Cargando…

The pupil response reveals increased listening effort when it is difficult to focus attention

Recent studies have shown that prior knowledge about where, when, and who is going to talk improves speech intelligibility. How related attentional processes affect cognitive processing load has not been investigated yet. In the current study, three experiments investigated how the pupil dilation re...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Koelewijn, Thomas, de Kluiver, Hilde, Shinn-Cunningham, Barbara G., Zekveld, Adriana A., Kramer, Sophia E.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4632994/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25732724
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heares.2015.02.004
_version_ 1782399130701660160
author Koelewijn, Thomas
de Kluiver, Hilde
Shinn-Cunningham, Barbara G.
Zekveld, Adriana A.
Kramer, Sophia E.
author_facet Koelewijn, Thomas
de Kluiver, Hilde
Shinn-Cunningham, Barbara G.
Zekveld, Adriana A.
Kramer, Sophia E.
author_sort Koelewijn, Thomas
collection PubMed
description Recent studies have shown that prior knowledge about where, when, and who is going to talk improves speech intelligibility. How related attentional processes affect cognitive processing load has not been investigated yet. In the current study, three experiments investigated how the pupil dilation response is affected by prior knowledge of target speech location, target speech onset, and who is going to talk. A total of 56 young adults with normal hearing participated. They had to reproduce a target sentence presented to one ear while ignoring a distracting sentence simultaneously presented to the other ear. The two sentences were independently masked by fluctuating noise. Target location (left or right ear), speech onset, and talker variability were manipulated in separate experiments by keeping these features either fixed during an entire block or randomized over trials. Pupil responses were recorded during listening and performance was scored after recall. The results showed an improvement in performance when the location of the target speech was fixed instead of randomized. Additionally, location uncertainty increased the pupil dilation response, which suggests that prior knowledge of location reduces cognitive load. Interestingly, the observed pupil responses for each condition were consistent with subjective reports of listening effort. We conclude that communicating in a dynamic environment like a cocktail party (where participants in competing conversations move unpredictably) requires substantial listening effort because of the demands placed on attentional processes.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-4632994
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2015
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-46329942016-05-01 The pupil response reveals increased listening effort when it is difficult to focus attention Koelewijn, Thomas de Kluiver, Hilde Shinn-Cunningham, Barbara G. Zekveld, Adriana A. Kramer, Sophia E. Hear Res Article Recent studies have shown that prior knowledge about where, when, and who is going to talk improves speech intelligibility. How related attentional processes affect cognitive processing load has not been investigated yet. In the current study, three experiments investigated how the pupil dilation response is affected by prior knowledge of target speech location, target speech onset, and who is going to talk. A total of 56 young adults with normal hearing participated. They had to reproduce a target sentence presented to one ear while ignoring a distracting sentence simultaneously presented to the other ear. The two sentences were independently masked by fluctuating noise. Target location (left or right ear), speech onset, and talker variability were manipulated in separate experiments by keeping these features either fixed during an entire block or randomized over trials. Pupil responses were recorded during listening and performance was scored after recall. The results showed an improvement in performance when the location of the target speech was fixed instead of randomized. Additionally, location uncertainty increased the pupil dilation response, which suggests that prior knowledge of location reduces cognitive load. Interestingly, the observed pupil responses for each condition were consistent with subjective reports of listening effort. We conclude that communicating in a dynamic environment like a cocktail party (where participants in competing conversations move unpredictably) requires substantial listening effort because of the demands placed on attentional processes. 2015-02-27 2015-05 /pmc/articles/PMC4632994/ /pubmed/25732724 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heares.2015.02.004 Text en http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Koelewijn, Thomas
de Kluiver, Hilde
Shinn-Cunningham, Barbara G.
Zekveld, Adriana A.
Kramer, Sophia E.
The pupil response reveals increased listening effort when it is difficult to focus attention
title The pupil response reveals increased listening effort when it is difficult to focus attention
title_full The pupil response reveals increased listening effort when it is difficult to focus attention
title_fullStr The pupil response reveals increased listening effort when it is difficult to focus attention
title_full_unstemmed The pupil response reveals increased listening effort when it is difficult to focus attention
title_short The pupil response reveals increased listening effort when it is difficult to focus attention
title_sort pupil response reveals increased listening effort when it is difficult to focus attention
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4632994/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25732724
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heares.2015.02.004
work_keys_str_mv AT koelewijnthomas thepupilresponserevealsincreasedlisteningeffortwhenitisdifficulttofocusattention
AT dekluiverhilde thepupilresponserevealsincreasedlisteningeffortwhenitisdifficulttofocusattention
AT shinncunninghambarbarag thepupilresponserevealsincreasedlisteningeffortwhenitisdifficulttofocusattention
AT zekveldadrianaa thepupilresponserevealsincreasedlisteningeffortwhenitisdifficulttofocusattention
AT kramersophiae thepupilresponserevealsincreasedlisteningeffortwhenitisdifficulttofocusattention
AT koelewijnthomas pupilresponserevealsincreasedlisteningeffortwhenitisdifficulttofocusattention
AT dekluiverhilde pupilresponserevealsincreasedlisteningeffortwhenitisdifficulttofocusattention
AT shinncunninghambarbarag pupilresponserevealsincreasedlisteningeffortwhenitisdifficulttofocusattention
AT zekveldadrianaa pupilresponserevealsincreasedlisteningeffortwhenitisdifficulttofocusattention
AT kramersophiae pupilresponserevealsincreasedlisteningeffortwhenitisdifficulttofocusattention