Understanding conflicting results in the speech perception literature: methodologies, problems and findings regarding cognitive contributions

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• Dr Sarah Knight, MRC Institute of Hearing Research, University of Nottingham
• Tuesday 14 June 2016, 17:00-18:30
• Lecture Room 1, Faculty of Music, 11 West Road, CB3 9DP.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Gabriela Pavarini.

Understanding speech in noisy environments is a challenge for many listeners. Identifying the causes of these speech-in-noise (SiN) perception difficulties is complex because a number of factors influence performance, among them the characteristics of the listening situation, the listener’s cognitive and auditory abilities, and other listener-based variables such as educational attainment and linguistic knowledge. While it has been acknowledged that many factors play a role in SiN perception, the exact relationships between these factors – and particularly between cognitive abilities and listening situation – remain unclear. Improving our understanding of these relationships may help us to resolve many of the discrepancies that exist in the literature. In this talk I will introduce the concept of speech-in-noise perception and discuss possible reasons for the conflicting findings regarding cognitive contributions to SiN perception. I will go on to present results from a current study involving older adults which demonstrate variable findings in the context of Stroop tasks (tests of cognitive inhibition) and a word-in-noise perception task. I hope to show that it is important to conduct theoretically-motivated, context- and listener-specific research when aiming to identify links between cognitive abilities and performance on complex real-world-like tasks such as SiN perception.

This talk is part of the The Centre for Music and Science (CMS) series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Cambridge Forum of Science and Humanities
• Cambridge Language Sciences
• Cambridge talks
• Chris Davis' list
• Guy Emerson's list
• Lecture Room 1, Faculty of Music, 11 West Road, CB3 9DP
• The Centre for Music and Science (CMS)

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