Effects of Semantic Context and Feedback on Perceptual Learning of Speech Processed through an Acoustic Simulation of a Cochlear Implant

摘要

The effect of feedback and materials on perceptual learning was examined in normal hearing listeners exposed to cochlear implant simulations. Generalization was most robust when feedback paired the spectrally degraded sentences with their written transcriptions, promoting mapping between the degraded signal and its acoustic-phonetic representation. Transfer appropriate processing theory suggests that such feedback was most successful because the original learning conditions were reinstated at testing: performance was facilitated when both training and testing contained degraded stimuli. In addition, the effect of semantic context on generalization was assessed by training listeners on meaningful or anomalous sentences. Training with anomalous sentences was as effective as with meaningful sentences, suggesting that listeners were encouraged to use acoustic-phonetic information to identify speech than to make predictions from semantic context.