Visual speech cues enhance neural speech tracking in right auditory
cluster leading to improvement in speech in noise comprehension in older
adults with hearing impairment
Abstract
Comprehending speech in noisy situations is difficult and suffers with
aging, hearing loss, and cognitive decline. Using visual speech cues
improves perception and comprehension of speech in noise (SiN) in older
adults with hearing impairment. In the current study we investigated
neurofunctional correlates (i.e., neural tracking of speech) of the
visual enhancement effect in a naturalistic setting in which older
adults with hearing impairment (N=67) listened to sentences in babble
noise in audio-only and audiovisual conditions and performed an
intelligibility and a comprehension task, while EEG was recorded.
Behaviorally, we found that visual speech cues improved intelligibility
and comprehension of speech presented in babble noise and that
particularly individuals with high working memory capacity benefitted.
Furthermore, we found that the visual enhancement effect was accompanied
by increased cortical tracking of the speech envelope particularly in
individuals who were low performers in the audio-only condition (i.e.,
< 70% correct) leading to improved speech in noise
comprehension in an audiovisual setting. Further, these low
auditory-only performers showed deficient neural speech tracking in a
right auditory topographical cluster, which improved significantly when
visual speech cues were presented leading to more bilateral processing
of speech. Overall, our results show that older adults with hearing
impairment who have difficulties with speech in noise perception use
visual speech cues to improve performance which is reflected in more
bilateral processing of speech.