Abstract
It is unclear how adults and children differ in their ability to learn distorted speech signals. Normal-hearing adults (>= 18 years) and children (8-10 years) were repeatedly tested on vocoded speech perception with 0-, 3-, and 6-mm of frequency-to-place mismatch (i.e., shift). Between testing blocks, listeners were provided training blocks with feedback on the 6-mm shift condition. Adults performed better than children at 0-mm shift, but performed similarly at 3- and 6-mm shifts. Therefore, differences between adults and children in vocoded speech perception are dependent on the degree of distortion, and this difference seems unaltered by training with feedback. (C) 2017 Acoustical Society of America