Relationship between attention and spatial processing abilities

Reduction in an individual’s hearing ability and their working memory (WM) capacity are hypothesized to be two of the major contributors to the decline in listener performance seen in complex listening environments. Generally, the improvement in speech intelligibility that may occur when a target is spatially separated from competing talkers is quantified as spatial release from masking (SRM). The goal of this study was to estimate working memory capacity based on a divided attention version of the classic spatial release from masking task (the temporal overlap task) and the classic abbreviated reading span task (aRST). Temporal overlap threshold was estimated by adaptively varying the maximum amount of temporal overlap of the signals where a listener could still correctly identify the speech source presented directly ahead of the listener when the speech material was either colocated or spatially separated. Initial analyses of the data revealed a strong relationship between SRM and temporal overlap thresholds, suggesting that SRM is driven by the listeners’ ability to modulate their attentional mechanisms. The relationship between SRM, temporal overlap thresholds, and reading span measures will also be discussed.