Bidirectional Regulation of Innate and Learned Behaviors That Rely on Frequency Discrimination by Cortical Inhibitory Neurons

PubMed Central

Aizenberg, Mark; Mwilambwe-Tshilobo, Laetitia; Briguglio, John J.; Natan, Ryan G.; Geffen, Maria N.

2015-01-01

The ability to discriminate tones of different frequencies is fundamentally important for everyday hearing. While neurons in the primary auditory cortex (AC) respond differentially to tones of different frequencies, whether and how AC regulates auditory behaviors that rely on frequency discrimination remains poorly understood. Here, we find that the level of activity of inhibitory neurons in AC controls frequency specificity in innate and learned auditory behaviors that rely on frequency discrimination. Photoactivation of parvalbumin-positive interneurons (PVs) improved the ability of the mouse to detect a shift in tone frequency, whereas photosuppression of PVs impaired the performance. Furthermore, photosuppression of PVs during discriminative auditory fear conditioning increased generalization of conditioned response across tone frequencies, whereas PV photoactivation preserved normal specificity of learning. The observed changes in behavioral performance were correlated with bidirectional changes in the magnitude of tone-evoked responses, consistent with predictions of a model of a coupled excitatory-inhibitory cortical network. Direct photoactivation of excitatory neurons, which did not change tone-evoked response magnitude, did not affect behavioral performance in either task. Our results identify a new function for inhibition in the auditory cortex, demonstrating that it can improve or impair acuity of innate and learned auditory behaviors that rely on frequency discrimination. PMID:26629746

Auditory processing deficits in bipolar disorder with and without a history of psychotic features.

PubMed

Zenisek, RyAnna; Thaler, Nicholas S; Sutton, Griffin P; Ringdahl, Erik N; Snyder, Joel S; Allen, Daniel N

2015-11-01

Auditory perception deficits have been identified in schizophrenia (SZ) and linked to dysfunction in the auditory cortex. Given that psychotic symptoms, including auditory hallucinations, are also seen in bipolar disorder (BD), it may be that individuals with BD who also exhibit psychotic symptoms demonstrate a similar impairment in auditory perception. Fifty individuals with SZ, 30 individuals with bipolar I disorder with a history of psychosis (BD+), 28 individuals with bipolar I disorder with no history of psychotic features (BD-), and 29 normal controls (NC) were administered a tone discrimination task and an emotion recognition task. Mixed-model analyses of covariance with planned comparisons indicated that individuals with BD+ performed at a level that was intermediate between those with BD- and those with SZ on the more difficult condition of the tone discrimination task and on the auditory condition of the emotion recognition task. There were no differences between the BD+ and BD- groups on the visual or auditory-visual affect recognition conditions. Regression analyses indicated that performance on the tone discrimination task predicted performance on all conditions of the emotion recognition task. Auditory hallucinations in BD+ were not related to performance on either task. Our findings suggested that, although deficits in frequency discrimination and emotion recognition are more severe in SZ, these impairments extend to BD+. Although our results did not support the idea that auditory hallucinations may be related to these deficits, they indicated that basic auditory deficits may be a marker for psychosis, regardless of SZ or BD diagnosis. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Tone discrimination performance in schizophrenic patients and normal volunteers: impact of stimulus presentation levels and frequency differences.

PubMed

Holcomb, H H; Ritzl, E K; Medoff, D R; Nevitt, J; Gordon, B; Tamminga, C A

1995-06-29

Psychophysical and cognitive studies carried out in schizophrenic patients show high within-group performance variance and sizable differences between patients and normal volunteers. Experimental manipulation of a target's signal-to-noise characteristics can, however, make a given task more or less difficult for a given subject. Such signal-to-noise manipulations can substantially reduce performance differences between individuals. Frequency and presentation level (volume) changes of an auditory tone can make a sound more or less difficult to recognize. This study determined how the discrimination accuracy of medicated schizophrenic patients and normal volunteers changed when the frequency difference between two tones (high frequency vs. low frequency) and the presentation levels of tones were systematically degraded. The investigators hypothesized that each group would become impaired in its discrimination accuracy when tone signals were degraded by making the frequencies more similar and the presentation levels lower. Schizophrenic patients were slower and less accurate than normal volunteers on tests using four tone levels and two frequency differences; the schizophrenic patient group showed a significant decrement in accuracy when the signal-to-noise characteristics of the target tones were degraded. The benefits of controlling stimulus discrimination difficulty in functional imaging paradigms are discussed.

Deep Cerebellar Nuclei Play an Important Role in Two-Tone Discrimination on Delay Eyeblink Conditioning in C57BL/6 Mice

PubMed Central

Sakamoto, Toshiro; Endo, Shogo

2013-01-01

Previous studies have shown that deep cerebellar nuclei (DCN)-lesioned mice develop conditioned responses (CR) on delay eyeblink conditioning when a salient tone conditioned stimulus (CS) is used, which suggests that the cerebellum potentially plays a role in more complicated cognitive functions. In the present study, we examined the role of DCN in tone frequency discrimination in the delay eyeblink-conditioning paradigm. In the first experiment, DCN-lesioned and sham-operated mice were subjected to standard simple eyeblink conditioning under low-frequency tone CS (LCS: 1 kHz, 80 dB) or high-frequency tone CS (HCS: 10 kHz, 70 dB) conditions. DCN-lesioned mice developed CR in both CS conditions as well as sham-operated mice. In the second experiment, DCN-lesioned and sham-operated mice were subjected to two-tone discrimination tasks, with LCS+ (or HCS+) paired with unconditioned stimulus (US), and HCS− (or LCS−) without US. CR% in sham-operated mice increased in LCS+ (or HCS+) trials, regardless of tone frequency of CS, but not in HCS− (or LCS−) trials. The results indicate that sham-operated mice can discriminate between LCS+ and HCS− (or HCS+ and LCS−). In contrast, DCN-lesioned mice showed high CR% in not only LCS+ (or HCS+) trials but also HCS− (or LCS−) trials. The results indicate that DCN lesions impair the discrimination between tone frequency in eyeblink conditioning. Our results suggest that the cerebellum plays a pivotal role in the discrimination of tone frequency. PMID:23555821

Coding of auditory temporal and pitch information by hippocampal individual cells and cell assemblies in the rat.

PubMed

Sakurai, Y

2002-01-01

This study reports how hippocampal individual cells and cell assemblies cooperate for neural coding of pitch and temporal information in memory processes for auditory stimuli. Each rat performed two tasks, one requiring discrimination of auditory pitch (high or low) and the other requiring discrimination of their duration (long or short). Some CA1 and CA3 complex-spike neurons showed task-related differential activity between the high and low tones in only the pitch-discrimination task. However, without exception, neurons which showed task-related differential activity between the long and short tones in the duration-discrimination task were always task-related neurons in the pitch-discrimination task. These results suggest that temporal information (long or short), in contrast to pitch information (high or low), cannot be coded independently by specific neurons. The results also indicate that the two different behavioral tasks cannot be fully differentiated by the task-related single neurons alone and suggest a model of cell-assembly coding of the tasks. Cross-correlation analysis among activities of simultaneously recorded multiple neurons supported the suggested cell-assembly model.Considering those results, this study concludes that dual coding by hippocampal single neurons and cell assemblies is working in memory processing of pitch and temporal information of auditory stimuli. The single neurons encode both auditory pitches and their temporal lengths and the cell assemblies encode types of tasks (contexts or situations) in which the pitch and the temporal information are processed.

Toward a Choice-Based Judgment Bias Task for Horses.

PubMed

Hintze, Sara; Roth, Emma; Bachmann, Iris; Würbel, Hanno

2017-01-01

Judgment bias tasks for nonhuman animals are promising tools to assess emotional valence as a measure of animal welfare. In view of establishing a valid judgment bias task for horses, the present study aimed to evaluate 2 versions (go/no-go and active choice) of an auditory judgment bias task for horses in terms of acquisition learning and discrimination of ambiguous cues. Five mares and 5 stallions were randomly assigned to the 2 designs and trained for 10 trials per day to acquire different operant responses to a low-frequency tone and a high-frequency tone, respectively. Following acquisition learning, horses were tested on 4 days with 3 ambiguous-tone trials interspersed between the 10 high-tone and low-tone trials. All 5 go/no-go horses but only one active-choice horse successfully learned their task, indicating that it is more difficult to train horses on an active choice task than on a go/no-go task. During testing, however, go/no-go horses did not differentiate between the 3 different ambiguous cues, thereby making the validity of the test results questionable in terms of emotional valence.

Event-related potential correlates of mindfulness meditation competence

PubMed Central

Atchley, Rachel; Klee, Dan; Memmott, Tabatha; Goodrich, Elena; Wahbeh, Helané; Oken, Barry

2016-01-01

Objective This cross-sectional study evaluated event-related potentials (ERPs) across three groups: naïve, novice, and experienced meditators as potential physiological markers of mindfulness meditation competence. Methods Electroencephalographic (EEG) data was collected during a target tone detection task and a Breath Counting task. The Breath Counting task served as the mindfulness meditation condition for the novice and experienced meditator groups. Participants were instructed to respond to target tones with a button press in the first task (Tones), and then ignore the primed tones while breath counting. The primary outcomes were ERP responses to target tones, namely the N2 and P3, as markers of stimulus discrimination and attention, respectively. Results As expected, P3 amplitudes elicited by target tones were attenuated within groups during the Breath Counting task in comparison to the Tones task (p < .001). There was a task by group interaction for P3 (p = .039). Both meditator groups displayed greater change in peak-to-trough P3 amplitudes, with higher amplitudes during the Tones condition and more pronounced reductions in P3 amplitudes during the Breath Counting meditation task in comparison to the naïve group. Conclusions Meditators had stronger P3 amplitude responses to target tones when instructed to attend to the tones, and a greater attenuation of P3 amplitudes when instructed to ignore the same tones during the Breath Counting task. This study introduces the idea of identifying ERP markers as a means of measuring mindfulness meditation competence, and results suggest this may be a valid approach. This information has the potential to improve mindfulness meditation interventions by allowing objective assessment of mindfulness meditation quality. PMID:26850995

Event-related potential correlates of mindfulness meditation competence.

PubMed

Atchley, R; Klee, D; Memmott, T; Goodrich, E; Wahbeh, H; Oken, B

2016-04-21

This cross-sectional study evaluated event-related potentials (ERPs) across three groups: naïve, novice, and experienced meditators as potential physiological markers of mindfulness meditation competence. Electroencephalographic (EEG) data were collected during a target tone detection task and a Breath Counting task. The Breath Counting task served as the mindfulness meditation condition for the novice and experienced meditator groups. Participants were instructed to respond to target tones with a button press in the first task (Tones), and then ignore the primed tones while Breath Counting. The primary outcomes were ERP responses to target tones, namely the N2 and P3, as markers of stimulus discrimination and attention, respectively. As expected, P3 amplitudes elicited by target tones were attenuated within groups during the Breath Counting task in comparison to the Tones task (p<.001). There was a task by group interaction for P3 (p=.039). Both meditator groups displayed greater change in peak-to-trough P3 amplitudes, with higher amplitudes during the Tones condition and more pronounced reductions in P3 amplitudes during the Breath Counting meditation task in comparison to the naïve group. Meditators had stronger P3 amplitude responses to target tones when instructed to attend to the tones, and a greater attenuation of P3 amplitudes when instructed to ignore the same tones during the Breath Counting task. This study introduces the idea of identifying ERP markers as a means of measuring mindfulness meditation competence, and results suggest this may be a valid approach. This information has the potential to improve mindfulness meditation interventions by allowing objective assessment of mindfulness meditation quality. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

The perception of lexical tone contrasts in Cantonese children with and without specific language impairment (SLI).

PubMed

Wong, Anita M-Y; Ciocca, Valter; Yung, Sun

2009-12-01

This study examined the perception of fundamental frequency (f0) patterns by Cantonese children with and without specific language impairment (SLI). Participants were 14 five-year-old children with SLI, and 14 age-matched (AM) and 13 four-year-old vocabulary-matched (VM) controls. The children identified a word from familiar word pairs that illustrated the 8 minimally contrastive pairs of the 6 lexical tones. They discriminated the f0 patterns within contrastive tonal pairs in speech and nonspeech stimuli. In tone identification, the SLI group performed worse than the AM group but not the VM group. In tone discrimination, the SLI group did worse than the AM group on 2 contrasts and showed a nonsignificant trend of poorer performance on all contrasts combined. The VM group generally did worse than the AM group. There were no group differences in discrimination performance between speech and nonspeech stimuli. No correlation was found between identification and discrimination performance. Only the normal controls showed a moderate correlation between vocabulary scores and performance in the 2 perception tasks. The SLI group's poor tone identification cannot be accounted for by vocabulary knowledge alone. The group's tone discrimination performance suggests that some children with SLI have a deficit in f0 processing.

Auditory Stream Segregation Improves Infants' Selective Attention to Target Tones Amid Distracters

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smith, Nicholas A.; Trainor, Laurel J.

2011-01-01

This study examined the role of auditory stream segregation in the selective attention to target tones in infancy. Using a task adapted from Bregman and Rudnicky's 1975 study and implemented in a conditioned head-turn procedure, infant and adult listeners had to discriminate the temporal order of 2,200 and 2,400 Hz target tones presented alone,…

Auditory memory for timbre.

PubMed

McKeown, Denis; Wellsted, David

2009-06-01

Psychophysical studies are reported examining how the context of recent auditory stimulation may modulate the processing of new sounds. The question posed is how recent tone stimulation may affect ongoing performance in a discrimination task. In the task, two complex sounds occurred in successive intervals. A single target component of one complex was decreased (Experiments 1 and 2) or increased (Experiments 3, 4, and 5) in intensity on half of trials: The task was simply to identify those trials. Prior to each trial, a pure tone inducer was introduced either at the same frequency as the target component or at the frequency of a different component of the complex. Consistent with a frequency-specific form of disruption, discrimination performance was impaired when the inducing tone matched the frequency of the following decrement or increment. A timbre memory model (TMM) is proposed incorporating channel-specific interference allied to inhibition of attending in the coding of sounds in the context of memory traces of recent sounds. (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved.

Fully optimized discrimination of physiological responses to auditory stimuli

PubMed Central

Kruglikov, Stepan Y; Chari, Sharmila; Rapp, Paul E; Weinstein, Steven L; Given, Barbara K; Schiff, Steven J

2008-01-01

The use of multivariate measurements to characterize brain activity (electrical, magnetic, optical) is widespread. The most common approaches to reduce the complexity of such observations include principal and independent component analyses (PCA and ICA), which are not well suited for discrimination tasks. We addressed two questions: first, how do the neurophysiological responses to elongated phonemes relate to tone and phoneme responses in normal children, and, second, how discriminable are these responses. We employed fully optimized linear discrimination analysis to maximally separate the multi-electrode responses to tones and phonemes, and classified the response to elongated phonemes. We find that discrimination between tones and phonemes is dependent upon responses from associative regions of the brain apparently distinct from the primary sensory cortices typically emphasized by PCA or ICA, and that the neuronal correlates corresponding to elongated phonemes are highly variable in normal children (about half respond with neural correlates of tones and half as phonemes). Our approach is made feasible by the increase in computational power of ordinary personal computers and has significant advantages for a wide range of neuronal imaging modalities. PMID:18430975

Pitch discrimination and melodic memory in children with autism spectrum disorders.

PubMed

Stanutz, Sandy; Wapnick, Joel; Burack, Jacob A

2014-02-01

Pitch perception is enhanced among persons with autism. We extended this finding to memory for pitch and melody among school-aged children. The purpose of this study was to investigate pitch memory in musically untrained children with autism spectrum disorders, aged 7-13 years, and to compare it to that of age- and IQ-matched typically developing children. The children were required to discriminate isolated tones in two differing contexts as well to remember melodies after a period of 1 week. The tasks were designed to employ both short- and long-term memory for music. For the pitch discrimination task, the children first had to indicate whether two isolated tones were the same or different when the second was the same or had been altered to be 25, 35, or 45 cents sharp or flat. Second, the children discriminated the tones within the context of melody. They were asked whether two melodies were the same or different when the leading tone of the second melody was the same or had been altered to be 25, 35, or 45 cents sharp or flat. Long-term memory for melody was also investigated, as the children attempted to recall four different two-bar melodies after 1 week. The children with autism spectrum disorders demonstrated elevated pitch discrimination ability in the single-tone and melodic context as well as superior long-term memory for melody. Pitch memory correlated positively with scores on measures of nonverbal fluid reasoning ability. Superior short- and long-term pitch memory was found among children with autism spectrum disorders. The results indicate an aspect to cognitive functioning that may predict both enhanced nonverbal reasoning ability and atypical language development.

The acoustical bright spot and mislocalization of tones by human listeners.

PubMed

Macaulay, Eric J; Hartmann, William M; Rakerd, Brad

2010-03-01

Listeners attempted to localize 1500-Hz sine tones presented in free field from a loudspeaker array, spanning azimuths from 0 degrees (straight ahead) to 90 degrees (extreme right). During this task, the tone levels and phases were measured in the listeners' ear canals. Because of the acoustical bright spot, measured interaural level differences (ILD) were non-monotonic functions of azimuth with a maximum near 55 degrees . In a source-identification task, listeners' localization decisions closely tracked the non-monotonic ILD, and thus became inaccurate at large azimuths. When listeners received training and feedback, their accuracy improved only slightly. In an azimuth-discrimination task, listeners decided whether a first sound was to the left or to the right of a second. The discrimination results also reflected the confusion caused by the non-monotonic ILD, and they could be predicted approximately by a listener's identification results. When the sine tones were amplitude modulated or replaced by narrow bands of noise, interaural time difference (ITD) cues greatly reduced the confusion for most listeners, but not for all. Recognizing the important role of the bright spot requires a reevaluation of the transition between the low-frequency region for localization (mainly ITD) and the high-frequency region (mainly ILD).

The role of timbre in pitch matching abilities and pitch discrimination abilities with complex tones

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Moore, Robert E.; Watts, Christopher R.; Zhang, Fawen

2004-05-01

Control of fundamental frequency (F0) is important for singing in-tune and is an important factor related to the perception of a talented singing voice. One purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between pitch-matching skills, which is one method of testing F0 control, and pitch discrimination skills. It was observed that there was a relationship between pitch matching abilities and pitch discrimination abilities. Those subjects that were accurate pitch matchers were also accurate pitch discriminators (and vice versa). Further, timbre differences appeared to play a role in pitch discrimination accuracy. A second part of the study investigated the effect of timbre on speech discrimination. To study this, all but the first five harmonics of complex tones with different timbre were removed for the pitch discrimination task, thus making the tones more similar in timbre. Under this condition no difference was found between the pitch discrimination abilities of those who were accurate pitch matchers and those who were inaccurate pitch matchers. The results suggest that accurate F0 control is at least partially dependent on pitch discrimination abilities, and timbre appears to play an important role in differences in pitch discrimination ability.

Effects of increasing time delays on pitch-matching accuracy in trained singers and untrained individuals.

PubMed

Estis, Julie M; Coblentz, Joana K; Moore, Robert E

2009-07-01

Trained singers (TS) generally demonstrate accurate pitch matching, but this ability varies within the general population. Pitch-matching accuracy, given increasing silence intervals of 5, 15, and 25 seconds between target tones and vocal matches, was investigated in TS and untrained individuals. A relationship between pitch discrimination and pitch matching was also examined. Thirty-two females (20-30 years) were grouped based on individual vocal training and performance in an immediate pitch-matching task. Participants matched target pitches following time delays, and completed a pitch discrimination task, which required the classification of two tones as same or different. TS and untrained accurate participants performed comparably on all pitch-matching tasks, while untrained inaccurate participants performed significantly less accurately than the other two groups. Performances declined across groups as intervals of silence increased, suggesting degradation of pitch matching as pitch memory was taxed. A significant relationship between pitch discrimination and pitch matching was revealed across participants.

The acoustical bright spot and mislocalization of tones by human listeners

PubMed Central

Macaulay, Eric J.; Hartmann, William M.; Rakerd, Brad

2010-01-01

Listeners attempted to localize 1500-Hz sine tones presented in free field from a loudspeaker array, spanning azimuths from 0° (straight ahead) to 90° (extreme right). During this task, the tone levels and phases were measured in the listeners’ ear canals. Because of the acoustical bright spot, measured interaural level differences (ILD) were non-monotonic functions of azimuth with a maximum near 55°. In a source-identification task, listeners’ localization decisions closely tracked the non-monotonic ILD, and thus became inaccurate at large azimuths. When listeners received training and feedback, their accuracy improved only slightly. In an azimuth-discrimination task, listeners decided whether a first sound was to the left or to the right of a second. The discrimination results also reflected the confusion caused by the non-monotonic ILD, and they could be predicted approximately by a listener’s identification results. When the sine tones were amplitude modulated or replaced by narrow bands of noise, interaural time difference (ITD) cues greatly reduced the confusion for most listeners, but not for all. Recognizing the important role of the bright spot requires a reevaluation of the transition between the low-frequency region for localization (mainly ITD) and the high-frequency region (mainly ILD). PMID:20329844

Effects of linguistic experience on early levels of perceptual tone processing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huang, Tsan; Johnson, Keith

2005-04-01

This study investigated the phenomenon of language-specificity in Mandarin Chinese tone perception. The main question was whether linguistic experience affects the earliest levels of perceptual processing of tones. Chinese and American English listeners participated in four perception experiments, which involved short inter-stimulus intervals (300 ms or 100 ms) and an AX discrimination or AX degree-of-difference rating task. Three experiments used natural speech monosyllabic tone stimuli and one experiment used time-varying sinusoidal simulations of Mandarin tones. AE listeners showed psychoacoustic listening in all experiments, paying much attention to onset and offset pitch. Chinese listeners showed language-specific patterns in all experiments to various degrees, where tonal neutralization rules reduced perceptual distance between two otherwise contrastive tones for Chinese listeners. Since these experiments employed procedures hypothesized to tap the auditory trace mode (Pisoni, Percept. Psychophys. 13, 253-260 (1973)], language-specificity found in this study seems to support the proposal of an auditory cortical map [Guenther et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 23, 213-221 (1999)]. But the model needs refining to account for different degrees of language-specificity, which are better handled by Johnsons (2004, TLS03:26-41) lexical distance model, although the latter model is too rigid in assuming that linguistic experience does not affect low-level perceptual tasks such as AX discrimination with short ISIs.

Enhanced pure-tone pitch discrimination among persons with autism but not Asperger syndrome.

PubMed

Bonnel, Anna; McAdams, Stephen; Smith, Bennett; Berthiaume, Claude; Bertone, Armando; Ciocca, Valter; Burack, Jacob A; Mottron, Laurent

2010-07-01

Persons with Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) display atypical perceptual processing in visual and auditory tasks. In vision, Bertone, Mottron, Jelenic, and Faubert (2005) found that enhanced and diminished visual processing is linked to the level of neural complexity required to process stimuli, as proposed in the neural complexity hypothesis. Based on these findings, Samson, Mottron, Jemel, Belin, and Ciocca (2006) proposed to extend the neural complexity hypothesis to the auditory modality. They hypothesized that persons with ASD should display enhanced performance for simple tones that are processed in primary auditory cortical regions, but diminished performance for complex tones that require additional processing in associative auditory regions, in comparison to typically developing individuals. To assess this hypothesis, we designed four auditory discrimination experiments targeting pitch, non-vocal and vocal timbre, and loudness. Stimuli consisted of spectro-temporally simple and complex tones. The participants were adolescents and young adults with autism, Asperger syndrome, and typical developmental histories, all with IQs in the normal range. Consistent with the neural complexity hypothesis and enhanced perceptual functioning model of ASD (Mottron, Dawson, Soulières, Hubert, & Burack, 2006), the participants with autism, but not with Asperger syndrome, displayed enhanced pitch discrimination for simple tones. However, no discrimination-thresholds differences were found between the participants with ASD and the typically developing persons across spectrally and temporally complex conditions. These findings indicate that enhanced pure-tone pitch discrimination may be a cognitive correlate of speech-delay among persons with ASD. However, auditory discrimination among this group does not appear to be directly contingent on the spectro-temporal complexity of the stimuli. Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Role of Muscarinic Acetylcholine Receptors in Serial Feature-Positive Discrimination Task during Eyeblink Conditioning in Mice

PubMed Central

Rahman, Md. Ashrafur; Tanaka, Norifumi; Usui, Koji; Kawahara, Shigenori

2016-01-01

We investigated the role of muscarinic acetylcholine receptors (mAChRs) in eyeblink serial feature-positive discrimination learning in mice using the mAChR antagonist. A 2-s light cue was delivered 5 or 6 s before the presentation of a 350-ms tone paired with a 100-ms periorbital electrical shock (cued trial) but not before the tone-alone presentation (non-cued trial). Mice received 30 cued and 30 non-cued trials each day in a random order. We found that saline-injected control mice were successfully discriminating between cued and non-cued trials within a few days of conditioning. The mice responded more frequently to the tone in cued trials than in non-cued trials. Analysis of conditioned response (CR) dynamics revealed that the CR onset latency was shorter in cued trials than in non-cued trials, despite the CR peak amplitude not differing significantly between the two conditions. In contrast, scopolamine-injected mice developed an equal number of CRs with similar temporal patterns irrespective of the presence of the cue during the 7 days of conditioning, indicating in a failure to acquire conditional discrimination. In addition, the scopolamine administration to the control mice after they had successfully acquired discrimination did not impair the conditional discrimination and expression of pre-acquired CR. These results suggest that mAChRs may play a pivotal role in memory formation in the conditional brain state associated with the feature cue; however they are unlikely to be involved in the development of discrimination after conditional memory had formed in the serial feature-positive discrimination task during eyeblink conditioning. PMID:26808980

From comparison to classification: a cortical tool for boosting perception.

PubMed

Nahum, Mor; Daikhin, Luba; Lubin, Yedida; Cohen, Yamit; Ahissar, Merav

2010-01-20

Humans are much better in relative than in absolute judgments. This common assertion is based on findings that discrimination thresholds are much lower when measured with methods that allow interstimuli comparisons than when measured with methods that require classification of one stimulus at a time and are hence sensitive to memory load. We now challenged this notion by measuring discrimination thresholds and evoked potentials while listeners performed a two-tone frequency discrimination task. We tested various protocols that differed in the pattern of cross-trial tone repetition. We found that best performance was achieved only when listeners effectively used cross-trial repetition to avoid interstimulus comparisons with the repeated reference tone. Instead, they classified one tone, the nonreference tone, as either high or low by comparing it with a recently formed internal reference. Listeners were not aware of the switch from interstimulus comparison to classification. Its successful use was revealed by the conjunction of improved behavioral performance and an event-related potential component (P3), indicating an implicit perceptual decision, which followed the nonreference tone in each trial. Interestingly, tone repetition itself did not suffice for the switch, implying that the bottleneck to discrimination does not reside at the lower, sensory stage. Rather, the temporal consistency of repetition was important, suggesting the involvement of higher-level mechanisms with longer time constants. These findings suggest that classification is based on more automatic and accurate mechanisms than interstimulus comparisons and that the ability to effectively use them depends on a dynamic interplay between higher- and lower-level cortical mechanisms.

Frequency-shift detectors bind binaural as well as monaural frequency representations.

PubMed

Carcagno, Samuele; Semal, Catherine; Demany, Laurent

2011-12-01

Previous psychophysical work provided evidence for the existence of automatic frequency-shift detectors (FSDs) that establish perceptual links between successive sounds. In this study, we investigated the characteristics of the FSDs with respect to the binaural system. Listeners were presented with sound sequences consisting of a chord of pure tones followed by a single test tone. Two tasks were performed. In the "present/absent" task, the test tone was either identical to one of the chord components or positioned halfway in frequency between two components, and listeners had to discriminate between these two possibilities. In the "up/down" task, the test tone was slightly different in frequency from one of the chord components and listeners had to identify the direction (up or down) of the corresponding shift. When the test tone was a pure tone presented monaurally, either to the same ear as the chord or to the opposite ear, listeners performed the up/down task better than the present/absent task. This paradoxical advantage for directional frequency shifts, providing evidence for FSDs, persisted when the test tone was replaced by a dichotic stimulus consisting of noise but evoking a pitch sensation as a consequence of binaural processing. Performance in the up/down task was similar for the dichotic stimulus and for a monaural narrow-band noise matched in pitch salience to it. Our results indicate that the FSDs are insensitive to sound localization mechanisms and operate on central frequency representations, at or above the level of convergence of the monaural auditory pathways.

Auditory Memory for Timbre

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McKeown, Denis; Wellsted, David

2009-01-01

Psychophysical studies are reported examining how the context of recent auditory stimulation may modulate the processing of new sounds. The question posed is how recent tone stimulation may affect ongoing performance in a discrimination task. In the task, two complex sounds occurred in successive intervals. A single target component of one complex…

Speech Perception in MRI Scanner Noise by Persons with Aphasia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Healy, Eric W.; Moser, Dana C.; Morrow-Odom, K. Leigh; Hall, Deborah A.; Fridriksson, Julius

2007-01-01

Purpose: To examine reductions in performance on auditory tasks by aphasic and neurologically intact individuals as a result of concomitant magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner noise. Method: Four tasks together forming a continuum of linguistic complexity were developed. They included complex-tone pitch discrimination, same-different…

Developmental change in tone perception in Mandarin monolingual, English monolingual, and Mandarin-English bilingual infants: Divergences between monolingual and bilingual learners.

PubMed

Singh, Leher; Fu, Charlene S L; Seet, Xian Hui; Tong, Ashley P Y; Wang, Joelle L; Best, Catherine T

2018-09-01

Most languages use lexical tone to discriminate the meanings of words. There has been recent interest in tracking the development of tone categories during infancy. These studies have focused largely on monolingual infants learning either a tone language or a non-tone language. It remains to be seen how bilingual infants learning one tone language (e.g., Mandarin) and one non-tone language (e.g., English) discriminate tones. Here, we examined infants' discrimination of two Mandarin tones pairs: one salient and one subtle. Discrimination was investigated in three groups: Mandarin-English bilinguals, English monolinguals, and Mandarin monolinguals at 6 months and 9 months of age in a cross-sectional design. Results demonstrated relatively strong Mandarin tone discrimination in Mandarin monolinguals, with salient tone discrimination at 6 months and both salient and subtle tone discrimination at 9 months. English monolinguals discriminated neither contrast at 6 months but discriminated the salient contrast at 9 months. Surprisingly, there was no evidence for tone discrimination in Mandarin-English bilingual infants. In a second experiment, 12- and 13-month-old Mandarin-English bilingual and English monolingual infants were tested to determine whether bilinguals would demonstrate tone sensitivity at a later age. Results revealed a lack of tone sensitivity at 12 or 13 months in bilingual infants, yet English monolingual infants were sensitive to both salient and subtle Mandarin tone contrasts at 12 or 13 months. Our findings provide evidence for age-related convergence in Mandarin tone discrimination in English and Mandarin monolingual infants and for a distinct pattern of tone discrimination in bilingual infants. Theoretical implications for phonetic category acquisition are discussed. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Reading Aloud Is Not Automatic: Processing Capacity Is Required to Generate a Phonological Code from Print

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reynolds, Michael; Besner, Derek

2006-01-01

The present experiments tested the claim that phonological recoding occurs "automatically" by assessing whether it uses central attention in the context of the psychological refractory period paradigm. Task 1 was a tone discrimination task and Task 2 was reading aloud. The joint effects of long-lag word repetition priming and stimulus onset…

Pitch-matching accuracy in trained singers and untrained individuals: the impact of musical interference and noise.

