Exam 1 Answers

Question 1

Explain how the TEN test is able to identify a cochlear dead region.

Answer 1

The TEN test is designed to identify on-frequency and off-frequency listening. On-frequency listening occurs when the area on the basilar membrane that is responding is the same as what is being tested. Off-frequency listening occurs when the response moves away from the region of peak basilar membrane vibration and areas along the cochlear dead region are responding. The TEN test uses a calibrated signal to determine which is responding. This noise will mask any off-frequency listening that might be occurring. For example, if noise is presented and the noise masks the response, this indicates an off-frequency listening because the tone must be louder than the noise to be heard. If the noise is presented and response is still heard, this is on-frequency listening.

Question 2

Categorical perception

Answer 2

perceiving either one phoneme or another when VOT is either increased or decreased

Question 3

Segmentation of speech into meaningful units

Answer 3

ability to identify words in a stream of speech (if one is familiar with the languae)

Question 4

perceptual learning

Answer 4

ability to understand a speaker with previously unheard foreign accent especially with a repeated exposure to that accent

Question 5

perceptual grouping of speech sounds

Answer 5

stream of acoustic information is interpreted as speech and not just random sounds

Question 6

Speech production and speech perception are linked. What are some examples of this? Select all that apply.
someone learning a new language will speak with an accent
interrupting auditory feedback causes speaker to change their speech
babbling during speech development
Lombard effect
Stenger effect

Answer 6

interrupting auditory feedback causes speaker to change their speech
babbling during speech development
Lombard effect

Question 7

Which of the following is/are considered part of cognition? Select all that apply
understanding information
storing and retrieving information (memory and recall)
mental activities or processes

Answer 7

understanding information
storing and retrieving information (memory and recall)
mental activities or processes

Question 8

All information necessary to recognize sounds is contained in the acoustic signal and analyzed in the auditory pathway

Answer 8

bottom up processing

Question 9

Higher level cognitive operations are involved in identifying and analyzing speech sounds

Answer 9

top down processing

Question 10

Prior knowledge and expectations are involved in speech perception

Answer 10

top down processing

Question 11

Provide a short definition for each of the cognitive abilities below. Each definition is worth 1 point.

Attention
Processing Speed
Inhibition
Short-term memory
Working memory
Executive function (as commonly applied in cognitive hearing science)
Semantic knowledge

Answer 11

Attention is the ability to attend to a desired target in the presence of a distractor. For example, listening in noise.

Processing speed is the amount of time it takes to process a stimulus. For example, reaction time.

Inhibition is the ability to inhibit extraneous information when responding to a target stimulus. For example, the stroop test.

Short term memory is memory that is stored for short periods of time. For example, how many numbers you are able to remember.

Working memory is task specific and simulateneously stores and processes the information. For example, being able to repeat numbers that were presented but backwards.

Executive function is the control of cognitive processes and includes planning and adapting and monitoring behavior. For example, trail making task where you have to follow the numbers in order.

Semantic knowledge is accumulated through lived experiences. For example, picutre naming and being able to put things into categories.

Question 12

sort pictures into categories

Answer 12

semantic knowledge

Question 13

stroop task

Answer 13

inhibition

Question 14

measures the number of words that can be recalled while also identifying if a word is a noun or verb

Answer 14

working memory

Question 15

measures the number of letters that can be recalled accurately and in order

Answer 15

short term memory

Question 16

trail-making task

Answer 16

executive function

Question 17

reaction time task

Answer 17

processing speed

Question 18

Each of the cognitive abilities discussed in this class has a range that is considered normal, in other words there is normal variation in cognitive abilities. Each individual’s cognitive abilities influences how well they process speech information.

True or false: Cognitive decline is a separate consideration from normal variation in cognitive abilities.

Answer 18

true

Question 19

task is to respond to all the black letters; participant sees imagees containing letters and numbers; the task is to press a space bar

Answer 19

attention

Question 20

List three ways a speech signal could be distorted or difficult to understand prior to reaching a listener’s auditory system.

Answer 20

One way a speech signal can be distorted before reaching the listener’s auditory system is with background noise. Another way it can be distorted is if they have an accent or different dialect than the listener and they are a new talker. The third way it can be distorted is through reverberations in the room.

Question 21

1) As used in the Ease of Language Understanding model, how do implicit and explicit processing differ?

2) Give one example where implicit processing is likely occurring and a second example where explicit processing is likely occurring. For each of your examples, explain how those situations exemplify implicit or explicit processing.

