Restoration of interrupted speech: What does it teach us for top-down speech repair in hearing impaired?
Title | Restoration of interrupted speech: What does it teach us for top-down speech repair in hearing impaired? |
Publication Type | Presentation |
Year of Publication | 2011 |
Conference Name | Dag van de Fonetiek 2011 |
Authors | Baskent, Deniz |
Publisher | Nederlandse Vereniging voor Fonetische Wetenschappen |
Conference Location | Utrecht, The Netherlands |
Abstract | Inaudible parts of speech can be perceptually restored with the help of linguistic knowledge, context, and expectations. This top-down repair mechanism, phonemic restoration, is considered to enhance speech intelligibility in noisy environments. Hearing-impaired listeners and users of cochlear implants commonly complain about not understanding speech in noise. In our research, we observe that hearing impairment and front-end processing of hearing aids and cochlear implants may reduce the benefit from restoration. Based on this observation, we hypothesize that the degradations in the bottom-up speech signals due to the hearing impairment or signal processing may have a negative effect on the top-down repair mechanism, which could partially be responsible for the complaints by this population. We test this hypothesis in a number of studies with either control groups of normal hearing (with or without simulations of hearing impairment) or with hearing-impaired participants. In this talk, I will present results from these studies. Overall findings from our laboratory imply that the degradations in the bottom-up signals alone (such as in hearing impairment) may reduce the top-down restoration of speech, even in the absence of cognitive deficits. |