PubMed

Estis, Julie M; Dean-Claytor, Ashli; Moore, Robert E; Rowell, Thomas L

2011-03-01

The effects of musical interference and noise on pitch-matching accuracy were examined. Vocal training was explored as a factor influencing pitch-matching accuracy, and the relationship between pitch matching and pitch discrimination was examined. Twenty trained singers (TS) and 20 untrained individuals (UT) vocally matched tones in six conditions (immediate, four types of chords, noise). Fundamental frequencies were calculated, compared with the frequency of the target tone, and converted to semitone difference scores. A pitch discrimination task was also completed. TS showed significantly better pitch matching than UT across all conditions. Individual performances for UT were highly variable. Therefore, untrained participants were divided into two groups: 10 untrained accurate and 10 untrained inaccurate. Comparison of TS with untrained accurate individuals revealed significant differences between groups and across conditions. Compared with immediate vocal matching of target tones, pitch-matching accuracy was significantly reduced, given musical chord and noise interference unless the target tone was presented in the musical chord. A direct relationship between pitch matching and pitch discrimination was revealed. Across pitch-matching conditions, TS were consistently more accurate than UT. Pitch-matching accuracy diminished when auditory interference consisted of chords that did not contain the target tone and noise. Copyright © 2011 The Voice Foundation. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

Disrupted sensory gating in pathological gambling.

PubMed

Stojanov, Wendy; Karayanidis, Frini; Johnston, Patrick; Bailey, Andrew; Carr, Vaughan; Schall, Ulrich

2003-08-15

Some neurochemical evidence as well as recent studies on molecular genetics suggest that pathologic gambling may be related to dysregulated dopamine neurotransmission. The current study examined sensory (motor) gating in pathologic gamblers as a putative measure of endogenous brain dopamine activity with prepulse inhibition of the acoustic startle eye-blink response and the auditory P300 event-related potential. Seventeen pathologic gamblers and 21 age- and gender-matched healthy control subjects were assessed. Both prepulse inhibition measures were recorded under passive listening and two-tone prepulse discrimination conditions. Compared to the control group, pathologic gamblers exhibited disrupted sensory (motor) gating on all measures of prepulse inhibition. Sensory motor gating deficits of eye-blink responses were most profound at 120-millisecond prepulse lead intervals in the passive listening task and at 240-millisecond prepulse lead intervals in the two-tone prepulse discrimination task. Sensory gating of P300 was also impaired in pathologic gamblers, particularly at 500-millisecond lead intervals, when performing the discrimination task on the prepulse. In the context of preclinical studies on the disruptive effects of dopamine agonists on prepulse inhibition, our findings suggest increased endogenous brain dopamine activity in pathologic gambling in line with previous neurobiological findings.

Pitch expertise is not created equal: Cross-domain effects of musicianship and tone language experience on neural and behavioural discrimination of speech and music.

PubMed

Hutka, Stefanie; Bidelman, Gavin M; Moreno, Sylvain

2015-05-01

Psychophysiological evidence supports a music-language association, such that experience in one domain can impact processing required in the other domain. We investigated the bidirectionality of this association by measuring event-related potentials (ERPs) in native English-speaking musicians, native tone language (Cantonese) nonmusicians, and native English-speaking nonmusician controls. We tested the degree to which pitch expertise stemming from musicianship or tone language experience similarly enhances the neural encoding of auditory information necessary for speech and music processing. Early cortical discriminatory processing for music and speech sounds was characterized using the mismatch negativity (MMN). Stimuli included 'large deviant' and 'small deviant' pairs of sounds that differed minimally in pitch (fundamental frequency, F0; contrastive musical tones) or timbre (first formant, F1; contrastive speech vowels). Behavioural F0 and F1 difference limen tasks probed listeners' perceptual acuity for these same acoustic features. Musicians and Cantonese speakers performed comparably in pitch discrimination; only musicians showed an additional advantage on timbre discrimination performance and an enhanced MMN responses to both music and speech. Cantonese language experience was not associated with enhancements on neural measures, despite enhanced behavioural pitch acuity. These data suggest that while both musicianship and tone language experience enhance some aspects of auditory acuity (behavioural pitch discrimination), musicianship confers farther-reaching enhancements to auditory function, tuning both pitch and timbre-related brain processes. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Event-related oscillations (ERO) during an active discrimination task: Effects of lesions of the Nucleus Basalis Magnocellularis

PubMed Central

Sanchez-Alavez, Manuel; Ehlers, Cindy L.

2015-01-01

The cholinergic system in the brain is involved in attentional processes that are engaged for the identification and selection of relevant information in the environment and the formation of new stimulus associations. In the present study we determined the effects of cholinergic lesions of nucleus basalis magnocellularis (NBM) on amplitude and phase characteristics of event related oscillations (EROs) generated in an auditory active discrimination task in rats. Rats were trained to press a lever to begin a series of 1K Hz tones and to release the lever upon hearing a 2 kHz tone. A time-frequency based representation was used to determine ERO energy and phase synchronization (phase lock index, PLI) across trials, recorded within frontal cortical structures. Lesions in NBM produced by an infusion of a-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazole propionic acid (AMPA) resulted in (1) a reduction of the number of correct behavioral responses in the active discrimination task, (2) an increase in ERO energy in the delta frequency bands (3) an increase in theta, alpha and beta ERO energy in the N1, P3a and P3b regions of interest (ROI), and (4) an increase in PLI in the theta frequency band in the N1 ROIs. These studies suggest that the NBM cholinergic system is involved in maintaining the synchronization/phase resetting of oscillations in different frequencies in response to the presentation of the target stimuli in an active discrimination task. PMID:25660307

The cognitive loci of the display and task-relevant set size effects on distractor interference: Evidence from a dual-task paradigm.

PubMed

Park, Bo Youn; Kim, Sujin; Cho, Yang Seok

2018-02-01

The congruency effect of a task-irrelevant distractor has been found to be modulated by task-relevant set size and display set size. The present study used a psychological refractory period (PRP) paradigm to examine the cognitive loci of the display set size effect (dilution effect) and the task-relevant set size effect (perceptual load effect) on distractor interference. A tone discrimination task (Task 1), in which a response was made to the pitch of the target tone, was followed by a letter discrimination task (Task 2) in which different types of visual target display were used. In Experiment 1, in which display set size was manipulated to examine the nature of the display set size effect on distractor interference in Task 2, the modulation of the congruency effect by display set size was observed at both short and long stimulus-onset asynchronies (SOAs), indicating that the display set size effect occurred after the target was selected for processing in the focused attention stage. In Experiment 2, in which task-relevant set size was manipulated to examine the nature of the task-relevant set size effect on distractor interference in Task 2, the effects of task-relevant set size increased with SOA, suggesting that the target selection efficiency in the preattentive stage was impaired with increasing task-relevant set size. These results suggest that display set size and task-relevant set size modulate distractor processing in different ways.

Frequency Discrimination Deficits in People with Specific Language Impairment: Reliability, Validity, and Linguistic Correlates

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McArthur, G. M.; Bishop, D. V. M.

2004-01-01

The reliability and validity of a frequency discrimination (FD) task were tested in 16 people with specific language impairment (SLI) and 16 people with normal spoken language (controls). The FD thresholds of the 2 groups indicated that FD thresholds for 25-ms and 250-ms tones were remarkably stable across 18 months. The FD thresholds were lower…

Across-channel interference in intensity discrimination: The role of practice and listening strategy

PubMed Central

Buss, Emily

2008-01-01

Pure tone intensity discrimination thresholds can be elevated by the introduction of remote maskers with roved level. This effect is on the order of 10 dB [10log(ΔI/I)] in some conditions and can be demonstrated under conditions of little or no energetic masking. The current study examined the effect of practice and observer strategy on this phenomenon. Experiment 1 included observers who had no formal experience with intensity discrimination and provided training over six hours on a single masked intensity discrimination task to assess learning effects. Thresholds fell with practice for most observers, with significant improvements in 6 out of 8 cases. Despite these improvements significant masking remained in all cases. The second experiment assessed trial-by-trial effects of roved masker level. Conditional probability of a ‘signal-present’ response as a function of the rove value assigned to each of the two masker tones indicates fundamental differences among observers’ processing strategies, even after six hours of practice. The variability in error patterns across practiced listeners suggests that observers approach the task differently, though this variability does not appear to be related to sensitivity. PMID:18177156

Activation in the Right Inferior Parietal Lobule Reflects the Representation of Musical Structure beyond Simple Pitch Discrimination.

PubMed

Royal, Isabelle; Vuvan, Dominique T; Zendel, Benjamin Rich; Robitaille, Nicolas; Schönwiesner, Marc; Peretz, Isabelle

2016-01-01

Pitch discrimination tasks typically engage the superior temporal gyrus and the right inferior frontal gyrus. It is currently unclear whether these regions are equally involved in the processing of incongruous notes in melodies, which requires the representation of musical structure (tonality) in addition to pitch discrimination. To this aim, 14 participants completed two tasks while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging, one in which they had to identify a pitch change in a series of non-melodic repeating tones and a second in which they had to identify an incongruous note in a tonal melody. In both tasks, the deviants activated the right superior temporal gyrus. A contrast between deviants in the melodic task and deviants in the non-melodic task (melodic > non-melodic) revealed additional activity in the right inferior parietal lobule. Activation in the inferior parietal lobule likely represents processes related to the maintenance of tonal pitch structure in working memory during pitch discrimination.

Activation in the Right Inferior Parietal Lobule Reflects the Representation of Musical Structure beyond Simple Pitch Discrimination

PubMed Central

Royal, Isabelle; Vuvan, Dominique T.; Zendel, Benjamin Rich; Robitaille, Nicolas; Schönwiesner, Marc; Peretz, Isabelle

2016-01-01

Pitch discrimination tasks typically engage the superior temporal gyrus and the right inferior frontal gyrus. It is currently unclear whether these regions are equally involved in the processing of incongruous notes in melodies, which requires the representation of musical structure (tonality) in addition to pitch discrimination. To this aim, 14 participants completed two tasks while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging, one in which they had to identify a pitch change in a series of non-melodic repeating tones and a second in which they had to identify an incongruous note in a tonal melody. In both tasks, the deviants activated the right superior temporal gyrus. A contrast between deviants in the melodic task and deviants in the non-melodic task (melodic > non-melodic) revealed additional activity in the right inferior parietal lobule. Activation in the inferior parietal lobule likely represents processes related to the maintenance of tonal pitch structure in working memory during pitch discrimination. PMID:27195523

Automatic processing of tones and speech stimuli in children with specific language impairment.

PubMed

Uwer, Ruth; Albrecht, Ronald; von Suchodoletz, W

2002-08-01

It is well known from behavioural experiments that children with specific language impairment (SLI) have difficulties discriminating consonant-vowel (CV) syllables such as /ba/, /da/, and /ga/. Mismatch negativity (MMN) is an auditory event-related potential component that represents the outcome of an automatic comparison process. It could, therefore, be a promising tool for assessing central auditory processing deficits for speech and non-speech stimuli in children with SLI. MMN is typically evoked by occasionally occurring 'deviant' stimuli in a sequence of identical 'standard' sounds. In this study MMN was elicited using simple tone stimuli, which differed in frequency (1000 versus 1200 Hz) and duration (175 versus 100 ms) and to digitized CV syllables which differed in place of articulation (/ba/, /da/, and /ga/) in children with expressive and receptive SLI and healthy control children (n=21 in each group, 46 males and 17 females; age range 5 to 10 years). Mean MMN amplitudes between groups were compared. Additionally, the behavioural discrimination performance was assessed. Children with SLI had attenuated MMN amplitudes to speech stimuli, but there was no significant difference between the two diagnostic subgroups. MMN to tone stimuli did not differ between the groups. Children with SLI made more errors in the discrimination task, but discrimination scores did not correlate with MMN amplitudes. The present data suggest that children with SLI show a specific deficit in automatic discrimination of CV syllables differing in place of articulation, whereas the processing of simple tone differences seems to be unimpaired.

Observer weighting strategies in interaural time-difference discrimination and monaural level discrimination for a multi-tone complex

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dye, Raymond H.; Stellmack, Mark A.; Jurcin, Noah F.

2005-05-01

Two experiments measured listeners' abilities to weight information from different components in a complex of 553, 753, and 953 Hz. The goal was to determine whether or not the ability to adjust perceptual weights generalized across tasks. Weights were measured by binary logistic regression between stimulus values that were sampled from Gaussian distributions and listeners' responses. The first task was interaural time discrimination in which listeners judged the laterality of the target component. The second task was monaural level discrimination in which listeners indicated whether the level of the target component decreased or increased across two intervals. For both experiments, each of the three components served as the target. Ten listeners participated in both experiments. The results showed that those individuals who adjusted perceptual weights in the interaural time experiment could also do so in the monaural level discrimination task. The fact that the same individuals appeared to be analytic in both tasks is an indication that the weights measure the ability to attend to a particular region of the spectrum while ignoring other spectral regions. .

Brain activity associated with selective attention, divided attention and distraction.

PubMed

Salo, Emma; Salmela, Viljami; Salmi, Juha; Numminen, Jussi; Alho, Kimmo

2017-06-01

Top-down controlled selective or divided attention to sounds and visual objects, as well as bottom-up triggered attention to auditory and visual distractors, has been widely investigated. However, no study has systematically compared brain activations related to all these types of attention. To this end, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity in participants performing a tone pitch or a foveal grating orientation discrimination task, or both, distracted by novel sounds not sharing frequencies with the tones or by extrafoveal visual textures. To force focusing of attention to tones or gratings, or both, task difficulty was kept constantly high with an adaptive staircase method. A whole brain analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed fronto-parietal attention networks for both selective auditory and visual attention. A subsequent conjunction analysis indicated partial overlaps of these networks. However, like some previous studies, the present results also suggest segregation of prefrontal areas involved in the control of auditory and visual attention. The ANOVA also suggested, and another conjunction analysis confirmed, an additional activity enhancement in the left middle frontal gyrus related to divided attention supporting the role of this area in top-down integration of dual task performance. Distractors expectedly disrupted task performance. However, contrary to our expectations, activations specifically related to the distractors were found only in the auditory and visual cortices. This suggests gating of the distractors from further processing perhaps due to strictly focused attention in the current demanding discrimination tasks. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Fast learning of simple perceptual discriminations reduces brain activation in working memory and in high-level auditory regions.

PubMed

Daikhin, Luba; Ahissar, Merav

2015-07-01

Introducing simple stimulus regularities facilitates learning of both simple and complex tasks. This facilitation may reflect an implicit change in the strategies used to solve the task when successful predictions regarding incoming stimuli can be formed. We studied the modifications in brain activity associated with fast perceptual learning based on regularity detection. We administered a two-tone frequency discrimination task and measured brain activation (fMRI) under two conditions: with and without a repeated reference tone. Although participants could not explicitly tell the difference between these two conditions, the introduced regularity affected both performance and the pattern of brain activation. The "No-Reference" condition induced a larger activation in frontoparietal areas known to be part of the working memory network. However, only the condition with a reference showed fast learning, which was accompanied by a reduction of activity in two regions: the left intraparietal area, involved in stimulus retention, and the posterior superior-temporal area, involved in representing auditory regularities. We propose that this joint reduction reflects a reduction in the need for online storage of the compared tones. We further suggest that this change reflects an implicit strategic shift "backwards" from reliance mainly on working memory networks in the "No-Reference" condition to increased reliance on detected regularities stored in high-level auditory networks.

Learning for pitch and melody discrimination in congenital amusia.

PubMed

Whiteford, Kelly L; Oxenham, Andrew J

2018-06-01

Congenital amusia is currently thought to be a life-long neurogenetic disorder in music perception, impervious to training in pitch or melody discrimination. This study provides an explicit test of whether amusic deficits can be reduced with training. Twenty amusics and 20 matched controls participated in four sessions of psychophysical training involving either pure-tone (500 Hz) pitch discrimination or a control task of lateralization (interaural level differences for bandpass white noise). Pure-tone pitch discrimination at low, medium, and high frequencies (500, 2000, and 8000 Hz) was measured before and after training (pretest and posttest) to determine the specificity of learning. Melody discrimination was also assessed before and after training using the full Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia, the most widely used standardized test to diagnose amusia. Amusics performed more poorly than controls in pitch but not localization discrimination, but both groups improved with practice on the trained stimuli. Learning was broad, occurring across all three frequencies and melody discrimination for all groups, including those who trained on the non-pitch control task. Following training, 11 of 20 amusics no longer met the global diagnostic criteria for amusia. A separate group of untrained controls (n = 20), who also completed melody discrimination and pretest, improved by an equal amount as trained controls on all measures, suggesting that the bulk of learning for the control group occurred very rapidly from the pretest. Thirty-one trained participants (13 amusics) returned one year later to assess long-term maintenance of pitch and melody discrimination. On average, there was no change in performance between posttest and one-year follow-up, demonstrating that improvements on pitch- and melody-related tasks in amusics and controls can be maintained. The findings indicate that amusia is not always a life-long deficit when using the current standard diagnostic criteria. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Two-Stage Processing of Sounds Explains Behavioral Performance Variations due to Changes in Stimulus Contrast and Selective Attention: An MEG Study

PubMed Central

Kauramäki, Jaakko; Jääskeläinen, Iiro P.; Hänninen, Jarno L.; Auranen, Toni; Nummenmaa, Aapo; Lampinen, Jouko; Sams, Mikko

2012-01-01

Selectively attending to task-relevant sounds whilst ignoring background noise is one of the most amazing feats performed by the human brain. Here, we studied the underlying neural mechanisms by recording magnetoencephalographic (MEG) responses of 14 healthy human subjects while they performed a near-threshold auditory discrimination task vs. a visual control task of similar difficulty. The auditory stimuli consisted of notch-filtered continuous noise masker sounds, and of 1020-Hz target tones occasionally () replacing 1000-Hz standard tones of 300-ms duration that were embedded at the center of the notches, the widths of which were parametrically varied. As a control for masker effects, tone-evoked responses were additionally recorded without masker sound. Selective attention to tones significantly increased the amplitude of the onset M100 response at 100 ms to the standard tones during presence of the masker sounds especially with notches narrower than the critical band. Further, attention modulated sustained response most clearly at 300–400 ms time range from sound onset, with narrower notches than in case of the M100, thus selectively reducing the masker-induced suppression of the tone-evoked response. Our results show evidence of a multiple-stage filtering mechanism of sensory input in the human auditory cortex: 1) one at early (100 ms) latencies bilaterally in posterior parts of the secondary auditory areas, and 2) adaptive filtering of attended sounds from task-irrelevant background masker at longer latency (300 ms) in more medial auditory cortical regions, predominantly in the left hemisphere, enhancing processing of near-threshold sounds. PMID:23071654

Semantic interference in picture naming during dual-task performance does not vary with reading ability.

PubMed

Piai, Vitória; Roelofs, Ardi; Roete, Ingeborg

2015-01-01

Previous dual-task studies examining the locus of semantic interference of distractor words in picture naming have obtained diverging results. In these studies, participants manually responded to tones and named pictures while ignoring distractor words (picture-word interference, PWI) with varying stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between tone and PWI stimulus. Whereas some studies observed no semantic interference at short SOAs, other studies observed effects of similar magnitude at short and long SOAs. The absence of semantic interference in some studies may perhaps be due to better reading skill of participants in these than in the other studies. According to such a reading-ability account, participants' reading skill should be predictive of the magnitude of their interference effect at short SOAs. To test this account, we conducted a dual-task study with tone discrimination and PWI tasks and measured participants' reading ability. The semantic interference effect was of similar magnitude at both short and long SOAs. Participants' reading ability was predictive of their naming speed but not of their semantic interference effect, contrary to the reading ability account. We conclude that the magnitude of semantic interference in picture naming during dual-task performance does not depend on reading skill.

Darker Skin Tone Increases Perceived Discrimination among Male but Not Female Caribbean Black Youth.

PubMed

Assari, Shervin; Caldwell, Cleopatra Howard

2017-12-12

Among most minority groups, males seem to report higher levels of exposure and vulnerability to racial discrimination. Although darker skin tone may increase exposure to racial discrimination, it is yet unknown whether skin tone similarly influences perceived discrimination among male and female Caribbean Black youth. The current cross-sectional study tests the role of gender on the effects of skin tone on perceived discrimination among Caribbean Black youth. Data came from the National Survey of American Life-Adolescent Supplement (NSAL-A), 2003-2004, which included 360 Caribbean Black youth (ages 13 to 17). Demographic factors (age and gender), socioeconomic status (SES; family income, income to needs ratio, and subjective SES), skin tone, and perceived everyday discrimination were measured. Linear regressions were used for data analysis. In the pooled sample, darker skin tone was associated with higher levels of perceived discrimination among Caribbean Black youth ( b = 0.48; 95% Confidence Interval (CI) = 0.07-0.89). A significant interaction was found between gender and skin tone ( b = 1.17; 95% CI = 0.49-1.86), suggesting a larger effect of skin tone on perceived discrimination for males than females. In stratified models, darker skin tone was associated with more perceived discrimination for males ( b = 1.20; 95% CI = 0.69-0.72) but not females ( b = 0.06; 95% CI = -0.42-0.55). Similar to the literature documenting male gender as a vulnerability factor to the effects of racial discrimination, we found that male but not female Caribbean Black youth with darker skin tones perceive more discrimination.

Musicians and tone-language speakers share enhanced brainstem encoding but not perceptual benefits for musical pitch

PubMed Central

Bidelman, Gavin M.; Gandour, Jackson T.; Krishnan, Ananthanarayan

2011-01-01

Behavioral and neurophysiological transfer effects from music experience to language processing are well-established but it is currently unclear whether or not linguistic expertise (e.g., speaking a tone language) benefits music-related processing and its perception. Here, we compare brainstem responses of English-speaking musicians/non-musicians and native speakers of Mandarin Chinese elicited by tuned and detuned musical chords, to determine if enhancements in subcortical processing translate to improvements in the perceptual discrimination of musical pitch. Relative to non-musicians, both musicians and Chinese had stronger brainstem representation of the defining pitches of musical sequences. In contrast, two behavioral pitch discrimination tasks revealed that neither Chinese nor non-musicians were able to discriminate subtle changes in musical pitch with the same accuracy as musicians. Pooled across all listeners, brainstem magnitudes predicted behavioral pitch discrimination performance but considering each group individually, only musicians showed connections between neural and behavioral measures. No brain-behavior correlations were found for tone language speakers or non-musicians. These findings point to a dissociation between subcortical neurophysiological processing and behavioral measures of pitch perception in Chinese listeners. We infer that sensory-level enhancement of musical pitch information yields cognitive-level perceptual benefits only when that information is behaviorally relevant to the listener. PMID:21835531

What is a melody? On the relationship between pitch and brightness of timbre.

PubMed

Cousineau, Marion; Carcagno, Samuele; Demany, Laurent; Pressnitzer, Daniel

2013-01-01

Previous studies showed that the perceptual processing of sound sequences is more efficient when the sounds vary in pitch than when they vary in loudness. We show here that sequences of sounds varying in brightness of timbre are processed with the same efficiency as pitch sequences. The sounds used consisted of two simultaneous pure tones one octave apart, and the listeners' task was to make same/different judgments on pairs of sequences varying in length (one, two, or four sounds). In one condition, brightness of timbre was varied within the sequences by changing the relative level of the two pure tones. In other conditions, pitch was varied by changing fundamental frequency, or loudness was varied by changing the overall level. In all conditions, only two possible sounds could be used in a given sequence, and these two sounds were equally discriminable. When sequence length increased from one to four, discrimination performance decreased substantially for loudness sequences, but to a smaller extent for brightness sequences and pitch sequences. In the latter two conditions, sequence length had a similar effect on performance. These results suggest that the processes dedicated to pitch and brightness analysis, when probed with a sequence-discrimination task, share unexpected similarities.

Darker Skin Tone Increases Perceived Discrimination among Male but Not Female Caribbean Black Youth

PubMed Central

Caldwell, Cleopatra Howard

2017-01-01

Background: Among most minority groups, males seem to report higher levels of exposure and vulnerability to racial discrimination. Although darker skin tone may increase exposure to racial discrimination, it is yet unknown whether skin tone similarly influences perceived discrimination among male and female Caribbean Black youth. Objective: The current cross-sectional study tests the role of gender on the effects of skin tone on perceived discrimination among Caribbean Black youth. Methods: Data came from the National Survey of American Life-Adolescent Supplement (NSAL-A), 2003–2004, which included 360 Caribbean Black youth (ages 13 to 17). Demographic factors (age and gender), socioeconomic status (SES; family income, income to needs ratio, and subjective SES), skin tone, and perceived everyday discrimination were measured. Linear regressions were used for data analysis. Results: In the pooled sample, darker skin tone was associated with higher levels of perceived discrimination among Caribbean Black youth (b = 0.48; 95% Confidence Interval (CI) = 0.07–0.89). A significant interaction was found between gender and skin tone (b = 1.17; 95% CI = 0.49–1.86), suggesting a larger effect of skin tone on perceived discrimination for males than females. In stratified models, darker skin tone was associated with more perceived discrimination for males (b = 1.20; 95% CI = 0.69–0.72) but not females (b = 0.06; 95% CI = −0.42–0.55). Conclusion: Similar to the literature documenting male gender as a vulnerability factor to the effects of racial discrimination, we found that male but not female Caribbean Black youth with darker skin tones perceive more discrimination. PMID:29231903

Brain Plasticity in Speech Training in Native English Speakers Learning Mandarin Tones

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Heinzen, Christina Carolyn

The current study employed behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) measures to investigate brain plasticity associated with second-language (L2) phonetic learning based on an adaptive computer training program. The program utilized the acoustic characteristics of Infant-Directed Speech (IDS) to train monolingual American English-speaking listeners to perceive Mandarin lexical tones. Behavioral identification and discrimination tasks were conducted using naturally recorded speech, carefully controlled synthetic speech, and non-speech control stimuli. The ERP experiments were conducted with selected synthetic speech stimuli in a passive listening oddball paradigm. Identical pre- and post- tests were administered on nine adult listeners, who completed two-to-three hours of perceptual training. The perceptual training sessions used pair-wise lexical tone identification, and progressed through seven levels of difficulty for each tone pair. The levels of difficulty included progression in speaker variability from one to four speakers and progression through four levels of acoustic exaggeration of duration, pitch range, and pitch contour. Behavioral results for the natural speech stimuli revealed significant training-induced improvement in identification of Tones 1, 3, and 4. Improvements in identification of Tone 4 generalized to novel stimuli as well. Additionally, comparison between discrimination of across-category and within-category stimulus pairs taken from a synthetic continuum revealed a training-induced shift toward more native-like categorical perception of the Mandarin lexical tones. Analysis of the Mismatch Negativity (MMN) responses in the ERP data revealed increased amplitude and decreased latency for pre-attentive processing of across-category discrimination as a result of training. There were also laterality changes in the MMN responses to the non-speech control stimuli, which could reflect reallocation of brain resources in processing pitch patterns for the across-category lexical tone contrast. Overall, the results support the use of IDS characteristics in training non-native speech contrasts and provide impetus for further research.

[Children with specific language impairment: electrophysiological and pedaudiological findings].

PubMed

Rinker, T; Hartmann, K; Smith, E; Reiter, R; Alku, P; Kiefer, M; Brosch, S

2014-08-01

Auditory deficits may be at the core of the language delay in children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). It was therefore hypothesized that children with SLI perform poorly on 4 tests typically used to diagnose central auditory processing disorder (CAPD) as well in the processing of phonetic and tone stimuli in an electrophysiological experiment. 14 children with SLI (mean age 61,7 months) and 16 children without SLI (mean age 64,9 months) were tested with 4 tasks: non-word repetition, language discrimination in noise, directional hearing, and dichotic listening. The electrophysiological recording Mismatch Negativity (MMN) employed sine tones (600 vs. 650 Hz) and phonetic stimuli (/ε/ versus /e/). Control children and children with SLI differed significantly in the non-word repetition as well as in the dichotic listening task but not in the two other tasks. Only the control children recognized the frequency difference in the MMN-experiment. The phonetic difference was discriminated by both groups, however, effects were longer lasting for the control children. Group differences were not significant. Children with SLI show limitations in auditory processing that involve either a complex task repeating unfamiliar or difficult material and show subtle deficits in auditory processing at the neural level. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

Vibrotactile Discrimination Training Affects Brain Connectivity in Profoundly Deaf Individuals

PubMed Central

González-Garrido, Andrés A.; Ruiz-Stovel, Vanessa D.; Gómez-Velázquez, Fabiola R.; Vélez-Pérez, Hugo; Romo-Vázquez, Rebeca; Salido-Ruiz, Ricardo A.; Espinoza-Valdez, Aurora; Campos, Luis R.

2017-01-01

Early auditory deprivation has serious neurodevelopmental and cognitive repercussions largely derived from impoverished and delayed language acquisition. These conditions may be associated with early changes in brain connectivity. Vibrotactile stimulation is a sensory substitution method that allows perception and discrimination of sound, and even speech. To clarify the efficacy of this approach, a vibrotactile oddball task with 700 and 900 Hz pure-tones as stimuli [counterbalanced as target (T: 20% of the total) and non-target (NT: 80%)] with simultaneous EEG recording was performed by 14 profoundly deaf and 14 normal-hearing (NH) subjects, before and after a short training period (five 1-h sessions; in 2.5–3 weeks). A small device worn on the right index finger delivered sound-wave stimuli. The training included discrimination of pure tone frequency and duration, and more complex natural sounds. A significant P300 amplitude increase and behavioral improvement was observed in both deaf and normal subjects, with no between group differences. However, a P3 with larger scalp distribution over parietal cortical areas and lateralized to the right was observed in the profoundly deaf. A graph theory analysis showed that brief training significantly increased fronto-central brain connectivity in deaf subjects, but not in NH subjects. Together, ERP tools and graph methods depicted the different functional brain dynamic in deaf and NH individuals, underlying the temporary engagement of the cognitive resources demanded by the task. Our findings showed that the index-fingertip somatosensory mechanoreceptors can discriminate sounds. Further studies are necessary to clarify brain connectivity dynamics associated with the performance of vibrotactile language-related discrimination tasks and the effect of lengthier training programs. PMID:28220063

Vibrotactile Discrimination Training Affects Brain Connectivity in Profoundly Deaf Individuals.

PubMed

González-Garrido, Andrés A; Ruiz-Stovel, Vanessa D; Gómez-Velázquez, Fabiola R; Vélez-Pérez, Hugo; Romo-Vázquez, Rebeca; Salido-Ruiz, Ricardo A; Espinoza-Valdez, Aurora; Campos, Luis R

2017-01-01

Early auditory deprivation has serious neurodevelopmental and cognitive repercussions largely derived from impoverished and delayed language acquisition. These conditions may be associated with early changes in brain connectivity. Vibrotactile stimulation is a sensory substitution method that allows perception and discrimination of sound, and even speech. To clarify the efficacy of this approach, a vibrotactile oddball task with 700 and 900 Hz pure-tones as stimuli [counterbalanced as target (T: 20% of the total) and non-target (NT: 80%)] with simultaneous EEG recording was performed by 14 profoundly deaf and 14 normal-hearing (NH) subjects, before and after a short training period (five 1-h sessions; in 2.5-3 weeks). A small device worn on the right index finger delivered sound-wave stimuli. The training included discrimination of pure tone frequency and duration, and more complex natural sounds. A significant P300 amplitude increase and behavioral improvement was observed in both deaf and normal subjects, with no between group differences. However, a P3 with larger scalp distribution over parietal cortical areas and lateralized to the right was observed in the profoundly deaf. A graph theory analysis showed that brief training significantly increased fronto-central brain connectivity in deaf subjects, but not in NH subjects. Together, ERP tools and graph methods depicted the different functional brain dynamic in deaf and NH individuals, underlying the temporary engagement of the cognitive resources demanded by the task. Our findings showed that the index-fingertip somatosensory mechanoreceptors can discriminate sounds. Further studies are necessary to clarify brain connectivity dynamics associated with the performance of vibrotactile language-related discrimination tasks and the effect of lengthier training programs.

