Speech recognition in one- and two-talker maskers in school-age children and adults: Development of perceptual masking and glimpsing

Abstract

Children perform more poorly than adults on a wide range of masked speech perception paradigms, but this effect is particularly pronounced when the masker itself is also composed of speech. The present study evaluated two factors that might contribute to this effect: the ability to perceptually isolate the target from masker speech, and the ability to recognize target speech based on sparse cues (glimpsing). Speech reception thresholds (SRTs) were estimated for closed-set, disyllabic word recognition in children (5-16 years) and adults in a one-or two-talker masker. Speech maskers were 60 dB sound pressure level (SPL), and they were either presented alone or in combination with a 50-dB-SPL speech-shaped noise masker. There was an age effect overall, but performance was adult-like at a younger age for the one-talker than the two-talker masker. Noise tended to elevate SRTs, particularly for older children and adults, and when summed with the one-talker masker. Removing timefrequency epochs associated with a poor target-to-masker ratio markedly improved SRTs, with larger effects for younger listeners; the age effect was not eliminated, however. Results were interpreted as indicating that development of speech-in-speech recognition is likely impacted by development of both perceptual masking and the ability recognize speech based on sparse cues.

The Relationship Between Spectral Modulation Detection and Speech Recognition: Adult Versus Pediatric Cochlear Implant Recipients

“…There is evidence from the literature examining speech recognition in noise for children with normal hearing. Children with normal hearing require higher SNRs for adult-like recognition of speech (e.g., Baker et al., 2014; Buss et al., 2016; Buss, Leibold, Porter, & Grose, 2017 ; Corbin et al., 2016; Elliot, 1979 ; Holder et al., 2016; McCreery et al., 2010; Stuart, 2005 ) and require broader audibility bandwidths than adults to achieve asymptotic speech understanding (e.g., McCreery & Stelmachowicz, 2011; Mlot et al., 2010; Stelmachowicz et al., 2001). As mentioned previously, researchers have implicated poorer processing efficiency for children who generally require higher SNR than adults for comparable detection (e.g., Hall & Grose, 1991 ).…”

Speech Perception in Complex Acoustic Environments: Developmental Effects

“…Initial studies investigating speech recognition in temporally modulated noise found no child-adult differences in the amount of benefit derived from masker modulation (Stuart, 2008;Stuart, Givens, Walker, & Elangovan, 2006). However, results from more recent work involving complex noise or speech maskers with both spectral and temporal modulations (e.g., Hall, Buss, Grose, & Roush, 2012;Buss, Leibold, Porter, & Grose, 2017) and/or reverberation (e.g., Wróblewski, Lewis, Valente, & Stelmachowicz, 2012) indicate an immature ability to benefit from available glimpses in a fluctuating masker relative to adults.…”

Developmental Effects in Children’s Ability to Benefit From F0 Differences Between Target and Masker Speech

“…Compared to adults, children require a more advantageous signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) to achieve similar levels of performance on speech detection or recognition in the presence of competing noise or speech maskers (e.g., Nittrouer & Boothroyd 1990;Hall et al 2002;Litovsky 2005;Wightman & Kistler 2005). Poorer speech understanding in a speech masker is thought to reflect children's immature sound segregation abilities as well as a reduced ability to understand speech based on sparse glimpses relative to adults (Buss et al 2017b). Speech-in-speech recognition performance does not appear to reach maturity until the teenage years (Wightman et al 2003;Wightman & Kistler, 2005;Corbin et al 2016).…”