Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research Vol.54 1416-1430 October 2011. doi:10.1044/1092-4388(2011/10-0154)
© American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrowCustom Print
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow My Folders
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Picou, E. M.
Right arrow Articles by Hornsby, B. W. Y.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Picou, E. M.
Right arrow Articles by Hornsby, B. W. Y.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Delicious   Add to Digg   Add to Facebook   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Article

Visual Cues and Listening Effort: Individual Variability

Erin M. Picoua
Todd A. Rickettsa
Benjamin W. Y. Hornsbya
a Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN

Correspondence to Todd A. Ricketts: todd.a.ricketts{at}vanderbilt.edu

Purpose: To investigate the effect of visual cues on listening effort as well as whether predictive variables such as working memory capacity (WMC) and lipreading ability affect the magnitude of listening effort.

Method: Twenty participants with normal hearing were tested using a paired-associates recall task in 2 conditions (quiet and noise) and 2 presentation modalities (audio only [AO] and auditory–visual [AV]). Signal-to-noise ratios were adjusted to provide matched speech recognition across audio-only and AV noise conditions. Also measured were subjective perceptions of listening effort and 2 predictive variables: (a) lipreading ability and (b) WMC.

Results: Objective and subjective results indicated that listening effort increased in the presence of noise, but on average the addition of visual cues did not significantly affect the magnitude of listening effort. Although there was substantial individual variability, on average participants who were better lipreaders or had larger WMCs demonstrated reduced listening effort in noise in AV conditions.

Conclusions: Overall, the results support the hypothesis that integrating auditory and visual cues requires cognitive resources in some participants. The data indicate that low lipreading ability or low WMC is associated with relatively effortful integration of auditory and visual information in noise.

KEY WORDS: listening effort, vision, background noise


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Delicious Delicious   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Facebook Facebook   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?