Visual Influences on Auditory Processing in Noise in Aphasia

EasyChair Preprint 6403

Abstract

The purpose of this project was to examine the influence of increased noise and visual information for auditory processing in individuals with aphasia. We tested seven adults with chronic aphasia following left hemisphere stroke and five individuals with no history of stroke, and normal hearing for all but two men with unilateral high frequency hearing loss.  Participants completed the Quick Speech in Noise (Killion et al., 2004), a measure requiring repetition of IEEE unpredictable sentencs in a standard auditory (AUD) and an experimental auditory+visual (AV) condition, where participants could hear and see the speaker on a monitor, as single to noise ratio varied from 40 to 0.  We calculated the number of key words repeated correctly in five SNR levels for AUD and AV conditions (max score = 40 per SNR).

The aphasia group performed significantly lower than the controls across SNR levels (F=8.37, p=.01, partial h²=.46), with performance declining as SNR approached 0-5 dB. For both groups, AV was significantly greater than AUD (F=66.92, p=.00, partial h²=.87). In the AV condition, the control group experienced a 10.60 point advantage compared to the 2.57 point advantage for the aphasia group.

Individuals with aphasia demonstrated considerable loss of information as SNR levels decreased (noise levels increased).  The aphasia group performance faltered at SNR 5 dB whereas the controls declined at SNR 0 dB.  At the most difficult noise level (0 dB), the aphasia group experienced considerably less benefit from visual information than the control group. These findings have implications for the use of visual strategies to enhance auditory processing in degraded conditions for individuals with aphasia.

Keyphrases: aphasia, audiology, auditory processing, noise

@booklet{EasyChair:6403,
  author    = {Anastasia Raymer and Stacie Ringleb and Hilary Sandberg and Kathryn Schwartz},
  title     = {Visual Influences on Auditory Processing in Noise in Aphasia},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 6403},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2021}}