The goal of this research was to determine the contributions of auditory neural processing and cognitive abilities to predict performance on a competing talker task in young, normal hearing adults. Two experiments were performed, each with separate cohorts of ~30 young adults with normal hearing who performed a competing talker task which included a high-pass filtered condition that was designed to be more sensitive to auditory nerve functioning than are commonly used speech-in-noise perception tests. Predictors of performance on this speech-in-speech task included ABR waves I and V metrics and cognitive test scores. Experiment one included click ABRs at a moderate level commensurate with the level of the competing talker task, as well as the cognitive digit span working memory test. Experiment two included high-intensity click clinical ABRs and three cognitive tests from the NIH Toolbox V3 that assessed working memory, cognitive flexibility and attention, and inhibitory control: List Sorting Working Memory, Dimensional Change Card Sort, and Flanker Inhibitory Control and Attention tests, respectively. Performance on the high-pass competing talker task varied across participants in both experiments. This variability was predicted by performance on the test of inhibitory control, but not the tests involving working memory or cognitive flexibility, nor by any of the auditory processing metrics from moderate or high-intensity click ABRs. Among two groups of young adults with normal hearing, cognitive factors with very similar demands to the competing talker task seem to play the greatest role in speech-in-noise perception.

Across two experiments, participants performed a competing talker task, in which they attended to a target talker and ignored a competing talker, and tests of cognitive ability. Auditory brainstem responses (ABRs) were also recorded. From Experiment 1, the dataset contains percent correct on the competing talker task for both the "Control" and "High Pass" conditions, percent correct on forward and backward digit span, the average digit span percent correct, ABR waves I and V amplitudes and latencies, the ABR wave I:V ratio, and the ABR latency difference between wave I and wave V for each participant. From Experiment 2, the dataset contains percent correct on the competing talker task for the "High Pass" condition, normalized scores from the NIH Cognitive Toolbox tests List Sorting Working Memory, Dimensional Change Card Sort, and Flanker Inhibitory Control and Attention, ABR waves I and V amplitudes and latencies, the ABR wave I:V ratio, and the ABR latency difference between wave I and wave V for each participant. 

To calculate the ABR metrics, experimenters viewed each participant's wave traces to pick the peaks for waves I and V. The amplitude and latency of each participant's wave I and wave V were calculated based on this peak-picking.