Speech-in-speech perception, nonverbal selective attention, and musical training.

Tierney, Adam; Rosen, Stuart; Dick, Fred · 2020 · Crossref

DOI: 10.1037/xlm0000767

archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified

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Summary

This study investigates the role of non-verbal selective attention in speech-in-speech perception and examines whether musical training confers advantages in this domain. The authors address the challenge of understanding how listeners ignore competing speech streams, hypothesizing that individual differences in the ability to direct and maintain attention to a specific auditory object drive performance in complex listening environments. Previous research was limited by a lack of paradigms measuring non-verbal sustained auditory selective attention, leading to inconsistent findings regarding the link between attentional control and speech perception. To test these hypotheses, the researchers recruited 69 adult participants and administered a battery of cognitive tasks. Speech-in-speech perception was measured using the Coordinate Response Measure (CRM), where participants identified information from a target talker while ignoring a distractor. Non-verbal selective attention was assessed using the Sustained Auditory Selective Attention (SASA) task, requiring participants to detect repeated tone sequences in a target stream while ignoring a distractor stream. Both tasks included conditions where sound sources were separable by frequency or by time. The study also included an auditory Stroop task to measure executive function and a Beat Alignment Test to assess musical beat perception. Participants reported their years of instrumental musical training. Statistical analyses included partial Spearman correlations and logistic regression, controlling for age. The results demonstrated a significant positive correlation between performance on the non-verbal SASA task and the verbal CRM task, indicating that individuals with better non-verbal selective attention also exhibited superior speech-in-speech perception. Musical training was positively correlated with performance on both the SASA and CRM tasks, as well as with beat perception, but not with the Stroop effect. Crucially, logistic regression revealed that while attention metrics correlated with speech perception, they did not independently predict CRM performance when musical training and age were included. Instead, the significant predictors were age, musical training, and their interaction. Specifically, speech-in-speech performance declined with age in non-musicians but remained stable in musicians. The findings suggest that the ability to direct attention to auditory objects is a key factor in perceiving speech in distracting environments. The study identifies musical training as a protective factor against age-related declines in speech-in-speech perception. The authors propose that this musician advantage may stem from enhanced attentional control developed through musical experience, rather than solely from improved bottom-up auditory encoding. This implies that the skills required for musical beat perception and stream segregation transfer to linguistic tasks, highlighting the potential for musical training to support cognitive and perceptual resilience in older adulthood.

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• auditory