Reported working-memory effects on speech-in-noise identification are often not statistically reliable.

Evidence

Correlation coefficients in the surveyed studies are broadly distributed, spanning almost half of the possible range of r values (i.e., from ‑0.29 to 0.58). Confidence intervals (CIs) are generally large and include the null hypothesis in 21/25 and 24/25 cases for CIs of 95 and 99 %, respectively, suggesting that these studies are not appropriately powered. For the relatively small number of studies included in this survey, there is no consistent trend for stronger correlations in more complex and/or informationally masking backgrounds or at lower SNRs, presumably corresponding to more adverse listening conditions. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1136

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Connects to the replication-crisis literature and to the general problem of underpowered studies in psychology and hearing science.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: which specific studies showed the strongest correlations and under what experimental conditions?

Related

• Published studies linking working memory to speech-in-noise are underpowered. (similarity 0.92)
• Most working memory and speech-in-noise studies are underpowered to detect real effects. (similarity 0.92)
• Speech-in-noise working-memory studies are routinely underpowered with null-inclusive confidence intervals (similarity 0.91)
• Mixed findings about working memory and speech-in-noise stem from task-specific WM engagement (similarity 0.88)
• Task complexity modulates but does not explain the working-memory speech-in-noise link (similarity 0.83)
• Hearing sensitivity alone cannot explain speech-in-noise difficulties (similarity 0.81)
• Working memory capacity explains under two percent of speech-in-noise variance in young listeners. (similarity 0.81)
• Working memory only matters when the listening task is acoustically hard (similarity 0.80)
• The working memory link to speech-in-noise emerges only past age forty. (similarity 0.80)
• Task variation across studies explains inconsistent cognition-speech correlations (similarity 0.80)
• Brainstem response fidelity to stimuli can be measured via cross-correlation (similarity 0.79)
• Higher working-memory capacity predicts better speech-in-noise identification in hearing-impaired listeners (similarity 0.79)
• Loss of neural synchrony can impair speech-in-noise perception. (similarity 0.79)
• Speech-in-speech intelligibility depends on non-auditory factors beyond audibility alone (similarity 0.79)
• Psychophysical and EEG measures predict speech-in-noise ability better than pure-tone audiometry (similarity 0.79)