The pupil response is sensitive to divided attention during speech processing.
Dividing attention over two streams of speech strongly decreases performance compared to focusing on only one. How divided attention affects cognitive processing load as indexed with pupillometry during speech recognition has so far not been investigated. In 12 young adults the pupil response was recorded while they focused on either one or both of two sentences that were presented dichotically and masked by fluctuating noise across a range of signal-to-noise ratios. In line with previous studies, the performance decreases when processing two target sentences instead of one. Additionally, dividing attention to process two sentences caused larger pupil dilation and later peak pupil latency than processing only one. This suggests an effect of attention on cognitive processing load (pupil dilation) during speech processing in noise.
Section Audiology, Dept. of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery and EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, VU University medical center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Electronic address: t.koelewijn@vumc.nl.
Thomas
T
Koelewijn
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Center for Computational Neuroscience and Neural Technology, Boston University, Boston, USA.
Barbara G
BG
Shinn-Cunningham
Section Audiology, Dept. of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery and EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, VU University medical center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Linnaeus Centre HEAD, Department of Behavioral Sciences and Learning, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
Adriana A
AA
Zekveld
Section Audiology, Dept. of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery and EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, VU University medical center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Sophia E
SE
Kramer
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009622:Noise; D011680:Pupil / Q000502:physiology*; D012025:Reflex, Pupillary / Q000502:physiology*; D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio; D013017:Sound Localization / Q000502:physiology*; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult