Improved speech intelligibility in the presence of congruent vibrotactile speech input.
Sci Rep
; 13(1): 22657, 2023 12 19.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38114599
ABSTRACT
Vibrotactile stimulation is believed to enhance auditory speech perception, offering potential benefits for cochlear implant (CI) users who may utilize compensatory sensory strategies. Our study advances previous research by directly comparing tactile speech intelligibility enhancements in normal-hearing (NH) and CI participants, using the same paradigm. Moreover, we assessed tactile enhancement considering stimulus non-specific, excitatory effects through an incongruent audio-tactile control condition that did not contain any speech-relevant information. In addition to this incongruent audio-tactile condition, we presented sentences in an auditory only and a congruent audio-tactile condition, with the congruent tactile stimulus providing low-frequency envelope information via a vibrating probe on the index fingertip. The study involved 23 NH listeners and 14 CI users. In both groups, significant tactile enhancements were observed for congruent tactile stimuli (5.3% for NH and 5.4% for CI participants), but not for incongruent tactile stimulation. These findings replicate previously observed tactile enhancement effects. Juxtaposing our study with previous research, the informational content of the tactile stimulus emerges as a modulator of intelligibility Generally, congruent stimuli enhanced, non-matching tactile stimuli reduced, and neutral stimuli did not change test outcomes. We conclude that the temporal cues provided by congruent vibrotactile stimuli may aid in parsing continuous speech signals into syllables and words, consequently leading to the observed improvements in intelligibility.
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Percepção da Fala
/
Implantes Cocleares
/
Implante Coclear
Limite:
Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Sci Rep
Ano de publicação:
2023
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Alemanha
País de publicação:
ENGLAND
/
ESCOCIA
/
GB
/
GREAT BRITAIN
/
INGLATERRA
/
REINO UNIDO
/
SCOTLAND
/
UK
/
UNITED KINGDOM