{
  "id": 6727417,
  "title": "Predicting Speech in Noise Perception using Measures of Neural Entrainment",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/11/predicting-speech-in-noise-perception-using-measures-of-neural",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-09-11T00:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "bioRxiv",
    "slug": "biorxiv",
    "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.08.750184v1?rss=1"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The ability to comprehend speech in a noisy environment, such as a cocktail party, varies greatly even among individuals with healthy hearing. The underlying reasons for these discrepancies in speech perception capabilities remain largely unknown. One potential explanation could be related to the neural processes involved in auditory attention. This study seeks to determine the extent to which an individual can neurally synchronize with a continuous narrative using a temporal response function (TRF). It also aims to assess whether TRF measurements can provide insight into a person's performance on tasks involving selective attention and narrative comprehension.\n\nThe researchers recruited a cohort of twenty-five young and healthy individuals who participated in speech-in-noise (SIN) perception tasks. During these tasks, their neural activity was recorded using EEG. The EEG data, along with regressors (speech envelope and gammatone spectrogram) of the auditory stimulus, was then utilized to train TRF models. The cross-validation correlation coefficients derived from these models were subsequently employed in multiple regression models to predict each participant's SIN performance.\n\nThe findings of the study revealed a significant positive relationship between neural entrainment to attended stimuli and task performance, as well as a negative correlation between neural entrainment to unattended stimuli and task performance. This pattern was observed for both selective attention and narrative comprehension measures. Furthermore, the differences between the correlation coefficients of attended and unattended stimuli were also significantly associated with improved task performance. The authors suggest that these measures could potentially serve as biomarkers for predicting an individual's ability to perceive speech in noisy environments.",
  "summary": "Speech perception ability in a cocktail party environment is highly variable, even for people with clinically healthy hearing. The mechanisms of these differences are poorly understood. A possible reason for these differences could be due to the neural mechanisms of auditory attention. This investigation aims to quantify how well a person is able to neurally entrain to a continuous narrative…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}