How Recent History Affects Perception: The Normative Approach and Its Heuristic Approximation

PubMed Central

Raviv, Ofri; Ahissar, Merav; Loewenstein, Yonatan

2012-01-01

There is accumulating evidence that prior knowledge about expectations plays an important role in perception. The Bayesian framework is the standard computational approach to explain how prior knowledge about the distribution of expected stimuli is incorporated with noisy observations in order to improve performance. However, it is unclear what information about the prior distribution is acquired by the perceptual system over short periods of time and how this information is utilized in the process of perceptual decision making. Here we address this question using a simple two-tone discrimination task. We find that the “contraction bias”, in which small magnitudes are overestimated and large magnitudes are underestimated, dominates the pattern of responses of human participants. This contraction bias is consistent with the Bayesian hypothesis in which the true prior information is available to the decision-maker. However, a trial-by-trial analysis of the pattern of responses reveals that the contribution of most recent trials to performance is overweighted compared with the predictions of a standard Bayesian model. Moreover, we study participants' performance in a-typical distributions of stimuli and demonstrate substantial deviations from the ideal Bayesian detector, suggesting that the brain utilizes a heuristic approximation of the Bayesian inference. We propose a biologically plausible model, in which decision in the two-tone discrimination task is based on a comparison between the second tone and an exponentially-decaying average of the first tone and past tones. We show that this model accounts for both the contraction bias and the deviations from the ideal Bayesian detector hypothesis. These findings demonstrate the power of Bayesian-like heuristics in the brain, as well as their limitations in their failure to fully adapt to novel environments. PMID:23133343

Pitch perception prior to cortical maturation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lau, Bonnie K.

Pitch perception plays an important role in many complex auditory tasks including speech perception, music perception, and sound source segregation. Because of the protracted and extensive development of the human auditory cortex, pitch perception might be expected to mature, at least over the first few months of life. This dissertation investigates complex pitch perception in 3-month-olds, 7-month-olds and adults -- time points when the organization of the auditory pathway is distinctly different. Using an observer-based psychophysical procedure, a series of four studies were conducted to determine whether infants (1) discriminate the pitch of harmonic complex tones, (2) discriminate the pitch of unresolved harmonics, (3) discriminate the pitch of missing fundamental melodies, and (4) have comparable sensitivity to pitch and spectral changes as adult listeners. The stimuli used in these studies were harmonic complex tones, with energy missing at the fundamental frequency. Infants at both three and seven months of age discriminated the pitch of missing fundamental complexes composed of resolved and unresolved harmonics as well as missing fundamental melodies, demonstrating perception of complex pitch by three months of age. More surprisingly, infants in both age groups had lower pitch and spectral discrimination thresholds than adult listeners. Furthermore, no differences in performance on any of the tasks presented were observed between infants at three and seven months of age. These results suggest that subcortical processing is not only sufficient to support pitch perception prior to cortical maturation, but provides adult-like sensitivity to pitch by three months.

The perception of FM sweeps by Chinese and English listeners.

PubMed

Luo, Huan; Boemio, Anthony; Gordon, Michael; Poeppel, David

2007-02-01

Frequency-modulated (FM) signals are an integral acoustic component of ecologically natural sounds and are analyzed effectively in the auditory systems of humans and animals. Linearly frequency-modulated tone sweeps were used here to evaluate two questions. First, how rapid a sweep can listeners accurately perceive? Second, is there an effect of native language insofar as the language (phonology) is differentially associated with processing of FM signals? Speakers of English and Mandarin Chinese were tested to evaluate whether being a speaker of a tone language altered the perceptual identification of non-speech tone sweeps. In two psychophysical studies, we demonstrate that Chinese subjects perform better than English subjects in FM direction identification, but not in an FM discrimination task, in which English and Chinese speakers show similar detection thresholds of approximately 20 ms duration. We suggest that the better FM direction identification in Chinese subjects is related to their experience with FM direction analysis in the tone-language environment, even though supra-segmental tonal variation occurs over a longer time scale. Furthermore, the observed common discrimination temporal threshold across two language groups supports the conjecture that processing auditory signals at durations of approximately 20 ms constitutes a fundamental auditory perceptual threshold.

Behavioral and subcortical signatures of musical expertise in Mandarin Chinese speakers

PubMed Central

Tervaniemi, Mari; Aalto, Daniel

2018-01-01

Both musical training and native language have been shown to have experience-based plastic effects on auditory processing. However, the combined effects within individuals are unclear. Recent research suggests that musical training and tone language speaking are not clearly additive in their effects on processing of auditory features and that there may be a disconnect between perceptual and neural signatures of auditory feature processing. The literature has only recently begun to investigate the effects of musical expertise on basic auditory processing for different linguistic groups. This work provides a profile of primary auditory feature discrimination for Mandarin speaking musicians and nonmusicians. The musicians showed enhanced perceptual discrimination for both frequency and duration as well as enhanced duration discrimination in a multifeature discrimination task, compared to nonmusicians. However, there were no differences between the groups in duration processing of nonspeech sounds at a subcortical level or in subcortical frequency representation of a nonnative tone contour, for fo or for the first or second formant region. The results indicate that musical expertise provides a cognitive, but not subcortical, advantage in a population of Mandarin speakers. PMID:29300756

Assessment of pilot workload - Converging measures from performance based, subjective and psychophysiological techniques

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kramer, Arthur F.; Sirevaag, Erik J.; Braune, Rolf

1986-01-01

This study explores the relationship between the P300 component of the event-related brain potential (ERP) and the processing demands of a complex real-world task. Seven male volunteers enrolled in an Instrument Flight Rule (IFR) aviation course flew a series of missions in a single engine fixed-based simulator. In dual task conditions subjects were also required to discriminate between two tones differing in frequency. ERPs time-locked to the tones, subjective effort ratings and overt performance measures were collected during two 45 min flights differing in difficulty (manipulated by varying both atmospheric conditions and instrument reliability). The more difficult flight was associated with poorer performance, increased subjective effort ratings, and smaller secondary task P300s. Within each flight, P300 amplitude was negatively correlated with deviations from command headings indicating that P300 amplitude was a sensitive workload metric both between and within the flight missions.

Interactions between auditory 'what' and 'where' pathways revealed by enhanced near-threshold discrimination of frequency and position.

PubMed

Tardif, Eric; Spierer, Lucas; Clarke, Stephanie; Murray, Micah M

2008-03-07

Partially segregated neuronal pathways ("what" and "where" pathways, respectively) are thought to mediate sound recognition and localization. Less studied are interactions between these pathways. In two experiments, we investigated whether near-threshold pitch discrimination sensitivity (d') is altered by supra-threshold task-irrelevant position differences and likewise whether near-threshold position discrimination sensitivity is altered by supra-threshold task-irrelevant pitch differences. Each experiment followed a 2 x 2 within-subjects design regarding changes/no change in the task-relevant and task-irrelevant stimulus dimensions. In Experiment 1, subjects discriminated between 750 Hz and 752 Hz pure tones, and d' for this near-threshold pitch change significantly increased by a factor of 1.09 when accompanied by a task-irrelevant position change of 65 micros interaural time difference (ITD). No response bias was induced by the task-irrelevant position change. In Experiment 2, subjects discriminated between 385 micros and 431 micros ITDs, and d' for this near-threshold position change significantly increased by a factor of 0.73 when accompanied by task-irrelevant pitch changes (6 Hz). In contrast to Experiment 1, task-irrelevant pitch changes induced a response criterion bias toward responding that the two stimuli differed. The collective results are indicative of facilitative interactions between "what" and "where" pathways. By demonstrating how these pathways may cooperate under impoverished listening conditions, our results bear implications for possible neuro-rehabilitation strategies. We discuss our results in terms of the dual-pathway model of auditory processing.

Influence of Musical Expertise on Segmental and Tonal Processing in Mandarin Chinese

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marie, Celine; Delogu, Franco; Lampis, Giulia; Belardinelli, Marta Olivetti; Besson, Mireille

2011-01-01

A same-different task was used to test the hypothesis that musical expertise improves the discrimination of tonal and segmental (consonant, vowel) variations in a tone language, Mandarin Chinese. Two four-word sequences (prime and target) were presented to French musicians and nonmusicians unfamiliar with Mandarin, and event-related brain…

Enhanced Pure-Tone Pitch Discrimination among Persons with Autism but not Asperger Syndrome

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bonnel, Anna; McAdams, Stephen; Smith, Bennett; Berthiaume, Claude; Bertone, Armando; Ciocca, Valter; Burack, Jacob A.; Mottron, Laurent

2010-01-01

Persons with Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) display atypical perceptual processing in visual and auditory tasks. In vision, Bertone, Mottron, Jelenic, and Faubert (2005) found that enhanced and diminished visual processing is linked to the level of neural complexity required to process stimuli, as proposed in the neural complexity hypothesis.…

What is a melody? On the relationship between pitch and brightness of timbre

PubMed Central

Cousineau, Marion; Carcagno, Samuele; Demany, Laurent; Pressnitzer, Daniel

2014-01-01

Previous studies showed that the perceptual processing of sound sequences is more efficient when the sounds vary in pitch than when they vary in loudness. We show here that sequences of sounds varying in brightness of timbre are processed with the same efficiency as pitch sequences. The sounds used consisted of two simultaneous pure tones one octave apart, and the listeners’ task was to make same/different judgments on pairs of sequences varying in length (one, two, or four sounds). In one condition, brightness of timbre was varied within the sequences by changing the relative level of the two pure tones. In other conditions, pitch was varied by changing fundamental frequency, or loudness was varied by changing the overall level. In all conditions, only two possible sounds could be used in a given sequence, and these two sounds were equally discriminable. When sequence length increased from one to four, discrimination performance decreased substantially for loudness sequences, but to a smaller extent for brightness sequences and pitch sequences. In the latter two conditions, sequence length had a similar effect on performance. These results suggest that the processes dedicated to pitch and brightness analysis, when probed with a sequence-discrimination task, share unexpected similarities. PMID:24478638

Spatial localization deficits and auditory cortical dysfunction in schizophrenia

PubMed Central

Perrin, Megan A.; Butler, Pamela D.; DiCostanzo, Joanna; Forchelli, Gina; Silipo, Gail; Javitt, Daniel C.

2014-01-01

Background Schizophrenia is associated with deficits in the ability to discriminate auditory features such as pitch and duration that localize to primary cortical regions. Lesions of primary vs. secondary auditory cortex also produce differentiable effects on ability to localize and discriminate free-field sound, with primary cortical lesions affecting variability as well as accuracy of response. Variability of sound localization has not previously been studied in schizophrenia. Methods The study compared performance between patients with schizophrenia (n=21) and healthy controls (n=20) on sound localization and spatial discrimination tasks using low frequency tones generated from seven speakers concavely arranged with 30 degrees separation. Results For the sound localization task, patients showed reduced accuracy (p=0.004) and greater overall response variability (p=0.032), particularly in the right hemifield. Performance was also impaired on the spatial discrimination task (p=0.018). On both tasks, poorer accuracy in the right hemifield was associated with greater cognitive symptom severity. Better accuracy in the left hemifield was associated with greater hallucination severity on the sound localization task (p=0.026), but no significant association was found for the spatial discrimination task. Conclusion Patients show impairments in both sound localization and spatial discrimination of sounds presented free-field, with a pattern comparable to that of individuals with right superior temporal lobe lesions that include primary auditory cortex (Heschl’s gyrus). Right primary auditory cortex dysfunction may protect against hallucinations by influencing laterality of functioning. PMID:20619608

Perception of coarticulated tones by non-native listeners

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bent, Tessa

2005-04-01

Mandarin lexical tones vary in their acoustic realization depending on the surrounding context. Native listeners compensate for this tonal coarticulation when identifying tones in context. This study investigated how native English listeners handle tonal coarticulation by testing native English and Mandarin listeners discrimination of the four Mandarin lexical tones in tri-syllabic sequences in which the middle tone varied while the first and last tones were held constant. Three different such frames were tested. As expected, Mandarin listeners discriminated all pairs in all contexts with a high degree of accuracy. English listeners exhibited poorer discrimination than Mandarin listeners and their discrimination accuracy showed a high degree of context dependency. In addition to assessing accuracy, reactions times to correctly discriminated different trials were entered into a multidimensional scaling analysis. For both listener groups, the arrangement of tones in perceptual space varied depending on the surrounding context suggesting that listeners attend to different acoustic attributes of the target tone depending on the surrounding tones. These results demonstrate the importance for models of cross-language speech perception of including contextual variation when characterizing the perception of non-native prosodic categories. [Work supported by NIH/NIDCD

Cross-modal transfer of the conditioned eyeblink response during interstimulus interval discrimination training in young rats

PubMed Central

Brown, Kevin L.; Stanton, Mark E.

2008-01-01

Eyeblink classical conditioning (EBC) was observed across a broad developmental period with tasks utilizing two interstimulus intervals (ISIs). In ISI discrimination, two distinct conditioned stimuli (CSs; light and tone) are reinforced with a periocular shock unconditioned stimulus (US) at two different CS-US intervals. Temporal uncertainty is identical in design with the exception that the same CS is presented at both intervals. Developmental changes in conditioning have been reported in each task beyond ages when single-ISI learning is well developed. The present study sought to replicate and extend these previous findings by testing each task at four separate ages. Consistent with previous findings, younger rats (postnatal day – PD - 23 and 30) trained in ISI discrimination showed evidence of enhanced cross-modal influence of the short CS-US pairing upon long CS conditioning relative to older subjects. ISI discrimination training at PD43-47 yielded outcomes similar to those in adults (PD65-71). Cross-modal transfer effects in this task therefore appear to diminish between PD30 and PD43-47. Comparisons of ISI discrimination with temporal uncertainty indicated that cross-modal transfer in ISI discrimination at the youngest ages did not represent complete generalization across CSs. ISI discrimination undergoes a more protracted developmental emergence than single-cue EBC and may be a more sensitive indicator of developmental disorders involving cerebellar dysfunction. PMID:18726989

Does attention play a role in dynamic receptive field adaptation to changing acoustic salience in A1?

PubMed

Fritz, Jonathan B; Elhilali, Mounya; David, Stephen V; Shamma, Shihab A

2007-07-01

Acoustic filter properties of A1 neurons can dynamically adapt to stimulus statistics, classical conditioning, instrumental learning and the changing auditory attentional focus. We have recently developed an experimental paradigm that allows us to view cortical receptive field plasticity on-line as the animal meets different behavioral challenges by attending to salient acoustic cues and changing its cortical filters to enhance performance. We propose that attention is the key trigger that initiates a cascade of events leading to the dynamic receptive field changes that we observe. In our paradigm, ferrets were initially trained, using conditioned avoidance training techniques, to discriminate between background noise stimuli (temporally orthogonal ripple combinations) and foreground tonal target stimuli. They learned to generalize the task for a wide variety of distinct background and foreground target stimuli. We recorded cortical activity in the awake behaving animal and computed on-line spectrotemporal receptive fields (STRFs) of single neurons in A1. We observed clear, predictable task-related changes in STRF shape while the animal performed spectral tasks (including single tone and multi-tone detection, and two-tone discrimination) with different tonal targets. A different set of task-related changes occurred when the animal performed temporal tasks (including gap detection and click-rate discrimination). Distinctive cortical STRF changes may constitute a "task-specific signature". These spectral and temporal changes in cortical filters occur quite rapidly, within 2min of task onset, and fade just as quickly after task completion, or in some cases, persisted for hours. The same cell could multiplex by differentially changing its receptive field in different task conditions. On-line dynamic task-related changes, as well as persistent plastic changes, were observed at a single-unit, multi-unit and population level. Auditory attention is likely to be pivotal in mediating these task-related changes since the magnitude of STRF changes correlated with behavioral performance on tasks with novel targets. Overall, these results suggest the presence of an attention-triggered plasticity algorithm in A1 that can swiftly change STRF shape by transforming receptive fields to enhance figure/ground separation, by using a contrast matched filter to filter out the background, while simultaneously enhancing the salient acoustic target in the foreground. These results favor the view of a nimble, dynamic, attentive and adaptive brain that can quickly reshape its sensory filter properties and sensori-motor links on a moment-to-moment basis, depending upon the current challenges the animal faces. In this review, we summarize our results in the context of a broader survey of the field of auditory attention, and then consider neuronal networks that could give rise to this phenomenon of attention-driven receptive field plasticity in A1.

Schizophrenia, culture and neuropsychology: sensory deficits, language impairments and social functioning in Chinese-speaking schizophrenia patients.

PubMed

Yang, L; Chen, S; Chen, C-M; Khan, F; Forchelli, G; Javitt, D C

2012-07-01

While 20% of schizophrenia patients worldwide speak tonal languages (e.g. Mandarin), studies are limited to Western-language patients. Western-language patients show tonal deficits that are related to impaired emotional processing of speech. However, language processing is minimally affected. In contrast, in Mandarin, syllables are voiced in one of four tones, with word meaning varying accordingly. We hypothesized that Mandarin-speaking schizophrenia patients would show impairments in underlying basic auditory processing that, unlike in Western groups, would relate to deficits in word recognition and social outcomes. Altogether, 22 Mandarin-speaking schizophrenia patients and 44 matched healthy participants were recruited from New York City. The auditory tasks were: (1) tone matching; (2) distorted tunes; (3) Chinese word discrimination; (4) Chinese word identification. Social outcomes were measured by marital status, employment and most recent employment status. Patients showed deficits in tone-matching, distorted tunes, word discrimination and word identification versus controls (all p<0.0001). Impairments in tone-matching across groups correlated with both word identification (p<0.0001) and discrimination (p<0.0001). On social outcomes, tonally impaired patients had 'lower-status' jobs overall when compared with tonally intact patients (p<0.005) and controls (p<0.0001). Our study is the first to investigate an interaction between neuropsychology and language among Mandarin-speaking schizophrenia patients. As predicted, patients were highly impaired in both tone and auditory word processing, with these two measures significantly correlated. Tonally impaired patients showed significantly worse employment-status function than tonally intact patients, suggesting a link between sensory impairment and employment status outcome. While neuropsychological deficits appear similar cross-culturally, their consequences may be language- and culture-dependent.

Effects of brief discrimination-training on the auditory N1 wave.

PubMed

Brattico, Elvira; Tervaniemi, Mari; Picton, Terence W

2003-12-19

We determined whether the human N1 evoked by tones with different frequencies might be affected by a brief discrimination-training at one specific frequency. During 1 h training, subjects learned to discriminate a 1062 Hz tone from another tone. Before and after training, subjects heard for 26 min tones with a frequency of 1000 Hz, replaced every sixth one by test tones with frequencies randomly and equiprobably chosen as 835, 886, 941, 1000, 1062, 1128 or 1198 Hz. The N1 to the test tone was larger when its frequency was further from the repeating frequency. After training N1 s were attenuated to all tones except the trained and repeated ones, indicating a refractory frequency effect, long-term habituation, and sensitization to the repeated and trained tones.

The effects of real and illusory glides on pure-tone frequency discrimination.

PubMed

Lyzenga, J; Carlyon, R P; Moore, B C J

2004-07-01

Experiment 1 measured pure-tone frequency difference limens (DLs) at 1 and 4 kHz. The stimuli had two steady-state portions, which differed in frequency for the target. These portions were separated by a middle section of varying length, which consisted of a silent gap, a frequency glide, or a noise burst (conditions: gap, glide, and noise, respectively). The noise burst created an illusion of the tone continuing through the gap. In the first condition, the stimuli had an overall duration of 500 ms. In the second condition, stimuli had a fixed 50-ms middle section, and the overall duration was varied. DLs were lower for the glide than for the gap condition, consistent with the idea that the auditory system contains a mechanism specific for the detection of dynamic changes. DLs were generally lower for the noise than for the gap condition, suggesting that this mechanism extracts information from an illusory glide. In a second experiment, pure-tone frequency direction-discrimination thresholds were measured using similar stimuli as for the first experiment. For this task, the type of the middle section hardly affected the thresholds, suggesting that the frequency-change detection mechanism does not facilitate the identification of the direction of frequency changes.

Adapted wavelet transform improves time-frequency representations: a study of auditory elicited P300-like event-related potentials in rats.

PubMed

Richard, Nelly; Laursen, Bettina; Grupe, Morten; Drewes, Asbjørn M; Graversen, Carina; Sørensen, Helge B D; Bastlund, Jesper F

2017-04-01

Active auditory oddball paradigms are simple tone discrimination tasks used to study the P300 deflection of event-related potentials (ERPs). These ERPs may be quantified by time-frequency analysis. As auditory stimuli cause early high frequency and late low frequency ERP oscillations, the continuous wavelet transform (CWT) is often chosen for decomposition due to its multi-resolution properties. However, as the conventional CWT traditionally applies only one mother wavelet to represent the entire spectrum, the time-frequency resolution is not optimal across all scales. To account for this, we developed and validated a novel method specifically refined to analyse P300-like ERPs in rats. An adapted CWT (aCWT) was implemented to preserve high time-frequency resolution across all scales by commissioning of multiple wavelets operating at different scales. First, decomposition of simulated ERPs was illustrated using the classical CWT and the aCWT. Next, the two methods were applied to EEG recordings obtained from prefrontal cortex in rats performing a two-tone auditory discrimination task. While only early ERP frequency changes between responses to target and non-target tones were detected by the CWT, both early and late changes were successfully described with strong accuracy by the aCWT in rat ERPs. Increased frontal gamma power and phase synchrony was observed particularly within theta and gamma frequency bands during deviant tones. The study suggests superior performance of the aCWT over the CWT in terms of detailed quantification of time-frequency properties of ERPs. Our methodological investigation indicates that accurate and complete assessment of time-frequency components of short-time neural signals is feasible with the novel analysis approach which may be advantageous for characterisation of several types of evoked potentials in particularly rodents.

Age, dyslexia subtype and comorbidity modulate rapid auditory processing in developmental dyslexia.

PubMed

Lorusso, Maria Luisa; Cantiani, Chiara; Molteni, Massimo

2014-01-01

The nature of Rapid Auditory Processing (RAP) deficits in dyslexia remains debated, together with the specificity of the problem to certain types of stimuli and/or restricted subgroups of individuals. Following the hypothesis that the heterogeneity of the dyslexic population may have led to contrasting results, the aim of the study was to define the effect of age, dyslexia subtype and comorbidity on the discrimination and reproduction of non-verbal tone sequences. Participants were 46 children aged 8-14 (26 with dyslexia, subdivided according to age, presence of a previous language delay, and type of dyslexia). Experimental tasks were a Temporal Order Judgment (TOJ) (manipulating tone length, ISI and sequence length), and a Pattern Discrimination Task. Dyslexic children showed general RAP deficits. Tone length and ISI influenced dyslexic and control children's performance in a similar way, but dyslexic children were more affected by an increase from 2 to 5 sounds. As to age, older dyslexic children's difficulty in reproducing sequences of 4 and 5 tones was similar to that of normally reading younger (but not older) children. In the analysis of subgroup profiles, the crucial variable appears to be the advantage, or lack thereof, in processing long vs. short sounds. Dyslexic children with a previous language delay obtained the lowest scores in RAP measures, but they performed worse with shorter stimuli, similar to control children, while dyslexic-only children showed no advantage for longer stimuli. As to dyslexia subtype, only surface dyslexics improved their performance with longer stimuli, while phonological dyslexics did not. Differential scores for short vs. long tones and for long vs. short ISIs predict non-word and word reading, respectively, and the former correlate with phonemic awareness. In conclusion, the relationship between non-verbal RAP, phonemic skills and reading abilities appears to be characterized by complex interactions with subgroup characteristics.

Age, dyslexia subtype and comorbidity modulate rapid auditory processing in developmental dyslexia

PubMed Central

Lorusso, Maria Luisa; Cantiani, Chiara; Molteni, Massimo

2014-01-01

The nature of Rapid Auditory Processing (RAP) deficits in dyslexia remains debated, together with the specificity of the problem to certain types of stimuli and/or restricted subgroups of individuals. Following the hypothesis that the heterogeneity of the dyslexic population may have led to contrasting results, the aim of the study was to define the effect of age, dyslexia subtype and comorbidity on the discrimination and reproduction of non-verbal tone sequences. Participants were 46 children aged 8–14 (26 with dyslexia, subdivided according to age, presence of a previous language delay, and type of dyslexia). Experimental tasks were a Temporal Order Judgment (TOJ) (manipulating tone length, ISI and sequence length), and a Pattern Discrimination Task. Dyslexic children showed general RAP deficits. Tone length and ISI influenced dyslexic and control children's performance in a similar way, but dyslexic children were more affected by an increase from 2 to 5 sounds. As to age, older dyslexic children's difficulty in reproducing sequences of 4 and 5 tones was similar to that of normally reading younger (but not older) children. In the analysis of subgroup profiles, the crucial variable appears to be the advantage, or lack thereof, in processing long vs. short sounds. Dyslexic children with a previous language delay obtained the lowest scores in RAP measures, but they performed worse with shorter stimuli, similar to control children, while dyslexic-only children showed no advantage for longer stimuli. As to dyslexia subtype, only surface dyslexics improved their performance with longer stimuli, while phonological dyslexics did not. Differential scores for short vs. long tones and for long vs. short ISIs predict non-word and word reading, respectively, and the former correlate with phonemic awareness. In conclusion, the relationship between non-verbal RAP, phonemic skills and reading abilities appears to be characterized by complex interactions with subgroup characteristics. PMID:24904356

Visual perceptual load induces inattentional deafness.

PubMed

Macdonald, James S P; Lavie, Nilli

2011-08-01

In this article, we establish a new phenomenon of "inattentional deafness" and highlight the level of load on visual attention as a critical determinant of this phenomenon. In three experiments, we modified an inattentional blindness paradigm to assess inattentional deafness. Participants made either a low- or high-load visual discrimination concerning a cross shape (respectively, a discrimination of line color or of line length with a subtle length difference). A brief pure tone was presented simultaneously with the visual task display on a final trial. Failures to notice the presence of this tone (i.e., inattentional deafness) reached a rate of 79% in the high-visual-load condition, significantly more than in the low-load condition. These findings establish the phenomenon of inattentional deafness under visual load, thereby extending the load theory of attention (e.g., Lavie, Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance, 25, 596-616, 1995) to address the cross-modal effects of visual perceptual load.

Musical experience and Mandarin tone discrimination and imitation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gottfried, Terry L.; Staby, Ann M.; Ziemer, Christine J.

2004-05-01

Previous work [T. L. Gottfried and D. Riester, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 108, 2604 (2000)] showed that native speakers of American English with musical training performed better than nonmusicians when identifying the four distinctive tones of Mandarin Chinese (high-level, mid-rising, low-dipping, high-falling). Accuracy for both groups was relatively low since listeners were not trained on the phonemic contrasts. Current research compares musicians and nonmusicians on discrimination and imitation of unfamiliar tones. Listeners were presented with two different Mandarin words that had either the same or different tones; listeners indicated whether the tones were same or different. Thus, they were required to determine a categorical match (same or different tone), rather than an auditory match. All listeners had significantly more difficulty discriminating between mid-rising and low-dipping tones than with other contrasts. Listeners with more musical training showed significantly greater accuracy in their discrimination. Likewise, musicians' spoken imitations of Mandarin tones (model tokens presented by a native speaker) were rated as significantly more native-like than those of nonmusicians. These findings suggest that musicians may have abilities or training that facilitate their perception and production of Mandarin tones. However, further research is needed to determine whether this advantage transfers to language learning situations.

A comparison of skin tone discrimination among African American men: 1995 and 2003

PubMed Central

Uzogara, Ekeoma E.; Lee, Hedwig; Abdou, Cleopatra M.; Jackson, James S.

2015-01-01

This study investigated perceptions of skin tone discrimination among adult African American men. Research suggests that through negative African American stereotypes, out-group members (Whites) perceive light-skinned African Americans favorably and dark-skinned African Americans unfavorably. However, it is unclear how treatment by in-group members (other African Americans) uniquely affects men. Using data from the 1995 Detroit Area Study and the 2003 National Survey of American Life, we investigated these relationships among African American men representing a wide range of socioeconomic groups. We found that African American men’s perceptions of out-group and in-group treatment, respectively, were similar across time. Light-skinned men perceived the least out-group discrimination while dark-skinned men perceived the most out-group discrimination. In appraisals of skin tone discrimination from in-group members, medium-skinned men perceived the least discrimination while both light- and dark-skinned men perceived more in-group discrimination. Additionally, men of lower social economic groups were more affected by skin tone bias than others. Future research should explore the influence of these out- and in-group experiences of skin tone discrimination on social and psychological functioning of African American men. PMID:25798076

Pitch perception and production in congenital amusia: Evidence from Cantonese speakers.

PubMed

Liu, Fang; Chan, Alice H D; Ciocca, Valter; Roquet, Catherine; Peretz, Isabelle; Wong, Patrick C M

2016-07-01

This study investigated pitch perception and production in speech and music in individuals with congenital amusia (a disorder of musical pitch processing) who are native speakers of Cantonese, a tone language with a highly complex tonal system. Sixteen Cantonese-speaking congenital amusics and 16 controls performed a set of lexical tone perception, production, singing, and psychophysical pitch threshold tasks. Their tone production accuracy and singing proficiency were subsequently judged by independent listeners, and subjected to acoustic analyses. Relative to controls, amusics showed impaired discrimination of lexical tones in both speech and non-speech conditions. They also received lower ratings for singing proficiency, producing larger pitch interval deviations and making more pitch interval errors compared to controls. Demonstrating higher pitch direction identification thresholds than controls for both speech syllables and piano tones, amusics nevertheless produced native lexical tones with comparable pitch trajectories and intelligibility as controls. Significant correlations were found between pitch threshold and lexical tone perception, music perception and production, but not between lexical tone perception and production for amusics. These findings provide further evidence that congenital amusia is a domain-general language-independent pitch-processing deficit that is associated with severely impaired music perception and production, mildly impaired speech perception, and largely intact speech production.

Pitch perception and production in congenital amusia: Evidence from Cantonese speakers

PubMed Central

Liu, Fang; Chan, Alice H. D.; Ciocca, Valter; Roquet, Catherine; Peretz, Isabelle; Wong, Patrick C. M.

2016-01-01

This study investigated pitch perception and production in speech and music in individuals with congenital amusia (a disorder of musical pitch processing) who are native speakers of Cantonese, a tone language with a highly complex tonal system. Sixteen Cantonese-speaking congenital amusics and 16 controls performed a set of lexical tone perception, production, singing, and psychophysical pitch threshold tasks. Their tone production accuracy and singing proficiency were subsequently judged by independent listeners, and subjected to acoustic analyses. Relative to controls, amusics showed impaired discrimination of lexical tones in both speech and non-speech conditions. They also received lower ratings for singing proficiency, producing larger pitch interval deviations and making more pitch interval errors compared to controls. Demonstrating higher pitch direction identification thresholds than controls for both speech syllables and piano tones, amusics nevertheless produced native lexical tones with comparable pitch trajectories and intelligibility as controls. Significant correlations were found between pitch threshold and lexical tone perception, music perception and production, but not between lexical tone perception and production for amusics. These findings provide further evidence that congenital amusia is a domain-general language-independent pitch-processing deficit that is associated with severely impaired music perception and production, mildly impaired speech perception, and largely intact speech production. PMID:27475178

Suppression of the µ Rhythm during Speech and Non-Speech Discrimination Revealed by Independent Component Analysis: Implications for Sensorimotor Integration in Speech Processing

PubMed Central

Bowers, Andrew; Saltuklaroglu, Tim; Harkrider, Ashley; Cuellar, Megan

2013-01-01

Background Constructivist theories propose that articulatory hypotheses about incoming phonetic targets may function to enhance perception by limiting the possibilities for sensory analysis. To provide evidence for this proposal, it is necessary to map ongoing, high-temporal resolution changes in sensorimotor activity (i.e., the sensorimotor μ rhythm) to accurate speech and non-speech discrimination performance (i.e., correct trials.) Methods Sixteen participants (15 female and 1 male) were asked to passively listen to or actively identify speech and tone-sweeps in a two-force choice discrimination task while the electroencephalograph (EEG) was recorded from 32 channels. The stimuli were presented at signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) in which discrimination accuracy was high (i.e., 80–100%) and low SNRs producing discrimination performance at chance. EEG data were decomposed using independent component analysis and clustered across participants using principle component methods in EEGLAB. Results ICA revealed left and right sensorimotor µ components for 14/16 and 13/16 participants respectively that were identified on the basis of scalp topography, spectral peaks, and localization to the precentral and postcentral gyri. Time-frequency analysis of left and right lateralized µ component clusters revealed significant (pFDR<.05) suppression in the traditional beta frequency range (13–30 Hz) prior to, during, and following syllable discrimination trials. No significant differences from baseline were found for passive tasks. Tone conditions produced right µ beta suppression following stimulus onset only. For the left µ, significant differences in the magnitude of beta suppression were found for correct speech discrimination trials relative to chance trials following stimulus offset. Conclusions Findings are consistent with constructivist, internal model theories proposing that early forward motor models generate predictions about likely phonemic units that are then synthesized with incoming sensory cues during active as opposed to passive processing. Future directions and possible translational value for clinical populations in which sensorimotor integration may play a functional role are discussed. PMID:23991030

Suppression of the µ rhythm during speech and non-speech discrimination revealed by independent component analysis: implications for sensorimotor integration in speech processing.

