Selective attention to time scales and time points during speech perception

Abstract

Selective attention provides a mechanism by which people preferentially process subsets of stimuli when faced with overwhelming amounts of information. Spatially selective attention is particularly important for perceiving complex scenes in which multiple objects are presented simultaneously at distinct locations. Recent evidence indicates that temporally selective attention plays an important role in perception when more information than can be processed in detail is presented rapidly. Specifically, listeners can direct selective attention to both different levels of hierarchically organized rhythms and to distinct time points. Doing so modulates auditory evoked potentials at early perceptual stages. Additional studies show that directing temporally selective attention to hierarchical levels and specific time points affects perception of the rapidly changing acoustic features that constitute speech. Language experience and proficiency affect the skill with which adult listeners select the most relevant features and differentially process attended and unattended information in speech streams. Furthermore, developmental deficits in selective attention have been implicated in specific language impairment. These deficits can be reduced with interventions designed to improve speech perception and are accompanied by increases in receptive language scores. [Work supported by NIDCD grants R03DC008684 and F32DC005291 to LDS, R01DC005660 to David Poeppel, and R01DC00128 and R01DC00481 to Helen Neville.]