Perception of Speech in Context by Listeners With Healthy and Impaired Hearing

Part of paid clinical trials in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Sponsor
Marquette University
Study ID
NCT06465979
Status
Recruiting
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Conditions

  • Hearing
  • Hearing Loss

Eligibility Criteria

Sex
ALL
Age
18 Years - 65 Years
Healthy Volunteers
Accepted

Interventions

  • Speech Manipulation — BEHAVIORAL
    The acoustic properties of speech sounds will be modified in two main ways. The first way is to introduce gradual changes to the perceived articulation of the target speech sound, such as changing from "sh" to "s" by various types of signal processing and filtering. The second type of change is to modify acoustic properties of the sounds that immediately precede the target speech sound, such as changing the speaking rate or its frequencies composition.

Study Details

Recognition of speech sounds is accomplished through the use of adjacent sounds in time, in what is termed acoustic context. The frequency and temporal properties of these contextual sounds play a large role in recognition of human speech. Historically, most research on both speech perception and sound perception in general examine sounds out-of-context, or presented individually. Further, these studies have been conducted independently of each other with little connection across labs, across sounds, etc. These approaches slow the progress in understanding how listeners with hearing difficulties use context to recognize speech and how their hearing aids and/or cochlear implants might be modified to improve their perception. This research has three main goals. First, the investigators predict that performance in speech sound recognition experiments will be related when testing the same speech frequencies or the same moments in time, but that performance will not be related in further comparisons across speech frequencies or at different moments in time. Second, the investigators predict that adding background noise will make this contextual speech perception more difficult, and that these difficulties will be more severe for listeners with hearing loss. Third, the investigators predict that cochlear implant users will also use surrounding sounds in their speech recognition, but with key differences than healthy-hearing listeners owing to the sound processing done by their implants. In tandem with these goals, the investigators will use computer models to simulate how neurons respond to speech sounds individually and when surrounded by other sounds.

Key Dates

Start date
Sep 19, 2023
Status verified
Jun 2026
Primary completion
Jun 30, 2028
Completion
Jul 31, 2028

Study Design

Enrollment
680 participants (estimated)
Allocation
NA
Intervention model
SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE

Arms

  • Experimental: Speech perception experiments
    This arm involves experiments wherein participants listen to speech played at comfortable volumes and respond by indicating what they heard either in open-ended form or by choosing among a set of options displayed on a computer.

Primary Outcome Measure

Speech categorization [ Time Frame: "Post-treatment" where "treatment" is the systematic manipulation of speech sounds. Speech categorization will be evaluated during the main part of the testing. Outcomes will be assessed and data reported through study completion, an average of 1 year ]

Central Contacts

Locations (2)

FacilityCityStateZIPSite coordinators
University of MinnesotaMinneapolisMinnesota55455
Matthew Winn, PhD, AuD
Marquette UniversityMilwaukeeWisconsin53233
Christian Stilp, PhD
[email protected]
4142881455

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By research site
University of Minnesota· Minneapolis, MNMarquette University· Milwaukee, WI

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