Working memory capacity explains under two percent of speech-in-noise variance in young listeners.

Evidence

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

To assess the claim that individual variability in WMC accounts for differences in SiN identification even in the absence of peripheral hearing loss, we surveyed published and unpublished studies administering the Reading-Span test and a measure of SiN identification to participants with audiometrically NH. … 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…, 1129

Categorization

• QUESTION: This is a strikingly weak effect for a widely-studied relationship — worth chasing why so many speech-in-noise and working memory studies exist if the composite effect is this small.
• XREF: Connects to the broader literature questioning working-memory as a major contributor to speech-in-noise; relevant to models of cognition-hearing interaction. — connects to: Working memory correlates with speech-in-noise performance only in middle-aged and older normal-hearing listeners — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1120; Only mismatched speech input triggers effortful working-memory processing.; Higher working-memory capacity predicts better speech-in-noise identification in hearing-impaired listeners — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1124 (+6 more)
• corroborated: 6 independent passages support this claim — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1123; Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1129

Broader Connections

• Working-memory capacity predicts speech understanding only in linguistically complex listening tasks #qualifies (0.85) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1156
• Mixed findings about working memory and speech-in-noise stem from task-specific WM engagement #expands (0.80)
• Processing-heavy working memory tasks correlate more strongly with noisy speech perception #corroborates (0.75) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1230