Cortical dynamics of speech-in-noise understanding

A Multisensory Cortical Network for Understanding Speech in Noise

In noisy environments, listeners tend to hear a speaker's voice yet struggle to understand what is said. The most effective way to improve intelligibility in such conditions is to watch the speaker's mouth movements. Here we identify the neural networks that distinguish understanding from merely hearing speech, and determine how the brain applies visual information to improve intelligibility. U...

Cortical mechanisms of speech perception in noise.

PURPOSE The present study examines the brain basis of listening to spoken words in noise, which is a ubiquitous characteristic of communication, with the focus on the dorsal auditory pathway. METHOD English-speaking young adults identified single words in 3 listening conditions while their hemodynamic response was measured using fMRI: speech in quiet, speech in moderately loud noise (signal-t...

The cortical dynamics of intelligible speech.

An important and unresolved question is how the human brain processes speech for meaning after initial analyses in early auditory cortical regions. A variety of left-hemispheric areas have been identified that clearly support semantic processing, although a systematic analysis of directed interactions among these areas is lacking. We applied dynamic causal modeling of functional magnetic resona...

Laminar cortical dynamics of conscious speech perception:

Aging and cortical mechanisms of speech perception in noise.

Spoken language processing in noisy environments, a hallmark of the human brain, is subject to age-related decline, even when peripheral hearing might be intact. The present study examines the cortical cerebral hemodynamics (measured by fMRI) associated with such processing in the aging brain. Younger and older subjects identified single words in quiet and in two multi-talker babble noise condi...