Mechanisms of spectrotemporal modulation detection for normal- and hearing-impaired listeners

Ponsot, Emmanuel; Varnet, Léo; Wallaert, Nicolas; Daoud, Elza; Shamma, Shihab A.; Lorenzi, Christian; Neri, Peter

doi:10.1101/2020.01.03.894667

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Two-sample t -tests showed that the RMS values were not significantly different between the groups in any of the conditions, and nor was the internal noise (all p -values > 0.05, see Table 3 ). RMS values were significantly positively correlated with the agreement percentage in both groups and under both conditions (all p -values < .001, see SI Appendix Figure S2 ), which is in line with theoretical expectations ( Murray, 2011 ; Ponsot et al, 2020 ) indicating that the more inter-trial stochastic variability, the lesser energy in the estimated kernels. In addition, measures of RMS and internal noise were independent of ASD severity levels for autistic participants (see SI Appendix Results S2 for details).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 86%

“…To assess the energy of the kernels obtained, two further parameters were computed by participants and conditions. First, the root-mean-square (RMS) value was calculated for each participant’s kernel under each condition, which is a scalar of pitch perceptual filter that reflects how much individuals weight the different pitch portions in one direction or the other ( Ponsot et al., 2020 ). The higher the RMS, the more sensitive the participant is to the pitch.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mental representations of speech and musical pitch contours reveal a diversity of profiles in autism spectrum disorder

Wang

Ong

Ponsot

et al. 2022

Autism

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As an information-bearing auditory attribute of sound, pitch plays a crucial role in the perception of speech and music. Studies examining pitch processing in autism spectrum disorder have produced equivocal results. To understand this discrepancy from a mechanistic perspective, we used a novel data-driven method, the reverse-correlation paradigm, to explore whether the equivocal findings in autism spectrum disorder have high-level origins in top–down comparisons of internal mental representations of pitch contours. Thirty-two Mandarin-speaking autistic individuals and 32 non-autistic individuals undertook three subtasks testing mental representations of pitch contours in speech, complex tone and melody, respectively. The results indicate that while the two groups exhibited similar representations of pitch contours across the three conditions, the autistic group showed a significantly higher intra-group variability than the non-autistic group. In addition, the two groups did not differ significantly in internal noise, a measure of the robustness of participant responses to external variability, suggesting that the present findings translate genuinely qualitative differences and similarities between groups in pitch processing. These findings uncover for the first time that pitch patterns in speech and music are mentally represented in a similar manner in autistic and non-autistic individuals, through domain-general top–down mechanisms. Lay abstract As a key auditory attribute of sounds, pitch is ubiquitous in our everyday listening experience involving language, music and environmental sounds. Given its critical role in auditory processing related to communication, numerous studies have investigated pitch processing in autism spectrum disorder. However, the findings have been mixed, reporting either enhanced, typical or impaired performance among autistic individuals. By investigating top–down comparisons of internal mental representations of pitch contours in speech and music, this study shows for the first time that, while autistic individuals exhibit diverse profiles of pitch processing compared to non-autistic individuals, their mental representations of pitch contours are typical across domains. These findings suggest that pitch-processing mechanisms are shared across domains in autism spectrum disorder and provide theoretical implications for using music to improve speech for those autistic individuals who have language problems.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mental representations of speech and musical pitch contours reveal a diversity of profiles in autism spectrum disorder

Wang

Ong

Ponsot

et al. 2022

Autism

Self Cite

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Suprathreshold Differences in Competing Speech Perception in Older Listeners With Normal and Impaired Hearing

Venezia

Leek

Lindeman

2020

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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Purpose Age-related declines in auditory temporal processing and cognition make older listeners vulnerable to interference from competing speech. This vulnerability may be increased in older listeners with sensorineural hearing loss due to additional effects of spectral distortion and accelerated cognitive decline. The goal of this study was to uncover differences between older hearing-impaired (OHI) listeners and older normal-hearing (ONH) listeners in the perceptual encoding of competing speech signals. Method Age-matched groups of 10 OHI and 10 ONH listeners performed the coordinate response measure task with a synthetic female target talker and a male competing talker at a target-to-masker ratio of +3 dB. Individualized gain was provided to OHI listeners. Each listener completed 50 baseline and 800 “bubbles” trials in which randomly selected segments of the speech modulation power spectrum (MPS) were retained on each trial while the remainder was filtered out. Average performance was fixed at 50% correct by adapting the number of segments retained. Multinomial regression was used to estimate weights showing the regions of the MPS associated with performance (a “classification image” or CImg). Results The CImg weights were significantly different between the groups in two MPS regions: a region encoding the shared phonetic content of the two talkers and a region encoding the competing (male) talker's voice. The OHI listeners demonstrated poorer encoding of the phonetic content and increased vulnerability to interference from the competing talker. Individual differences in CImg weights explained over 75% of the variance in baseline performance in the OHI listeners, whereas differences in high-frequency pure-tone thresholds explained only 10%. Conclusion Suprathreshold deficits in the encoding of low- to mid-frequency (~5–10 Hz) temporal modulations—which may reflect poorer “dip listening”—and auditory grouping at a perceptual and/or cognitive level are responsible for the relatively poor performance of OHI versus ONH listeners on a different-gender competing speech task. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12568472

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Mechanisms of spectrotemporal modulation detection for normal- and hearing-impaired listeners

Cited by 2 publications

References 72 publications

Mental representations of speech and musical pitch contours reveal a diversity of profiles in autism spectrum disorder

Mental representations of speech and musical pitch contours reveal a diversity of profiles in autism spectrum disorder

Suprathreshold Differences in Competing Speech Perception in Older Listeners With Normal and Impaired Hearing

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