Audio-visual Integration: Generalization Across Talkers
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Date
2012-06
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
Maximizing a hearing impaired individual’s speech perception performance involves training in both auditory and visual sensory modalities. In addition, some researchers have advocated training in audio-visual speech integration, arguing that it is an independent process (e.g., Grant and Seitz, 1998). Some recent training studies (James, 2009; Gariety, 2009; DiStefano, 2010; Ranta, 2010) have found that skills trained in auditory-only conditions do not generalize to audio-visual conditions, or vice versa, supporting the idea of an independent integration process, but suggesting limited generalizability of training. However, the question remains whether training can generalize in other ways, for example across different talkers. In the present study, five listeners received ten training sessions in auditory, visual, and audio-visual perception of degraded speech syllables spoken by three talkers, and were tested for improvements with an additional two talkers. A comparison of pre-test and post-test results showed that listeners improved with training across all modalities, with both the training talkers and the testing talkers, indicating that across-talker generalization can indeed be achieved. Results for stimuli designed to elicit McGurk-type audio-visual integration also suggested increases in integration after training, whereas other measures did not. Results are discussed in terms of the value of different measures of integration performance, as well as for implications for the design of improved aural rehabilitation programs for hearing-impaired persons.
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Keywords
speech perception, audio-visual, aural rehabilitation