The cortical organization of listening effort: New insight from functional near-infrared spectroscopy

White, Bradley E.; Langdon, Clifton

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118324

Cited by 27 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 126 publications

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“…Effortful listening to speech in noise engages heightened arousal as well as increased demands on attention, working memory, and linguistic processing (Peelle, 2018). Unravelling these various aspects - in particular separating arousal-related effects from those related to the allocation of cognitive resources - is a key challenge for the field (Zekveld et al, 2014; White & Langdon, 2021; Ritz et al, 2021; Haro et al, 2022; McGarrigle et al, 2021). Correlations between subjective, behavioral, and physiological measures of listening effort have not always yielded consistent results (Alhanbali et al, 2019), implying that different approaches may be capturing distinct facets of this construct.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pupil dilation and microsaccades provide complementary insights into the dynamics of arousal and instantaneous attention during effortful listening

Contadini-Wright

Magami

Mehta

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Listening in noisy environments requires effort - the active engagement of attention and other cognitive abilities, as well as increased arousal. The ability to separately quantify the contribution of these components is key to understanding the dynamics of effort and how it may change across listening situations and in certain populations. We concurrently measured two types of ocular data in young participants (both sexes) - Pupil dilation (PD) (thought to index arousal aspects of effort) and Microsaccades (MS) (hypothesized to reflect automatic visual exploratory sampling) whilst listeners were performing a speech-in-noise task under high- (HL) and low- (LL) perceptual load conditions. Sentences were manipulated so that the behaviourally relevant information (keywords) appeared at the end (Exp1) or beginning (Exp2) of the sentence, resulting in different temporal demands on focused attention. In line with previous reports, PD effects were associated with increased dilation under load. We observed a sustained difference between HL and LL conditions, consistent with increased phasic and tonic arousal. Importantly we show that MS rate was also modulated by perceptual load, manifested as a reduced MS rate in HL relative to LL. Critically, in contrast to the sustained difference seen for PD, MS effects were localised in time, specifically during periods when demands on auditory attention were greatest. These results demonstrate that auditory selective attention interfaces with the mechanisms controlling MS-generation, establishing MS as an informative measure, complementary to PD, with which to quantify the temporal dynamics of auditory attentional processing under effortful listening conditions.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pupil dilation and microsaccades provide complementary insights into the dynamics of arousal and instantaneous attention during effortful listening

Contadini-Wright

Magami

Mehta

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…For instance, using a speech-in-speech paradigm, Andéol et al [ 21 ] showed a positive correlation between prefrontal activity and speech intelligibility in the most difficult condition, reflecting greater recruitment of cognitive resources outside the core speech network. Consistently with these findings, it has been suggested that in a complex auditory scene at least two high-level cognitive processes, namely the working memory and attentional-based functions [ 22 – 24 ], are involved in selecting targeted auditory stream thanks to the information provided by the low level processes [ 9 ]. Regarding the attentional-based functions specifically, it seems that individual inhibitory control capacity–as assessed by the Stroop task [ 25 ] for instance–plays a significant role in the target voice selection [ 26 – 28 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 73%

Cocktail party training induces increased speech intelligibility and decreased cortical activity in bilateral inferior frontal gyri. A functional near-infrared study

Lanzilotti

Andéol

Micheyl³

et al. 2022

PLoS ONE

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The human brain networks responsible for selectively listening to a voice amid other talkers remain to be clarified. The present study aimed to investigate relationships between cortical activity and performance in a speech-in-speech task, before (Experiment I) and after training-induced improvements (Experiment II). In Experiment I, 74 participants performed a speech-in-speech task while their cortical activity was measured using a functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) device. One target talker and one masker talker were simultaneously presented at three different target-to-masker ratios (TMRs): adverse, intermediate and favorable. Behavioral results show that performance may increase monotonically with TMR in some participants and failed to decrease, or even improved, in the adverse-TMR condition for others. On the neural level, an extensive brain network including the frontal (left prefrontal cortex, right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and bilateral inferior frontal gyri) and temporal (bilateral auditory cortex) regions was more solicited by the intermediate condition than the two others. Additionally, bilateral frontal gyri and left auditory cortex activities were found to be positively correlated with behavioral performance in the adverse-TMR condition. In Experiment II, 27 participants, whose performance was the poorest in the adverse-TMR condition of Experiment I, were trained to improve performance in that condition. Results show significant performance improvements along with decreased activity in bilateral inferior frontal gyri, the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the left inferior parietal cortex and the right auditory cortex in the adverse-TMR condition after training. Arguably, lower neural activity reflects higher efficiency in processing masker inhibition after speech-in-speech training. As speech-in-noise tasks also imply frontal and temporal regions, we suggest that regardless of the type of masking (speech or noise) the complexity of the task will prompt the implication of a similar brain network. Furthermore, the initial significant cognitive recruitment will be reduced following a training leading to an economy of cognitive resources.

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“…HbO2 concentrations in prefrontal cortex were also positively associated with listening effort in older adults with hearing aids [ 64 ]. New results from a study with normally hearing adults indicate that listening effort is partly reliant on higher cognitive auditory attention and working memory mechanisms in the frontal lobe and on hierarchical linguistic computation in the brain’s left hemisphere [ 65 ]. In addition, functional connectivity was assessed using fNIRS, with higher cross-modal connectivity for auditory stimuli associated with better speech recognition abilities, pointing to a new pattern of functional reorganization that is related to successful hearing restoration with CIs [ 66 ].…”

Section: Near-infrared Spectroscopy (Nirs) Of the Brain In Audiologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Listening Effort in Young Children with Cochlear Implants

et al. 2021

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Very early bilateral implantation is thought to significantly reduce the attentional effort required to acquire spoken language, and consequently offer a profound improvement in quality of life. Despite the early intervention, however, auditory and communicative outcomes in children with cochlear implants remain poorer than in hearing children. The distorted auditory input via the cochlear implants requires more auditory attention resulting in increased listening effort and fatigue. Listening effort and fatigue may critically affect attention to speech, and in turn language processing, which may help to explain the variation in language and communication abilities. However, measuring attention to speech and listening effort is demanding in infants and very young children. Three objective techniques for measuring listening effort are presented in this paper that may address the challenges of testing very young and/or uncooperative children with cochlear implants: pupillometry, electroencephalography, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy. We review the studies of listening effort that used these techniques in paediatric populations with hearing loss, and discuss potential benefits of the systematic evaluation of listening effort in these populations.

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The cortical organization of listening effort: New insight from functional near-infrared spectroscopy

Cited by 27 publications

References 126 publications

Pupil dilation and microsaccades provide complementary insights into the dynamics of arousal and instantaneous attention during effortful listening

Pupil dilation and microsaccades provide complementary insights into the dynamics of arousal and instantaneous attention during effortful listening

Cocktail party training induces increased speech intelligibility and decreased cortical activity in bilateral inferior frontal gyri. A functional near-infrared study

Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Listening Effort in Young Children with Cochlear Implants

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