Phonemic restoration with envelope and periodicity cues: Effects of age and competing talkers

Abstract

Perception of interrupted speech improves when noise is inserted in silent gaps between speech segments. This “phonemic restoration” is enhanced with intervening noise that contains low-level speech information, such as noise modulated by the temporal envelope of the missing speech. However, this benefit may be reduced in multiple-talker environments where competing speech contributes additional masking effects. To minimize these masking effects, periodicity information within intervening noise segments of interrupted speech may help listeners segregate multiple voices and thus increase phonemic restoration. The relative benefit of envelope and periodicity cues, and their use by older adults with poorer performance in multiple-talker environments, remains unclear. To address these questions, younger and older adults with normal hearing listened to target sentences in quiet and competing talker backgrounds; target sentences were periodically interrupted with silence, envelope-modulated noise, or pulse trains, which contained periodicity information from the missing speech. Phonemic restoration was defined as the difference in recognition of interrupted sentences filled with envelope-modulated noise or pulse trains as compared to sentences interrupted by silence. Results are discussed in terms of contributions of envelope and periodicity cues to perceptual organization in complex listening environments. [Work supported by NIH/NIDCD and a AAA Student Investigator Research Grant.]