Auditory Learning Using a Portable Real-Time Vocoder (Casserly et al., 2015)

<b>Purpose </b>Although traditional study of auditory training has been in controlled laboratory settings, interest has been increasing in more interactive options. The authors examine whether such interactive training can result in short-term perceptual learning, and the range of perceptual skills it impacts. <br><b>Method </b>Experiments 1 (<i>N</i> = 37) and 2 (<i>N</i> = 21) used pre- and posttest measures of speech and nonspeech recognition to find evidence of learning (within subject) and to compare the effects of 3 kinds of training (between subject) on the perceptual abilities of adults with normal hearing listening to simulations of cochlear implant processing. Subjects were given interactive, standard lab-based, or control training experience for 1 hr between the pre- and posttest tasks (unique sets across Experiments 1 &amp; 2). <br><b>Results </b>Subjects receiving interactive training showed significant learning on sentence recognition in quiet task (Experiment 1), outperforming controls but not lab-trained subjects following training. Training groups did not differ significantly on any other task, even those directly involved in the interactive training experience. <br><b>Conclusions </b>Interactive training has the potential to produce learning in 1 domain (sentence recognition in quiet), but the particulars of the present training method (short duration, high complexity) may have limited benefits to this single criterion task.

<b>研究目的</b><br>尽管传统听觉训练研究多开展于受控实验室环境中，学界对更具交互性的训练方案的关注度正持续提升。本研究旨在探究此类交互式训练能否促成短期知觉学习，以及其可影响的知觉技能范围。<br><b>研究方法</b><br>实验1（<i>N</i>=37）与实验2（<i>N</i>=21）采用言语与非言语识别的前后测范式，以挖掘被试内（within subject）设计下的学习证据，并通过被试间（between subject）设计比较三类训练对听力正常成年人的知觉能力的影响——这些成年人需聆听人工耳蜗（cochlear implant）信号处理的模拟音频。在前后测任务之间，被试需完成1小时的交互式训练、标准实验室训练或对照训练（实验1与实验2使用互不重叠的被试组）。<br><b>研究结果</b><br>接受交互式训练的被试在安静环境下句子识别任务中表现出显著的学习效应（实验1），其成绩优于对照组，但与实验室训练组无统计学意义上的显著差异。各训练组在其余所有任务中均未表现出显著差异，即便任务与交互式训练直接相关亦是如此。<br><b>研究结论</b><br>交互式训练具备在单一领域（安静环境下的句子识别）促成学习的潜力，但本研究采用的训练方案特性（时长较短、复杂度较高）可能仅能为此单一指标任务带来有限的增益效果。