Impaired Prosodic Processing but Not Hearing Function Is Associated with an Age-Related Reduction in AI Speech Recognition.

IF 1.8 Q1 AUDIOLOGY & SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY

Audiology Research Pub Date : 2025-02-08 DOI:10.3390/audiolres15010014

Björn Herrmann, Mo Eric Cui

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background/objectives: Voice artificial intelligence (AI) technology is becoming increasingly common. Recent work indicates that middle-aged to older adults are less able to identify modern AI speech compared to younger adults, but the underlying causes are unclear.

Methods: The current study with younger and middle-aged to older adults investigated factors that could explain the age-related reduction in AI speech identification. Experiment 1 investigated whether high-frequency information in speech-to which middle-aged to older adults often have less access due sensitivity loss at high frequencies-contributes to age-group differences. Experiment 2 investigated whether an age-related reduction in the ability to process prosodic information in speech predicts the reduction in AI speech identification.

Results: Results for Experiment 1 show that middle-aged to older adults are less able to identify AI speech for both full-bandwidth speech and speech for which information above 4 kHz is removed, making the contribution of high-frequency hearing loss unlikely. Experiment 2 shows that the ability to identify AI speech is greater in individuals who also show a greater ability to identify emotions from prosodic speech information, after accounting for hearing function and self-rated experience with voice-AI systems.

Conclusions: The current results suggest that the ability to identify AI speech is related to the accurate processing of prosodic information.

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韵律处理受损而非听力功能受损与人工智能语音识别的年龄相关下降有关。

背景/目标：语音人工智能（AI）技术正变得越来越普遍。最近的研究表明，与年轻人相比，中年人和老年人识别现代人工智能语音的能力较差，但根本原因尚不清楚。方法：目前的研究以年轻人和中年人到老年人为研究对象，调查了可能解释人工智能语音识别年龄相关下降的因素。实验1调查了讲话中的高频信息是否会导致年龄组差异。由于高频敏感性的丧失，中老年人往往无法接触到高频信息。实验2研究了与年龄相关的语音韵律信息处理能力的下降是否预示着人工智能语音识别能力的下降。结果：实验1的结果表明，中老年人对全带宽语音和去除4khz以上信息的语音识别能力较差，使得高频听力损失的贡献不太可能。实验2表明，在考虑了听力功能和语音人工智能系统的自评体验后，识别人工智能语音的能力更强，而且从韵律语音信息中识别情绪的能力也更强。结论：目前的研究结果表明，识别人工智能语音的能力与韵律信息的准确处理有关。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Audiology Research AUDIOLOGY & SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY-

CiteScore

2.30

自引率

23.50%

发文量

审稿时长

11 weeks

期刊介绍： The mission of Audiology Research is to publish contemporary, ethical, clinically relevant scientific researches related to the basic science and clinical aspects of the auditory and vestibular system and diseases of the ear that can be used by clinicians, scientists and specialists to improve understanding and treatment of patients with audiological and neurotological disorders.