory system is sensitive to the presence of complementary sources of input when exerting top-down control over the amplification of speech stimuli.
Method
Auditory gain in the cochlea was assessed by monitoring spontaneous otoacoustic emissions (SOAEs), which are by-products of the amplification process. SOAEs were recorded while 32 participants (23 women, nine men; M age = 21.13) identified speech sounds such as “ba” and “ga.” The speech sounds were presented either alone or with complementary visual input, as well as in quiet or with 6-talker babble.
Results
Analyses revealed that there was a greater reduction in the amplification of noisy auditory stimuli compared with quiet. This reduced amplification may aid in the perception of speech by improving the signal-to-noise ratio. Critically, there was a greater reduction in amplification when speech sounds were presented bimodally with visual information relative to when they were presented unimodally. This effect was evidenced by greater changes in SOAE levels from baseline to stimuli presentation in audiovisual trials relative to audio-only trials.
Conclusions
The results suggest that even the earliest stages of speech comprehension are modulated by top-down influences, resulting in changes to SOAEs depending on the presence of bimodal or unimodal input. Neural processes responsible for changes in cochlear function are sensitive to redundancy across auditory and visual input channels and coordinate activity to maximize efficiency in the auditory periphery.from #Audiology via ola Kala on Inoreader https://ift.tt/2Jfg39z
via IFTTT
Effect of Dual-Carrier Processing on the Intelligibility of Concurrent Vocoded Sentences
Purpose
The goal of this study was to examine the role of carrier cues in sound source segregation and the possibility to enhance the intelligibility of 2 sentences presented simultaneously. Dual-carrier (DC) processing (Apoux, Youngdahl, Yoho, & Healy, 2015) was used to introduce synthetic carrier cues in vocoded speech.
Method
Listeners with normal hearing heard sentences processed either with a DC or with a traditional single-carrier (SC) vocoder. One group was asked to repeat both sentences in a sentence pair (Experiment 1). The other group was asked to repeat only 1 sentence of the pair and was provided additional segregation cues involving onset asynchrony (Experiment 2).
Results
Both experiments showed that not only is the “target” sentence more intelligible in DC compared with SC, but the “background” sentence intelligibility is equally enhanced. The participants did not benefit from the additional segregation cues.
Conclusions
The data showed a clear benefit of using a distinct carrier to convey each sentence (i.e., DC processing). Accordingly, the poor speech intelligibility in noise typically observed with SC-vocoded speech may be partly attributed to the envelope of independent sound sources sharing the same carrier. Moreover, this work suggests that noise reduction may not be the only viable option to improve speech intelligibility in noise for users of cochlear implants. Alternative approaches aimed at enhancing sound source segregation such as DC processing may help to improve speech intelligibility while preserving and enhancing the background.from #Audiology via ola Kala on Inoreader https://ift.tt/2PlqNbD
via IFTTT
Time Course of the Second Morpheme Processing During Spoken Disyllabic Compound Word Recognition in Chinese
Purpose
This study aimed to investigate the time course of meaning activation of the 2nd morpheme processing of compound words during Chinese spoken word recognition using eye tracking technique with the printed-word paradigm.
Method
In the printed-word paradigm, participants were instructed to listen to a spoken target word (e.g., “大方”, /da4fang1/, generous) while presented with a visual display composed of 3 words: a morphemic competitor (e.g., “圆形”, /yuan2xing2/, circle), which was semantically related to the 2nd morpheme (e.g., “方”, /fang1/, square) of the spoken target word; a whole-word competitor (e.g., “吝啬”, /lin4se4/, stingy), which was semantically related to the spoken target word at the whole-word level; and a distractor, which was semantically related to neither the morpheme or the whole target word. Participants were asked to respond whether the spoken target word was on the visual display or not, and their eye movements were recorded.
Results
The logit mixed-model analysis showed both the morphemic competitor and the whole-word competitor effects. Both the morphemic and whole-word competitors attracted more fixations than the distractor. More importantly, the 2nd-morphemic competitor effect occurred at a relatively later time window (i.e., 1000–1500 ms) compared with the whole-word competitor effect (i.e., 200–1000 ms).
