Purpose The goal of this study was to examine the effects of cognitive and linguistic skills on masked speech recognition for children with normal hearing in three different masking conditions: (a) speech-shaped noise (SSN), (b) amplitude-modulated SSN (AMSSN), and (c) two-talker speech (TTS). We hypothesized that children with better working memory and language skills would have better masked speech recognition than peers with poorer skills in these areas. Selective attention was predicted to affect performance in the TTS masker due to increased cognitive demands from informational masking. Method A group of 60 children in two age groups (5- to 6-year-olds and 9- to 10-year-olds) with normal hearing completed sentence recognition in SSN, AMSSN, and TTS masker conditions. Speech recognition thresholds for 50% correct were measured. Children also completed standardized measures of language, memory, and executive function. Results Children's speech recognition was poorer in the TTS relative to the SSN and AMSSN maskers. Older children had lower speech recognition thresholds than younger children for all masker conditions. Greater language abilities were associated with better sentence recognition for the younger children in all masker conditions, but there was no effect of language for older children. Better working memory and selective attention skills were associated with better masked sentence recognition for both age groups, but only in the TTS masker condition. Conclusions The decreasing influence of vocabulary on masked speech recognition for older children supports the idea that this relationship depends on an interaction between the language level of the stimuli and the listener's vocabulary. Increased cognitive demands associated with perceptually isolating the target talker and two competing masker talkers with a TTS masker may result in the recruitment of working memory and selective attention skills, effects that were not observed in SSN or AMSSN maskers. Future research should evaluate these effects across a broader range of stimuli or with children who have hearing loss.

中文翻译：

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认知和语言对儿童蒙面语音识别的贡献

目的本研究的目的是检查认知和语言技能对听力正常儿童在三种不同掩蔽条件下的掩蔽语音识别的影响：(a) 语音形状噪声 (SSN)、(b) 调幅 SSN (AMSSN) ）和（c）两人语音（TTS）。我们假设，工作记忆和语言技能较好的儿童比这些领域技能较差的同龄人具有更好的掩蔽语音识别能力。由于信息掩蔽的认知需求增加，选择性注意预计会影响 TTS 掩蔽器的表现。 方法两个年龄组（5 至 6 岁和 9 至 10 岁）的 60 名听力正常的儿童在 SSN、AMSSN 和 TTS 掩蔽条件下完成了句子识别。测量了 50% 正确率的语音识别阈值。孩子们还完成了语言、记忆和执行功能的标准化测量。 结果相对于 SSN 和 AMSSN 掩蔽器，儿童在 TTS 中的语音识别能力较差。在所有掩蔽条件下，年龄较大的儿童的语音识别阈值都低于年龄较小的儿童。在所有掩蔽条件下，较小的孩子的语言能力越高，句子识别能力越好，但语言对年龄较大的孩子没有影响。对于两个年龄组来说，更好的工作记忆和选择性注意技能都与更好的屏蔽句子识别相关，但仅限于 TTS 屏蔽条件。 结论词汇对年龄较大儿童的掩蔽语音识别的影响逐渐减弱，这支持了这样一种观点，即这种关系取决于刺激的语言水平和听者词汇之间的相互作用。与使用 TTS 掩蔽器在知觉上隔离目标说话者和两个相互竞争的掩蔽说话者相关的认知需求增加，可能会导致工作记忆和选择性注意技能的募集，而这些效果在 SSN 或 AMSSN 掩蔽器中未观察到。未来的研究应该评估更广泛的刺激或听力损失儿童的这些影响。