Only mismatched speech input triggers effortful working-memory processing.

Evidence

Working memory (WM) has no universally-accepted definition. One characterisation posits that WM refers to the ability to simultaneously store and process task-relevant information (Daneman and Carpenter 1980 ). WM tasks may emphasize either storage or processing. Storage-heavy tasks, such as Digit Span and Letter-Number Sequencing (Wechsler 1997 ), require participants to repeat back material either unchanged or slightly changed. Processing-heavy tasks, such as the Reading Span task (Daneman and Carpenter 1980 ), require a response that differs considerably from the original material and is only achieved by substantial mental manipulation. The correlation between WM and speech perception, particularly in noise, tends to be larger when the WM task is complex i.e. processing-heavy (Akeroyd 2008 ). — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1230 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Across studies restricting their sample to young (18–40 years) participants, the weighted average r value is 0.12, less than 2 % of the variance in SiN identification. According to a power calculation, it would require 543 participants to have an 80 % chance of detecting such a small effect with p = 0.05 (one-tailed)! — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1123 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Our findings do not detract from the practical importance of cognitive assessments in the prediction of SiN identification performance in older HI listeners and the possible interaction between cognitive abilities and hearing-aid processing. Nor do they argue against the involvement of cognition in speech and language processing in young NH listeners per se . First, individual differences in WMC have been shown to explain some of the variability in performance in more linguistically complex task (such as in the comprehension of dynamic conversations; Keidser et al. 2015 ), presumably requiring memory or attentional/inhibitory processes associated with WMC (Conway et al. 2001 ; Kjellberg et al. 2008 ). Second, different cognitive measures, probing the hypothesized sub-processes of WM (e.g. inhibition, shifting, updating) or other domain-general cognitive primitives (e.g. processing speed) might prove to be better predictors of SiN processing abilities than the Reading-Span test. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1156 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Degraded speech processing raises baseline cognitive effort independently of semantic context — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3978; Processing-heavy working memory tasks correlate more strongly with noisy speech perception — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1230; Mixed findings about working memory and speech-in-noise stem from task-specific WM engagement (+3 more)

Related

• Working-memory capacity predicts speech understanding only in linguistically complex listening tasks (similarity 0.93)
• Processing-heavy working memory tasks correlate more strongly with noisy speech perception (similarity 0.93)
• Working memory capacity explains under two percent of speech-in-noise variance in young listeners. (similarity 0.93)
• Task difficulty alone does not explain why older listeners show the working-memory effect. (similarity 0.92)
• Higher working-memory capacity predicts better speech-in-noise identification in hearing-impaired listeners (similarity 0.91)
• Task variation across studies explains inconsistent cognition-speech correlations (similarity 0.89)
• Young listeners’ working memory stays irrelevant to speech-in-noise even at very difficult signal levels (similarity 0.89)
• Working memory correlates with speech-in-noise performance only in middle-aged and older normal-hearing listeners (similarity 0.88)
• Task complexity modulates but does not explain the working-memory speech-in-noise link (similarity 0.88)
• Working memory compensates for degraded speech coding only when peripheral hearing deteriorates (similarity 0.84)
• Working memory only matters when the listening task is acoustically hard (similarity 0.84)
• Poor inhibitory control increases noise susceptibility in speech-in-noise tasks (similarity 0.83)
• Working memory compensates for degraded internal speech representations in aging. (similarity 0.83)
• Complex conversational understanding engages working memory where isolated word recognition does not (similarity 0.83)
• Hearing sensitivity alone cannot explain speech-in-noise difficulties (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Processing-heavy working memory tasks correlate more strongly with noisy speech perception #corroborates (0.90) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1230
• Working-memory capacity predicts speech understanding only in linguistically complex listening tasks #qualifies (0.80) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1156
• Working memory capacity explains under two percent of speech-in-noise variance in young listeners. #complicates (0.80) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1123
• Mixed findings about working memory and speech-in-noise stem from task-specific WM engagement #qualifies (0.75)