For each of your two total examples, explain the scenario and how the listener would likely be processing the speech. For example, “The listener has hearing loss and the room is noisy. They hear ‘I’m going to the [inaudible] to get some groceries’ and they figure out the person is saying the word ‘store’. This is an example of (either implicit or explicit) processing because _________. “

Answer 21

Implicit processing is automatic and occurs during bottom-up processing. Predictive processes is also a part of implicit. Explicit processing takes effort and uses our working memory to understand. Explicit is a part of top-down, as well as postdivitive processing.

During ease of language understanding model, we use implicit processing to look for a match in our long term memory of the multimodel input that we received. This occurs automatically and is fast. If a mismatch occurs, or the brain can not find a match in long term memory, then it goes on to explicit processing where it will actively pull information to try and understand.

For example, in implicit, the listener has hearing loss and is sitting in an auditorium watching a musical. They hear the person say “Now, we are going to _____ God Bless America.” The listener figures out that the person said “sing.” This is implicit because it was automatic and used the information from the rest of the sentence to determine what was said.

For example, in explicit, the listener has hearing loss and is sitting on a busy bus during rush hour. This is the first time they have had to use the bus on this route. The intercom comes on and says “The next stop is at ______”. They have to look around at signs for their location and use the bus map to figure out the next stop. This is an example of explicit because the situation is not familiar to the person and it requires them to use their working memory to understand what the missing piece was that was said.

Question 22

Explain the predictive and postdictive role of working memory in speech/language processing. Give an example of each.

Answer 22

Predictive listening is an example of implicit listening because it occurs automatically and fast. Predictive listening determines what might be said before they comprehend it in their system. It uses phonologic and semantic information to process. An example of predictive listening would be having a conversation with a familiar talker that you are used to their dialect, accent and suprasegmentals. If you don’t understand something, you can predict what it is they might have said based off of previous knowledge of conversations with that person you are familiar with.

Postdictive listening is an example of explicit listening because it is effortful and is slow and deliberate. Postdictive listening occurs after mismatch has occurred and they didn’t understand something. Postdictive listening is when we do not understand something so we store it to process it and pull from our working memory in order to understand it after it has been said. For example, postdictive listening would occur if you were listening to an unfamiliar talker and they were speaking to you in a noisy environment.

Question 23

For a dual-task paradigm, the primary task must always be a speech task (if measuring listening effort).

Which of the following could be used as a secondary task when measuring listening effort? Select all that apply
recall task
speech recognition threshold in noise task
reaction time task
tracking task
attention task

Answer 23

reaction time task
tracking task
attention task
recall task

Question 24

Why might a listener with hearing loss who also has a large working memory capacity be able to derive benefit from fast-acting compression (the example used in class) where someone with the same hearing loss but a smaller working memory capacity might not derive benefit from this technology? Select all that apply.

Larger working memory span correlates with greater processing speed, which allows for better understanding of the distorted signal.
Larger working memory span correlates with a larger vocabulary, which allows for a match to be made more readily
Larger working memory span allows a listener to hold more information in memory while trying to match the distorted signal to what’s in long-term memory storage.
Larger working memory span allows for greater use of the cognitive system’s predictive abilities during speech processing.

Answer 24

Larger working memory span allows a listener to hold more information in memory while trying to match the distorted signal to what’s in long-term memory storage.
Larger working memory span allows for greater use of the cognitive system’s predictive abilities during speech processing

Question 25

What are the three categories of measuring listening effort?

For each category, give an example of a test that would fall under that category.

For this question, you only need to provide the test example, you do not have to describe or define the test.

Answer 25

The first category is physiologic measures for listening effort. An example of this would be measuring pupil response during listening or an fMRI during functional testing.

The second category is self-reporting measures. An example of this would be a questionnaire.

The third category is behavioral measures and an example of this would be the dual-task paradigm.

Question 26

amplify soft sounds so they are audible to a listener

Answer 26

reduces listening effort or the amount of working memory capacity required to process the signal

Question 27

alters the temporal envelope resulting in reduced variability of amplitude fluctuations

Answer 27

increases listening effort or the amount of working memory capcity required to process the signal

Question 28

For someone with hearing loss, knowing the topic of conversation can facilitate speech understanding. In the context of what we’ve learned in this class so far, why does knowing the topic of conversation facilitate speech understanding?

Answer 28

Knowing the topic of conversation for someone with hearing loss allows the listener to use top down processing, predictive processing.