Slower Speaking Rate Reduces Listening Effort Among Listeners With Cochlear Implants

Objectives: Slowed speaking rate was examined for its effects on speech intelligibility, its interaction with the benefit of contextual cues, and the impact of these factors on listening effort in adults with cochlear implants. Design: Participants (n = 21 cochlear implant users) heard high- and low-context sentences that were played at the original speaking rate, as well as a slowed (1.4× duration) speaking rate, using uniform pitch-synchronous time warping. In addition to intelligibility measures, changes in pupil dilation were measured as a time-varying index of processing load or listening effort. Slope of pupil size recovery to baseline after the sentence was used as an index of resolution of perceptual ambiguity. Results: Speech intelligibility was better for high-context compared to low-context sentences and slightly better for slower compared to original-rate speech. Speech rate did not affect magnitude and latency of peak pupil dilation relative to sentence offset. However, baseline pupil size recovered more substantially for slower-rate sentences, suggesting easier processing in the moment after the sentence was over. The effect of slowing speech rate was comparable to changing a sentence from low context to high context. The effect of context on pupil dilation was not observed until after the sentence was over, and one of two analyses suggested that context had greater beneficial effects on listening effort when the speaking rate was slower. These patterns maintained even at perfect sentence intelligibility, suggesting that correct speech repetition does not guarantee efficient or effortless processing. With slower speaking rates, there was less variability in pupil dilation slopes following the sentence, implying mitigation of some of the difficulties shown by individual listeners who would otherwise demonstrate prolonged effort after a sentence is heard. Conclusions: Slowed speaking rate provides release from listening effort when hearing an utterance, particularly relieving effort that would have lingered after a sentence is over. Context arguably provides even more release from listening effort when speaking rate is slower. The pattern of prolonged pupil dilation for faster speech is consistent with increased need to mentally correct errors, although that exact interpretation cannot be verified with intelligibility data alone or with pupil data alone. A pattern of needing to dwell on a sentence to disambiguate misperceptions likely contributes to difficulty in running conversation where there are few opportunities to pause and resolve recently heard utterances.