瑞典人工耳蜗儿童与正常听力同龄人的时间听觉分辨率、对听觉提示的定时运动反应及语音加工

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中文摘要

背景： 使用人工耳蜗（CI）聆听对言语感知构成挑战，尤其是在声学复杂的环境中。听觉时间分辨率定义为检测持续声信号中短暂变化的能力，可能是造成这些困难的因素之一。准确辨别语音对儿童的语言发展和词汇习得至关重要，因为言语中细微的时间变化可能改变词义。方法：我们使用噪声中的间隙检测任务，研究了在毫秒水平上检测短暂听觉提示的能力。参与者还完成了非言语任务（反应时间和手指敲击）和言语任务（非词复述），这些任务均依赖于对短暂时间事件的感知、加工和计时。将15名CI儿童与15名匹配的正常听力同龄人进行了比较。结果：我们发现CI儿童所需的间隙约为正常听力儿童所需间隙的两倍。相反，他们对简单听觉刺激的反应显著更快。两组对听觉提示的定时运动反应同样良好。最后，CI儿童在正确复述非词方面的表现劣于正常听力儿童。然而，他们的表现因不同辅音类型而异，这可能以不同方式影响发音的感知清晰度。结论：本研究在多个层面和领域探讨了听觉时间加工能力。研究结果揭示了不同测试之间不同的表现模式。尽管存在这些组间差异，结果暗示CI提供了感知听觉信号中短暂时间变化、快速反应以及对听觉提示定时运动反应的可能性。不同任务之间的关系，以及对短暂声学特性的敏感性在多大程度上促进言语加工，需要进一步研究。

英文摘要

Background: Hearing with a cochlear implant (CI) presents challenges for speech perception, particularly in acoustically complex environments. Auditory temporal resolution, defined as the ability to detect brief changes in an ongoing acoustic signal, is one factor that may contribute to these difficulties. Accurate discrimination of speech sounds is essential for children's language development and vocabulary acquisition, as subtle temporal variations in speech can alter word meaning. Methods: We investigated the ability to detect brief auditory cues at the millisecond level using a gap detection in noise task. Participants also completed non-verbal tasks (reaction time and finger tapping) and a verbal task (nonword repetition), all of which rely on the perception, processing and timing of brief temporal events. Fifteen children with CI were compared with fifteen matched peers with normal hearing. Results: We found that the children with CI required gaps approximately twice as long as those required by the children with normal hearing. In contrast, they responded significantly faster to simple auditory stimuli. Both groups timed their motor responses equally well to auditory cues. Lastly, the children with CI were outperformed on correctly repeated nonwords by the children with normal hearing. However, their performance varied across different consonant types, possibly affecting the perceptual clarity of the articulation differently. Conclusions: This study explored auditory temporal processing abilities across multiple levels and domains. The findings revealed distinct performance patterns across the different tests. Despite these group differences, the results imply that CIs provide the possibility to perceive brief temporal changes in auditory signals, react fast and time motor responses to auditory cues. The relationships among the different tasks, as well as the extent to which sensitivity to brief acoustic properties contributes to speech processing, require further investigation.