PubMed

Bowers, Andrew; Saltuklaroglu, Tim; Harkrider, Ashley; Cuellar, Megan

2013-01-01

Constructivist theories propose that articulatory hypotheses about incoming phonetic targets may function to enhance perception by limiting the possibilities for sensory analysis. To provide evidence for this proposal, it is necessary to map ongoing, high-temporal resolution changes in sensorimotor activity (i.e., the sensorimotor μ rhythm) to accurate speech and non-speech discrimination performance (i.e., correct trials.). Sixteen participants (15 female and 1 male) were asked to passively listen to or actively identify speech and tone-sweeps in a two-force choice discrimination task while the electroencephalograph (EEG) was recorded from 32 channels. The stimuli were presented at signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) in which discrimination accuracy was high (i.e., 80-100%) and low SNRs producing discrimination performance at chance. EEG data were decomposed using independent component analysis and clustered across participants using principle component methods in EEGLAB. ICA revealed left and right sensorimotor µ components for 14/16 and 13/16 participants respectively that were identified on the basis of scalp topography, spectral peaks, and localization to the precentral and postcentral gyri. Time-frequency analysis of left and right lateralized µ component clusters revealed significant (pFDR<.05) suppression in the traditional beta frequency range (13-30 Hz) prior to, during, and following syllable discrimination trials. No significant differences from baseline were found for passive tasks. Tone conditions produced right µ beta suppression following stimulus onset only. For the left µ, significant differences in the magnitude of beta suppression were found for correct speech discrimination trials relative to chance trials following stimulus offset. Findings are consistent with constructivist, internal model theories proposing that early forward motor models generate predictions about likely phonemic units that are then synthesized with incoming sensory cues during active as opposed to passive processing. Future directions and possible translational value for clinical populations in which sensorimotor integration may play a functional role are discussed.

Relating age and hearing loss to monaural, bilateral, and binaural temporal sensitivity1

PubMed Central

Gallun, Frederick J.; McMillan, Garnett P.; Molis, Michelle R.; Kampel, Sean D.; Dann, Serena M.; Konrad-Martin, Dawn L.

2014-01-01

Older listeners are more likely than younger listeners to have difficulties in making temporal discriminations among auditory stimuli presented to one or both ears. In addition, the performance of older listeners is often observed to be more variable than that of younger listeners. The aim of this work was to relate age and hearing loss to temporal processing ability in a group of younger and older listeners with a range of hearing thresholds. Seventy-eight listeners were tested on a set of three temporal discrimination tasks (monaural gap discrimination, bilateral gap discrimination, and binaural discrimination of interaural differences in time). To examine the role of temporal fine structure in these tasks, four types of brief stimuli were used: tone bursts, broad-frequency chirps with rising or falling frequency contours, and random-phase noise bursts. Between-subject group analyses conducted separately for each task revealed substantial increases in temporal thresholds for the older listeners across all three tasks, regardless of stimulus type, as well as significant correlations among the performance of individual listeners across most combinations of tasks and stimuli. Differences in performance were associated with the stimuli in the monaural and binaural tasks, but not the bilateral task. Temporal fine structure differences among the stimuli had the greatest impact on monaural thresholds. Threshold estimate values across all tasks and stimuli did not show any greater variability for the older listeners as compared to the younger listeners. A linear mixed model applied to the data suggested that age and hearing loss are independent factors responsible for temporal processing ability, thus supporting the increasingly accepted hypothesis that temporal processing can be impaired for older compared to younger listeners with similar hearing and/or amounts of hearing loss. PMID:25009458

Feedback Valence Affects Auditory Perceptual Learning Independently of Feedback Probability

PubMed Central

Amitay, Sygal; Moore, David R.; Molloy, Katharine; Halliday, Lorna F.

2015-01-01

Previous studies have suggested that negative feedback is more effective in driving learning than positive feedback. We investigated the effect on learning of providing varying amounts of negative and positive feedback while listeners attempted to discriminate between three identical tones; an impossible task that nevertheless produces robust learning. Four feedback conditions were compared during training: 90% positive feedback or 10% negative feedback informed the participants that they were doing equally well, while 10% positive or 90% negative feedback informed them they were doing equally badly. In all conditions the feedback was random in relation to the listeners’ responses (because the task was to discriminate three identical tones), yet both the valence (negative vs. positive) and the probability of feedback (10% vs. 90%) affected learning. Feedback that informed listeners they were doing badly resulted in better post-training performance than feedback that informed them they were doing well, independent of valence. In addition, positive feedback during training resulted in better post-training performance than negative feedback, but only positive feedback indicating listeners were doing badly on the task resulted in learning. As we have previously speculated, feedback that better reflected the difficulty of the task was more effective in driving learning than feedback that suggested performance was better than it should have been given perceived task difficulty. But contrary to expectations, positive feedback was more effective than negative feedback in driving learning. Feedback thus had two separable effects on learning: feedback valence affected motivation on a subjectively difficult task, and learning occurred only when feedback probability reflected the subjective difficulty. To optimize learning, training programs need to take into consideration both feedback valence and probability. PMID:25946173

The effects of ethnicity, musicianship, and tone language experience on pitch perception.

PubMed

Zheng, Yi; Samuel, Arthur G

2018-02-01

Language and music are intertwined: music training can facilitate language abilities, and language experiences can also help with some music tasks. Possible language-music transfer effects are explored in two experiments in this study. In Experiment 1, we tested native Mandarin, Korean, and English speakers on a pitch discrimination task with two types of sounds: speech sounds and fundamental frequency (F0) patterns derived from speech sounds. To control for factors that might influence participants' performance, we included cognitive ability tasks testing memory and intelligence. In addition, two music skill tasks were used to examine general transfer effects from language to music. Prior studies showing that tone language speakers have an advantage on pitch tasks have been taken as support for three alternative hypotheses: specific transfer effects, general transfer effects, and an ethnicity effect. In Experiment 1, musicians outperformed non-musicians on both speech and F0 sounds, suggesting a music-to-language transfer effect. Korean and Mandarin speakers performed similarly, and they both outperformed English speakers, providing some evidence for an ethnicity effect. Alternatively, this could be due to population selection bias. In Experiment 2, we recruited Chinese Americans approximating the native English speakers' language background to further test the ethnicity effect. Chinese Americans, regardless of their tone language experiences, performed similarly to their non-Asian American counterparts in all tasks. Therefore, although this study provides additional evidence of transfer effects across music and language, it casts doubt on the contribution of ethnicity to differences observed in pitch perception and general music abilities.

Evaluating the Precision of Auditory Sensory Memory as an Index of Intrusion in Tinnitus.

PubMed

Barrett, Doug J K; Pilling, Michael

The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential of measures of auditory short-term memory (ASTM) to provide a clinical measure of intrusion in tinnitus. Response functions for six normal listeners on a delayed pitch discrimination task were contrasted in three conditions designed to manipulate attention in the presence and absence of simulated tinnitus: (1) no-tinnitus, (2) ignore-tinnitus, and (3) attend-tinnitus. Delayed pitch discrimination functions were more variable in the presence of simulated tinnitus when listeners were asked to divide attention between the primary task and the amplitude of the tinnitus tone. Changes in the variability of auditory short-term memory may provide a novel means of quantifying the level of intrusion associated with the tinnitus percept during listening.

Effects of sensorineural hearing loss on temporal coding of harmonic and inharmonic tone complexes in the auditory nerve

PubMed Central

Kale, Sushrut; Micheyl, Christophe; Heinz, Michael G.

2013-01-01

Listeners with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) often show poorer thresholds for fundamental-frequency (F0) discrimination, and poorer discrimination between harmonic and frequency-shifted (inharmonic) complex tones, than normal-hearing (NH) listeners—especially when these tones contain resolved or partially resolved components. It has been suggested that these perceptual deficits reflect reduced access to temporal-fine-structure (TFS) information, and could be due to degraded phase-locking in the auditory nerve (AN) with SNHL. In the present study, TFS and temporal-envelope (ENV) cues in single AN-fiber responses to bandpass-filtered harmonic and inharmonic complex tones were measured in chinchillas with either normal hearing or noise-induced SNHL. The stimuli were comparable to those used in recent psychophysical studies of F0 and harmonic/inharmonic discrimination. As in those studies, the rank of the center component was manipulated to produce different resolvability conditions, different phase relationships (cosine and random phase) were tested, and background noise was present. Neural TFS and ENV cues were quantified using cross-correlation coefficients computed using shuffled cross-correlograms between neural responses to REF (harmonic) and TEST (F0- or frequency-shifted) stimuli. In animals with SNHL, AN-fiber tuning curves showed elevated thresholds, broadened tuning, best-frequency shifts, and downward shifts in the dominant TFS response component; however, no significant degradation in the ability of AN fibers to encode TFS or ENV cues was found. Consistent with optimal-observer analyses, the results indicate that TFS and ENV cues depended only on the relevant frequency shift in Hz and thus were not degraded because phase-locking remained intact. These results suggest that perceptual “TFS-processing” deficits do not simply reflect degraded phase-locking at the level of the AN. To the extent that performance in F0 and harmonic/inharmonic discrimination tasks depend on TFS cues, it is likely through a more complicated (sub-optimal) decoding mechanism, which may involve “spatiotemporal” (place-time) neural representations. PMID:23716215

Decision strategies of hearing-impaired listeners in spectral shape discrimination

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lentz, Jennifer J.; Leek, Marjorie R.

2002-03-01

The ability to discriminate between sounds with different spectral shapes was evaluated for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners. Listeners detected a 920-Hz tone added in phase to a single component of a standard consisting of the sum of five tones spaced equally on a logarithmic frequency scale ranging from 200 to 4200 Hz. An overall level randomization of 10 dB was either present or absent. In one subset of conditions, the no-perturbation conditions, the standard stimulus was the sum of equal-amplitude tones. In the perturbation conditions, the amplitudes of the components within a stimulus were randomly altered on every presentation. For both perturbation and no-perturbation conditions, thresholds for the detection of the 920-Hz tone were measured to compare sensitivity to changes in spectral shape between normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners. To assess whether hearing-impaired listeners relied on different regions of the spectrum to discriminate between sounds, spectral weights were estimated from the perturbed standards by correlating the listener's responses with the level differences per component across two intervals of a two-alternative forced-choice task. Results showed that hearing-impaired and normal-hearing listeners had similar sensitivity to changes in spectral shape. On average, across-frequency correlation functions also were similar for both groups of listeners, suggesting that as long as all components are audible and well separated in frequency, hearing-impaired listeners can use information across frequency as well as normal-hearing listeners. Analysis of the individual data revealed, however, that normal-hearing listeners may be better able to adopt optimal weighting schemes. This conclusion is only tentative, as differences in internal noise may need to be considered to interpret the results obtained from weighting studies between normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners.

Categorical perception of intonation contrasts: effects of listeners' language background.

PubMed

Liu, Chang; Rodriguez, Amanda

2012-06-01

Intonation perception of English speech was examined for English- and Chinese-native listeners. F0 contour was manipulated from falling to rising patterns for the final words of three sentences. Listener's task was to identify and discriminate the intonation of each sentence (question versus statement). English and Chinese listeners had significant differences in the identification functions such as the categorical boundary and the slope. In the discrimination functions, Chinese listeners showed greater peakedness than English peers. The cross-linguistic differences in intonation perception were similar to the previous findings in perception of lexical tones, likely due to listeners' language background differences.

Evaluation of selected auditory tests in school-age children suspected of auditory processing disorders.

PubMed

Vanniasegaram, Iyngaram; Cohen, Mazal; Rosen, Stuart

2004-12-01

To compare the auditory function of normal-hearing children attending mainstream schools who were referred for an auditory evaluation because of listening/hearing problems (suspected auditory processing disorders [susAPD]) with that of normal-hearing control children. Sixty-five children with a normal standard audiometric evaluation, ages 6-14 yr (32 of whom were referred for susAPD, with the rest age-matched control children), completed a battery of four auditory tests: a dichotic test of competing sentences; a simple discrimination of short tone pairs differing in fundamental frequency at varying interstimulus intervals (TDT); a discrimination task using consonant cluster minimal pairs of real words (CCMP), and an adaptive threshold task for detecting a brief tone presented either simultaneously with a masker (simultaneous masking) or immediately preceding it (backward masking). Regression analyses, including age as a covariate, were performed to determine the extent to which the performance of the two groups differed on each task. Age-corrected z-scores were calculated to evaluate the effectiveness of the complete battery in discriminating the groups. The performance of the susAPD group was significantly poorer than the control group on all but the masking tasks, which failed to differentiate the two groups. The CCMP discriminated the groups most effectively, as it yielded the lowest number of control children with abnormal scores, and performance in both groups was independent of age. By contrast, the proportion of control children who performed poorly on the competing sentences test was unacceptably high. Together, the CCMP (verbal) and TDT (nonverbal) tasks detected impaired listening skills in 56% of the children who were referred to the clinic, compared with 6% of the control children. Performance on the two tasks was not correlated. Two of the four tests evaluated, the CCMP and TDT, proved effective in differentiating the two groups of children of this study. The application of both tests increased the proportion of susAPD children who performed poorly compared with the application of each test alone, while reducing the proportion of control subjects who performed poorly. The findings highlight the importance of carrying out a complete auditory evaluation in children referred for medical attention, even if their standard audiometric evaluation is unremarkable.

Music-to-language transfer effect: may melodic ability improve learning of tonal languages by native nontonal speakers?

PubMed

Delogu, Franco; Lampis, Giulia; Olivetti Belardinelli, Marta

2006-09-01

In tonal languages, as Mandarin Chinese and Thai, word meaning is partially determined by lexical tones. Previous studies suggest that lexical tones are processed by native listeners as linguistic information and not as pure tonal information. This study aims at verifying if, in nontonal languages speakers, the discrimination of lexical Mandarin tones varies in function of the melodic ability. Forty-six students with no previous experience of Mandarin or any other tonal language were presented with two short lists of spoken monosyllabic Mandarin words and invited to perform a same-different task trying to identify whether the variation were phonological or tonal. Main results show that subjects perform significantly better in identifying phonological variations rather than tonal ones and interestingly, the group with a high melodic ability (assessed by Wing subtest 3) shows a better performance exclusively in detecting tonal variations.

Musically Tone-Deaf Individuals Have Difficulty Discriminating Intonation Contours Extracted from Speech

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Patel, Aniruddh D.; Foxton, Jessica M.; Griffiths, Timothy D.

2005-01-01

Musically tone-deaf individuals have psychophysical deficits in detecting pitch changes, yet their discrimination of intonation contours in speech appears to be normal. One hypothesis for this dissociation is that intonation contours use coarse pitch contrasts which exceed the pitch-change detection thresholds of tone-deaf individuals (Peretz &…

Musically tone-deaf individuals have difficulty discriminating intonation contours extracted from speech.

PubMed

Patel, Aniruddh D; Foxton, Jessica M; Griffiths, Timothy D

2005-12-01

Musically tone-deaf individuals have psychophysical deficits in detecting pitch changes, yet their discrimination of intonation contours in speech appears to be normal. One hypothesis for this dissociation is that intonation contours use coarse pitch contrasts which exceed the pitch-change detection thresholds of tone-deaf individuals (). We test this idea by presenting intonation contours for discrimination, both in the context of the original sentences in which they occur and in a "pure" form dissociated from any phonetic context. The pure form consists of gliding-pitch analogs of the original intonation contours which exactly follow their pattern of pitch and timing. If the spared intonation perception of tone-deaf individuals is due to the coarse pitch contrasts of intonation, then such individuals should discriminate the original sentences and the gliding-pitch analogs equally well. In contrast, we find that discrimination of the gliding-pitch analogs is severely degraded. Thus it appears that the dissociation between spoken and musical pitch perception in tone-deaf individuals is due to a deficit at a higher level than simple pitch-change detection.

Short-term visual deprivation reduces interference effects of task-irrelevant facial expressions on affective prosody judgments

PubMed Central

Fengler, Ineke; Nava, Elena; Röder, Brigitte

2015-01-01

Several studies have suggested that neuroplasticity can be triggered by short-term visual deprivation in healthy adults. Specifically, these studies have provided evidence that visual deprivation reversibly affects basic perceptual abilities. The present study investigated the long-lasting effects of short-term visual deprivation on emotion perception. To this aim, we visually deprived a group of young healthy adults, age-matched with a group of non-deprived controls, for 3 h and tested them before and after visual deprivation (i.e., after 8 h on average and at 4 week follow-up) on an audio–visual (i.e., faces and voices) emotion discrimination task. To observe changes at the level of basic perceptual skills, we additionally employed a simple audio–visual (i.e., tone bursts and light flashes) discrimination task and two unimodal (one auditory and one visual) perceptual threshold measures. During the 3 h period, both groups performed a series of auditory tasks. To exclude the possibility that changes in emotion discrimination may emerge as a consequence of the exposure to auditory stimulation during the 3 h stay in the dark, we visually deprived an additional group of age-matched participants who concurrently performed unrelated (i.e., tactile) tasks to the later tested abilities. The two visually deprived groups showed enhanced affective prosodic discrimination abilities in the context of incongruent facial expressions following the period of visual deprivation; this effect was partially maintained until follow-up. By contrast, no changes were observed in affective facial expression discrimination and in the basic perception tasks in any group. These findings suggest that short-term visual deprivation per se triggers a reweighting of visual and auditory emotional cues, which seems to possibly prevail for longer durations. PMID:25954166

Adapted wavelet transform improves time-frequency representations: a study of auditory elicited P300-like event-related potentials in rats

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Richard, Nelly; Laursen, Bettina; Grupe, Morten; Drewes, Asbjørn M.; Graversen, Carina; Sørensen, Helge B. D.; Bastlund, Jesper F.

2017-04-01

Objective. Active auditory oddball paradigms are simple tone discrimination tasks used to study the P300 deflection of event-related potentials (ERPs). These ERPs may be quantified by time-frequency analysis. As auditory stimuli cause early high frequency and late low frequency ERP oscillations, the continuous wavelet transform (CWT) is often chosen for decomposition due to its multi-resolution properties. However, as the conventional CWT traditionally applies only one mother wavelet to represent the entire spectrum, the time-frequency resolution is not optimal across all scales. To account for this, we developed and validated a novel method specifically refined to analyse P300-like ERPs in rats. Approach. An adapted CWT (aCWT) was implemented to preserve high time-frequency resolution across all scales by commissioning of multiple wavelets operating at different scales. First, decomposition of simulated ERPs was illustrated using the classical CWT and the aCWT. Next, the two methods were applied to EEG recordings obtained from prefrontal cortex in rats performing a two-tone auditory discrimination task. Main results. While only early ERP frequency changes between responses to target and non-target tones were detected by the CWT, both early and late changes were successfully described with strong accuracy by the aCWT in rat ERPs. Increased frontal gamma power and phase synchrony was observed particularly within theta and gamma frequency bands during deviant tones. Significance. The study suggests superior performance of the aCWT over the CWT in terms of detailed quantification of time-frequency properties of ERPs. Our methodological investigation indicates that accurate and complete assessment of time-frequency components of short-time neural signals is feasible with the novel analysis approach which may be advantageous for characterisation of several types of evoked potentials in particularly rodents.

Auditory-Motor Processing of Speech Sounds

PubMed Central

Möttönen, Riikka; Dutton, Rebekah; Watkins, Kate E.

2013-01-01

The motor regions that control movements of the articulators activate during listening to speech and contribute to performance in demanding speech recognition and discrimination tasks. Whether the articulatory motor cortex modulates auditory processing of speech sounds is unknown. Here, we aimed to determine whether the articulatory motor cortex affects the auditory mechanisms underlying discrimination of speech sounds in the absence of demanding speech tasks. Using electroencephalography, we recorded responses to changes in sound sequences, while participants watched a silent video. We also disrupted the lip or the hand representation in left motor cortex using transcranial magnetic stimulation. Disruption of the lip representation suppressed responses to changes in speech sounds, but not piano tones. In contrast, disruption of the hand representation had no effect on responses to changes in speech sounds. These findings show that disruptions within, but not outside, the articulatory motor cortex impair automatic auditory discrimination of speech sounds. The findings provide evidence for the importance of auditory-motor processes in efficient neural analysis of speech sounds. PMID:22581846

Exploring the impact of skin tone on family dynamics and race-related outcomes.

PubMed

Landor, Antoinette M; Simons, Leslie Gordon; Simons, Ronald L; Brody, Gene H; Bryant, Chalandra M; Gibbons, Frederick X; Granberg, Ellen M; Melby, Janet N

2013-10-01

Racism has historically been a primary source of discrimination against African Americans, but there has been little research on the role that skin tone plays in explaining experiences with racism. Similarly, colorism within African American families and the ways in which skin tone influences family processes is an understudied area of research. Using data from a longitudinal sample of African American families (n = 767), we assessed whether skin tone impacted experiences with discrimination or was related to differences in quality of parenting and racial socialization within families. Findings indicated no link between skin tone and racial discrimination, which suggests that lightness or darkness of skin does not either protect African Americans from or exacerbate the experiences of discrimination. On the other hand, families displayed preferential treatment toward offspring based on skin tone, and these differences varied by gender of child. Specifically, darker skin sons received higher quality parenting and more racial socialization promoting mistrust compared to their counterparts with lighter skin. Lighter skin daughters received higher quality parenting compared with those with darker skin. In addition, gender of child moderated the association between primary caregiver skin tone and racial socialization promoting mistrust. These results suggest that colorism remains a salient issue within African American families. Implications for future research, prevention, and intervention are discussed.

Exploring the Impact of Skin Tone on Family Dynamics and Race-Related Outcomes

PubMed Central

Simons, Leslie Gordon; Simons, Ronald L.; Brody, Gene H.; Bryant, Chalandra M.; Gibbons, Frederick X.; Granberg, Ellen M.; Melby, Janet N.

2014-01-01

Racism has historically been a primary source of discrimination against African Americans but there has been little research on the role that skin tone plays in explaining experiences with racism. Similarly, colorism within African American families and the ways in which skin tone influences family processes is an understudied area of research. Utilizing data from a longitudinal sample of African American families (N= 767), we assessed whether skin tone impacted experiences with discrimination or was related to differences in quality of parenting and racial socialization within families. Findings indicated no link between skin tone and racial discrimination, which suggests that lightness or darkness of skin does not either protect African Americans from or exacerbate the experiences of discrimination. On the other hand, families displayed preferential treatment toward offspring based on skin tone and these differences varied by gender of child. Specifically, darker skin sons received higher quality parenting and more racial socialization promoting mistrust compared to their counterparts with lighter skin. Lighter skin daughters received higher quality parenting compared to those with darker skin. In addition, gender of child moderated the association between primary caregiver skin tone and racial socialization promoting mistrust. These results suggest that colorism remains a salient issue within African American families. Implications for future research, prevention and intervention are discussed. PMID:24040901

The Influence of Eye Closure on Somatosensory Discrimination: A Trade-off Between Simple Perception and Discrimination.

PubMed

Götz, Theresa; Hanke, David; Huonker, Ralph; Weiss, Thomas; Klingner, Carsten; Brodoehl, Stefan; Baumbach, Philipp; Witte, Otto W

2017-06-01

We often close our eyes to improve perception. Recent results have shown a decrease of perception thresholds accompanied by an increase in somatosensory activity after eye closure. However, does somatosensory spatial discrimination also benefit from eye closure? We previously showed that spatial discrimination is accompanied by a reduction of somatosensory activity. Using magnetoencephalography, we analyzed the magnitude of primary somatosensory (somatosensory P50m) and primary auditory activity (auditory P50m) during a one-back discrimination task in 21 healthy volunteers. In complete darkness, participants were requested to pay attention to either the somatosensory or auditory stimulation and asked to open or close their eyes every 6.5 min. Somatosensory P50m was reduced during a task requiring the distinguishing of stimulus location changes at the distal phalanges of different fingers. The somatosensory P50m was further reduced and detection performance was higher during eyes open. A similar reduction was found for the auditory P50m during a task requiring the distinguishing of changing tones. The function of eye closure is more than controlling visual input. It might be advantageous for perception because it is an effective way to reduce interference from other modalities, but disadvantageous for spatial discrimination because it requires at least one top-down processing stage. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Discrimination of Lexical Tones in the First Year of Life

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, Ao; Kager, René

2016-01-01

In the current study, we examined the developmental course of the perception of non-native tonal contrast. We tested 4, 6 and 12-month-old Dutch infants on their discrimination of Chinese low-rising tone and low-dipping tone using the visual fixation paradigm. The infants were tested in two conditions that differed in terms of degree of…

Functional correlates of brain aging: beta and gamma frequency band responses to age-related cortical changes.

PubMed

Christov, Mario; Dushanova, Juliana

2016-01-01

The brain as a system with gradually declined resources by age maximizes its performance by neural network reorganization for greater efficiency of neuronal oscillations in a given frequency band. Whether event-related high-frequency band responses are related to plasticity in neural recruitment contributed to the stability of sensory/cognitive mechanisms accompanying aging or are underlined pathological changes seen in aging brain remains unknown. Aged effect on brain electrical activity was studied in auditory discrimination task (low-frequency and high-frequency tone) at particular cortical locations in beta (β1: 12.5-20; β2: 20.5-30 Hz) and gamma frequency bands (γ1: 30.5-49; γ2: 52-69 Hz) during sensory (post-stimulus interval 0-250 ms) and cognitive processing (250-600 ms). Beta1 activity less affected by age during sensory processing. Reduced beta1 activity was more widespread during cognitive processing. This difference increased in fronto-parietal direction more expressed after high-frequency tone stimulation. Beta2 and gamma activity were more pronounced with progressive age during sensory processing. Reducing regional-process specificity with progressing age characterized age-related and tone-dependent beta2 changes during sensory, but not during cognitive processing. Beta2 and gamma activity diminished with age on cognitive processes, except the higher frontal tone-dependent gamma activity during cognitive processing. With increasing age, larger gamma2 activity was more expressed over the frontal brain areas to high tone discrimination and hand reaction choice. These gamma2 differences were shifted from posterior to anterior brain regions with advancing age. The aged influence was higher on cognitive processes than on perceptual ones.

Classification of Complex Nonspeech Sounds. Panel on Classification of Complex Nonspeech Sounds

DTIC Science & Technology

1989-04-14

learning of the discrimination task. Since reports on many of these studies have not yet been published, brief summaries of the studies are included below...tonal signal with a noise- producing auditory induction and introduced an intensity ramp that increased the intensity of the tone just before the onset... recorded hand clap signals . The physical properties of the hand claps can be altered (along the lines suggested by the multidimensional analysis

Selective Impairment in Frequency Discrimination in a Mouse Model of Tinnitus

PubMed Central

Mwilambwe-Tshilobo, Laetitia; Davis, Andrew J. O.; Aizenberg, Mark; Geffen, Maria N.

2015-01-01

Tinnitus is an auditory disorder, which affects millions of Americans, including active duty service members and veterans. It is manifested by a phantom sound that is commonly restricted to a specific frequency range. Because tinnitus is associated with hearing deficits, understanding how tinnitus affects hearing perception is important for guiding therapies to improve the quality of life in this vast group of patients. In a rodent model of tinnitus, prolonged exposure to a tone leads to a selective decrease in gap detection in specific frequency bands. However, whether and how hearing acuity is affected for sounds within and outside those frequency bands is not well understood. We induced tinnitus in mice by prolonged exposure to a loud mid-range tone, and behaviorally assayed whether mice exhibited a change in frequency discrimination acuity for tones embedded within the mid-frequency range and high-frequency range at 1, 4, and 8 weeks post-exposure. A subset of tone-exposed mice exhibited tinnitus-like symptoms, as demonstrated by selective deficits in gap detection, which were restricted to the high frequency range. These mice exhibited impaired frequency discrimination both for tones in the mid-frequency range and high-frequency range. The remaining tone exposed mice, which did not demonstrate behavioral evidence of tinnitus, showed temporary deficits in frequency discrimination for tones in the mid-frequency range, while control mice remained unimpaired. Our findings reveal that the high frequency-specific deficits in gap detection, indicative of tinnitus, are associated with impairments in frequency discrimination at the frequency of the presumed tinnitus. PMID:26352864

Perception of Melodic Contour and Intonation in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Evidence From Mandarin Speakers.

PubMed

Jiang, Jun; Liu, Fang; Wan, Xuan; Jiang, Cunmei

2015-07-01

Tone language experience benefits pitch processing in music and speech for typically developing individuals. No known studies have examined pitch processing in individuals with autism who speak a tone language. This study investigated discrimination and identification of melodic contour and speech intonation in a group of Mandarin-speaking individuals with high-functioning autism. Individuals with autism showed superior melodic contour identification but comparable contour discrimination relative to controls. In contrast, these individuals performed worse than controls on both discrimination and identification of speech intonation. These findings provide the first evidence for differential pitch processing in music and speech in tone language speakers with autism, suggesting that tone language experience may not compensate for speech intonation perception deficits in individuals with autism.

Selective impairment of masked priming in dual-task performance.

PubMed

Fischer, Rico; Kiesel, Andrea; Kunde, Wilfried; Schubert, Torsten

2011-03-01

This study investigated the impact of divided attention on masked priming. In a dual-task setting, two tasks had to be carried out in close temporal succession: a tone discrimination task and a masked priming task. The order of the tasks was varied between experiments, and attention was always allocated to the first task-that is, the first task was prioritized. The priming task was the second (nonprioritized) task in Experiment 1 and the first (prioritized) task in Experiment 2. In both experiments, "novel" prime stimuli associated with semantic processing were essentially ineffective. However, there was intact priming by another type of prime stimuli associated with response priming. Experiment 3 showed that all these prime stimuli can reveal significant priming effects during a task-switching paradigm in which both tasks were performed consecutively. We conclude that dual-task specific interference processes (e.g., the simultaneous coordination of multiple stimulus-response rules) selectively impair priming that is assumed to rely on semantic processing.

Processing of Acoustic Cues in Lexical-Tone Identification by Pediatric Cochlear-Implant Recipients

PubMed Central

Peng, Shu-Chen; Lu, Hui-Ping; Lu, Nelson; Lin, Yung-Song; Deroche, Mickael L. D.

