Seminars in Hearing Research at Purdue
Students, post docs, and faculty with interests in all aspects of hearing meeting weekly to share laboratory research, clinical case studies, and theoretical perspectives. Topics include basic and translational research as well as clinical practice. Participants are welcome from all of Purdue University including Speech, Language, and Hearing Science (SLHS), Biology (BIO), Biomedical Engineering (BME), Mechanical Engineering (ME), and Electrical Engineering (EE). Seminars provide an ideal venue for students to present their work with a supportive audience, for investigators to find common interests for collaborative efforts, and for speakers from outside Purdue to share their work. This seminar is partially supported by the Association for Research in Otolaryngology.
2019-2020 Talks
LYLE 1150: 10:30-11:20am (link to schedule)
Past Talks
March 12, 2020
Alexander L. Francis, Associate Professor, SLHS
Psychophysiological correlates of effort related to different listening conditions
Abstract: Listeners vary widely in their ability to understand speech in adverse conditions. Evidence suggests that differences in both cognitive and linguistic capacities play a role, but these factors may contribute deferentially depending on the specific listening challenge. In this study, we evaluate the contribution of individual differences in age, hearing thresholds, vocabulary, selective attention, working memory capacity, personality traits, and noise sensitivity to variability in measures of story comprehension and listening effort in two listening conditions: (1) native-accented English speech masked by speech-shaped noise and (2) non-native accented English speech without masking. Masker levels were adjusted individually to ensure comparable word recognition performance across conditions within participants. Dependent measures included comprehension tests results, self-rated effort, and electrodermal, cardiovascular, and facial electromyographic measures associated with listening effort. Results showed varied patterns of responsivity across different dependent measures as well as across the two listening conditions. In particular, results suggested that working memory capacity and vocabulary may play a greater role in the comprehension of non-native accented speech than noise-masked speech, while hearing acuity and personality may have a stronger influence on understanding speech in noise. Finally, we argue that electrodermal measures may be more closely associated with affective response to noise-related interference while cardiovascular measures may be more strongly affected by demands on working memory and lexical access.
