Influence of depressive symptoms on speech perception in adverse listening conditions

Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that individuals with elevated depressive symptoms exhibit deficits in inter-personal communication. Research has primarily focused on speech production in individuals with elevated depressive symptoms. Little is known about speech perception in individuals with elevated depressive symptoms, especially in challenging listening conditions. Here, we examined speech perception in young adults with low- or high-depressive (HD) symptoms in the presence of a range of maskers. Maskers were selected to reflect various levels of informational masking (IM), which refers to cognitive interference due to signal and masker similarity, and energetic masking (EM), which refers to peripheral interference due to signal degradation by the masker. Speech intelligibility data revealed that individuals with HD symptoms did not differ from those with low-depressive symptoms during EM, but they exhibited a selective deficit during IM. Since IM is a common occurrence in real-world social settings, this listening deficit may exacerbate communicative difficulties.

Keywords:

• Depression
• Speech perception
• Informational masking
• Communication
• CES-D

We thank the Maddox Lab RAs for help with data collection. This work was supported by NIDA [grant number DA032457] to WTM and CJB. Research reported in this publication was also supported by the NIDCD [grant number R01DC013315] to BC.

We thank the Maddox Lab RAs for help with data collection. This work was supported by NIDA [grant number DA032457] to WTM and CJB. Research reported in this publication was also supported by the NIDCD [grant number R01DC013315] to BC.

Notes

¹ We also ran an analysis including all the participants in the sample. Of 199 low-depressive individuals, 16 were excluded because of incomplete data on the speech-perception-in noise task. Hence, the sample for this analysis included 22 high-depressive individuals and 183 low-depressive individuals. Results showed that in the one-talker babble condition, keyword identification in noise was significantly better for the low-depressive group than for the high-depressive group, β = 0.92, SE = 0.39, Z = 2.38, p = .017. In the other three noise conditions, keyword identification in noise was not significantly different between the two groups, two-talker babble: β = 0.30, SE = 0.19, Z = 1.57, p =.12; eight-talker babble: β = 0.07, SE = 0.22, Z = 0.33, p = .74; SSN: β = −0.12, SE = 0.18, Z = −0.67, p = .50. These patterns were consistent with the results from the selected high and low depression symptom groups.

² See footnote 1.