Sounds in everyday environments often follow one another in systematic ways determined by the properties and interactions of of corresponding sound sources. Predictable contextual relationships between consecutive sounds can provide perceptual benefit under adverse listening conditions. This work examines the role of such rule-based learning on identification of individual acoustically complex sounds within a sound sequence, and the effect of listener age. Younger and older adults with age-appropriate hearing were first familiarized with a set of rule-based sound sequences based on an arbitrary finite-state transitional diagram. Subsequently, listeners identified individual target sounds within sequences under a range of signal-to-noise ratios (SNR): 0 to -15 dB. The test sequences were a) familiar, rule-based; b) novel, rule-based; or c) novel, non rule-based. The results for both younger and older listeners revealed superior sound recognition in sequences versus in isolation, and a greater recognition accuracy of rule-based versus non rule-based sequences. However, younger listeners significantly outperformed older listeners. Implicit learning benefit generally did not correlate with measures of working memory processing. Current findings have implications for audiologic rehabilitation and auditory display design.
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13 May 2024
186th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and the Canadian Acoustical Association
13–17 May 2024
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Psychological and Physiological Acoustics: Paper 3aPP3
October 16 2024
Implicit learning of rule-based sound sequences by younger and older adults
Brian Gygi;
Brian Gygi
1
Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, NIHR Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre
, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, NG1 5DU, UK
; [email protected]
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Christian Fullgrabe;
Christian Fullgrabe
2
MRC Institute of Hearing Research: UKRI Medical Research Council Nottingham
, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, NG1 5DU, UK
; [email protected]
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Valeriy Shafiro
Valeriy Shafiro
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Proc. Mtgs. Acoust. 54, 050004 (2024)
Article history
Received:
September 08 2024
Accepted:
September 26 2024
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Citation
Brian Gygi, Christian Fullgrabe, Valeriy Shafiro; Implicit learning of rule-based sound sequences by younger and older adults. Proc. Mtgs. Acoust. 13 May 2024; 54 (1): 050004. https://doi.org/10.1121/2.0001962
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