2017-01-01

Purpose The objective was to investigate acoustic cue processing in lexical-tone recognition by pediatric cochlear-implant (CI) recipients who are native Mandarin speakers. Method Lexical-tone recognition was assessed in pediatric CI recipients and listeners with normal hearing (NH) in 2 tasks. In Task 1, participants identified naturally uttered words that were contrastive in lexical tones. For Task 2, a disyllabic word (yanjing) was manipulated orthogonally, varying in fundamental-frequency (F0) contours and duration patterns. Participants identified each token with the second syllable jing pronounced with Tone 1 (a high level tone) as eyes or with Tone 4 (a high falling tone) as eyeglasses. Results CI participants' recognition accuracy was significantly lower than NH listeners' in Task 1. In Task 2, CI participants' reliance on F0 contours was significantly less than that of NH listeners; their reliance on duration patterns, however, was significantly higher than that of NH listeners. Both CI and NH listeners' performance in Task 1 was significantly correlated with their reliance on F0 contours in Task 2. Conclusion For pediatric CI recipients, lexical-tone recognition using naturally uttered words is primarily related to their reliance on F0 contours, although duration patterns may be used as an additional cue. PMID:28388709

Microaggressions, Discrimination, and Phenotype among African Americans: A Latent Class Analysis of the Impact of Skin Tone and BMI.

PubMed

Keith, Verna M; Nguyen, Ann W; Taylor, Robert Joseph; Mouzon, Dawne M; Chatters, Linda M

2017-05-01

Data from the 2001-2003National Survey of American Life are used to investigate the effects of phenotype on everyday experiences with discrimination among African Americans (N=3343). Latent class analysis is used to identify four classes of discriminatory treatment: 1) low levels of discrimination, 2) disrespect and condescension, 3) character-based discrimination, and 4) high levels of discrimination. We then employ latent class multinomial logistic regression to evaluate the association between skin tone and body weight and these four classes of discrimination. Designating the low level discrimination class as the reference group, findings revealed that respondents with darker skin were more likely to be classified into the disrespect/condescension and the high level microaggression types. BMI was unrelated to the discrimination type, although there was a significant interaction effect between gender and BMI. BMI was strongly and positively associated with membership in the disrespect and condescension type among men but not among women. These findings indicate that skin tone and body weight are two phenotypic characteristics that influence the type and frequency of discrimination experienced by African Americans.

The effect of aging on EEG brain oscillations related to sensory and sensorimotor functions.

PubMed

Dushanova, Juliana; Christov, Mario

2014-03-01

The question of the present study is whether the brain as a system with gradually decreasing resources maximizes its performance by reorganizing neural networks for greater efficiency. Auditory event-related low frequency oscillations (delta δ - [2, 4]Hz; theta θ - [4.5, 7]Hz; alpha α - [7.5, 12]Hz) were examined during an auditory discrimination motor task (low-frequency tone - right hand movement, high-frequency tone - left hand movement) between two groups with mean age 26.3 and 55 years. The amplitudes of the phase-locked δ, θ and α activity were more pronounced with a progressive increase in age during the sensory processing, independent of tone type. The difference between the groups with respect to scalp distribution was tone-independent for delta/theta oscillations, but not for the alpha activity. Age-related and tone-dependent changes in α band activity were focused at frontal and sensorimotor areas. Neither functional brain specificity was observed for the amplitudes of the low-frequency (δ, θ, α) oscillations during the cognitive processing, which diminished with increasing age. The cognitive brain oscillatory specificity diminished with increasing age. Copyright © 2014 Medical University of Bialystok. Published by Elsevier Urban & Partner Sp. z o.o. All rights reserved.

Isolating spectral cues in amplitude and quasi-frequency modulation discrimination by reducing stimulus duration.

PubMed

Borucki, Ewa; Berg, Bruce G

2017-05-01

This study investigated the psychophysical effects of distortion products in a listening task traditionally used to estimate the bandwidth of phase sensitivity. For a 2000 Hz carrier, estimates of modulation depth necessary to discriminate amplitude modulated (AM) tones and quasi-frequency modulated (QFM) were measured in a two interval forced choice task as a function modulation frequency. Temporal modulation transfer functions were often non-monotonic at modulation frequencies above 300 Hz. This was likely to be due to a spectral cue arising from the interaction of auditory distortion products and the lower sideband of the stimulus complex. When the stimulus duration was decreased from 200 ms to 20 ms, thresholds for low-frequency modulators rose to near-chance levels, whereas thresholds in the region of non-monotonicities were less affected. The decrease in stimulus duration appears to hinder the listener's ability to use temporal cues in order to discriminate between AM and QFM, whereas spectral information derived from distortion product cues appears more resilient. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Deficits of congenital amusia beyond pitch: Evidence from impaired categorical perception of vowels in Cantonese-speaking congenital amusics

PubMed Central

Shao, Jing; Huang, Xunan

2017-01-01

Congenital amusia is a lifelong disorder of fine-grained pitch processing in music and speech. However, it remains unclear whether amusia is a pitch-specific deficit, or whether it affects frequency/spectral processing more broadly, such as the perception of formant frequency in vowels, apart from pitch. In this study, in order to illuminate the scope of the deficits, we compared the performance of 15 Cantonese-speaking amusics and 15 matched controls on the categorical perception of sound continua in four stimulus contexts: lexical tone, pure tone, vowel, and voice onset time (VOT). Whereas lexical tone, pure tone and vowel continua rely on frequency/spectral processing, the VOT continuum depends on duration/temporal processing. We found that the amusic participants performed similarly to controls in all stimulus contexts in the identification, in terms of the across-category boundary location and boundary width. However, the amusic participants performed systematically worse than controls in discriminating stimuli in those three contexts that depended on frequency/spectral processing (lexical tone, pure tone and vowel), whereas they performed normally when discriminating duration differences (VOT). These findings suggest that the deficit of amusia is probably not pitch specific, but affects frequency/spectral processing more broadly. Furthermore, there appeared to be differences in the impairment of frequency/spectral discrimination in speech and nonspeech contexts. The amusic participants exhibited less benefit in between-category discriminations than controls in speech contexts (lexical tone and vowel), suggesting reduced categorical perception; on the other hand, they performed inferiorly compared to controls across the board regardless of between- and within-category discriminations in nonspeech contexts (pure tone), suggesting impaired general auditory processing. These differences imply that the frequency/spectral-processing deficit might be manifested differentially in speech and nonspeech contexts in amusics—it is manifested as a deficit of higher-level phonological processing in speech sounds, and as a deficit of lower-level auditory processing in nonspeech sounds. PMID:28829808

The Role of Amplitude Envelope in Lexical Tone Perception: Evidence from Cantonese Lexical Tone Discrimination in Adults with Normal Hearing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zhou, Yining Victor

2012-01-01

Previously published studies on the role of amplitude envelope in lexical tone perception focused on Mandarin only. Amplitude envelope was found to co-vary with fundamental frequency in Mandarin lexical tones, and amplitude envelope alone could cue tone perception in Mandarin which uses primarily tone contour for phonemic tonal contrasts. The…

Enhanced perception of pitch changes in speech and music in early blind adults.

PubMed

Arnaud, Laureline; Gracco, Vincent; Ménard, Lucie

2018-06-12

It is well known that congenitally blind adults have enhanced auditory processing for some tasks. For instance, they show supra-normal capacity to perceive accelerated speech. However, only a few studies have investigated basic auditory processing in this population. In this study, we investigated if pitch processing enhancement in the blind is a domain-general or domain-specific phenomenon, and if pitch processing shares the same properties as in the sighted regarding how scores from different domains are associated. Fifteen congenitally blind adults and fifteen sighted adults participated in the study. We first created a set of personalized native and non-native vowel stimuli using an identification and rating task. Then, an adaptive discrimination paradigm was used to determine the frequency difference limen for pitch direction identification of speech (native and non-native vowels) and non-speech stimuli (musical instruments and pure tones). The results show that the blind participants had better discrimination thresholds than controls for native vowels, music stimuli, and pure tones. Whereas within the blind group, the discrimination thresholds were smaller for musical stimuli than speech stimuli, replicating previous findings in sighted participants, we did not find this effect in the current control group. Further analyses indicate that older sighted participants show higher thresholds for instrument sounds compared to speech sounds. This effect of age was not found in the blind group. Moreover, the scores across domains were not associated to the same extent in the blind as they were in the sighted. In conclusion, in addition to providing further evidence of compensatory auditory mechanisms in early blind individuals, our results point to differences in how auditory processing is modulated in this population. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Impaired learning of event frequencies in tone deafness

PubMed Central

Loui, Psyche; Schlaug, Gottfried

2013-01-01

Musical knowledge is ubiquitous, effortless, and implicitly acquired all over the world via exposure to musical materials in one’s culture. In contrast, one group of individuals who show insensitivity to music, specifically the inability to discriminate pitches and melodies, is the tone-deaf. In this study, we asked whether difficulties in pitch and melody discrimination among the tone-deaf could be related to learning difficulties, and, if so, what processes of learning might be affected in the tone-deaf. We investigated the learning of frequency information in a new musical system in tone-deaf individuals and matched controls. Results showed significantly impaired learning abilities in frequency matching in the tone-deaf. This impairment was positively correlated with the severity of tone deafness as assessed by the Montreal Battery for Evaluation of Amusia. Taken together, the results suggest that tone deafness is characterized by an impaired ability to acquire frequency information from pitched materials in the sound environment. PMID:22524379

Impaired learning of event frequencies in tone deafness.

PubMed

Loui, Psyche; Schlaug, Gottfried

2012-04-01

Musical knowledge is ubiquitous, effortless, and implicitly acquired all over the world via exposure to musical materials in one's culture. In contrast, one group of individuals who show insensitivity to music, specifically the inability to discriminate pitches and melodies, is the tone-deaf. In this study, we asked whether difficulties in pitch and melody discrimination among the tone-deaf could be related to learning difficulties, and, if so, what processes of learning might be affected in the tone-deaf. We investigated the learning of frequency information in a new musical system in tone-deaf individuals and matched controls. Results showed significantly impaired learning abilities in frequency matching in the tone-deaf. This impairment was positively correlated with the severity of tone deafness as assessed by the Montreal Battery for Evaluation of Amusia. Taken together, the results suggest that tone deafness is characterized by an impaired ability to acquire frequency information from pitched materials in the sound environment. © 2012 New York Academy of Sciences.

Single electrode micro-stimulation of rat auditory cortex: an evaluation of behavioral performance.

PubMed

Rousche, Patrick J; Otto, Kevin J; Reilly, Mark P; Kipke, Daryl R

2003-05-01

A combination of electrophysiological mapping, behavioral analysis and cortical micro-stimulation was used to explore the interrelation between the auditory cortex and behavior in the adult rat. Auditory discriminations were evaluated in eight rats trained to discriminate the presence or absence of a 75 dB pure tone stimulus. A probe trial technique was used to obtain intensity generalization gradients that described response probabilities to mid-level tones between 0 and 75 dB. The same rats were then chronically implanted in the auditory cortex with a 16 or 32 channel tungsten microwire electrode array. Implanted animals were then trained to discriminate the presence of single electrode micro-stimulation of magnitude 90 microA (22.5 nC/phase). Intensity generalization gradients were created to obtain the response probabilities to mid-level current magnitudes ranging from 0 to 90 microA on 36 different electrodes in six of the eight rats. The 50% point (the current level resulting in 50% detections) varied from 16.7 to 69.2 microA, with an overall mean of 42.4 (+/-8.1) microA across all single electrodes. Cortical micro-stimulation induced sensory-evoked behavior with similar characteristics as normal auditory stimuli. The results highlight the importance of the auditory cortex in a discrimination task and suggest that micro-stimulation of the auditory cortex might be an effective means for a graded information transfer of auditory information directly to the brain as part of a cortical auditory prosthesis.

Auditory Pattern Recognition and Brief Tone Discrimination of Children with Reading Disorders

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Walker, Marianna M.; Givens, Gregg D.; Cranford, Jerry L.; Holbert, Don; Walker, Letitia

2006-01-01

Auditory pattern recognition skills in children with reading disorders were investigated using perceptual tests involving discrimination of frequency and duration tonal patterns. A behavioral test battery involving recognition of the pattern of presentation of tone triads was used in which individual components differed in either frequency or…

Auditory Discrimination of Frequency Ratios: The Octave Singularity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bonnard, Damien; Micheyl, Christophe; Semal, Catherine; Dauman, Rene; Demany, Laurent

2013-01-01

Sensitivity to frequency ratios is essential for the perceptual processing of complex sounds and the appreciation of music. This study assessed the effect of ratio simplicity on ratio discrimination for pure tones presented either simultaneously or sequentially. Each stimulus consisted of four 100-ms pure tones, equally spaced in terms of…

Perception of pitch height in lexical and musical tones by English-speaking musicians and nonmusicians.

PubMed

Lee, Chao-Yang; Lekich, Allison; Zhang, Yu

2014-03-01

The purpose of this study was to explore the music-speech relationship by examining pitch height perception in lexical and musical tones. English-speaking musicians and nonmusicians identified multispeaker Taiwanese level tones without typical cues for speaker normalization. The musicians also identified note names of piano, viola, and pure tones without a reference pitch. In the Taiwanese task, both the musicians and nonmusicians were able to identify tone height above chance, but only for tones at the extremes of the speakers' overall vocal range. The musicians only had a slight advantage over the nonmusicians. In the music task, none of the musicians met the criterion for absolute pitch. Timbre did not affect how accurately the musical tones were identified. No correlations were found between performance in the Taiwanese task and that in the music task. It was concluded that musicians' advantage in lexical tone perception arose from the ability to track F0 contours. The ability to identify pitch height in lexical tones appears to involve calibrating acoustic input according to gender-specific, internally stored pitch templates.

Generalization of cross-modal stimulus equivalence classes: operant processes as components in human category formation.

PubMed Central

Lane, S D; Clow, J K; Innis, A; Critchfield, T S

1998-01-01

This study employed a stimulus-class rating procedure to explore whether stimulus equivalence and stimulus generalization can combine to promote the formation of open-ended categories incorporating cross-modal stimuli. A pretest of simple auditory discrimination indicated that subjects (college students) could discriminate among a range of tones used in the main study. Before beginning the main study, 10 subjects learned to use a rating procedure for categorizing sets of stimuli as class consistent or class inconsistent. After completing conditional discrimination training with new stimuli (shapes and tones), the subjects demonstrated the formation of cross-modal equivalence classes. Subsequently, the class-inclusion rating procedure was reinstituted, this time with cross-modal sets of stimuli drawn from the equivalence classes. On some occasions, the tones of the equivalence classes were replaced by novel tones. The probability that these novel sets would be rated as class consistent was generally a function of the auditory distance between the novel tone and the tone that was explicitly included in the equivalence class. These data extend prior work on generalization of equivalence classes, and support the role of operant processes in human category formation. PMID:9821680

Headphone screening to facilitate web-based auditory experiments

PubMed Central

Woods, Kevin J.P.; Siegel, Max; Traer, James; McDermott, Josh H.

2017-01-01

Psychophysical experiments conducted remotely over the internet permit data collection from large numbers of participants, but sacrifice control over sound presentation, and therefore are not widely employed in hearing research. To help standardize online sound presentation, we introduce a brief psychophysical test for determining if online experiment participants are wearing headphones. Listeners judge which of three pure tones is quietest, with one of the tones presented 180° out of phase across the stereo channels. This task is intended to be easy over headphones but difficult over loudspeakers due to phase-cancellation. We validated the test in the lab by testing listeners known to be wearing headphones or listening over loudspeakers. The screening test was effective and efficient, discriminating between the two modes of listening with a small number of trials. When run online, a bimodal distribution of scores was obtained, suggesting that some participants performed the task over loudspeakers despite instructions to use headphones. The ability to detect and screen out these participants mitigates concerns over sound quality for online experiments, a first step toward opening auditory perceptual research to the possibilities afforded by crowdsourcing. PMID:28695541

The cognitive demands of second order manual control: Applications of the event related brain potential

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wickens, C.; Gill, R.; Kramer, A.; Ross, W.; Donchin, E.

1981-01-01

Three experiments are described in which tracking difficulty is varied in the presence of a covert tone discrimination task. Event related brain potentials (ERPs) elicited by the tones are employed as an index of the resource demands of tracking. The ERP measure reflected the control order variation, and this variable was thereby assumed to compete for perceptual/central processing resources. A fine-grained analysis of the results suggested that the primary demands of second order tracking involve the central processing operations of maintaining a more complex internal model of the dynamic system, rather than the perceptual demands of higher derivative perception. Experiment 3 varied tracking bandwidth in random input tracking, and the ERP was unaffected. Bandwidth was then inferred to compete for response-related processing resources that are independent of the ERP.

Auditory Perception, Suprasegmental Speech Processing, and Vocabulary Development in Chinese Preschoolers.

PubMed

Wang, Hsiao-Lan S; Chen, I-Chen; Chiang, Chun-Han; Lai, Ying-Hui; Tsao, Yu

2016-10-01

The current study examined the associations between basic auditory perception, speech prosodic processing, and vocabulary development in Chinese kindergartners, specifically, whether early basic auditory perception may be related to linguistic prosodic processing in Chinese Mandarin vocabulary acquisition. A series of language, auditory, and linguistic prosodic tests were given to 100 preschool children who had not yet learned how to read Chinese characters. The results suggested that lexical tone sensitivity and intonation production were significantly correlated with children's general vocabulary abilities. In particular, tone awareness was associated with comprehensive language development, whereas intonation production was associated with both comprehensive and expressive language development. Regression analyses revealed that tone sensitivity accounted for 36% of the unique variance in vocabulary development, whereas intonation production accounted for 6% of the variance in vocabulary development. Moreover, auditory frequency discrimination was significantly correlated with lexical tone sensitivity, syllable duration discrimination, and intonation production in Mandarin Chinese. Also it provided significant contributions to tone sensitivity and intonation production. Auditory frequency discrimination may indirectly affect early vocabulary development through Chinese speech prosody. © The Author(s) 2016.

Effect of musical training on static and dynamic measures of spectral-pattern discrimination.

PubMed

Sheft, Stanley; Smayda, Kirsten; Shafiro, Valeriy; Maddox, W Todd; Chandrasekaran, Bharath

2013-06-01

Both behavioral and physiological studies have demonstrated enhanced processing of speech in challenging listening environments attributable to musical training. The relationship, however, of this benefit to auditory abilities as assessed by psychoacoustic measures remains unclear. Using tasks previously shown to relate to speech-in-noise perception, the present study evaluated discrimination ability for static and dynamic spectral patterns by 49 listeners grouped as either musicians or nonmusicians. The two static conditions measured the ability to detect a change in the phase of a logarithmic sinusoidal spectral ripple of wideband noise with ripple densities of 1.5 and 3.0 cycles per octave chosen to emphasize either timbre or pitch distinctions, respectively. The dynamic conditions assessed temporal-pattern discrimination of 1-kHz pure tones frequency modulated by different lowpass noise samples with thresholds estimated in terms of either stimulus duration or signal-to-noise ratio. Musicians performed significantly better than nonmusicians on all four tasks. Discriminant analysis showed that group membership was correctly predicted for 88% of the listeners with the structure coefficient of each measure greater than 0.51. Results suggest that enhanced processing of static and dynamic spectral patterns defined by low-rate modulation may contribute to the relationship between musical training and speech-in-noise perception. [Supported by NIH.].

Colorism in the Classroom: How Skin Tone Stratifies African American and Latina/o Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hunter, Margaret

2016-01-01

Although racial inequality is frequently studied in education, skin tone stratification has received less attention from educational researchers. Inequality by skin tone, also known as "colorism", contributes to larger patterns of racial inequality for African Americans and Latina/os. Discrimination by skin tone affects many dimensions…

Auditory discrimination therapy (ADT) for tinnitus management.

PubMed

Herraiz, C; Diges, I; Cobo, P

2007-01-01

Auditory discrimination training (ADT) designs a procedure to increase cortical areas responding to trained frequencies (damaged cochlear areas with cortical misrepresentation) and to shrink the neighboring over-represented ones (tinnitus pitch). In a prospective descriptive study of 27 patients with high frequency tinnitus, the severity of the tinnitus was measured using a visual analog scale (VAS) and the tinnitus handicap inventory (THI). Patients performed a 10-min auditory discrimination task twice a day during one month. Discontinuous 4 kHz pure tones were mixed randomly with short broadband noise sounds through an MP3 system. After the treatment mean VAS scores were reduced from 5.2 to 4.5 (p=0.000) and the THI decreased from 26.2% to 21.3% (p=0.000). Forty percent of the patients had improvement in tinnitus perception (RESP). Comparing the ADT group with a control group showed statistically significant improvement of their tinnitus as assessed by RESP, VAS, and THI.

Canine Sense and Sensibility: Tipping Points and Response Latency Variability as an Optimism Index in a Canine Judgement Bias Assessment

PubMed Central

Starling, Melissa J.; Branson, Nicholas; Cody, Denis; Starling, Timothy R.; McGreevy, Paul D.

2014-01-01

Recent advances in animal welfare science used judgement bias, a type of cognitive bias, as a means to objectively measure an animal's affective state. It is postulated that animals showing heightened expectation of positive outcomes may be categorised optimistic, while those showing heightened expectations of negative outcomes may be considered pessimistic. This study pioneers the use of a portable, automated apparatus to train and test the judgement bias of dogs. Dogs were trained in a discrimination task in which they learned to touch a target after a tone associated with a lactose-free milk reward and abstain from touching the target after a tone associated with water. Their judgement bias was then probed by presenting tones between those learned in the discrimination task and measuring their latency to respond by touching the target. A Cox's Proportional Hazards model was used to analyse censored response latency data. Dog and Cue both had a highly significant effect on latency and risk of touching a target. This indicates that judgement bias both exists in dogs and differs between dogs. Test number also had a significant effect, indicating that dogs were less likely to touch the target over successive tests. Detailed examination of the response latencies revealed tipping points where average latency increased by 100% or more, giving an indication of where dogs began to treat ambiguous cues as predicting more negative outcomes than positive ones. Variability scores were calculated to provide an index of optimism using average latency and standard deviation at cues after the tipping point. The use of a mathematical approach to assessing judgement bias data in animal studies offers a more detailed interpretation than traditional statistical analyses. This study provides proof of concept for the use of an automated apparatus for measuring cognitive bias in dogs. PMID:25229458

Improved density discrimination using agfacontour film

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Goodding, R. A.

1973-01-01

A technique was developed for obtaining tone separations from black and white photographic materials. Agfacontour film and photographic derivatives are utilized to improve the density discrimination and decrease the density range from 0.45 to 0.08 units. This increase in capability extends the usefulness of tone separations to a wider range of subject matter and problem areas.

LEARNING STRATEGY REFINEMENT REVERSES EARLY SENSORY CORTICAL MAP EXPANSION BUT NOT BEHAVIOR: SUPPORT FOR A THEORY OF DIRECTED CORTICAL SUBSTRATES OF LEARNING AND MEMORY

PubMed Central

Elias, Gabriel A.; Bieszczad, Kasia M.; Weinberger, Norman M.

2015-01-01

Primary sensory cortical fields develop highly specific associative representational plasticity, notably enlarged area of representation of reinforced signal stimuli within their topographic maps. However, overtraining subjects after they have solved an instrumental task can reduce or eliminate the expansion while the successful behavior remains. As the development of this plasticity depends on the learning strategy used to solve a task, we asked whether the loss of expansion is due to the strategy used during overtraining. Adult male rats were trained in a three-tone auditory discrimination task to bar-press to the CS+ for water reward and refrain from doing so during the CS− tones and silent intertrial intervals; errors were punished by a flashing light and time-out penalty. Groups acquired this task to a criterion within seven training sessions by relying on a strategy that was “bar-press from tone-onset-to-error signal” (“TOTE”). Three groups then received different levels of overtraining: Group ST, none; Group RT, one week; Group OT, three weeks. Post-training mapping of their primary auditory fields (A1) showed that Groups ST and RT had developed significantly expanded representational areas, specifically restricted to the frequency band of the CS+ tone. In contrast, the A1 of Group OT was no different from naïve controls. Analysis of learning strategy revealed this group had shifted strategy to a refinement of TOTE in which they self-terminated bar-presses before making an error (“iTOTE”). Across all animals, the greater the use of iTOTE, the smaller was the representation of the CS+ in A1. Thus, the loss of cortical expansion is attributable to a shift or refinement in strategy. This reversal of expansion was considered in light of a novel theoretical framework (CONCERTO) highlighting four basic principles of brain function that resolve anomalous findings and explaining why even a minor change in strategy would involve concomitant shifts of involved brain sites, including reversal of cortical expansion. PMID:26596700

Learning strategy refinement reverses early sensory cortical map expansion but not behavior: Support for a theory of directed cortical substrates of learning and memory.

PubMed

Elias, Gabriel A; Bieszczad, Kasia M; Weinberger, Norman M

2015-12-01

Primary sensory cortical fields develop highly specific associative representational plasticity, notably enlarged area of representation of reinforced signal stimuli within their topographic maps. However, overtraining subjects after they have solved an instrumental task can reduce or eliminate the expansion while the successful behavior remains. As the development of this plasticity depends on the learning strategy used to solve a task, we asked whether the loss of expansion is due to the strategy used during overtraining. Adult male rats were trained in a three-tone auditory discrimination task to bar-press to the CS+ for water reward and refrain from doing so during the CS- tones and silent intertrial intervals; errors were punished by a flashing light and time-out penalty. Groups acquired this task to a criterion within seven training sessions by relying on a strategy that was "bar-press from tone-onset-to-error signal" ("TOTE"). Three groups then received different levels of overtraining: Group ST, none; Group RT, one week; Group OT, three weeks. Post-training mapping of their primary auditory fields (A1) showed that Groups ST and RT had developed significantly expanded representational areas, specifically restricted to the frequency band of the CS+ tone. In contrast, the A1 of Group OT was no different from naïve controls. Analysis of learning strategy revealed this group had shifted strategy to a refinement of TOTE in which they self-terminated bar-presses before making an error ("iTOTE"). Across all animals, the greater the use of iTOTE, the smaller was the representation of the CS+ in A1. Thus, the loss of cortical expansion is attributable to a shift or refinement in strategy. This reversal of expansion was considered in light of a novel theoretical framework (CONCERTO) highlighting four basic principles of brain function that resolve anomalous findings and explaining why even a minor change in strategy would involve concomitant shifts of involved brain sites, including reversal of cortical expansion. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Discrimination Task Reveals Differences in Neural Bases of Tinnitus and Hearing Impairment

PubMed Central

Husain, Fatima T.; Pajor, Nathan M.; Smith, Jason F.; Kim, H. Jeff; Rudy, Susan; Zalewski, Christopher; Brewer, Carmen; Horwitz, Barry

2011-01-01

We investigated auditory perception and cognitive processing in individuals with chronic tinnitus or hearing loss using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Our participants belonged to one of three groups: bilateral hearing loss and tinnitus (TIN), bilateral hearing loss without tinnitus (HL), and normal hearing without tinnitus (NH). We employed pure tones and frequency-modulated sweeps as stimuli in two tasks: passive listening and active discrimination. All subjects had normal hearing through 2 kHz and all stimuli were low-pass filtered at 2 kHz so that all participants could hear them equally well. Performance was similar among all three groups for the discrimination task. In all participants, a distributed set of brain regions including the primary and non-primary auditory cortices showed greater response for both tasks compared to rest. Comparing the groups directly, we found decreased activation in the parietal and frontal lobes in the participants with tinnitus compared to the HL group and decreased response in the frontal lobes relative to the NH group. Additionally, the HL subjects exhibited increased response in the anterior cingulate relative to the NH group. Our results suggest that a differential engagement of a putative auditory attention and short-term memory network, comprising regions in the frontal, parietal and temporal cortices and the anterior cingulate, may represent a key difference in the neural bases of chronic tinnitus accompanied by hearing loss relative to hearing loss alone. PMID:22066003

Effect of voluntary attention on auditory processing during REM sleep.

PubMed

Takahara, Madoka; Nittono, Hiroshi; Hori, Tadao

2006-07-01

The study investigates whether there is an effect of voluntary attention to external auditory stimuli during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep in humans by measuring event-related potentials (ERPs). Using a 2-tone auditory-discrimination task, a standard 1000-Hz tone and a deviant 2000-Hz tone were presented to participants when awake and during sleep. In the ATTENTIVE condition, participants were requested to detect the deviant stimuli during their sleep whenever possible. In the PASSIVE sleep condition, participants were only exposed to the tones. ERPs were measured during REM sleep and compared between the 2 conditions. All experiments were conducted at the sleep laboratory of Hiroshima University. Twenty healthy university student volunteers. N/A. In the tonic period of REM sleep (the period without REM), P200 and P400 were elicited by deviant stimuli, with scalp distributions maximal at central and occipital sites, respectively. The P400 in REM sleep showed larger amplitudes in the ATTENTIVE condition, whereas the P200 amplitude did not differ between the 2 conditions. No effects on ERPs due to attention were observed during stage 2 sleep. The instruction to pay attention to external stimuli during REM sleep influenced the late positive potentials. Thus electrophysiologic evidence of voluntary attention during REM sleep has been demonstrated.

Temporal Integration of Auditory Information Is Invariant to Temporal Grouping Cues

PubMed

Liu, Andrew S K; Tsunada, Joji; Gold, Joshua I; Cohen, Yale E

2015-01-01

Auditory perception depends on the temporal structure of incoming acoustic stimuli. Here, we examined whether a temporal manipulation that affects the perceptual grouping also affects the time dependence of decisions regarding those stimuli. We designed a novel discrimination task that required human listeners to decide whether a sequence of tone bursts was increasing or decreasing in frequency. We manipulated temporal perceptual-grouping cues by changing the time interval between the tone bursts, which led to listeners hearing the sequences as a single sound for short intervals or discrete sounds for longer intervals. Despite these strong perceptual differences, this manipulation did not affect the efficiency of how auditory information was integrated over time to form a decision. Instead, the grouping manipulation affected subjects' speed-accuracy trade-offs. These results indicate that the temporal dynamics of evidence accumulation for auditory perceptual decisions can be invariant to manipulations that affect the perceptual grouping of the evidence.

Influence of musical expertise on segmental and tonal processing in Mandarin Chinese.

PubMed

Marie, Céline; Delogu, Franco; Lampis, Giulia; Belardinelli, Marta Olivetti; Besson, Mireille

2011-10-01

A same-different task was used to test the hypothesis that musical expertise improves the discrimination of tonal and segmental (consonant, vowel) variations in a tone language, Mandarin Chinese. Two four-word sequences (prime and target) were presented to French musicians and nonmusicians unfamiliar with Mandarin, and event-related brain potentials were recorded. Musicians detected both tonal and segmental variations more accurately than nonmusicians. Moreover, tonal variations were associated with higher error rate than segmental variations and elicited an increased N2/N3 component that developed 100 msec earlier in musicians than in nonmusicians. Finally, musicians also showed enhanced P3b components to both tonal and segmental variations. These results clearly show that musical expertise influenced the perceptual processing as well as the categorization of linguistic contrasts in a foreign language. They show positive music-to-language transfer effects and open new perspectives for the learning of tone languages.

Task Integration Facilitates Multitasking.

PubMed

de Oliveira, Rita F; Raab, Markus; Hegele, Mathias; Schorer, Jörg

2017-01-01

The aim of this study was to investigate multi-task integration in a continuous tracking task. We were particularly interested in how manipulating task structure in a dual-task situation affects learning of a constant segment embedded in a pursuit-tracking task. Importantly, we examined if dual-task effects could be attributed to task integration by varying the structural similarity and difficulty of the primary and secondary tasks. In Experiment 1 participants performed a pursuit tracking task while counting high-pitched tones and ignoring low-pitched tones. The tones were either presented randomly or structurally 250 ms before each tracking turn. Experiment 2 increased the motor load of the secondary tasks by asking participants to tap their feet to the tones. Experiment 3 further increased motor load of the primary task by increasing its speed and having participants tracking with their non-dominant hand. The results show that dual-task interference can be moderated by secondary task conditions that match the structure of the primary task. Therefore our results support proposals of task integration in continuous tracking paradigms. We conclude that multi-tasking is not always detrimental for motor learning but can be facilitated through task-integration.

