Predicting children's audiovisual speech recognition thresholds based on unimodal performance

Abstract

This study examined the extent to which individual differences in children’s audiovisual speech recognition thresholds are explained by their performance in unimodal auditory and unimodal visual conditions. Auditory-only and audiovisual speech recognition thresholds were measured in fifty children between 7 and 9 years of age using an adaptive closed-set speech recognition task in a two-talker speech masker. Children heard color-number combinations and responded by choosing the color-number combination on a touch-screen monitor. Visual-only speech recognition accuracy scores were measured using the same stimuli and closed-set response format. Correlations and linear modeling were used to examine the extent to which visual-only speech recognition accuracy, auditory-only speech recognition thresholds, and age predict audiovisual speech recognition thresholds. Audiovisual speech recognition thresholds were positively correlated with auditory-only speech recognition thresholds and negatively correlated with visual-only accuracy. A linear model explained 38% of variance in audiovisual thresholds and indicated that children with better visual-only accuracy had lower audiovisual thresholds. Effects of auditory-only accuracy and age were non-significant. These results suggest that lipreading ability contributes to individual differences in 7- to 9-year-old children’s audiovisual recognition of color-number stimuli in a two-talker speech masker.