Conclusion
Findings in this study suggest that semantic information of both the 2nd morpheme and the whole word of a compound was activated in spoken word recognition and that the meaning activation of the 2nd morpheme followed the activation of the whole word.from #Audiology via ola Kala on Inoreader https://ift.tt/2JffUD3
via IFTTT
A Survey of Clinician Decision Making When Identifying Swallowing Impairments and Determining Treatment
Purpose
Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are the primary providers of dysphagia management; however, this role has been criticized with assertions that SLPs are inadequately trained in swallowing physiology (Campbell-Taylor, 2008). To date, diagnostic acuity and treatment planning for swallowing impairments by practicing SLPs have not been examined. We conducted a survey to examine how clinician demographics and swallowing complexity influence decision making for swallowing impairments in videofluoroscopic images. Our goal was to determine whether SLPs' judgments of swallowing timing impairments align with impairment thresholds available in the research literature and whether or not there is agreement among SLPs regarding therapeutic recommendations.
Method
The survey included 3 videofluoroscopic swallows ranging in complexity (easy, moderate, and complex). Three hundred three practicing SLPs in dysphagia management participated in the survey in a web-based format (Qualtrics, 2005) with frame-by-frame viewing capabilities. SLPs' judgments of impairment were compared against impairment thresholds for swallowing timing measures based on 95% confidence intervals from healthy swallows reported in the literature.
Results
The primary impairment in swallowing physiology was identified 67% of the time for the easy swallow, 6% for the moderate swallow, and 6% for the complex swallow. On average, practicing clinicians mislabeled 8 or more swallowing events as impaired that were within the normal physiologic range compared with healthy normative data available in the literature. Agreement was higher among clinicians who report using frame-by-frame analysis 80% of the time. A range of 19–21 different treatments was recommended for each video, regardless of complexity.
Conclusions
Poor to modest agreement in swallowing impairment identification, frequent false positives, and wide variability in treatment planning recommendations suggest that additional research and training in healthy and disordered swallowing are needed to increase accurate dysphagia diagnosis and treatment among clinicians.from #Audiology via ola Kala on Inoreader https://ift.tt/2Pj4ljH
via IFTTT
Chiari Type I Malformation Associated With Verbal Fluency Impairment
Purpose
Chiari malformation (CM) Type I is a rare disorder that implies an anomaly in the craniocervical junction, where one or both cerebellar tonsils are displaced below the foramen magnum into the cervical spinal channel. Research carried out regarding cognitive symptoms such as verbal fluency is scarce. The aim of this study was to investigate whether verbal fluency is impaired in a CM clinical group compared to a group of healthy control individuals while controlling for depression and anxiety symptomatology.
Method
For this purpose, 101 individuals were enrolled to take part in the study (51 CM, 50 healthy controls). The Controlled Oral Word Association Test (Benton, de Hamsher, & Sivan, 1983) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (Zigmond & Snaith, 1983) were administered.
Results
Results showed significantly lower scores for the CM group in verbal fluency compared to the control group (p < .005). After performing an analysis of covariance to eliminate depression and anxiety symptomatology tendencies, it was observed that verbal fluency could not be predicted by this variable (p > .005).
Conclusions
From the results of this study, it can be concluded that people suffering from CM exhibit less verbal fluency than healthy control individuals and that this difference is not caused by depression or anxiety.from #Audiology via ola Kala on Inoreader https://ift.tt/2Jfg1yt
via IFTTT
Dynamic Assessment of Narratives Among Navajo Preschoolers
Purpose
This study examined whether the Predictive Early Assessment of Reading and Language (PEARL), a dynamic assessment of narratives that measures language comprehension and production, accurately classifies Navajo preschoolers with typically developing (TD) language or with language impairment (LI).
Method
Ninety 4- and 5-year-old Navajo preschoolers were identified as having LI or are TD (n = 45 each) via a 5-measure battery: parent report, teacher report, English narrative, independent educational plan, and the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamental Preschool–Second Edition (Wiig, Secord, & Semel, 2004). Children completed a PEARL pretest, a narrative mediation phase providing principles of narrative structure, and a PEARL posttest. A modifiability score reflected responsiveness to mediation.
Results
The PEARL pretest and posttest each distinguished children with LI versus TD children with 89% accuracy; modifiability scores identified children with 100% accuracy. The PEARL story grammar subtest at pretest and posttest best distinguished LI versus TD. A revised cutoff score on the PEARL pretest decreased the diagnosis of TD children as having LI; the standard PEARL posttest cutoff was retained.
Conclusion
The PEARL is a promising assessment for accurately differentiating Navajo preschool children with LI from those with TD language, particularly with a revised pretest cutoff score.from #Audiology via ola Kala on Inoreader https://ift.tt/2PpmKeo
via IFTTT
Spontaneous Otoacoustic Emissions Reveal an Efficient Auditory Efferent Network
Purpose
Understanding speech often involves processing input from multiple modalities. The availability of visual information may make auditory input less critical for comprehension. This study examines whether the auditory system is sensitive to the presence of complementary sources of input when exerting top-down control over the amplification of speech stimuli.
