TY - JOUR
T1 - Neurophysiological, linguistic, and cognitive predictors of children's ability to perceive speech in noise
AU - Thompson, Elaine C.
AU - Krizman, Jennifer
AU - White-Schwoch, Travis
AU - Nicol, T.
AU - Estabrook, Ryne
AU - Kraus, Nina
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank the members of the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, past and present, for their contributions to this work, and the children and families who participated in this study. This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health ( R01 HD069414 and F31 DC016205-02 ) and the Hunter Family Foundation .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Authors
PY - 2019/10
Y1 - 2019/10
N2 - Hearing in noisy environments is a complicated task that engages attention, memory, linguistic knowledge, and precise auditory-neurophysiological processing of sound. Accumulating evidence in school-aged children and adults suggests these mechanisms vary with the task's demands. For instance, co-located speech and noise demands a large cognitive load and recruits working memory, while spatially separating speech and noise diminishes this load and draws on alternative skills. Past research has focused on one or two mechanisms underlying speech-in-noise perception in isolation; few studies have considered multiple factors in tandem, or how they interact during critical developmental years. This project sought to test complementary hypotheses involving neurophysiological, cognitive, and linguistic processes supporting speech-in-noise perception in young children under different masking conditions (co-located, spatially separated). Structural equation modeling was used to identify latent constructs and examine their contributions as predictors. Results reveal cognitive and language skills operate as a single factor supporting speech-in-noise perception under different masking conditions. While neural coding of the F0 supports perception in both co-located and spatially separated conditions, neural timing predicts perception of spatially separated listening exclusively. Together, these results suggest co-located and spatially separated speech-in-noise perception draw on similar cognitive/linguistic skills, but distinct neural factors, in early childhood.
AB - Hearing in noisy environments is a complicated task that engages attention, memory, linguistic knowledge, and precise auditory-neurophysiological processing of sound. Accumulating evidence in school-aged children and adults suggests these mechanisms vary with the task's demands. For instance, co-located speech and noise demands a large cognitive load and recruits working memory, while spatially separating speech and noise diminishes this load and draws on alternative skills. Past research has focused on one or two mechanisms underlying speech-in-noise perception in isolation; few studies have considered multiple factors in tandem, or how they interact during critical developmental years. This project sought to test complementary hypotheses involving neurophysiological, cognitive, and linguistic processes supporting speech-in-noise perception in young children under different masking conditions (co-located, spatially separated). Structural equation modeling was used to identify latent constructs and examine their contributions as predictors. Results reveal cognitive and language skills operate as a single factor supporting speech-in-noise perception under different masking conditions. While neural coding of the F0 supports perception in both co-located and spatially separated conditions, neural timing predicts perception of spatially separated listening exclusively. Together, these results suggest co-located and spatially separated speech-in-noise perception draw on similar cognitive/linguistic skills, but distinct neural factors, in early childhood.
KW - Auditory development
KW - Auditory processing
KW - Cognition
KW - Electrophysiology
KW - FFR
KW - Language
KW - Speech-in-noise perception
KW - Structural equation modeling
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U2 - 10.1016/j.dcn.2019.100672
DO - 10.1016/j.dcn.2019.100672
M3 - Article
C2 - 31430627
AN - SCOPUS:85070687104
VL - 39
JO - Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
JF - Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
SN - 1878-9293
M1 - 100672
ER -