Task choice and semantic interference in picture naming.

PubMed

Piai, Vitória; Roelofs, Ardi; Schriefers, Herbert

2015-05-01

Evidence from dual-task performance indicates that speakers prefer not to select simultaneous responses in picture naming and another unrelated task, suggesting a response selection bottleneck in naming. In particular, when participants respond to tones with a manual response and name pictures with superimposed semantically related or unrelated distractor words, semantic interference in naming tends to be constant across stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) between the tone stimulus and the picture-word stimulus. In the present study, we examine whether semantic interference in picture naming depends on SOA in case of a task choice (naming the picture vs reading the word of a picture-word stimulus) based on tones. This situation requires concurrent processing of the tone stimulus and the picture-word stimulus, but not a manual response to the tones. On each trial, participants either named a picture or read aloud a word depending on the pitch of a tone, which was presented simultaneously with picture-word onset or 350 ms or 1000 ms before picture-word onset. Semantic interference was present with tone pre-exposure, but absent when tone and picture-word stimulus were presented simultaneously. Against the background of the available studies, these results support an account according to which speakers tend to avoid concurrent response selection, but can engage in other types of concurrent processing, such as task choices. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Effects of Temporal Sequencing and Auditory Discrimination on Children's Memory Patterns for Tones, Numbers, and Nonsense Words

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gromko, Joyce Eastlund; Hansen, Dee; Tortora, Anne Halloran; Higgins, Daniel; Boccia, Eric

2009-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine whether children's recall of tones, numbers, and words was supported by a common temporal sequencing mechanism; whether children's patterns of memory for tones, numbers, and nonsense words were the same despite differences in symbol systems; and whether children's recall of tones, numbers, and nonsense…

Pitch Perception in the First Year of Life, a Comparison of Lexical Tones and Musical Pitch.

PubMed

Chen, Ao; Stevens, Catherine J; Kager, René

2017-01-01

Pitch variation is pervasive in speech, regardless of the language to which infants are exposed. Lexical tone is influenced by general sensitivity to pitch. We examined whether the development in lexical tone perception may develop in parallel with perception of pitch in other cognitive domains namely music. Using a visual fixation paradigm, 100 and one 4- and 12-month-old Dutch infants were tested on their discrimination of Chinese rising and dipping lexical tones as well as comparable three-note musical pitch contours. The 4-month-old infants failed to show a discrimination effect in either condition, whereas the 12-month-old infants succeeded in both conditions. These results suggest that lexical tone perception may reflect and relate to general pitch perception abilities, which may serve as a basis for developing more complex language and musical skills.

Influence of musical training on sensitivity to temporal fine structure.

PubMed

Mishra, Srikanta K; Panda, Manasa R; Raj, Swapna

2015-04-01

The objective of this study was to extend the findings that temporal fine structure encoding is altered in musicians by examining sensitivity to temporal fine structure (TFS) in an alternative (non-Western) musician model that is rarely adopted--Indian classical music. The sensitivity to TFS was measured by the ability to discriminate two complex tones that differed in TFS but not in envelope repetition rate. Sixteen South Indian classical (Carnatic) musicians and 28 non-musicians with normal hearing participated in this study. Musicians have significantly lower relative frequency shift at threshold in the TFS task compared to non-musicians. A significant negative correlation was observed between years of musical experience and relative frequency shift at threshold in the TFS task. Test-retest repeatability of thresholds in the TFS tasks was similar for both musicians and non-musicians. The enhanced performance of the Carnatic-trained musicians suggests that the musician advantage for frequency and harmonicity discrimination is not restricted to training in Western classical music, on which much of the previous research on musical training has narrowly focused. The perceptual judgments obtained from non-musicians were as reliable as those of musicians.

Pinyin Invented Spelling in Mandarin Chinese-Speaking Children With and Without Reading Difficulties.

PubMed

Ding, Yi; Liu, Ru-De; McBride, Catherine; Zhang, Dake

2015-01-01

This study examined analytical pinyin (a phonological coding system for teaching pronunciation and lexical tones of Chinese characters) skills in 54 Mandarin-speaking fourth graders by using an invented spelling instrument that tapped into syllable awareness, phoneme awareness, lexical tones, and tone sandhi in Chinese. Pinyin invented spelling was significantly correlated with Chinese character recognition and Chinese phonological awareness (i.e., syllable deletion and phoneme deletion). In comparison to good and average readers, poor readers performed significantly worse on the invented spelling task, and a difference was also found between average and good readers. To differentiate readers at different levels, the pinyin invented spelling task, which examined both segmental and suprasegmental elements, was superior to the typical phonological awareness task, which examined segments only. Within this new task, items involving tone sandhi (Chinese language changes in which the tones of words alter according to predetermined rules) were more difficult to manipulate than were those without tone sandhi. The findings suggest that this newly developed task may be optimal for tapping unique phonological and linguistic features in reading of Chinese and examining particular tonal difficulties in struggling Chinese readers. In addition, the results suggest that phonics manipulations within tasks of phonological and tonal awareness can alter their difficulty levels. © Hammill Institute on Disabilities 2014.

Perceptual Improvement of Lexical Tones in Infants: Effects of Tone Language Experience

PubMed Central

Tsao, Feng-Ming

2017-01-01

To learn words in a tonal language, tone-language learners should not only develop better abilities for perceiving consonants and vowels, but also for lexical tones. The divergent trend of enhancing sensitivity to native phonetic contrasts and reduced sensitivity to non-native phonetic contrast is theoretically essential to evaluate effects of listening to an ambient language on speech perception development. The loss of sensitivity in discriminating lexical tones among non-tonal language-learning infants was apparent between 6 and 12 months of age, but only few studies examined trends of differentiating native lexical tones in infancy. The sensitivity in discriminating lexical tones among 6–8 and 10–12 month-old Mandarin-learning infants (n = 120) was tested in Experiment 1 using three lexical tone contrasts of Mandarin. Facilitation of linguistic experience was shown in the tonal contrast (Tone 1 vs. 3), but both age groups performed similar in the other two tonal contrasts (Tone 2 vs. 4; Tone 2 vs. 3). In Experiment 2, 6–8 and 10–12 month-old Mandarin-learning infants (n = 90) were tested with tonal contrasts that have pitch contours either similar to or inverse from lexical tones in Mandarin, and perceptual improvement was shown only in a tonal contrast with familiar pitch contours (i.e., Tone 1 vs. 3). In Experiment 3, 6–8 and 10–12 month-old English-learning infants (n = 40) were tested with Tone 1 vs. 3 contrast of Mandarin and showed an improvement in the perception of non-native lexical tones. This study reveals that tone-language learning infants develop more accurate representations of lexical tones around their first birthday, and the results of both tone and non-tone language-learning infants imply that the rate of development depends on listening experience and the acoustical salience of specific tone contrasts. PMID:28443053

Subcortical Plasticity Following Perceptual Learning in a Pitch Discrimination Task

PubMed Central

Plack, Christopher J.

2010-01-01

Practice can lead to dramatic improvements in the discrimination of auditory stimuli. In this study, we investigated changes of the frequency-following response (FFR), a subcortical component of the auditory evoked potentials, after a period of pitch discrimination training. Twenty-seven adult listeners were trained for 10 h on a pitch discrimination task using one of three different complex tone stimuli. One had a static pitch contour, one had a rising pitch contour, and one had a falling pitch contour. Behavioral measures of pitch discrimination and FFRs for all the stimuli were measured before and after the training phase for these participants, as well as for an untrained control group (n = 12). Trained participants showed significant improvements in pitch discrimination compared to the control group for all three trained stimuli. These improvements were partly specific for stimuli with the same pitch modulation (dynamic vs. static) and with the same pitch trajectory (rising vs. falling) as the trained stimulus. Also, the robustness of FFR neural phase locking to the sound envelope increased significantly more in trained participants compared to the control group for the static and rising contour, but not for the falling contour. Changes in FFR strength were partly specific for stimuli with the same pitch modulation (dynamic vs. static) of the trained stimulus. Changes in FFR strength, however, were not specific for stimuli with the same pitch trajectory (rising vs. falling) as the trained stimulus. These findings indicate that even relatively low-level processes in the mature auditory system are subject to experience-related change. PMID:20878201

Subcortical plasticity following perceptual learning in a pitch discrimination task.

PubMed

Carcagno, Samuele; Plack, Christopher J

2011-02-01

Practice can lead to dramatic improvements in the discrimination of auditory stimuli. In this study, we investigated changes of the frequency-following response (FFR), a subcortical component of the auditory evoked potentials, after a period of pitch discrimination training. Twenty-seven adult listeners were trained for 10 h on a pitch discrimination task using one of three different complex tone stimuli. One had a static pitch contour, one had a rising pitch contour, and one had a falling pitch contour. Behavioral measures of pitch discrimination and FFRs for all the stimuli were measured before and after the training phase for these participants, as well as for an untrained control group (n = 12). Trained participants showed significant improvements in pitch discrimination compared to the control group for all three trained stimuli. These improvements were partly specific for stimuli with the same pitch modulation (dynamic vs. static) and with the same pitch trajectory (rising vs. falling) as the trained stimulus. Also, the robustness of FFR neural phase locking to the sound envelope increased significantly more in trained participants compared to the control group for the static and rising contour, but not for the falling contour. Changes in FFR strength were partly specific for stimuli with the same pitch modulation (dynamic vs. static) of the trained stimulus. Changes in FFR strength, however, were not specific for stimuli with the same pitch trajectory (rising vs. falling) as the trained stimulus. These findings indicate that even relatively low-level processes in the mature auditory system are subject to experience-related change.

Selective auditory grouping by zebra finches: testing the iambic-trochaic law.

PubMed

Spierings, Michelle; Hubert, Jeroen; Ten Cate, Carel

2017-07-01

Humans have a strong tendency to spontaneously group visual or auditory stimuli together in larger patterns. One of these perceptual grouping biases is formulated as the iambic/trochaic law, where humans group successive tones alternating in pitch and intensity as trochees (high-low and loud-soft) and alternating in duration as iambs (short-long). The grouping of alternations in pitch and intensity into trochees is a human universal and is also present in one non-human animal species, rats. The perceptual grouping of sounds alternating in duration seems to be affected by native language in humans and has so far not been found among animals. In the current study, we explore to which extent these perceptual biases are present in a songbird, the zebra finch. Zebra finches were trained to discriminate between short strings of pure tones organized as iambs and as trochees. One group received tones that alternated in pitch, a second group heard tones alternating in duration, and for a third group, tones alternated in intensity. Those zebra finches that showed sustained correct discrimination were next tested with longer, ambiguous strings of alternating sounds. The zebra finches in the pitch condition categorized ambiguous strings of alternating tones as trochees, similar to humans. However, most of the zebra finches in the duration and intensity condition did not learn to discriminate between training stimuli organized as iambs and trochees. This study shows that the perceptual bias to group tones alternating in pitch as trochees is not specific to humans and rats, but may be more widespread among animals.

Establishment of auditory discrimination and detection of tinnitus induced by salicylic acid and intense tone exposure in the rat.

PubMed

Sederholm, Fredrik; Swedberg, Michael D B

2013-05-13

Rats were trained in a two lever food reinforced operant procedure to discriminate a 8000 Hz pure tone stimulus from its absence. Responding on one lever was reinforced in the presence of the tone and responding on the other lever was reinforced when the tone was absent. Frequency generalization testing yielded an inverted U-shaped function, whereas sound pressure level generalization testing yielded a continuous decrease in responding on the tone associated lever with decreasing sound pressure levels. The administration of sodium salicylic acid (150-450 mg/kg) generated responding on the tone associated lever suggesting that salicylic acid induced an experience that had commonalities with the percept of the training tone stimulus. After exposure to intense sound, responding consistent with the presence of tinnitus was achieved and Lidocaine failed to reduce tinnitus behavior. The use of a two choice design helped avoid confounding factors induced by drug induced side effects. Further, since no auditory cues were employed in the test situation the model achieves resistance to potential bias due to hearing impairment and hyperacusis. We propose that this model may be useful in detecting tinnitus. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Auditory Stream Segregation and the Perception of Across-Frequency Synchrony

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Micheyl, Christophe; Hunter, Cynthia; Oxenham, Andrew J.

2010-01-01

This study explored the extent to which sequential auditory grouping affects the perception of temporal synchrony. In Experiment 1, listeners discriminated between 2 pairs of asynchronous "target" tones at different frequencies, A and B, in which the B tone either led or lagged. Thresholds were markedly higher when the target tones were temporally…

Processing of Acoustic Cues in Lexical-Tone Identification by Pediatric Cochlear-Implant Recipients

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Peng, Shu-Chen; Lu, Hui-Ping; Lu, Nelson; Lin, Yung-Song; Deroche, Mickael L. D.; Chatterjee, Monita

2017-01-01

Purpose: The objective was to investigate acoustic cue processing in lexical-tone recognition by pediatric cochlear-implant (CI) recipients who are native Mandarin speakers. Method: Lexical-tone recognition was assessed in pediatric CI recipients and listeners with normal hearing (NH) in 2 tasks. In Task 1, participants identified naturally…

Beyond Auditory Sensory Processing Deficits: Lexical Tone Perception Deficits in Chinese Children With Developmental Dyslexia.

PubMed

Tong, Xiuhong; Tong, Xiuli; King Yiu, Fung

Increasing evidence suggests that children with developmental dyslexia exhibit a deficit not only at the segmental level of phonological processing but also, by extension, at the suprasegmental level. However, it remains unclear whether such a suprasegmental phonological processing deficit is due to a difficulty in processing acoustic cues of speech rhythm, such as rise time and intensity. This study set out to investigate to what extent suprasegmental phonological processing (i.e., Cantonese lexical tone perception) and rise time sensitivity could distinguish Chinese children with dyslexia from typically developing children. Sixteen children with dyslexia and 44 age-matched controls were administered a Cantonese lexical tone perception task, psychoacoustic tasks, a nonverbal reasoning ability task, and word reading and dictation tasks. Children with dyslexia performed worse than controls on Cantonese lexical tone perception, rise time, and intensity. Furthermore, Cantonese lexical tone perception appeared to be a stable indicator that distinguishes children with dyslexia from controls, even after controlling for basic auditory processing skills. These findings suggest that suprasegmental phonological processing (i.e., lexical tone perception) is a potential factor that accounts for reading difficulty in Chinese.

Distinct frontal regions subserve evaluation of linguistic and emotional aspects of speech intonation.

PubMed

Wildgruber, D; Hertrich, I; Riecker, A; Erb, M; Anders, S; Grodd, W; Ackermann, H

2004-12-01

In addition to the propositional content of verbal utterances, significant linguistic and emotional information is conveyed by the tone of speech. To differentiate brain regions subserving processing of linguistic and affective aspects of intonation, discrimination of sentences differing in linguistic accentuation and emotional expressiveness was evaluated by functional magnetic resonance imaging. Both tasks yielded rightward lateralization of hemodynamic responses at the level of the dorsolateral frontal cortex as well as bilateral thalamic and temporal activation. Processing of linguistic and affective intonation, thus, seems to be supported by overlapping neural networks comprising partially right-sided brain regions. Comparison of hemodynamic activation during the two different tasks, however, revealed bilateral orbito-frontal responses restricted to the affective condition as opposed to activation of the left lateral inferior frontal gyrus confined to evaluation of linguistic intonation. These findings indicate that distinct frontal regions contribute to higher level processing of intonational information depending on its communicational function. In line with other components of language processing, discrimination of linguistic accentuation seems to be lateralized to the left inferior-lateral frontal region whereas bilateral orbito-frontal areas subserve evaluation of emotional expressiveness.

Orienting attention in visual working memory requires central capacity: decreased retro-cue effects under dual-task conditions.

PubMed

Janczyk, Markus; Berryhill, Marian E

2014-04-01

The retro-cue effect (RCE) describes superior working memory performance for validly cued stimulus locations long after encoding has ended. Importantly, this happens with delays beyond the range of iconic memory. In general, the RCE is a stable phenomenon that emerges under varied stimulus configurations and timing parameters. We investigated its susceptibility to dual-task interference to determine the attentional requirements at the time point of cue onset and encoding. In Experiment 1, we compared single- with dual-task conditions. In Experiment 2, we borrowed from the psychological refractory period paradigm and compared conditions with high and low (dual-) task overlap. The secondary task was always binary tone discrimination requiring a manual response. Across both experiments, an RCE was found, but it was diminished in magnitude in the critical dual-task conditions. A previous study did not find evidence that sustained attention is required in the interval between cue offset and test. Our results apparently contradict these findings and point to a critical time period around cue onset and briefly thereafter during which attention is required.

Orienting attention in visual working memory requires central capacity: Decreased retro-cue effects under dual-task conditions

PubMed Central

Berryhill, Marian E.

2014-01-01

The retro-cue effect (RCE) describes superior working memory performance for validly cued stimulus locations long after encoding has ended. Importantly, this happens with delays beyond the range of iconic memory. In general, the RCE is a stable phenomenon that emerges under varied stimulus configurations and timing parameters. We investigated its susceptibility to dual-task interference to determine the attentional requirements at the time point of cue onset and encoding. In Experiment 1, we compared single- with dual-task conditions. In Experiment 2, we borrowed from the psychological refractory period paradigm and compared conditions with high and low (dual-) task overlap. The secondary task was always binary tone discrimination requiring amanual response. Across both experiments, an RCE was found, but it was diminished in magnitude in the critical dual-task conditions. A previous study did not find evidence that sustained attention is required in the interval between cue offset and test. Our results apparently contradict these findings and point to a critical time period around cue onset and briefly thereafter during which attention is required. PMID:24452383

Impaired perception of harmonic complexity in congenital amusia: a case study.

PubMed

Reed, Catherine L; Cahn, Steven J; Cory, Christopher; Szaflarski, Jerzy P

2011-07-01

This study investigates whether congenital amusia (an inability to perceive music from birth) also impairs the perception of musical qualities that do not rely on fine-grained pitch discrimination. We established that G.G. (64-year-old male, age-typical hearing) met the criteria of congenital amusia and demonstrated music-specific deficits (e.g., language processing, intonation, prosody, fine-grained pitch processing, pitch discrimination, identification of discrepant tones and direction of pitch for tones in a series, pitch discrimination within scale segments, predictability of tone sequences, recognition versus knowing memory for melodies, and short-term memory for melodies). Next, we conducted tests of tonal fusion, harmonic complexity, and affect perception: recognizing timbre, assessing consonance and dissonance, and recognizing musical affect from harmony. G.G. displayed relatively unimpaired perception and production of environmental sounds, prosody, and emotion conveyed by speech compared with impaired fine-grained pitch perception, tonal sequence discrimination, and melody recognition. Importantly, G.G. could not perform tests of tonal fusion that do not rely on pitch discrimination: He could not distinguish concurrent notes, timbre, consonance/dissonance, simultaneous notes, and musical affect. Results indicate at least three distinct problems-one with pitch discrimination, one with harmonic simultaneity, and one with musical affect-and each has distinct consequences for music perception.

Brain blood flow changes measured by positron emission tomography during an auditory cognitive task in healthy volunteers and in schizophrenic patients.

PubMed

Emri, Miklós; Glaub, Teodóra; Berecz, Roland; Lengyel, Zsolt; Mikecz, Pál; Repa, Imre; Bartók, Eniko; Degrell, István; Trón, Lajos

2006-05-01

Cognitive deficit is an essential feature of schizophrenia. One of the generally used simple cognitive tasks to characterize specific cognitive dysfunctions is the auditory "oddball" paradigm. During this task, two different tones are presented with different repetition frequencies and the subject is asked to pay attention and to respond to the less frequent tone. The aim of the present study was to apply positron emission tomography (PET) to measure the regional brain blood flow changes induced by an auditory oddball task in healthy volunteers and in stable schizophrenic patients in order to detect activation differences between the two groups. Eight healthy volunteers and 11 schizophrenic patients were studied. The subjects carried out a specific auditory oddball task, while cerebral activation measured via the regional distribution of [15O]-butanol activity changes in the PET camera was recorded. Task-related activation differed significantly across the patients and controls. The healthy volunteers displayed significant activation in the anterior cingulate area (Brodman Area - BA32), while in the schizophrenic patients the area was wider, including the mediofrontal regions (BA32 and BA10). The distance between the locations of maximal activation of the two populations were 33 mm and the cluster size was about twice as large in the patient group. The present results demonstrate that the perfusion changes induced in the schizophrenic patients by this cognitive task extends over a larger part of the mediofrontal cortex than in the healthy volunteers. The different pattern of activation observed during the auditory oddball task in the schizophrenic patients suggests that a larger cortical area - and consequently a larger variety of neuronal networks--is involved in the cognitive processes in these patients. The dispersion of stimulus processing during a cognitive task requiring sustained attention and stimulus discrimination may play an important role in the pathomechanism of the disorder.

Binaural beat salience

PubMed Central

Grose, John H.; Buss, Emily; Hall, Joseph W.

2012-01-01

Previous studies of binaural beats have noted individual variability and response lability, but little attention has been paid to the salience of the binaural beat percept. The purpose of this study was to gauge the strength of the binaural beat percept by matching its salience to that of sinusoidal amplitude modulation (SAM), and to then compare rate discrimination for the two types of fluctuation. Rate discrimination was measured for standard rates of 4, 8, 16, and 32 Hz – all in the 500-Hz carrier region. Twelve normal-hearing adults participated in this study. The results indicated that discrimination acuity for binaural beats is similar to that for SAM tones whose depths of modulation have been adjusted to provide equivalent modulation salience. The matched-salience SAM tones had relatively shallow depths of modulation, suggesting that the perceptual strength of binaural beats is relatively weak, although all listeners perceived them. The Weber fraction for detection of an increase in binaural beat rate is roughly constant across beat rates, at least for rates above 4 Hz, as is rate discrimination for SAM tones. PMID:22326292

Binaural beat salience.

PubMed

Grose, John H; Buss, Emily; Hall, Joseph W

2012-03-01

Previous studies of binaural beats have noted individual variability and response lability, but little attention has been paid to the salience of the binaural beat percept. The purpose of this study was to gauge the strength of the binaural beat percept by matching its salience to that of sinusoidal amplitude modulation (SAM), and to then compare rate discrimination for the two types of fluctuation. Rate discrimination was measured for standard rates of 4, 8, 16, and 32 Hz - all in the 500-Hz carrier region. Twelve normal-hearing adults participated in this study. The results indicated that discrimination acuity for binaural beats is similar to that for SAM tones whose depths of modulation have been adjusted to provide equivalent modulation salience. The matched-salience SAM tones had relatively shallow depths of modulation, suggesting that the perceptual strength of binaural beats is relatively weak, although all listeners perceived them. The Weber fraction for detection of an increase in binaural beat rate is roughly constant across beat rates, at least for rates above 4 Hz, as is rate discrimination for SAM tones. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Abnormal frequency discrimination in children with SLI as indexed by mismatch negativity (MMN).

PubMed

Rinker, Tanja; Kohls, Gregor; Richter, Cathrin; Maas, Verena; Schulz, Eberhard; Schecker, Michael

2007-02-14

For several decades, the aetiology of specific language impairment (SLI) has been associated with a central auditory processing deficit disrupting the normal language development of affected children. One important aspect for language acquisition is the discrimination of different acoustic features, such as frequency information. Concerning SLI, studies to date that examined frequency discrimination abilities have been contradictory. We hypothesized that an auditory processing deficit in children with SLI depends on the frequency range and the difference between the tones used. Using a passive mismatch negativity (MMN)-design, 13 boys with SLI and 13 age- and IQ-matched controls (7-11 years) were tested with two sine tones of different frequency (700Hz versus 750Hz). Reversed hemispheric activity between groups indicated abnormal processing in SLI. In a second time window, MMN2 was absent for the children with SLI. It can therefore be assumed that a frequency discrimination deficit in children with SLI becomes particularly apparent for tones below 750Hz and for a frequency difference of 50Hz. This finding may have important implications for future research and integration of various research approaches.

Sound frequency affects speech emotion perception: results from congenital amusia

PubMed Central

Lolli, Sydney L.; Lewenstein, Ari D.; Basurto, Julian; Winnik, Sean; Loui, Psyche

2015-01-01

Congenital amusics, or “tone-deaf” individuals, show difficulty in perceiving and producing small pitch differences. While amusia has marked effects on music perception, its impact on speech perception is less clear. Here we test the hypothesis that individual differences in pitch perception affect judgment of emotion in speech, by applying low-pass filters to spoken statements of emotional speech. A norming study was first conducted on Mechanical Turk to ensure that the intended emotions from the Macquarie Battery for Evaluation of Prosody were reliably identifiable by US English speakers. The most reliably identified emotional speech samples were used in Experiment 1, in which subjects performed a psychophysical pitch discrimination task, and an emotion identification task under low-pass and unfiltered speech conditions. Results showed a significant correlation between pitch-discrimination threshold and emotion identification accuracy for low-pass filtered speech, with amusics (defined here as those with a pitch discrimination threshold >16 Hz) performing worse than controls. This relationship with pitch discrimination was not seen in unfiltered speech conditions. Given the dissociation between low-pass filtered and unfiltered speech conditions, we inferred that amusics may be compensating for poorer pitch perception by using speech cues that are filtered out in this manipulation. To assess this potential compensation, Experiment 2 was conducted using high-pass filtered speech samples intended to isolate non-pitch cues. No significant correlation was found between pitch discrimination and emotion identification accuracy for high-pass filtered speech. Results from these experiments suggest an influence of low frequency information in identifying emotional content of speech. PMID:26441718

Effects of spectral complexity and sound duration on automatic complex-sound pitch processing in humans - a mismatch negativity study.

PubMed

Tervaniemi, M; Schröger, E; Saher, M; Näätänen, R

2000-08-18

The pitch of a spectrally rich sound is known to be more easily perceived than that of a sinusoidal tone. The present study compared the importance of spectral complexity and sound duration in facilitated pitch discrimination. The mismatch negativity (MMN), which reflects automatic neural discrimination, was recorded to a 2. 5% pitch change in pure tones with only one sinusoidal frequency component (500 Hz) and in spectrally rich tones with three (500-1500 Hz) and five (500-2500 Hz) harmonic partials. During the recordings, subjects concentrated on watching a silent movie. In separate blocks, stimuli were of 100 and 250 ms in duration. The MMN amplitude was enhanced with both spectrally rich sounds when compared with pure tones. The prolonged sound duration did not significantly enhance the MMN. This suggests that increased spectral rather than temporal information facilitates pitch processing of spectrally rich sounds.

The Development of Categorical Perception of Mandarin Tones in Four- to Seven-Year-Old Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, Fei; Peng, Gang; Yan, Nan; Wang, Lan

2017-01-01

To track the course of development in children's fine-grained perception of Mandarin tones, the present study explored how categorical perception (CP) of Mandarin tones emerges along age among 70 four- to seven-year-old children and 16 adults. Prominent discrimination peaks were found for both the child and the adult groups, and they were well…

Filling the blanks in temporal intervals: the type of filling influences perceived duration and discrimination performance

PubMed Central

Horr, Ninja K.; Di Luca, Massimiliano

2015-01-01

In this work we investigate how judgments of perceived duration are influenced by the properties of the signals that define the intervals. Participants compared two auditory intervals that could be any combination of the following four types: intervals filled with continuous tones (filled intervals), intervals filled with regularly-timed short tones (isochronous intervals), intervals filled with irregularly-timed short tones (anisochronous intervals), and intervals demarcated by two short tones (empty intervals). Results indicate that the type of intervals to be compared affects discrimination performance and induces distortions in perceived duration. In particular, we find that duration judgments are most precise when comparing two isochronous and two continuous intervals, while the comparison of two anisochronous intervals leads to the worst performance. Moreover, we determined that the magnitude of the distortions in perceived duration (an effect akin to the filled duration illusion) is higher for tone sequences (no matter whether isochronous or anisochronous) than for continuous tones. Further analysis of how duration distortions depend on the type of filling suggests that distortions are not only due to the perceived duration of the two individual intervals, but they may also be due to the comparison of two different filling types. PMID:25717310

Temporal Integration of Auditory Information Is Invariant to Temporal Grouping Cues1,2,3

PubMed Central

Tsunada, Joji

2015-01-01

Abstract Auditory perception depends on the temporal structure of incoming acoustic stimuli. Here, we examined whether a temporal manipulation that affects the perceptual grouping also affects the time dependence of decisions regarding those stimuli. We designed a novel discrimination task that required human listeners to decide whether a sequence of tone bursts was increasing or decreasing in frequency. We manipulated temporal perceptual-grouping cues by changing the time interval between the tone bursts, which led to listeners hearing the sequences as a single sound for short intervals or discrete sounds for longer intervals. Despite these strong perceptual differences, this manipulation did not affect the efficiency of how auditory information was integrated over time to form a decision. Instead, the grouping manipulation affected subjects’ speed−accuracy trade-offs. These results indicate that the temporal dynamics of evidence accumulation for auditory perceptual decisions can be invariant to manipulations that affect the perceptual grouping of the evidence. PMID:26464975

A dangerous context changes the way that rats learn about and discriminate between innocuous events in sensory preconditioning.

PubMed

Holmes, Nathan M; Westbrook, R Frederick

2017-09-01

Four experiments used a sensory preconditioning protocol to examine how a dangerous context influences learning about innocuous events. In Experiments 1, 2, and 3, rats were exposed to presentations of a tone followed immediately or 20-sec later by presentations of a light. These tone-light pairings occurred in a context that was either familiar and safe, or equally familiar but dangerous, that is, it was a context in which rats had been exposed to footshock. Rats were next exposed to parings of the light and shock and then tested with the tone (and light). The experiments showed that a dangerous context permits formation of a tone-light association under circumstances that preclude formation of that same association in a safe context (Experiments 1 and 2), and that this facilitative effect on associative formation depends on the content being currently dangerous rather than having been dangerous in the past (Experiment 3). Experiment 4 examined whether a dangerous context facilitates discrimination between two innocuous events. In a safe or dangerous context, rats were exposed to a tone that signaled the light and then to a white noise presented alone. Subsequent to conditioning of the light, the tests revealed that rats that had been exposed to these tone-light and white noise alone presentations in a dangerous context froze to the tone but not to the noise, whereas those exposed in a safe context froze to both the tone and the white noise. The results were related to previous evidence that the amygdala is critical for processing information about innocuous stimuli in a dangerous but not a safe context. They were attributed to an amygdala-based enhancement of arousal and/or attention in a dangerous context, hence the facilitation of associative formation and enhanced discriminability in this context. © 2017 Holmes and Westbrook; Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.

Promising high monetary rewards for future task performance increases intermediate task performance.

PubMed

Zedelius, Claire M; Veling, Harm; Bijleveld, Erik; Aarts, Henk

2012-01-01

In everyday life contexts and work settings, monetary rewards are often contingent on future performance. Based on research showing that the anticipation of rewards causes improved task performance through enhanced task preparation, the present study tested the hypothesis that the promise of monetary rewards for future performance would not only increase future performance, but also performance on an unrewarded intermediate task. Participants performed an auditory Simon task in which they responded to two consecutive tones. While participants could earn high vs. low monetary rewards for fast responses to every second tone, their responses to the first tone were not rewarded. Moreover, we compared performance under conditions in which reward information could prompt strategic performance adjustments (i.e., when reward information was presented for a relatively long duration) to conditions preventing strategic performance adjustments (i.e., when reward information was presented very briefly). Results showed that high (vs. low) rewards sped up both rewarded and intermediate, unrewarded responses, and the effect was independent of the duration of reward presentation. Moreover, long presentation led to a speed-accuracy trade-off for both rewarded and unrewarded tones, whereas short presentation sped up responses to rewarded and unrewarded tones without this trade-off. These results suggest that high rewards for future performance boost intermediate performance due to enhanced task preparation, and they do so regardless whether people respond to rewards in a strategic or non-strategic manner.

