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Understanding Individual Differences in Acoustic-Phonetic and Contextual Cue Use In Aging

Award Number: F31DC021372
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DEAFNESS AND OTHER COMMUNICATION DISORDERS
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: FELLOWSHIP/SCHOLARSHIP/STUDENT LOANS
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 08/23/2023
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 05/11/2025

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Understanding Individual Differences in Acoustic-Phonetic and Contextual Cue Use In Aging - Project Summary/Abstract Age-related hearing loss (ARHL) affects a large number of older adults (~50% of adults aged 75+), yet not all individuals are equally impacted. Understanding why some older adults struggle more with ARHL is an important first step in designing more effective treatment plans. This proposal explores the hypothesis that individual differences in the use of contextual vs. acoustic-phonetic cues explains variation in speech comprehension abilities beyond just hearing ability. Natural listening environments contain a variety of cues that listeners can rely on to aid in speech comprehension. Despite the availability of many cues, recent work with healthy younger adults and older adults (including pilot work for this proposal) has demonstrated that some individuals tend to rely more on higher-level contextual information and others rely more on lower-level acoustic-phonetic information to interpret ambiguities in speech. The goal of this project is to test the hypothesis that these individual patterns of cue use will explain differences in speech comprehension (Aim 1) and to examine at what point in processing these individual differences arise using neural data collected from electroencephalography (EEG; Aim 2). One two-session experiment will be run testing younger and older adults on an audiometry battery, a cognitive battery, a cue use task in which they listen to sentences that contain ambiguous words, and a passive storybook listening task. EEG will be recorded during the cue use task and the storybook listening. While controlling for hearing and cognitive abilities, the contribution of an individual’s cue use will be tested in a model predicting speech comprehension (Aim 1). Neural data will then be analyzed to test three potential mechanisms that could lead to behavioral differences in cue use: (1) differences in early perceptual encoding of ambiguities in speech, (2) differences in later repair processes, and (3) differences in overall predictive mechanisms. A combination of event-related potential (ERP) and temporal response function (TRF) analyses will be performed to identify the locus of individual differences. Overall, this proposal provides important insight into different profiles of ARHL, and insights from neural data will highlight where in processing differences arise, potentially serving as a basis for designing effective treatments. Additionally, studying patterns of cue use may potentially reveal individuals whose ARHL may initially go undetected (those who tend to rely more on contextual cues). This proposal will prepare the applicant to lead an independent line of work examining the neurobiology of speech comprehension from an individual differences lens. Specifically, this proposal will give the applicant opportunities to engage with clinicians, expand individual differences work in cue use into older adults, and gain expertise in multiple computationally intensive analysis methods of EEG data.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2026 ( Subtotal = -$10,068 )
2026	2024	UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT	438 WHITNEY RD EXTENSION UNIT 1133	STORRS	CT	06269	CAPITOL	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	001	2	3/24/2026	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	-$2,150
2026	2024	UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT	438 WHITNEY RD EXTENSION UNIT 1133	STORRS	CT	06269	CAPITOL	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	000	2	1/1/2026	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	-$7,918
														Subtotal = -$10,068

Issue Date FY: 2024 ( Subtotal = $47,090 )
2024	2024	UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT	438 WHITNEY RD EXTENSION UNIT 1133	STORRS	CT	06269	CAPITOL	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	000	2	7/10/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$47,090
														Subtotal = $47,090

Issue Date FY: 2023 ( Subtotal = $47,694 )
2023	2023	UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT	438 WHITNEY RD EXTENSION UNIT 1133	STORRS	CT	06269	CAPITOL	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	000	1	5/23/2023	NEW	$47,694
2023	2023	UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT	438 WHITNEY RD EXTENSION UNIT 1133	STORRS	CT	06269	CAPITOL	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	001	1	5/23/2023	NEW	$0
														Subtotal = $47,694

Grand Total All Awards = $84,716

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Understanding Individual Differences in Acoustic-Phonetic and Contextual Cue Use In Aging

Award Number: F31DC021372

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DEAFNESS AND OTHER COMMUNICATION DISORDERS

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: FELLOWSHIP/SCHOLARSHIP/STUDENT LOANS

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 08/23/2023

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 05/11/2025

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