Hake, Robin; Müllensiefen, Daniel and Siedenburg, Kai. 2025. Individual differences in auditory scene analysis abilities in music and speech. Scientific Reports, 15, 24048. ISSN 2045-2322 [Article]

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Abstract or Description

Auditory scene analysis (ASA) is the ability to organize complex auditory mixtures into meaningful events and streams and is fundamental for auditory perception of both music and speech. Individual differences in ASA are recognized in the literature, yet the factors driving this variability remain poorly understood. This study employs a novel music-based ASA task, the Musical Scene Analysis (MSA) test, alongside a speech-in-noise test, to examine the influence of hearing loss, age, working memory capacity (WMC), and musical training. Ninety-two participants were categorised into four groups: 31 older normal-hearing, 34 older hearing-impaired, 26 younger normal-hearing, and one younger hearing-impaired individual. Results reveal a moderate correlation between ASA performance in speech and music (r = − .5), suggesting shared underlying perceptual processes, yet the factors influencing individual differences varied across domains. A dual modelling approach using ridge regression and gradient-boosted decision trees identified hearing loss as the strongest predictor of speech-based ASA, with a weaker effect of age, while musical training and WMC had no impact. In contrast, musical training showed a substantial effect on musical ASA, alongside moderate effects of hearing loss and age, while WMC exhibited only a marginal, non-robust effect. These findings highlight both shared and domain-specific factors influencing ASA abilities in music and speech.

Item Type:	Article
Identification Number (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-10263-z
Additional Information:	Funding: This work has been funded by the Freigeist Fellowship of the Volkswagen Foundation to KS. This study was also funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – Project ID 352015383 – SFB 1330 A6.
Data Access Statement:	The analysis scripts for ridge regression and XGBoost, the sample dataset, and the MSA test used in this study are available in the GitHub repository (https://github.com/rhake14).
Keywords:	Auditory scene analysis, Individual differences, Age, Working memory, Musical training, Hearing loss
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Psychology
Dates:	Date Event 2 July 2025 Accepted 5 July 2025 Published Online
Item ID:	39270
Date Deposited:	24 Jul 2025 09:41
Last Modified:	24 Jul 2025 09:45
Peer Reviewed:	Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/39270

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