Method
Auditory gain in the cochlea was assessed by monitoring spontaneous otoacoustic emissions (SOAEs), which are by-products of the amplification process. SOAEs were recorded while 32 participants (23 women, nine men; M age = 21.13) identified speech sounds such as “ba” and “ga.” The speech sounds were presented either alone or with complementary visual input, as well as in quiet or with 6-talker babble.
Results
Analyses revealed that there was a greater reduction in the amplification of noisy auditory stimuli compared with quiet. This reduced amplification may aid in the perception of speech by improving the signal-to-noise ratio. Critically, there was a greater reduction in amplification when speech sounds were presented bimodally with visual information relative to when they were presented unimodally. This effect was evidenced by greater changes in SOAE levels from baseline to stimuli presentation in audiovisual trials relative to audio-only trials.
Conclusions
The results suggest that even the earliest stages of speech comprehension are modulated by top-down influences, resulting in changes to SOAEs depending on the presence of bimodal or unimodal input. Neural processes responsible for changes in cochlear function are sensitive to redundancy across auditory and visual input channels and coordinate activity to maximize efficiency in the auditory periphery.from #Audiology via ola Kala on Inoreader https://ift.tt/2Jfg39z
via IFTTT
Effect of Dual-Carrier Processing on the Intelligibility of Concurrent Vocoded Sentences
Purpose
The goal of this study was to examine the role of carrier cues in sound source segregation and the possibility to enhance the intelligibility of 2 sentences presented simultaneously. Dual-carrier (DC) processing (Apoux, Youngdahl, Yoho, & Healy, 2015) was used to introduce synthetic carrier cues in vocoded speech.
Method
Listeners with normal hearing heard sentences processed either with a DC or with a traditional single-carrier (SC) vocoder. One group was asked to repeat both sentences in a sentence pair (Experiment 1). The other group was asked to repeat only 1 sentence of the pair and was provided additional segregation cues involving onset asynchrony (Experiment 2).
Results
Both experiments showed that not only is the “target” sentence more intelligible in DC compared with SC, but the “background” sentence intelligibility is equally enhanced. The participants did not benefit from the additional segregation cues.
Conclusions
The data showed a clear benefit of using a distinct carrier to convey each sentence (i.e., DC processing). Accordingly, the poor speech intelligibility in noise typically observed with SC-vocoded speech may be partly attributed to the envelope of independent sound sources sharing the same carrier. Moreover, this work suggests that noise reduction may not be the only viable option to improve speech intelligibility in noise for users of cochlear implants. Alternative approaches aimed at enhancing sound source segregation such as DC processing may help to improve speech intelligibility while preserving and enhancing the background.from #Audiology via ola Kala on Inoreader https://ift.tt/2PlqNbD
via IFTTT
Time Course of the Second Morpheme Processing During Spoken Disyllabic Compound Word Recognition in Chinese
Purpose
This study aimed to investigate the time course of meaning activation of the 2nd morpheme processing of compound words during Chinese spoken word recognition using eye tracking technique with the printed-word paradigm.
Method
In the printed-word paradigm, participants were instructed to listen to a spoken target word (e.g., “大方”, /da4fang1/, generous) while presented with a visual display composed of 3 words: a morphemic competitor (e.g., “圆形”, /yuan2xing2/, circle), which was semantically related to the 2nd morpheme (e.g., “方”, /fang1/, square) of the spoken target word; a whole-word competitor (e.g., “吝啬”, /lin4se4/, stingy), which was semantically related to the spoken target word at the whole-word level; and a distractor, which was semantically related to neither the morpheme or the whole target word. Participants were asked to respond whether the spoken target word was on the visual display or not, and their eye movements were recorded.
Results
The logit mixed-model analysis showed both the morphemic competitor and the whole-word competitor effects. Both the morphemic and whole-word competitors attracted more fixations than the distractor. More importantly, the 2nd-morphemic competitor effect occurred at a relatively later time window (i.e., 1000–1500 ms) compared with the whole-word competitor effect (i.e., 200–1000 ms).
