Auditory information processing related to listening to verbal sounds

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K12578
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 90030:Cognitive science-related
• Research Institution: Tokyo Denki University
• Principal Investigator: Tanaka Keita 東京電機大学, 理工学部, 教授 (10366403)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 小渕 千絵 国際医療福祉大学, 成田保健医療学部, 教授 (30348099) ; 原島 恒夫 筑波大学, 人間系, 教授 (70262219)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-04-01 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: 聴覚 / 聞き取り / 脳磁図

Outline of Final Research Achievements

There are people who have difficulty in hearing in daily life, even though normal hearing tests do not show any abnormality. However, auditory tests to evaluate "listening" are not yet widely used, and there is a need for a simple, accurate, and objective hearing tests. The purpose of this study is to establish an hearing tests for human listening. Specifically, we aim to establish an auditory test method for listening using the rhythmic brain response of the auditory cortex, which is sensitive to sound frequencies (auditory steady-state response). In this study, we quantitatively evaluated whether there is a linear relationship between the subjective test results of the dichotic listening test and the results of the measurement of rhythmic brain activity using magnetoencephalogram, which is a test method for listening.

Free Research Field

医用生体工学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

現在の聴力検査のように，ある特定の周波数（純音：500Hz，1kHzなど）の音に対する聴力レベルだけでは，人の「聞こえ」を評価することはできない．そこで本研究のように，自覚検査と他覚的検査法である聴覚野の活動を計測を加え，評価することで，人の言語音に対する聞き取りを定量的評価することが可能であると考える．また本結果は，自覚的検査で評価できない，乳幼児の聴力検査の一助になりうることを示唆する．