年龄和噪声相关的言语声音神经夹带差异

文献信息

中文摘要

背景： 噪声中言语（SIN）感知是一项困难的日常聆听任务，随着年龄增长会变得更加困难。对目标言语的神经追踪与在安静和噪声退化聆听环境中的成功言语感知相关。衰老如何影响言语的神经追踪以及SIN感知的行为减退仍不清楚。方法：为解决这些问题，我们通过多通道脑电图（EEG）在年轻人和老年人中测量了连续SIN感知任务期间的神经言语追踪。参与者（N = 83）在EEG记录期间监测以安静和噪声条件呈现的连续音节流（约4.5 Hz）。我们评估了对声学言语包络的神经相位锁定值（PLV），以研究衰老、听力损失和刺激噪声对言语神经同步的交互作用。结果：与年轻人相比，老年人对噪声效应的行为敏感性较低，并且对目标言语的整体PLV更高。与年轻聆听者相比，老年人还表现出更大的噪声相关神经言语处理退化。即使在控制听力损失后，年龄仍是言语行为反应的强预测因子。协变量控制听力损失后，大多数年龄相关的神经PLV效应消失。结论：与年轻人相比，老年人对安静中持续呈现的言语表现出夸张的神经追踪，并且神经行为言语处理的噪声相关降低更大。我们的结果支持衰退-补偿假说，证实老年聆听者异常大的言语包络编码，并提示对言语信号更强的神经同步并不总是具有感知优势。

英文摘要

Speech-in-noise (SIN) perception is a difficult everyday listening task that becomes more difficult with age. Neural tracking of target speech is associated with successful speech perception in clean and noise-degraded listening environments. How aging impacts neural tracking of speech and behavioral decrements in SIN perception remains unclear. To address these questions, we measured neural speech tracking during a continuous SIN perception task in younger and older adults via multichannel electroencephalography (EEG). Participants (N = 83) monitored a continuous stream of syllables (~4.5 Hz) presented in quiet and noise conditions during EEG recordings. We assessed neural phase-locking value (PLV) to the acoustic speech envelope to investigate interactions between aging, hearing loss, and stimulus noise on neural synchronization to speech. Compared to younger adults, older adults demonstrated less behavioral sensitivity to noise effects than young adults and had higher overall PLV to target speech. Older adults also showed greater noise-related degradations in neural speech processing relative to younger listeners. Age remained a strong predictor of behavioral responses to speech even after controlling for hearing loss. Covarying for hearing loss removed most age-related effects on neural PLV. Older adults demonstrate exaggerated neural tracking to ongoing speech presented in quiet and greater noise-related reductions in neurobehavioral speech processing than young adults. Our results support the decline-compensation hypothesis, corroborate unusually large speech envelope encoding in older listeners, and suggest more robust neural synchronization to the speech signal is not always perceptually advantageous.