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Turn up the volume: Speech perception in noise for bilingual listeners
- Source :
- The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 145:1820-1820
- Publication Year :
- 2019
- Publisher :
- Acoustical Society of America (ASA), 2019.
-
Abstract
- Bilinguals, compared to monolinguals, have been reported to have stronger neural representation of the fundamental frequency (F0) of speech, as measured by the frequency-following response (FFR). In monolinguals, stronger FFRs to F0 have been associated with better speech perception in noise (SPIN), suggesting that bilinguals should outperform monolinguals on SPIN tests. However, the opposite is the case: bilinguals generally underperform monolinguals. To explain such findings, Krizman et al. (2017), proposed that the bilingual brain might turn up the volume on the neural representation of sound to compensate for reduced SPIN. The current work considers this possibility using a combination of FFR and SPIN data. The Revised Speech in Noise test was administered at signal to noise ratios (SNRs) of 0 and 3 dB to young adult monolinguals (n = 17) and early bilinguals (n = 26). Unlike the monolinguals, the bilinguals showed a drop in performance when the SNR dropped. Within the bilingual group, poorer SPIN performance correlated with stronger neural responses to F0, suggesting that sensorineural areas are recruited to increase the neural gain of the acoustic representation in a manner that inversely correlates with speech comprehension. These findings give new insight into the brain-behavioral relationships for the neural encoding of sound.
Details
- ISSN :
- 00014966
- Volume :
- 145
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........b7bbd635b5319b09c38068a706e49f2a
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1121/1.5101649