Conclusion
Findings in this study suggest that semantic information of both the 2nd morpheme and the whole word of a compound was activated in spoken word recognition and that the meaning activation of the 2nd morpheme followed the activation of the whole word.from #Audiology via ola Kala on Inoreader https://ift.tt/2JffUD3
via IFTTT
A Survey of Clinician Decision Making When Identifying Swallowing Impairments and Determining Treatment
Purpose
Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are the primary providers of dysphagia management; however, this role has been criticized with assertions that SLPs are inadequately trained in swallowing physiology (Campbell-Taylor, 2008). To date, diagnostic acuity and treatment planning for swallowing impairments by practicing SLPs have not been examined. We conducted a survey to examine how clinician demographics and swallowing complexity influence decision making for swallowing impairments in videofluoroscopic images. Our goal was to determine whether SLPs' judgments of swallowing timing impairments align with impairment thresholds available in the research literature and whether or not there is agreement among SLPs regarding therapeutic recommendations.
Method
The survey included 3 videofluoroscopic swallows ranging in complexity (easy, moderate, and complex). Three hundred three practicing SLPs in dysphagia management participated in the survey in a web-based format (Qualtrics, 2005) with frame-by-frame viewing capabilities. SLPs' judgments of impairment were compared against impairment thresholds for swallowing timing measures based on 95% confidence intervals from healthy swallows reported in the literature.
Results
The primary impairment in swallowing physiology was identified 67% of the time for the easy swallow, 6% for the moderate swallow, and 6% for the complex swallow. On average, practicing clinicians mislabeled 8 or more swallowing events as impaired that were within the normal physiologic range compared with healthy normative data available in the literature. Agreement was higher among clinicians who report using frame-by-frame analysis 80% of the time. A range of 19–21 different treatments was recommended for each video, regardless of complexity.
Conclusions
Poor to modest agreement in swallowing impairment identification, frequent false positives, and wide variability in treatment planning recommendations suggest that additional research and training in healthy and disordered swallowing are needed to increase accurate dysphagia diagnosis and treatment among clinicians.from #Audiology via ola Kala on Inoreader https://ift.tt/2Pj4ljH
via IFTTT
Chiari Type I Malformation Associated With Verbal Fluency Impairment
Purpose
Chiari malformation (CM) Type I is a rare disorder that implies an anomaly in the craniocervical junction, where one or both cerebellar tonsils are displaced below the foramen magnum into the cervical spinal channel. Research carried out regarding cognitive symptoms such as verbal fluency is scarce. The aim of this study was to investigate whether verbal fluency is impaired in a CM clinical group compared to a group of healthy control individuals while controlling for depression and anxiety symptomatology.
Method
For this purpose, 101 individuals were enrolled to take part in the study (51 CM, 50 healthy controls). The Controlled Oral Word Association Test (Benton, de Hamsher, & Sivan, 1983) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (Zigmond & Snaith, 1983) were administered.
Results
Results showed significantly lower scores for the CM group in verbal fluency compared to the control group (p < .005). After performing an analysis of covariance to eliminate depression and anxiety symptomatology tendencies, it was observed that verbal fluency could not be predicted by this variable (p > .005).
Conclusions
From the results of this study, it can be concluded that people suffering from CM exhibit less verbal fluency than healthy control individuals and that this difference is not caused by depression or anxiety.from #Audiology via ola Kala on Inoreader https://ift.tt/2Jfg1yt
via IFTTT
Dynamic Assessment of Narratives Among Navajo Preschoolers
Purpose
This study examined whether the Predictive Early Assessment of Reading and Language (PEARL), a dynamic assessment of narratives that measures language comprehension and production, accurately classifies Navajo preschoolers with typically developing (TD) language or with language impairment (LI).
Method
Ninety 4- and 5-year-old Navajo preschoolers were identified as having LI or are TD (n = 45 each) via a 5-measure battery: parent report, teacher report, English narrative, independent educational plan, and the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamental Preschool–Second Edition (Wiig, Secord, & Semel, 2004). Children completed a PEARL pretest, a narrative mediation phase providing principles of narrative structure, and a PEARL posttest. A modifiability score reflected responsiveness to mediation.
Results
The PEARL pretest and posttest each distinguished children with LI versus TD children with 89% accuracy; modifiability scores identified children with 100% accuracy. The PEARL story grammar subtest at pretest and posttest best distinguished LI versus TD. A revised cutoff score on the PEARL pretest decreased the diagnosis of TD children as having LI; the standard PEARL posttest cutoff was retained.
Conclusion
The PEARL is a promising assessment for accurately differentiating Navajo preschool children with LI from those with TD language, particularly with a revised pretest cutoff score.from #Audiology via ola Kala on Inoreader https://ift.tt/2PpmKeo
via IFTTT
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