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Human speech perception declines in the presence of masking speech, particularly when the masker is intelligible and acoustically similar to the target. A prior investigation demonstrated a substantial reduction in masking when the intelligibility of competing speech was reduced by corrupting voiced segments with noise [Huo, Sun, Fogerty, and Tang (2023), "Quantifying informational masking due to masker intelligibility in same-talker speech-in-speech perception," in Interspeech 2023, pp. 1783–1787]. As this processing also reduced the prominence of voiced segments, it was unclear whether the unmasking was due to reduced linguistic content, acoustic similarity, or both. The current study compared the masking of original competing speech (high intelligibility) to competing speech with time reversal of voiced segments (VS-reversed, low intelligibility) at various target-to-masker ratios. Modeling results demonstrated similar energetic masking between the two maskers. However, intelligibility of the target speech was considerably better with the VS-reversed masker compared to the original masker, likely due to the reduced linguistic content. Further corrupting the masker's voiced segments resulted in additional release from masking. Acoustic analyses showed that the portion of target voiced segments overlapping with masker voiced segments and the similarity between target and masker overlapped voiced segments impacted listeners' speech recognition. Evidence also suggested modulation masking in the spectro-temporal domain interferes with listeners' ability to glimpse the target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the intensification of global climate change and the increasing complexity of agricultural environments, the improvement of rice stress tolerance is an important focus of current breeding research. This review summarizes the current knowledge on the impact of various abiotic stresses on rice and the associated epigenetic responses (DNA methylation). Abiotic stress factors, including high temperature, drought, cold, heavy metal pollution, and high salinity, have a negative impact on crop productivity. Epigenetic changes are key regulatory factors in plant stress responses, and DNA methylation is one of the earliest discovered and thoroughly studied mechanisms in these epigenetic regulatory mechanisms. The normal growth of rice is highly dependent on the environment, and changes in the environment can lead to rice sterility and severe yield loss. Changes in the regulation of the DNA methylation pathway are involved in rice's response to stress. Various DNA methylation-regulating protein complexes that function during rice development have been identified. Significant changes in DNA methylation occur in numerous stress-responsive genes, particularly those in the abscisic acid signaling pathway. These findings underscore the complex mechanisms of the abiotic stress response in rice. We propose the effective improvement of tolerance traits by regulating the epigenetic status of rice and emphasize the role of DNA methylation in abiotic stress tolerance, thereby addressing global climate change and ensuring food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]