Short Implicit Voice Training Affects Listening Effort During a Voice Cue Sensitivity Task With Vocoder-Degraded Speech.
Ada Biçer, Thomas Koelewijn, Deniz Başkent
PMID 36695603WHAT IT FOUND
Listening to a story in a specific voice for 30 minutes did not help people detect small differences in that voice.
However, when the speech was degraded to simulate a cochlear implant, hearing the trained voice required less mental effort.
Key findings
01Short-term implicit voice training did not improve sensitivity to voice cues (just-noticeable differences), regardless of whether the speech was clear or degraded.
02When speech was vocoded to simulate implant processing, pupil dilation was significantly smaller for the trained voice compared to the untrained voice, indicating reduced listening effort.
03Vocoding speech and using variable linguistic content both significantly worsened voice discrimination performance.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study used normal-hearing adults and a vocoder simulation, not actual cochlear implant users. The training was very short (30 minutes) and implicit (participants weren't told to learn the voice), which may not reflect real-world familiarity. The primary outcome (voice sensitivity) showed no benefit from training. The sample size was small (16 participants).
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The study was funded by government and foundation grants (NWO, ZonMw, Heinsius Houbolt Foundation, Rosalind Franklin Fellowship).
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that voice training will help your clients understand speech better or identify speakers more accurately. This study showed no improvement in sensitivity or accuracy; the only benefit found was a reduction in the mental effort required to process degraded speech.