Over the past two years, I have examined older listeners’ ability to perceive dynamic pitch cues in speech and to use them for speech recognition in noise. The results demonstrate that, as compared to younger listeners, older listeners have more difficulty perceiving dynamic pitch in speech. On the other hand, older listeners heavily rely on the presence of dynamic pitch for recognizing speech in noise. The variabilities across individuals, however, are substantial in both of these two domains.
The speech-in-noise data from my recent project revealed an effect of noise’s temporal modulation on the amount of benefit a listener can get from dynamic pitch cues. For young and older listeners with good hearing, the stronger noise modulation provides more dynamic pitch benefit for speech perception in noise. Those older listeners with hearing loss, however, are not able to benefit from dynamic pitch in modulated noise, even when the ability to hear speech in modulated noise is controlled for. Further, there is substantial individual variability across older individuals with hearing loss in terms of dynamic pitch benefit.
Post-doctoral work on aging and hearing loss:
In the first two years of my post-doctoral training, I contributed to two projects about how cognitive abilities of older listeners with and without hearing loss contribute to their perception of distorted or degraded speech signal.
I am also interested in the psychosocial consequences of untreated hearing loss in older adults. My recent tutorial paper provides information about cognition of older adults, mild cognitive impairment, and cognitive screening tests, with the purpose of assisting audiologists in identifying and appropriately referring potential cases of cognitive impairment.
Our recent tutorial paper also highlights the need for more sensitive and time-efficient cognitive tests, and a better understanding of how to choose signal processing strategy in amplification for optimizing individual outcomes based on a peripheral-cognitive profile.
Souza, P., Schoof, T., Shen, J. (2017). Can Individual Cognitive Abilities Direct Audiology Treatment? Audiology Today, 29(2), 25-34.
Dissertation work:
My dissertation projects examined how native speakers of a tone language utilize pitch cues in lexical tone perception.
One of my studies used eye movement data to examine the role of pitch cues in pre-lexical processing of spoken Mandarin words. My work contributed to the psycholinguistic field by demonstrating an innovative implementation of eye tracking methods for investigating on-line perception and utilization of suprasegmental cues in speech processing.
Pre-doctoral work:
In the early phase of my PhD training, I investigated how the experience of acquiring a tone language affects pitch perception and production across speech and music domains.