Use of semantic context and F contours by older listeners during Mandarin speech recognition in quiet and single-talker interference conditions

Abstract

This study followed up Wang, Shu, Zhang, Liu, and Zhang [(2013). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 34(1), EL91–EL97] to investigate factors influencing older listeners' Mandarin speech recognition in quiet vs single-talker interference. Listening condition significantly interacted with F0 contours but not with semantic context, revealing that natural F0 contours provided benefit in the interference condition whereas semantic context contributed similarly to both conditions. Furthermore, the significant interaction between semantic context and F0 contours demonstrated the importance of semantic context when F0 was flattened. Together, findings from the two studies indicate that aging differentially affects tonal language speakers' dependence on F0 contours and semantic context for speech perception in suboptimal conditions.

Mandarin-Speaking Children’s Speech Recognition: Developmental Changes in the Influences of Semantic Context and F0 Contours

“…By contrast, both age groups of children benefited to a similar extent from semantic context when the listening background changes from quiet to interference condition, which indicates that the elementary and middle school children are capable of using semantic context to resist interfering speech. Speech recognition by young and older adults in quiet and single-talker interference backgrounds has been explored in our previous studies ( Wang et al, 2013 for young adults, and Jiang et al, 2017 for older listeners). Although it is unjustifiable to make a direct statistical comparison across the results of different age groups because different word materials and elicitation approaches were adopted, it is meaningful to compare the different patterns of interaction effects between semantic context and F 0 contours/listening background across the four age groups.…”

“…Specifically, the target sentences included normal/word list sentences with natural/flat F 0 contours, respectively, manipulating semantic context and F 0 contours. Such manipulations have been adopted in our previous studies ( Wang et al, 2013 ; Zhang et al, 2016 ; Jiang et al, 2017 ). The normal sentences were 28 declarative Chinese sentences with each sentence comprised of 3 to 6 words (2–4 content words plus 0–2 functional words) that were familiar to both the elementary and middle school children.…”

How Visual Word Decoding and Context-driven Auditory Semantic Integration Contribute to Reading: A Test of Additive vs. Multiplicative Models

“…In the present study, the extent of semantic integration needed for recognizing the target spoken sentences was manipulated by presenting two types of stimuli. Specifically, in suboptimal listening conditions, greater auditory semantic integration is required for successful recognition of speech with flattened F0 contours compared with speech with nature F0 contours (Wang et al, 2013;Jiang, et al, 2017). Interestingly, our results showed that recognition of speech with flattened F0 contours contributed to reading comprehension, while the contribution decreased dramatically when the natural F0 contours in the target spoken sentences were intact.…”

“…Furthermore, when degraded speech signal is presented against interference, listeners benefit even more from semantic context. For example, the intelligibility difference between acoustically degraded sentences and semantically unrelated words is much greater when they are presented in suboptimal listening backgrounds than in quiet, indicating that listeners rely more on the top-down semantic context to aid speech recognition and comprehension in adverse conditions (Binns & Culling, 2007;Wang et al, 2013;Jiang, Li, Shu, Zhang, & Zhang, 2017).…”

“…Specifically, to assess the role of contextual semantic integration in speech recognition, we introduced acoustic manipulations in two speech-in-noise conditions, one with natural F0 contours kept in the target sentences presented against interfering background speech and the other with flattened F0 contour that disrupted the critical cue for Chinese lexical tones for proper word recognition. This speech-in-noise test protocol with Mandarin Chinese materials had been previously adopted in a number of studies on elementary school students, middle school students, and adults including the elderly population (Wang et al, 2013;Jiang et al, 2017;Zhou et al, 2017), and the results demonstrated that greater auditory semantic integration at the sentence level is required to recognize the words in the F0-degraded condition. Furthermore, two statistical models, i.e., the multiplicative model (product of the two subskills) and additive model (sum of the two subskills), were tested to clarify how the subskills would predict the variance in reading comprehension.…”