title: Learning speech-in-noise discrimination in adult humans.
abstract: This manuscript reports the results of two studies on development of a test bank of sentences for use in study of learning of speech-in-noise (SIN) discrimination. Sentences were derived from the sentence lists of Bench et al., 1979 [Bench, J., Kowal, A., Bamford, J., 1979. The BKB (Bamford-Kowal-Bench) sentence lists for partially-hearing children. Brit. J. Audiol. 13, 108-112]. In the first study these sentences were grouped into three different lists (each of 40 sentences) based on their previously-determined speech reception thresholds (SRTs), and used to study SIN discrimination. In each test with 40 sentences in the SIN task, within-session performance asymptoted rapidly, independent of masker type, sex of subjects, and type of sentence. Then, in a second study, six lists of sentences were created to study learning of SIN discrimination, in a new group of subjects. It was found that across-session learning was rapid regardless of noise type, and the same general pattern of learning occurred regardless of noise type; however the amount of learning differed, with a slightly greater amount of learning occurring in the condition with the more difficult noise masker.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, Monash University, Monash, VIC 3800, Australia.
authors.forename: Kathryn E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Cainer
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: James
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rajan
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D001306:Auditory Pathways / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D012737:Sex Factors; D013063:Speech Discrimination Tests; D013067:Speech Perception