Individual Differences in the Discrimination of Novel Speech Sounds: Effects of Sex, Temporal Processing, Musical and Cognitive Abilities

Kempe, Vera; Thoresen, John C.; Kirk, Neil W.; Schaeffler, Felix; Brooks, Patricia J.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0048623

Cited by 15 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 57 publications

(79 reference statements)

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“…The fact that untrained men are better than women at spontaneously using the formant structure of vocal stimuli to correctly compare their apparent size is consistent with studies showing that women are more reliant on voice pitch than formants when they rate the attractiveness of male voices [9], whereas men tend to use formant spacing for dominance attributions [8]. While men also appear to be better at perceiving temporal and tonal contrasts in speech and non-speech sounds [14,15], to our knowledge, our results represent the first demonstration of a sex difference involving human formant perception.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Are men better than women at acoustic size judgements?

2013

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Formants are important phonetic elements of human speech that are also used by humans and non-human mammals to assess the body size of potential mates and rivals. As a consequence, it has been suggested that formant perception, which is crucial for speech perception, may have evolved through sexual selection. Somewhat surprisingly, though, no previous studies have examined whether sexes differ in their ability to use formants for size evaluation. Here, we investigated whether men and women differ in their ability to use the formant frequency spacing of synthetic vocal stimuli to make auditory size judgements over a wide range of fundamental frequencies (the main determinant of vocal pitch). Our results reveal that men are significantly better than women at comparing the apparent size of stimuli, and that lower pitch improves the ability of both men and women to perform these acoustic size judgements. These findings constitute the first demonstration of a sex difference in formant perception, and lend support to the idea that acoustic size normalization, a crucial prerequisite for speech perception, may have been sexually selected through male competition. We also provide the first evidence that vocalizations with relatively low pitch improve the perception of size-related formant information.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Are men better than women at acoustic size judgements?

2013

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“…(d) Testing sensitivity to the Norwegian tonal contrast Recordings by a male native speaker of Norwegian of eight minimal pairs of Norwegian words containing a contrast between rising and falling-rising tonal contours (see Appendix) were taken from Kempe et al (2012). Each stimulus word was recorded twice, with 'same' trials using two within-category exemplars (e.g., 'Hammer 1 ', 'Hammer 2 ') and 'different trials using two different-category exemplars (e.g., 'Hammer 1 ', 'hammer 1 ').…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Musical ability and non‐native speech‐sound processing are linked through sensitivity to pitch and spectral information

Kempe

Bublitz

Brooks

2014

British J of Psychology

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Is the observed link between musical ability and non-native speech-sound processing due to enhanced sensitivity to acoustic features underlying both musical and linguistic processing? To address this question, native English speakers (N = 118) discriminated Norwegian tonal contrasts and Norwegian vowels. Short tones differing in temporal, pitch, and spectral characteristics were used to measure sensitivity to the various acoustic features implicated in musical and speech processing. Musical ability was measured using Gordon's Advanced Measures of Musical Audiation. Results showed that sensitivity to specific acoustic features played a role in non-native speech-sound processing: Controlling for non-verbal intelligence, prior foreign language-learning experience, and sex, sensitivity to pitch and spectral information partially mediated the link between musical ability and discrimination of non-native vowels and lexical tones. The findings suggest that while sensitivity to certain acoustic features partially mediates the relationship between musical ability and non-native speech-sound processing, complex tests of musical ability also tap into other shared mechanisms.

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“…The target speech can vary from single phonemes to single words to complex sentences, while the background noise can vary from a quiet background to steady-state noise to a highly modulated and linguistically meaningful multi-talker babble. As a result, the same cognitive test can correlate significantly with speech perception when using a more complex sentence perception test (Desjardins and Doherty, 2013; Moradi et al, 2014) but not when using less complex syllables (Kempe et al, 2012). Similarly, correlations with cognitive processes are greater when listening to speech in adverse noisy conditions than when listening in quiet (e.g., van Rooij and Plomp, 1990; Wingfield et al, 2005; Rönnberg et al, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The relationship of speech intelligibility with hearing sensitivity, cognition, and perceived hearing difficulties varies for different speech perception tests

2015

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Listeners vary in their ability to understand speech in noisy environments. Hearing sensitivity, as measured by pure-tone audiometry, can only partly explain these results, and cognition has emerged as another key concept. Although cognition relates to speech perception, the exact nature of the relationship remains to be fully understood. This study investigates how different aspects of cognition, particularly working memory and attention, relate to speech intelligibility for various tests. Perceptual accuracy of speech perception represents just one aspect of functioning in a listening environment. Activity and participation limits imposed by hearing loss, in addition to the demands of a listening environment, are also important and may be better captured by self-report questionnaires. Understanding how speech perception relates to self-reported aspects of listening forms the second focus of the study. Forty-four listeners aged between 50 and 74 years with mild sensorineural hearing loss were tested on speech perception tests differing in complexity from low (phoneme discrimination in quiet), to medium (digit triplet perception in speech-shaped noise) to high (sentence perception in modulated noise); cognitive tests of attention, memory, and non-verbal intelligence quotient; and self-report questionnaires of general health-related and hearing-specific quality of life. Hearing sensitivity and cognition related to intelligibility differently depending on the speech test: neither was important for phoneme discrimination, hearing sensitivity alone was important for digit triplet perception, and hearing and cognition together played a role in sentence perception. Self-reported aspects of auditory functioning were correlated with speech intelligibility to different degrees, with digit triplets in noise showing the richest pattern. The results suggest that intelligibility tests can vary in their auditory and cognitive demands and their sensitivity to the challenges that auditory environments pose on functioning.

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Individual Differences in the Discrimination of Novel Speech Sounds: Effects of Sex, Temporal Processing, Musical and Cognitive Abilities

Cited by 15 publications

References 57 publications

Are men better than women at acoustic size judgements?

Are men better than women at acoustic size judgements?

Musical ability and non‐native speech‐sound processing are linked through sensitivity to pitch and spectral information

The relationship of speech intelligibility with hearing sensitivity, cognition, and perceived hearing difficulties varies for different speech perception tests

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