Promising High Monetary Rewards for Future Task Performance Increases Intermediate Task Performance

PubMed Central

Zedelius, Claire M.; Veling, Harm; Bijleveld, Erik; Aarts, Henk

2012-01-01

In everyday life contexts and work settings, monetary rewards are often contingent on future performance. Based on research showing that the anticipation of rewards causes improved task performance through enhanced task preparation, the present study tested the hypothesis that the promise of monetary rewards for future performance would not only increase future performance, but also performance on an unrewarded intermediate task. Participants performed an auditory Simon task in which they responded to two consecutive tones. While participants could earn high vs. low monetary rewards for fast responses to every second tone, their responses to the first tone were not rewarded. Moreover, we compared performance under conditions in which reward information could prompt strategic performance adjustments (i.e., when reward information was presented for a relatively long duration) to conditions preventing strategic performance adjustments (i.e., when reward information was presented very briefly). Results showed that high (vs. low) rewards sped up both rewarded and intermediate, unrewarded responses, and the effect was independent of the duration of reward presentation. Moreover, long presentation led to a speed-accuracy trade-off for both rewarded and unrewarded tones, whereas short presentation sped up responses to rewarded and unrewarded tones without this trade-off. These results suggest that high rewards for future performance boost intermediate performance due to enhanced task preparation, and they do so regardless whether people respond to rewards in a strategic or non-strategic manner. PMID:22905145

covert contrast: The acquisition of Mandarin tone 2 and tone 3 in L2 production and perception

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mar, Li-Ya

This dissertation investigates the occurrence of an intermediate stage, termed a covert contrast, in the acquisition of Mandarin Tone 2 (T2) and Tone 3 (T3) by adult speakers of American English. A covert contrast is a statistically reliable distinction produced by language learners that is not perceived by native speakers of the target language (TL). In second language (L2) acquisition, whether a learner is judged as having acquired a TL phonemic contrast has largely depended on whether the contrast was perceived and transcribed by native speakers of the TL. However, categorical perception has shown that native listeners cannot perceive a distinction between two sounds that fall within the same perceptual boundaries on the continuum of the relevant acoustic cues. In other words, it is possible that native speakers of the TL do not perceive a phonemic distinction that is produced by L2 learners when that distinction occurs within a phonemic boundary of TL. The data for the study were gathered through two elicitations of tone production, a longitudinal analysis, and two perception tasks. There were three key findings. First, both elicitations showed that most of the L2 participants produced a covert contrast between T2 and T3 on at least one of the three acoustic measures used in the study. Second, the longitudinal analysis reveals that some L2 participants progressed from making a covert contrast to a later stage of implementing an overt one, thereby supporting the claim that making a covert contrast is an intermediate stage in the process of acquiring a L2 phonemic contrast. Third, results of the perceptual tasks showed no reliable difference in identifying and discriminating Mandarin T2 and T3 on the part of the L2 learners who produced a covert contrast and those who produced an overt contrast, indicating that there was no reliable difference in the two groups' ability to perceive the target tones. In all, the occurrence of a covert contrast in the process of acquiring Mandarin T2 and T3 suggests that L2 acquisition of a tonal contrast is a gradient process, one in which an intermediate step occurs before a L2 learner reaches the final stage of implementing an overt contrast that is perceived as target-like by the native speakers of the TL.

Vibrotactile Discrimination of Musical Timbre

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Russo, Frank A.; Ammirante, Paolo; Fels, Deborah I.

2012-01-01

Five experiments investigated the ability to discriminate between musical timbres based on vibrotactile stimulation alone. Participants made same/different judgments on pairs of complex waveforms presented sequentially to the back through voice coils embedded in a conforming chair. Discrimination between cello, piano, and trombone tones matched…

Effects of Early Bilingual Experience with a Tone and a Non-Tone Language on Speech-Music Integration

PubMed Central

Asaridou, Salomi S.; Hagoort, Peter; McQueen, James M.

2015-01-01

We investigated music and language processing in a group of early bilinguals who spoke a tone language and a non-tone language (Cantonese and Dutch). We assessed online speech-music processing interactions, that is, interactions that occur when speech and music are processed simultaneously in songs, with a speeded classification task. In this task, participants judged sung pseudowords either musically (based on the direction of the musical interval) or phonologically (based on the identity of the sung vowel). We also assessed longer-term effects of linguistic experience on musical ability, that is, the influence of extensive prior experience with language when processing music. These effects were assessed with a task in which participants had to learn to identify musical intervals and with four pitch-perception tasks. Our hypothesis was that due to their experience in two different languages using lexical versus intonational tone, the early Cantonese-Dutch bilinguals would outperform the Dutch control participants. In online processing, the Cantonese-Dutch bilinguals processed speech and music more holistically than controls. This effect seems to be driven by experience with a tone language, in which integration of segmental and pitch information is fundamental. Regarding longer-term effects of linguistic experience, we found no evidence for a bilingual advantage in either the music-interval learning task or the pitch-perception tasks. Together, these results suggest that being a Cantonese-Dutch bilingual does not have any measurable longer-term effects on pitch and music processing, but does have consequences for how speech and music are processed jointly. PMID:26659377

Effects of Early Bilingual Experience with a Tone and a Non-Tone Language on Speech-Music Integration.

PubMed

Asaridou, Salomi S; Hagoort, Peter; McQueen, James M

2015-01-01

We investigated music and language processing in a group of early bilinguals who spoke a tone language and a non-tone language (Cantonese and Dutch). We assessed online speech-music processing interactions, that is, interactions that occur when speech and music are processed simultaneously in songs, with a speeded classification task. In this task, participants judged sung pseudowords either musically (based on the direction of the musical interval) or phonologically (based on the identity of the sung vowel). We also assessed longer-term effects of linguistic experience on musical ability, that is, the influence of extensive prior experience with language when processing music. These effects were assessed with a task in which participants had to learn to identify musical intervals and with four pitch-perception tasks. Our hypothesis was that due to their experience in two different languages using lexical versus intonational tone, the early Cantonese-Dutch bilinguals would outperform the Dutch control participants. In online processing, the Cantonese-Dutch bilinguals processed speech and music more holistically than controls. This effect seems to be driven by experience with a tone language, in which integration of segmental and pitch information is fundamental. Regarding longer-term effects of linguistic experience, we found no evidence for a bilingual advantage in either the music-interval learning task or the pitch-perception tasks. Together, these results suggest that being a Cantonese-Dutch bilingual does not have any measurable longer-term effects on pitch and music processing, but does have consequences for how speech and music are processed jointly.

Timbre-induced pitch shift from the perspective of Signal Detection Theory: the impact of musical expertise, silence interval, and pitch region

PubMed Central

Vurma, Allan

2014-01-01

The paradigm of Signal Detection Theory (SDT) was used to analyze the ability of professional pianists (N = 16) and string players (N = 15) to discriminate small F0 differences between consecutive musical tones, presented in pairs, with identical and with different (bright and dull) timbres. The sensitivity (d′) and response bias (c) were heavily dependent on the timbral arrangement of the pairs of tones (the “comparable tones”), which can be interpreted as the influence of timbre-induced pitch shift on F0 discrimination. The participants were somewhat biased to “miss” signals when comparable tones had identical timbres and to make “false alarms” when the tones had different timbres. The d′ was lowest when the tones with a lower F0 in those stimulus-pairs containing tones with different timbres had a brighter timber, and highest when both tones had bright timbre. On average, the string players had a somewhat higher d′ and their perception was slightly less influenced by timbre-induced pitch shift when compared to the pianists. Nevertheless, the dependence of d′ and c on the timbral arrangement of the tones was registered in the case of all the participants at all the investigated pitch regions around D#3, D4, and C#5. Furthermore, the presence of a silence of 3.5 s—a silence interval—between the tones to be compared had an impact on both d′- and c-values as well as on the degree of vulnerability to timbre-induced pitch shift. PMID:24550867

Perception of musical and lexical tones by Taiwanese-speaking musicians.

PubMed

Lee, Chao-Yang; Lee, Yuh-Fang; Shr, Chia-Lin

2011-07-01

This study explored the relationship between music and speech by examining absolute pitch and lexical tone perception. Taiwanese-speaking musicians were asked to identify musical tones without a reference pitch and multispeaker Taiwanese level tones without acoustic cues typically present for speaker normalization. The results showed that a high percentage of the participants (65% with an exact match required and 81% with one-semitone errors allowed) possessed absolute pitch, as measured by the musical tone identification task. A negative correlation was found between occurrence of absolute pitch and age of onset of musical training, suggesting that the acquisition of absolute pitch resembles the acquisition of speech. The participants were able to identify multispeaker Taiwanese level tones with above-chance accuracy, even though the acoustic cues typically present for speaker normalization were not available in the stimuli. No correlations were found between the performance in musical tone identification and the performance in Taiwanese tone identification. Potential reasons for the lack of association between the two tasks are discussed. © 2011 Acoustical Society of America

Benefits of fading in perceptual learning are driven by more than dimensional attention.

PubMed

Wisniewski, Matthew G; Radell, Milen L; Church, Barbara A; Mercado, Eduardo

2017-01-01

Individuals learn to classify percepts effectively when the task is initially easy and then gradually increases in difficulty. Some suggest that this is because easy-to-discriminate events help learners focus attention on discrimination-relevant dimensions. Here, we tested whether such attentional-spotlighting accounts are sufficient to explain easy-to-hard effects in auditory perceptual learning. In two experiments, participants were trained to discriminate periodic, frequency-modulated (FM) tones in two separate frequency ranges (300-600 Hz or 3000-6000 Hz). In one frequency range, sounds gradually increased in similarity as training progressed. In the other, stimulus similarity was constant throughout training. After training, participants showed better performance in their progressively trained frequency range, even though the discrimination-relevant dimension across ranges was the same. Learning theories that posit experience-dependent changes in stimulus representations and/or the strengthening of associations with differential responses, predict the observed specificity of easy-to-hard effects, whereas attentional-spotlighting theories do not. Calibrating the difficulty and temporal sequencing of training experiences to support more incremental representation-based learning can enhance the effectiveness of practice beyond any benefits gained from explicitly highlighting relevant dimensions.

Effects of task complexity on activation of language areas in a semantic decision fMRI protocol.

PubMed

Lopes, Tátila Martins; Yasuda, Clarissa Lin; de Campos, Brunno Machado; Balthazar, Marcio L F; Binder, Jeffrey R; Cendes, Fernando

2016-01-29

Language tasks used for clinical fMRI studies may be too complex for some patients with cognitive impairments, and "easier" versions are sometimes substituted, though the effects on brain activity of such changes in task complexity are largely unknown. To investigate these differences, we compared two versions of an fMRI language comprehension protocol, with different levels of difficulty, in 24 healthy right-handed adults. The protocol contrasted an auditory word comprehension task (semantic decision) with a nonspeech control task using tone sequences (tone decision). In the "complex" version (CV), the semantic decision task required two complex semantic decisions for each word, and the tone decision task required the participant to count the number of target tones in each sequence. In the "easy" version (EV), the semantic task required only a single easier decision, and the tone task required only detection of the presence or absence of a target tone in each sequence. The protocols were adapted for a Brazilian population. Typical left hemisphere language lateralization was observed in 92% of participants for both CV and EV using the whole-brain lateralization index, and typical language lateralization was also observed for others regions of interest. Task performance was superior on the EV compared to the CV (p=0.014). There were many common areas of activation across the two version; however, the CV produced greater activation in the left superior and middle frontal giri, angular gyrus, and left posterior cingulate gyrus compared to the EV, the majority of which are areas previously identified with language and semantic processing. The EV produced stronger activation only in a small area in the posterior middle temporal gyrus. These results reveal differences between two versions of the protocol and provide evidence that both are useful for language lateralization and worked well for Brazilian population. The complex version produces stronger activation in several nodes of the semantic network and therefore is elected for participants who can perform well these tasks. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Unconscious improvement in foreign language learning using mismatch negativity neurofeedback: A preliminary study.

PubMed

Chang, Ming; Iizuka, Hiroyuki; Kashioka, Hideki; Naruse, Yasushi; Furukawa, Masahiro; Ando, Hideyuki; Maeda, Taro

2017-01-01

When people learn foreign languages, they find it difficult to perceive speech sounds that are nonexistent in their native language, and extensive training is consequently necessary. Our previous studies have shown that by using neurofeedback based on the mismatch negativity event-related brain potential, participants could unconsciously achieve learning in the auditory discrimination of pure tones that could not be consciously discriminated without the neurofeedback. Here, we examined whether mismatch negativity neurofeedback is effective for helping someone to perceive new speech sounds in foreign language learning. We developed a task for training native Japanese speakers to discriminate between 'l' and 'r' sounds in English, as they usually cannot discriminate between these two sounds. Without participants attending to auditory stimuli or being aware of the nature of the experiment, neurofeedback training helped them to achieve significant improvement in unconscious auditory discrimination and recognition of the target words 'light' and 'right'. There was also improvement in the recognition of other words containing 'l' and 'r' (e.g., 'blight' and 'bright'), even though these words had not been presented during training. This method could be used to facilitate foreign language learning and can be extended to other fields of auditory and clinical research and even other senses.

Unconscious improvement in foreign language learning using mismatch negativity neurofeedback: A preliminary study

PubMed Central

Iizuka, Hiroyuki; Kashioka, Hideki; Naruse, Yasushi; Furukawa, Masahiro; Ando, Hideyuki; Maeda, Taro

2017-01-01

When people learn foreign languages, they find it difficult to perceive speech sounds that are nonexistent in their native language, and extensive training is consequently necessary. Our previous studies have shown that by using neurofeedback based on the mismatch negativity event-related brain potential, participants could unconsciously achieve learning in the auditory discrimination of pure tones that could not be consciously discriminated without the neurofeedback. Here, we examined whether mismatch negativity neurofeedback is effective for helping someone to perceive new speech sounds in foreign language learning. We developed a task for training native Japanese speakers to discriminate between ‘l’ and ‘r’ sounds in English, as they usually cannot discriminate between these two sounds. Without participants attending to auditory stimuli or being aware of the nature of the experiment, neurofeedback training helped them to achieve significant improvement in unconscious auditory discrimination and recognition of the target words ‘light’ and ‘right’. There was also improvement in the recognition of other words containing ‘l’ and ‘r’ (e.g., ‘blight’ and ‘bright’), even though these words had not been presented during training. This method could be used to facilitate foreign language learning and can be extended to other fields of auditory and clinical research and even other senses. PMID:28617861

EEG Mu (µ) rhythm spectra and oscillatory activity differentiate stuttering from non-stuttering adults.

PubMed

Saltuklaroglu, Tim; Harkrider, Ashley W; Thornton, David; Jenson, David; Kittilstved, Tiffani

2017-06-01

Stuttering is linked to sensorimotor deficits related to internal modeling mechanisms. This study compared spectral power and oscillatory activity of EEG mu (μ) rhythms between persons who stutter (PWS) and controls in listening and auditory discrimination tasks. EEG data were analyzed from passive listening in noise and accurate (same/different) discrimination of tones or syllables in quiet and noisy backgrounds. Independent component analysis identified left and/or right μ rhythms with characteristic alpha (α) and beta (β) peaks localized to premotor/motor regions in 23 of 27 people who stutter (PWS) and 24 of 27 controls. PWS produced μ spectra with reduced β amplitudes across conditions, suggesting reduced forward modeling capacity. Group time-frequency differences were associated with noisy conditions only. PWS showed increased μ-β desynchronization when listening to noise and early in discrimination events, suggesting evidence of heightened motor activity that might be related to forward modeling deficits. PWS also showed reduced μ-α synchronization in discrimination conditions, indicating reduced sensory gating. Together these findings indicate spectral and oscillatory analyses of μ rhythms are sensitive to stuttering. More specifically, they can reveal stuttering-related sensorimotor processing differences in listening and auditory discrimination that also may be influenced by basal ganglia deficits. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Thinking about thinking: Neural mechanisms and effects on memory.

PubMed

Bonhage, Corinna; Weber, Friederike; Exner, Cornelia; Kanske, Philipp

2016-02-15

It is a well-established finding that memory encoding is impaired if an external secondary task (e.g. tone discrimination) is performed simultaneously. Yet, while studying we are also often engaged in internal secondary tasks such as planning, ruminating, or daydreaming. It remains unclear whether such a secondary internal task has similar effects on memory and what the neural mechanisms underlying such an influence are. We therefore measured participants' blood oxygenation level dependent responses while they learned word-pairs and simultaneously performed different types of secondary tasks (i.e., internal, external, and control). Memory performance decreased in both internal and external secondary tasks compared to the easy control condition. However, while the external task reduced activity in memory-encoding related regions (hippocampus), the internal task increased neural activity in brain regions associated with self-reflection (anterior medial prefrontal cortex), as well as in regions associated with performance monitoring and the perception of salience (anterior insula, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex). Resting-state functional connectivity analyses confirmed that anterior medial prefrontal cortex and anterior insula/dorsal anterior cingulate cortex are part of the default mode network and salience network, respectively. In sum, a secondary internal task impairs memory performance just as a secondary external task, but operates through different neural mechanisms. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Human Pupillary Dilation Response to Deviant Auditory Stimuli: Effects of Stimulus Properties and Voluntary Attention

PubMed Central

Liao, Hsin-I; Yoneya, Makoto; Kidani, Shunsuke; Kashino, Makio; Furukawa, Shigeto

2016-01-01

A unique sound that deviates from a repetitive background sound induces signature neural responses, such as mismatch negativity and novelty P3 response in electro-encephalography studies. Here we show that a deviant auditory stimulus induces a human pupillary dilation response (PDR) that is sensitive to the stimulus properties and irrespective whether attention is directed to the sounds or not. In an auditory oddball sequence, we used white noise and 2000-Hz tones as oddballs against repeated 1000-Hz tones. Participants' pupillary responses were recorded while they listened to the auditory oddball sequence. In Experiment 1, they were not involved in any task. Results show that pupils dilated to the noise oddballs for approximately 4 s, but no such PDR was found for the 2000-Hz tone oddballs. In Experiments 2, two types of visual oddballs were presented synchronously with the auditory oddballs. Participants discriminated the auditory or visual oddballs while trying to ignore stimuli from the other modality. The purpose of this manipulation was to direct attention to or away from the auditory sequence. In Experiment 3, the visual oddballs and the auditory oddballs were always presented asynchronously to prevent residuals of attention on to-be-ignored oddballs due to the concurrence with the attended oddballs. Results show that pupils dilated to both the noise and 2000-Hz tone oddballs in all conditions. Most importantly, PDRs to noise were larger than those to the 2000-Hz tone oddballs regardless of the attention condition in both experiments. The overall results suggest that the stimulus-dependent factor of the PDR appears to be independent of attention. PMID:26924959

Stimulus presentation order and the perception of lexical tones in Cantonese

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Francis, Alexander L.; Ciocca, Valter

2003-09-01

Listeners' auditory discrimination of vowel sounds depends in part on the order in which stimuli are presented. Such presentation order effects have been argued to be language independent, and to result from psychophysical (not speech- or language-specific) factors such as the decay of memory traces over time or increased weighting of later-occurring stimuli. In the present study, native Cantonese speakers' discrimination of a linguistic tone continuum is shown to exhibit order of presentation effects similar to those shown for vowels in previous studies. When presented with two successive syllables differing in fundamental frequency by approximately 4 Hz, listeners were significantly more sensitive to this difference when the first syllable was higher in frequency than the second. However, American English-speaking listeners with no experience listening to Cantonese showed no such contrast effect when tested in the same manner using the same stimuli. Neither English nor Cantonese listeners showed any order of presentation effects in the discrimination of a nonspeech continuum in which tokens had the same fundamental frequencies as the Cantonese speech tokens but had a qualitatively non-speech-like timbre. These results suggest that tone presentation order effects, unlike vowel effects, may be language specific, possibly resulting from the need to compensate for utterance-related pitch declination when evaluating fundamental frequency for tone identification.

Influence of musical and psychoacoustical training on pitch discrimination.

PubMed

Micheyl, Christophe; Delhommeau, Karine; Perrot, Xavier; Oxenham, Andrew J

2006-09-01

This study compared the influence of musical and psychoacoustical training on auditory pitch discrimination abilities. In a first experiment, pitch discrimination thresholds for pure and complex tones were measured in 30 classical musicians and 30 non-musicians, none of whom had prior psychoacoustical training. The non-musicians' mean thresholds were more than six times larger than those of the classical musicians initially, and still about four times larger after 2h of training using an adaptive two-interval forced-choice procedure; this difference is two to three times larger than suggested by previous studies. The musicians' thresholds were close to those measured in earlier psychoacoustical studies using highly trained listeners, and showed little improvement with training; this suggests that classical musical training can lead to optimal or nearly optimal pitch discrimination performance. A second experiment was performed to determine how much additional training was required for the non-musicians to obtain thresholds as low as those of the classical musicians from experiment 1. Eight new non-musicians with no prior training practiced the frequency discrimination task for a total of 14 h. It took between 4 and 8h of training for their thresholds to become as small as those measured in the classical musicians from experiment 1. These findings supplement and qualify earlier data in the literature regarding the respective influence of musical and psychoacoustical training on pitch discrimination performance.

Effects of several mental tasks on auditory fatigue.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

1965-01-01

Eight males were exposed for three minutes to a 4000 cps fatigue tone at 40 dB SL. Each S was tested under four task-conditions: mental arithmetic (MA), written ling division (LD), threshold determination of a 500 cps tone (TD), and reverie (REV). Te...

Auditory-prosodic processing in bipolar disorder; from sensory perception to emotion.

PubMed

Van Rheenen, Tamsyn E; Rossell, Susan L

2013-12-01

Accurate emotion processing is critical to understanding the social world. Despite growing evidence of facial emotion processing impairments in patients with bipolar disorder (BD), comprehensive investigations of emotional prosodic processing is limited. The existing (albeit sparse) literature is inconsistent at best, and confounded by failures to control for the effects of gender or low level sensory-perceptual impairments. The present study sought to address this paucity of research by utilizing a novel behavioural battery to comprehensively investigate the auditory-prosodic profile of BD. Fifty BD patients and 52 healthy controls completed tasks assessing emotional and linguistic prosody, and sensitivity for discriminating tones that deviate in amplitude, duration and pitch. BD patients were less sensitive than their control counterparts in discriminating amplitude and durational cues but not pitch cues or linguistic prosody. They also demonstrated impaired ability to recognize happy intonations; although this was specific to male's with the disorder. The recognition of happy in the patient group was correlated with pitch and amplitude sensitivity in female patients only. The small sample size of patients after stratification by current mood state prevented us from conducting subgroup comparisons between symptomatic, euthymic and control participants to explicitly examine the effects of mood. Our findings indicate the existence of a female advantage for the processing of emotional prosody in BD, specifically for the processing of happy. Although male BD patients were impaired in their ability to recognize happy prosody, this was unrelated to reduced tone discrimination sensitivity. This study indicates the importance of examining both gender and low order sensory perceptual capacity when examining emotional prosody. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Development of phonological awareness in bilingual chinese children.

PubMed

Chen, Xi; Ku, Yu-Min; Koyama, Emiko; Anderson, Richard C; Li, Wenling

2008-11-01

This study investigated the phonological awareness of 219 first, second, and fourth grade Cantonese-speaking children from the south of China, who received immersion Mandarin instruction beginning in the first grade. Children received onset, rime and tone awareness tasks in Cantonese and Mandarin. Children performed better on the Cantonese onset awareness task in grade one, but the difference disappeared in higher grades. However, their performance on the rime and tone awareness tasks was better in Mandarin. These results reflect the phonological structure of the two languages: Mandarin has a more complex onset system, whereas Cantonese has more complex tone and rime systems. Moreover, children's phonological awareness increased faster in Mandarin, which likely resulted from Mandarin instruction. Confirmatory factor analysis suggested that onset-rime awareness is a universal construct, whereas tone awareness is a language-specific construct.

What's in a face? The role of skin tone, facial physiognomy, and color presentation mode of facial primes in affective priming effects.

PubMed

Stepanova, Elena V; Strube, Michael J

2012-01-01

Participants (N = 106) performed an affective priming task with facial primes that varied in their skin tone and facial physiognomy, and, which were presented either in color or in gray-scale. Participants' racial evaluations were more positive for Eurocentric than for Afrocentric physiognomy faces. Light skin tone faces were evaluated more positively than dark skin tone faces, but the magnitude of this effect depended on the mode of color presentation. The results suggest that in affective priming tasks, faces might not be processed holistically, and instead, visual features of facial priming stimuli independently affect implicit evaluations.

Sensitivity to Envelope Interaural Time Differences at High Modulation Rates

PubMed Central

Bleeck, Stefan; McAlpine, David

2015-01-01

Sensitivity to interaural time differences (ITDs) conveyed in the temporal fine structure of low-frequency tones and the modulated envelopes of high-frequency sounds are considered comparable, particularly for envelopes shaped to transmit similar fidelity of temporal information normally present for low-frequency sounds. Nevertheless, discrimination performance for envelope modulation rates above a few hundred Hertz is reported to be poor—to the point of discrimination thresholds being unattainable—compared with the much higher (>1,000 Hz) limit for low-frequency ITD sensitivity, suggesting the presence of a low-pass filter in the envelope domain. Further, performance for identical modulation rates appears to decline with increasing carrier frequency, supporting the view that the low-pass characteristics observed for envelope ITD processing is carrier-frequency dependent. Here, we assessed listeners’ sensitivity to ITDs conveyed in pure tones and in the modulated envelopes of high-frequency tones. ITD discrimination for the modulated high-frequency tones was measured as a function of both modulation rate and carrier frequency. Some well-trained listeners appear able to discriminate ITDs extremely well, even at modulation rates well beyond 500 Hz, for 4-kHz carriers. For one listener, thresholds were even obtained for a modulation rate of 800 Hz. The highest modulation rate for which thresholds could be obtained declined with increasing carrier frequency for all listeners. At 10 kHz, the highest modulation rate at which thresholds could be obtained was 600 Hz. The upper limit of sensitivity to ITDs conveyed in the envelope of high-frequency modulated sounds appears to be higher than previously considered. PMID:26721926

Influence of dual-tasking with different levels of attention diversion on characteristics of the movement-related cortical potential.

PubMed

Aliakbaryhosseinabadi, Susan; Kamavuako, Ernest Nlandu; Jiang, Ning; Farina, Dario; Mrachacz-Kersting, Natalie

2017-11-01

Dual tasking is defined as performing two tasks concurrently and has been shown to have a significant effect on attention directed to the performance of the main task. In this study, an attention diversion task with two different levels was administered while participants had to complete a cue-based motor task consisting of foot dorsiflexion. An auditory oddball task with two levels of complexity was implemented to divert the user's attention. Electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings were made from nine single channels. Event-related potentials (ERPs) confirmed that the oddball task of counting a sequence of two tones decreased the auditory P300 amplitude more than the oddball task of counting one target tone among three different tones. Pre-movement features quantified from the movement-related cortical potential (MRCP) were changed significantly between single and dual-task conditions in motor and fronto-central channels. There was a significant delay in movement detection for the case of single tone counting in two motor channels only (237.1-247.4ms). For the task of sequence counting, motor cortex and frontal channels showed a significant delay in MRCP detection (232.1-250.5ms). This study investigated the effect of attention diversion in dual-task conditions by analysing both ERPs and MRCPs in single channels. The higher attention diversion lead to a significant reduction in specific MRCP features of the motor task. These results suggest that attention division in dual-tasking situations plays an important role in movement execution and detection. This has important implications in designing real-time brain-computer interface systems. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Reboxetine Improves Auditory Attention and Increases Norepinephrine Levels in the Auditory Cortex of Chronically Stressed Rats

PubMed Central

Pérez-Valenzuela, Catherine; Gárate-Pérez, Macarena F.; Sotomayor-Zárate, Ramón; Delano, Paul H.; Dagnino-Subiabre, Alexies

2016-01-01

Chronic stress impairs auditory attention in rats and monoamines regulate neurotransmission in the primary auditory cortex (A1), a brain area that modulates auditory attention. In this context, we hypothesized that norepinephrine (NE) levels in A1 correlate with the auditory attention performance of chronically stressed rats. The first objective of this research was to evaluate whether chronic stress affects monoamines levels in A1. Male Sprague–Dawley rats were subjected to chronic stress (restraint stress) and monoamines levels were measured by high performance liquid chromatographer (HPLC)-electrochemical detection. Chronically stressed rats had lower levels of NE in A1 than did controls, while chronic stress did not affect serotonin (5-HT) and dopamine (DA) levels. The second aim was to determine the effects of reboxetine (a selective inhibitor of NE reuptake) on auditory attention and NE levels in A1. Rats were trained to discriminate between two tones of different frequencies in a two-alternative choice task (2-ACT), a behavioral paradigm to study auditory attention in rats. Trained animals that reached a performance of ≥80% correct trials in the 2-ACT were randomly assigned to control and stress experimental groups. To analyze the effects of chronic stress on the auditory task, trained rats of both groups were subjected to 50 2-ACT trials 1 day before and 1 day after of the chronic stress period. A difference score (DS) was determined by subtracting the number of correct trials after the chronic stress protocol from those before. An unexpected result was that vehicle-treated control rats and vehicle-treated chronically stressed rats had similar performances in the attentional task, suggesting that repeated injections with vehicle were stressful for control animals and deteriorated their auditory attention. In this regard, both auditory attention and NE levels in A1 were higher in chronically stressed rats treated with reboxetine than in vehicle-treated animals. These results indicate that NE has a key role in A1 and attention of stressed rats during tone discrimination. PMID:28082872

Immersive audiomotor game play enhances neural and perceptual salience of weak signals in noise

PubMed Central

Whitton, Jonathon P.; Hancock, Kenneth E.; Polley, Daniel B.

2014-01-01

All sensory systems face the fundamental challenge of encoding weak signals in noisy backgrounds. Although discrimination abilities can improve with practice, these benefits rarely generalize to untrained stimulus dimensions. Inspired by recent findings that action video game training can impart a broader spectrum of benefits than traditional perceptual learning paradigms, we trained adult humans and mice in an immersive audio game that challenged them to forage for hidden auditory targets in a 2D soundscape. Both species learned to modulate their angular search vectors and target approach velocities based on real-time changes in the level of a weak tone embedded in broadband noise. In humans, mastery of this tone in noise task generalized to an improved ability to comprehend spoken sentences in speech babble noise. Neural plasticity in the auditory cortex of trained mice supported improved decoding of low-intensity sounds at the training frequency and an enhanced resistance to interference from background masking noise. These findings highlight the potential to improve the neural and perceptual salience of degraded sensory stimuli through immersive computerized games. PMID:24927596

Exploiting Acoustic and Syntactic Features for Automatic Prosody Labeling in a Maximum Entropy Framework

PubMed Central

Sridhar, Vivek Kumar Rangarajan; Bangalore, Srinivas; Narayanan, Shrikanth S.

2009-01-01

In this paper, we describe a maximum entropy-based automatic prosody labeling framework that exploits both language and speech information. We apply the proposed framework to both prominence and phrase structure detection within the Tones and Break Indices (ToBI) annotation scheme. Our framework utilizes novel syntactic features in the form of supertags and a quantized acoustic–prosodic feature representation that is similar to linear parameterizations of the prosodic contour. The proposed model is trained discriminatively and is robust in the selection of appropriate features for the task of prosody detection. The proposed maximum entropy acoustic–syntactic model achieves pitch accent and boundary tone detection accuracies of 86.0% and 93.1% on the Boston University Radio News corpus, and, 79.8% and 90.3% on the Boston Directions corpus. The phrase structure detection through prosodic break index labeling provides accuracies of 84% and 87% on the two corpora, respectively. The reported results are significantly better than previously reported results and demonstrate the strength of maximum entropy model in jointly modeling simple lexical, syntactic, and acoustic features for automatic prosody labeling. PMID:19603083

Immersive audiomotor game play enhances neural and perceptual salience of weak signals in noise.

PubMed

Whitton, Jonathon P; Hancock, Kenneth E; Polley, Daniel B

2014-06-24

All sensory systems face the fundamental challenge of encoding weak signals in noisy backgrounds. Although discrimination abilities can improve with practice, these benefits rarely generalize to untrained stimulus dimensions. Inspired by recent findings that action video game training can impart a broader spectrum of benefits than traditional perceptual learning paradigms, we trained adult humans and mice in an immersive audio game that challenged them to forage for hidden auditory targets in a 2D soundscape. Both species learned to modulate their angular search vectors and target approach velocities based on real-time changes in the level of a weak tone embedded in broadband noise. In humans, mastery of this tone in noise task generalized to an improved ability to comprehend spoken sentences in speech babble noise. Neural plasticity in the auditory cortex of trained mice supported improved decoding of low-intensity sounds at the training frequency and an enhanced resistance to interference from background masking noise. These findings highlight the potential to improve the neural and perceptual salience of degraded sensory stimuli through immersive computerized games.

Implicit versus explicit frequency comparisons: two mechanisms of auditory change detection.

PubMed

Demany, Laurent; Semal, Catherine; Pressnitzer, Daniel

2011-04-01

Listeners had to compare, with respect to pitch (frequency), a pure tone (T) to a combination of pure tones presented subsequently (C). The elements of C were either synchronous, and therefore difficult to hear out individually, or asynchronous and therefore easier to hear out individually. In the "present/absent" condition, listeners had to judge if T reappeared in C or not. In the "up/down" condition, the task was to judge if the element of C most similar to T was higher or lower than T. When the elements of C were synchronous, the up/down task was found to be easier than the present/absent task; the converse result was obtained when the elements of C were asynchronous. This provides evidence for a duality of auditory comparisons between tone frequencies: (1) implicit comparisons made by automatic and direction-sensitive "frequency-shift detectors"; (2) explicit comparisons more sensitive to the magnitude of a frequency change than to its direction. Another experiment suggests that although the frequency-shift detectors cannot compare effectively two tones separated by an interfering tone, they are largely insensitive to interfering noise bursts.

Development of a Pitch Discrimination Screening Test for Preschool Children.

PubMed

Abramson, Maria Kulick; Lloyd, Peter J

2016-04-01

There is a critical need for tests of auditory discrimination for young children as this skill plays a fundamental role in the development of speaking, prereading, reading, language, and more complex auditory processes. Frequency discrimination is important with regard to basic sensory processing affecting phonological processing, dyslexia, measurements of intelligence, auditory memory, Asperger syndrome, and specific language impairment. This study was performed to determine the clinical feasibility of the Pitch Discrimination Test (PDT) to screen the preschool child's ability to discriminate some of the acoustic demands of speech perception, primarily pitch discrimination, without linguistic content. The PDT used brief speech frequency tones to gather normative data from preschool children aged 3 to 5 yrs. A cross-sectional study was used to gather data regarding the pitch discrimination abilities of a sample of typically developing preschool children, between 3 and 5 yrs of age. The PDT consists of ten trials using two pure tones of 100-msec duration each, and was administered in an AA or AB forced-choice response format. Data from 90 typically developing preschool children between the ages of 3 and 5 yrs were used to provide normative data. Nonparametric Mann-Whitney U-testing was used to examine the effects of age as a continuous variable on pitch discrimination. The Kruskal-Wallis test was used to determine the significance of age on performance on the PDT. Spearman rank was used to determine the correlation of age and performance on the PDT. Pitch discrimination of brief tones improved significantly from age 3 yrs to age 4 yrs, as well as from age 3 yrs to the age 4- and 5-yrs group. Results indicated that between ages 3 and 4 yrs, children's auditory discrimination of pitch improved on the PDT. The data showed that children can be screened for auditory discrimination of pitch beginning with age 4 yrs. The PDT proved to be a time efficient, feasible tool for a simple form of frequency discrimination screening in the preschool population before the age where other diagnostic tests of auditory processing disorders can be used. American Academy of Audiology.

The processing of emotional prosody and semantics in schizophrenia: relationship to gender and IQ.

PubMed

Scholten, M R M; Aleman, A; Kahn, R S

2008-06-01

Female patients with schizophrenia are less impaired in social life than male patients. Because social impairment in schizophrenia has been found to be associated with deficits in emotion recognition, we examined whether the female advantage in processing emotional prosody and semantics is preserved in schizophrenia. Forty-eight patients (25 males, 23 females) and 46 controls (23 males, 23 females) were assessed using an emotional language task (in which healthy women generally outperform healthy men), consisting of 96 sentences in four conditions: (1) neutral-content/emotional-tone (happy, sad, angry or anxious); (2) neutral-tone/emotional-content; (3) emotional-tone/incongruous emotional-content; and (4) emotional-content/incongruous emotional-tone. Participants had to ignore the emotional-content in the third condition and the emotional-tone in the fourth condition. In addition, participants were assessed with a visuospatial task (in which healthy men typically excel). Correlation coefficients were computed for associations between emotional language data, visuospatial data, IQ measures and patient variables. Overall, on the emotional language task, patients made more errors than control subjects, and women outperformed men across diagnostic groups. Controlling for IQ revealed a significant effect on task performance in all groups, especially in the incongruent tasks. On the rotation task, healthy men outperformed healthy women, but male patients, female patients and female controls obtained similar scores. The advantage in emotional prosodic and semantic processing in healthy women is preserved in schizophrenia, whereas the male advantage in visuospatial processing is lost. These findings may explain, in part, why social functioning is less compromised in women with schizophrenia than in men.

Suprasegmental Features Are Not Acquired Early: Perception and Production of Monosyllabic Cantonese Lexical Tones in 4- to 6-Year-Old Preschool Children.

PubMed

Wong, Puisan; Tsz-Tin Leung, Carrie

2018-05-17

Previous studies reported that children acquire Cantonese tones before 3 years of age, supporting the assumption in models of phonological development that suprasegmental features are acquired rapidly and early in children. Yet, recent research found a large disparity in the age of Cantonese tone acquisition. This study investigated Cantonese tone development in 4- to 6-year-old children. Forty-eight 4- to 6-year-old Cantonese-speaking children and 28 mothers of the children labeled 30 pictures representing familiar words in the 6 tones in a picture-naming task and identified pictures representing words in different Cantonese tones in a picture-pointing task. To control for lexical biases in tone assessment, tone productions were low-pass filtered to eliminate lexical information. Five judges categorized the tones in filtered stimuli. Tone production accuracy, tone perception accuracy, and correlation between tone production and perception accuracy were examined. Children did not start to produce adultlike tones until 5 and 6 years of age. Four-year-olds produced none of the tones with adultlike accuracy. Five- and 6-year-olds attained adultlike productions in 2 (T5 and T6) to 3 (T4, T5, and T6) tones, respectively. Children made better progress in tone perception and achieved higher accuracy in perception than in production. However, children in all age groups perceived none of the tones as accurately as adults, except that T1 was perceived with adultlike accuracy by 6-year-olds. Only weak association was found between children's tone perception and production accuracy. Contradicting to the long-held assumption that children acquire lexical tone rapidly and early before the mastery of segmentals, this study found that 4- to 6-year-old children have not mastered the perception or production of the full set of Cantonese tones in familiar monosyllabic words. Larger development was found in children's tone perception than tone production. The higher tone perception accuracy but weak correlation between tone perception and production abilities in children suggested that tone perception accuracy is not sufficient for children's tone production accuracy. The findings have clinical and theoretical implications.

Learning and processing of nonverbal symbolic information in bilinguals and monolinguals

PubMed Central

Blumenfeld, Henrike K.; Adams, Ashley M.

2014-01-01

Bilinguals have been shown to outperform monolinguals on word learning and on inhibition tasks that require competition resolution. Yet the scope of such bilingual advantages remains underspecified. We compared bilinguals and monolinguals on nonverbal symbolic learning and on competition resolution while processing newly-learned material. Participants were trained on 12 tone-to-symbol mappings, combining timbre, pitch, and duration of tones. During subsequent processing, participants viewed a display with four symbols, and were instructed to identify the symbol that matched a simultaneously-presented tone. On competition trials, two symbols matched the tone in timbre and pitch, but only one matched the tone on timbre, pitch, and duration. No learning differences emerged between 27 Spanish-English bilinguals and 27 English monolinguals, and more successful learners performed better on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary task. During the processing task, competition trials yielded responses with lower accuracies and longer latencies than control trials. Further, in both groups, more successful learning of tone-to-symbol mappings was associated with more successful retrieval during processing. In monolinguals, English receptive vocabulary scores also influenced retrieval efficiency during processing, with English/Spanish vocabulary less related to the novel processing task in bilinguals. Finally, to examine inhibition of competing stimuli, priming probes were presented after each tone-symbol processing trial. These probes suggested that bilinguals, and to a lesser extent monolinguals, showed residual inhibition of competitors at 200 ms post-target identification. Together, findings suggest that learning of novel symbolic information may depend in part on previous linguistic knowledge (not bilingualism per se), and that, during processing of newly-learned material, subtle differences in retrieval and competition resolution may emerge between bilinguals and monolinguals. PMID:25360125

Behavioral Measures of Auditory Streaming in Ferrets (Mustela putorius)

PubMed Central

Ma, Ling; Yin, Pingbo; Micheyl, Christophe; Oxenham, Andrew J.; Shamma, Shihab A.

2015-01-01

An important aspect of the analysis of auditory “scenes” relates to the perceptual organization of sound sequences into auditory “streams.” In this study, we adapted two auditory perception tasks, used in recent human psychophysical studies, to obtain behavioral measures of auditory streaming in ferrets (Mustela putorius). One task involved the detection of shifts in the frequency of tones within an alternating tone sequence. The other task involved the detection of a stream of regularly repeating target tones embedded within a randomly varying multitone background. In both tasks, performance was measured as a function of various stimulus parameters, which previous psychophysical studies in humans have shown to influence auditory streaming. Ferret performance in the two tasks was found to vary as a function of these parameters in a way that is qualitatively consistent with the human data. These results suggest that auditory streaming occurs in ferrets, and that the two tasks described here may provide a valuable tool in future behavioral and neurophysiological studies of the phenomenon. PMID:20695663

Perception of Melodic Contour and Intonation in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Evidence from Mandarin Speakers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jiang, Jun; Liu, Fang; Wan, Xuan; Jiang, Cunmei

2015-01-01

Tone language experience benefits pitch processing in music and speech for typically developing individuals. No known studies have examined pitch processing in individuals with autism who speak a tone language. This study investigated discrimination and identification of melodic contour and speech intonation in a group of Mandarin-speaking…

Mismatch Negativity Elicited by Tones and Speech Sounds: Changed Topographical Distribution in Aphasia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Becker, Frank; Reinvang, Ivar

2007-01-01

This study used the event-related brain potential mismatch negativity (MMN) to investigate preconscious discrimination of harmonically rich tones (differing in duration) and consonant-vowel syllables (differing in the initial consonant) in aphasia. Eighteen Norwegian aphasic patients, examined on average 3 months after brain injury, were compared…

Results using the OPAL strategy in Mandarin speaking cochlear implant recipients.

PubMed

Vandali, Andrew E; Dawson, Pam W; Arora, Komal

2017-01-01

To evaluate the effectiveness of an experimental pitch-coding strategy for improving recognition of Mandarin lexical tone in cochlear implant (CI) recipients. Adult CI recipients were tested on recognition of Mandarin tones in quiet and speech-shaped noise at a signal-to-noise ratio of +10 dB; Mandarin sentence speech-reception threshold (SRT) in speech-shaped noise; and pitch discrimination of synthetic complex-harmonic tones in quiet. Two versions of the experimental strategy were examined: (OPAL) linear (1:1) mapping of fundamental frequency (F0) to the coded modulation rate; and (OPAL+) transposed mapping of high F0s to a lower coded rate. Outcomes were compared to results using the clinical ACE™ strategy. Five Mandarin speaking users of Nucleus® cochlear implants. A small but significant benefit in recognition of lexical tones was observed using OPAL compared to ACE in noise, but not in quiet, and not for OPAL+ compared to ACE or OPAL in quiet or noise. Sentence SRTs were significantly better using OPAL+ and comparable using OPAL to those using ACE. No differences in pitch discrimination thresholds were observed across strategies. OPAL can provide benefits to Mandarin lexical tone recognition in moderately noisy conditions and preserve perception of Mandarin sentences in challenging noise conditions.

Temporal plasticity in auditory cortex improves neural discrimination of speech sounds

PubMed Central

Engineer, Crystal T.; Shetake, Jai A.; Engineer, Navzer D.; Vrana, Will A.; Wolf, Jordan T.; Kilgard, Michael P.

2017-01-01

Background Many individuals with language learning impairments exhibit temporal processing deficits and degraded neural responses to speech sounds. Auditory training can improve both the neural and behavioral deficits, though significant deficits remain. Recent evidence suggests that vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) paired with rehabilitative therapies enhances both cortical plasticity and recovery of normal function. Objective/Hypothesis We predicted that pairing VNS with rapid tone trains would enhance the primary auditory cortex (A1) response to unpaired novel speech sounds. Methods VNS was paired with tone trains 300 times per day for 20 days in adult rats. Responses to isolated speech sounds, compressed speech sounds, word sequences, and compressed word sequences were recorded in A1 following the completion of VNS-tone train pairing. Results Pairing VNS with rapid tone trains resulted in stronger, faster, and more discriminable A1 responses to speech sounds presented at conversational rates. Conclusion This study extends previous findings by documenting that VNS paired with rapid tone trains altered the neural response to novel unpaired speech sounds. Future studies are necessary to determine whether pairing VNS with appropriate auditory stimuli could potentially be used to improve both neural responses to speech sounds and speech perception in individuals with receptive language disorders. PMID:28131520

Multisensory perceptual learning of temporal order: audiovisual learning transfers to vision but not audition.

PubMed

Alais, David; Cass, John

2010-06-23

An outstanding question in sensory neuroscience is whether the perceived timing of events is mediated by a central supra-modal timing mechanism, or multiple modality-specific systems. We use a perceptual learning paradigm to address this question. Three groups were trained daily for 10 sessions on an auditory, a visual or a combined audiovisual temporal order judgment (TOJ). Groups were pre-tested on a range TOJ tasks within and between their group modality prior to learning so that transfer of any learning from the trained task could be measured by post-testing other tasks. Robust TOJ learning (reduced temporal order discrimination thresholds) occurred for all groups, although auditory learning (dichotic 500/2000 Hz tones) was slightly weaker than visual learning (lateralised grating patches). Crossmodal TOJs also displayed robust learning. Post-testing revealed that improvements in temporal resolution acquired during visual learning transferred within modality to other retinotopic locations and orientations, but not to auditory or crossmodal tasks. Auditory learning did not transfer to visual or crossmodal tasks, and neither did it transfer within audition to another frequency pair. In an interesting asymmetry, crossmodal learning transferred to all visual tasks but not to auditory tasks. Finally, in all conditions, learning to make TOJs for stimulus onsets did not transfer at all to discriminating temporal offsets. These data present a complex picture of timing processes. The lack of transfer between unimodal groups indicates no central supramodal timing process for this task; however, the audiovisual-to-visual transfer cannot be explained without some form of sensory interaction. We propose that auditory learning occurred in frequency-tuned processes in the periphery, precluding interactions with more central visual and audiovisual timing processes. Functionally the patterns of featural transfer suggest that perceptual learning of temporal order may be optimised to object-centered rather than viewer-centered constraints.

Exploring non-stationarity patterns in schizophrenia: neural reorganization abnormalities in the alpha band

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Núñez, Pablo; Poza, Jesús; Bachiller, Alejandro; Gomez-Pilar, Javier; Lubeiro, Alba; Molina, Vicente; Hornero, Roberto

2017-08-01

Objective. The aim of this paper was to characterize brain non-stationarity during an auditory oddball task in schizophrenia (SCH). The level of non-stationarity was measured in the baseline and response windows of relevant tones in SCH patients and healthy controls. Approach. Event-related potentials were recorded from 28 SCH patients and 51 controls. Non-stationarity was estimated in the conventional electroencephalography frequency bands by means of Kullback-Leibler divergence (KLD). Relative power (RP) was also computed to assess a possible complementarity with KLD. Main results. Results showed a widespread statistically significant increase in the level of non-stationarity from baseline to response in all frequency bands for both groups. Statistically significant differences in non-stationarity were found between SCH patients and controls in beta-2 and in the alpha band. SCH patients showed more non-stationarity in the left parieto-occipital region during the baseline window in the beta-2 band. A leave-one-out cross validation classification study with feature selection based on binary stepwise logistic regression to discriminate between SCH patients and controls provided a positive predictive value of 72.73% and negative predictive value of 78.95%. Significance. KLD can characterize transient neural reorganization during an attentional task in response to novelty and relevance. Our findings suggest anomalous reorganization of neural dynamics in SCH during an oddball task. The abnormal frequency-dependent modulation found in SCH patients during relevant tones is in agreement with the hypothesis of aberrant salience detection in SCH. The increase in non-stationarity in the alpha band during the active task supports the notion that this band is involved in top-down processing. The baseline differences in the beta-2 band suggest that hyperactivation of the default mode network during attention tasks may be related to SCH symptoms. Furthermore, the classification improved when features from both KLD and RP were used, supporting the idea that these measures can be complementary.

Comorbid Attentional Factors and Frequency Discrimination Performance in a Child with Reading Difficulties

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sutcliffe, Paul

2006-01-01

This research investigated the frequency discrimination performance of a 6-year-old boy (MH) with language and attentional difficulties. MH had been reported to have literacy problems not paralleling an advanced verbal ability, and he showed difficulties in discriminating non-verbal tones of different frequencies in comparison with children of his…

The ability for cocaine and cocaine-associated cues to compete for attention

PubMed Central

Pitchers, Kyle K.; Wood, Taylor R.; Skrzynski, Cari J.; Robinson, Terry E.; Sarter, Martin

2017-01-01

In humans, reward cues, including drug cues in addicts, are especially effective in biasing attention towards them, so much so they can disrupt ongoing task performance. It is not known, however, whether this happens in rats. To address this question, we developed a behavioral paradigm to assess the capacity of an auditory drug (cocaine) cue to evoke cocaine-seeking behavior, thus distracting thirsty rats from performing a well-learned sustained attention task (SAT) to obtain a water reward. First, it was determined that an auditory cocaine cue (tone-CS) reinstated drug-seeking equally in sign-trackers (STs) and goal-trackers (GTs), which otherwise vary in the propensity to attribute incentive salience to a localizable drug cue. Next, we tested the ability of an auditory cocaine cue to disrupt performance on the SAT in STs and GTs. Rats were trained to self-administer cocaine intravenously using an Intermittent Access self-administration procedure known to produce a progressive increase in motivation for cocaine, escalation of intake, and strong discriminative stimulus control over drug-seeking behavior. When presented alone, the auditory discriminative stimulus elicited cocaine-seeking behavior while rats were performing the SAT, but it was not sufficiently disruptive to impair SAT performance. In contrast, if cocaine was available in the presence of the cue, or when administered non-contingently, SAT performance was severely disrupted. We suggest that performance on a relatively automatic, stimulus-driven task, such as the basic version of the SAT used here, may be difficult to disrupt with a drug cue alone. A task that requires more top-down cognitive control may be needed. PMID:27890441

Manifestation of peripherial coding in the effect of increasing loudness and enhanced discrimination of the intensity of tone bursts before and after tone burst noise

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rimskaya-Korsavkova, L. K.

2017-07-01

To find the possible reasons for the midlevel elevation of the Weber fraction in intensity discrimination of a tone burst, a comparison was performed for the complementary distributions of spike activity of an ensemble of space nerves, such as the distribution of time instants when spikes occur, the distribution of interspike intervals, and the autocorrelation function. The distribution properties were detected in a poststimulus histogram, an interspike interval histogram, and an autocorrelation histogram—all obtained from the reaction of an ensemble of model space nerves in response to an auditory noise burst-useful tone burst complex. Two configurations were used: in the first, the peak amplitude of the tone burst was varied and the noise amplitude was fixed; in the other, the tone burst amplitude was fixed and the noise amplitude was varied. Noise could precede or follow the tone burst. The noise and tone burst durations, as well as the interval between them, was 4 kHz and corresponded to the characteristic frequencies of the model space nerves. The profiles of all the mentioned histograms had two maxima. The values and the positions of the maxima in the poststimulus histogram corresponded to the amplitudes and mutual time position of the noise and the tone burst. The maximum that occurred in response to the tone burst action could be a basis for the formation of the loudness of the latter (explicit loudness). However, the positions of the maxima in the other two histograms did not depend on the positions of tone bursts and noise in the combinations. The first maximum fell in short intervals and united intervals corresponding to the noise and tone burst durations. The second maximum fell in intervals corresponding to a tone burst delay with respect to noise, and its value was proportional to the noise amplitude or tone burst amplitude that was smaller in the complex. An increase in tone burst or noise amplitudes was caused by nonlinear variations in the two maxima and the ratio between them. The size of the first maximum in the of interspike interval distribution could be the basis for the formation of the loudness of the masked tone burst (implicit loudness), and the size of the second maximum, for the formation of intensity in the periodicity pitch of the complex. The auditory effect of the midlevel enhancement of tone burst loudness could be the result of variations in the implicit tone burst loudness caused by variations in tone-burst or noise intensity. The reason for the enhancement of the Weber fraction could be competitive interaction between such subjective qualities as explicit and implicit tone-burst loudness and the intensity of the periodicity pitch of the complex.

Reduced Performance in Balance, Walking and Turning Tasks is Associated with Increased Neck Tone in Parkinson's Disease

PubMed Central

Franzén, Erika; Paquette, Caroline; Gurfinkel, Victor S; Cordo, Paul J; Nutt, John G; Horak, Fay B

2009-01-01

Rigidity or hypertonicity is a cardinal symptom of Parkinson's disease (PD). We hypothesized that hypertonicity of the body axis affects functional performance of tasks involving balance, walking and turning. The magnitude of axial postural tone in the neck, trunk and hip segments of 15 subjects with PD (both ON and OFF levodopa) and 15 control subjects was quantified during unsupported standing in an axial twisting device in our laboratory as resistance to torsional rotation. Subjects also performed six functional tests (walking in a figure of eight [Figure of Eight], Timed Up & Go, Berg Balance Scale, supine rolling task [rollover], Functional Reach, and standing 360-deg turn-in-place) in the ON and OFF state. Results showed that PD subjects had increased tone throughout the axis compared to control subjects (p=0.008) and that this increase was most prominent in the neck. In PD subjects, axial tone was related to functional performance, but most strongly for tone at the neck and accounted for an especially large portion of the variability in the performance of the Figure of Eight test (rOFF=0.68 and rON=0.74, p<0.05) and the Rollover test (rOFF=0.67and rON=0.55, p<0.05). Our results suggest that neck tone plays a significant role in functional mobility and that abnormally high postural tone may be an important contributor to balance and mobility disorders in individuals with PD. PMID:19573528

How auditory discontinuities and linguistic experience affect the perception of speech and non-speech in English- and Spanish-speaking listeners

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hay, Jessica F.; Holt, Lori L.; Lotto, Andrew J.; Diehl, Randy L.

2005-04-01

The present study was designed to investigate the effects of long-term linguistic experience on the perception of non-speech sounds in English and Spanish speakers. Research using tone-onset-time (TOT) stimuli, a type of non-speech analogue of voice-onset-time (VOT) stimuli, has suggested that there is an underlying auditory basis for the perception of stop consonants based on a threshold for detecting onset asynchronies in the vicinity of +20 ms. For English listeners, stop consonant labeling boundaries are congruent with the positive auditory discontinuity, while Spanish speakers place their VOT labeling boundaries and discrimination peaks in the vicinity of 0 ms VOT. The present study addresses the question of whether long-term linguistic experience with different VOT categories affects the perception of non-speech stimuli that are analogous in their acoustic timing characteristics. A series of synthetic VOT stimuli and TOT stimuli were created for this study. Using language appropriate labeling and ABX discrimination tasks, labeling boundaries (VOT) and discrimination peaks (VOT and TOT) are assessed for 24 monolingual English speakers and 24 monolingual Spanish speakers. The interplay between language experience and auditory biases are discussed. [Work supported by NIDCD.

Perception of Cantonese Lexical Tones by Pediatric Cochlear Implant Users

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Holt, Colleen M.; Lee, Kathy Y. S.; Dowell, Richard C.; Vogel, Adam P.

2018-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to assess Cantonese word recognition and the discrimination of Cantonese tones with manipulated contours by child and adolescent cochlear implant (CI) users and a group of peers with normal hearing (NH). It was hypothesized that the CI users would perform more poorly than their counterparts with NH in both…

The Duration of Auditory Sensory Memory for Vowel Processing: Neurophysiological and Behavioral Measures.

PubMed

Yu, Yan H; Shafer, Valerie L; Sussman, Elyse S

2018-01-01

Speech perception behavioral research suggests that rates of sensory memory decay are dependent on stimulus properties at more than one level (e.g., acoustic level, phonemic level). The neurophysiology of sensory memory decay rate has rarely been examined in the context of speech processing. In a lexical tone study, we showed that long-term memory representation of lexical tone slows the decay rate of sensory memory for these tones. Here, we tested the hypothesis that long-term memory representation of vowels slows the rate of auditory sensory memory decay in a similar way to that of lexical tone. Event-related potential (ERP) responses were recorded to Mandarin non-words contrasting the vowels /i/ vs. /u/ and /y/ vs. /u/ from first-language (L1) Mandarin and L1 American English participants under short and long interstimulus interval (ISI) conditions (short ISI: an average of 575 ms, long ISI: an average of 2675 ms). Results revealed poorer discrimination of the vowel contrasts for English listeners than Mandarin listeners, but with different patterns for behavioral perception and neural discrimination. As predicted, English listeners showed the poorest discrimination and identification for the vowel contrast /y/ vs. /u/, and poorer performance in the long ISI condition. In contrast to Yu et al. (2017), however, we found no effect of ISI reflected in the neural responses, specifically the mismatch negativity (MMN), P3a and late negativity ERP amplitudes. We did see a language group effect, with Mandarin listeners generally showing larger MMN and English listeners showing larger P3a. The behavioral results revealed that native language experience plays a role in echoic sensory memory trace maintenance, but the failure to find an effect of ISI on the ERP results suggests that vowel and lexical tone memory traces decay at different rates. Highlights : We examined the interaction between auditory sensory memory decay and language experience. We compared MMN, P3a, LN and behavioral responses in short vs. long interstimulus intervals. We found that different from lexical tone contrast, MMN, P3a, and LN changes to vowel contrasts are not influenced by lengthening the ISI to 2.6 s. We also found that the English listeners discriminated the non-native vowel contrast with lower accuracy under the long ISI condition.

Investigation of holmium-doped zirconium oxide ceramic phosphor as an ultraviolet wavelength-discriminating laser beam viewer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yamanoi, Kohei; Hori, Tatsuhiro; Minami, Yuki; Empizo, Melvin John F.; Luong, Mui Viet; Shiro, Atsushi; Watanabe, Jun; Iwano, Keisuke; Iwasa, Yuki; Cadatal-Raduban, Marilou; Gabayno, Jacque Lynn; Shimizu, Toshihiko; Sarukura, Nobuhiko; Norimatsu, Takayoshi

2018-01-01

We report the fluorescence spectra of ZrO2 and trivalent Ho-doped ZrO2 ceramics under ultraviolet (UV) excitation at 213, 266, and 355 nm wavelengths. The Ho3+-doped ZrO2 ceramics exhibited varying fluorescence color tones depending on the excitation wavelength used. The different color tones match the fluorescence spectrum characteristics at each excitation wavelength. Our results demonstrate that Ho3+-doped ZrO2 ceramics can discriminate between UV light, specifically the third, fourth, and fifth harmonics of a Nd:YAG laser. It can potentially be used for developing UV laser beam viewers to aid laser alignment.

Neural substrates related to auditory working memory comparisons in dyslexia: An fMRI study

PubMed Central

CONWAY, TIM; HEILMAN, KENNETH M.; GOPINATH, KAUNDINYA; PECK, KYUNG; BAUER, RUSSELL; BRIGGS, RICHARD W.; TORGESEN, JOSEPH K.; CROSSON, BRUCE

2010-01-01

Adult readers with developmental phonological dyslexia exhibit significant difficulty comparing pseudowords and pure tones in auditory working memory (AWM). This suggests deficient AWM skills for adults diagnosed with dyslexia. Despite behavioral differences, it is unknown whether neural substrates of AWM differ between adults diagnosed with dyslexia and normal readers. Prior neuroimaging of adults diagnosed with dyslexia and normal readers, and post-mortem findings of neural structural anomalies in adults diagnosed with dyslexia support the hypothesis of atypical neural activity in temporoparietal and inferior frontal regions during AWM tasks in adults diagnosed with dyslexia. We used fMRI during two binaural AWM tasks (pseudowords or pure tones comparisons) in adults diagnosed with dyslexia (n = 11) and normal readers (n = 11). For both AWM tasks, adults diagnosed with dyslexia exhibited greater activity in left posterior superior temporal (BA 22) and inferior parietal regions (BA 40) than normal readers. Comparing neural activity between groups and between stimuli contrasts (pseudowords vs. tones), adults diagnosed with dyslexia showed greater primary auditory cortex activity (BA 42; tones > pseudowords) than normal readers. Thus, greater activity in primary auditory, posterior superior temporal, and inferior parietal cortices during linguistic and non-linguistic AWM tasks for adults diagnosed with dyslexia compared to normal readers indicate differences in neural substrates of AWM comparison tasks. PMID:18577292

Discrimination of Male Voice Quality by 8 and 9 Week Old Infants.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Culp, Rex E.; Gallas, Howard B.

This paper reports a study which investigated 2-month-old infants' auditory discrimination of tone quality in the male voice, extending a previous study which found that voice quality changes (soft versus harsh) in a female voice were discriminable by infants at this age. Subjects were 20 infants, tested at 8 and 9 weeks of age. Each infant was…

Individual differences in false memory from misinformation: cognitive factors.

PubMed

Zhu, Bi; Chen, Chuansheng; Loftus, Elizabeth F; Lin, Chongde; He, Qinghua; Chen, Chunhui; Li, He; Xue, Gui; Lu, Zhonglin; Dong, Qi

2010-07-01

This research investigated the cognitive correlates of false memories that are induced by the misinformation paradigm. A large sample of Chinese college students (N=436) participated in a misinformation procedure and also took a battery of cognitive tests. Results revealed sizable and systematic individual differences in false memory arising from exposure to misinformation. False memories were significantly and negatively correlated with measures of intelligence (measured with Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale), perception (Motor-Free Visual Perception Test, Change Blindness, and Tone Discrimination), memory (Wechsler Memory Scales and 2-back Working Memory tasks), and face judgement (Face Recognition and Facial Expression Recognition). These findings suggest that people with relatively low intelligence and poor perceptual abilities might be more susceptible to the misinformation effect.

On the nature of phase attraction in sensorimotor synchronization with interleaved auditory sequences.

PubMed

Repp, Bruno H

2004-10-01

In a task that requires in-phase synchronization of finger taps with an isochronous sequence of target tones that is interleaved with a sequence of distractor tones at various fixed phase relationships, the taps tend to be attracted to the distractor tones, especially when the distractor tones closely precede the target tones [Repp, B. H. (2003a). Phase attraction in sensorimotor synchronization with auditory sequences: Effects of single and periodic distractors on synchronization accuracy. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 29, 290-309]. The present research addressed two related questions about this distractor effect: (1) Is it a function of the absolute temporal separation or of the relative phase of the two stimulus sequences? (2) Is it the result of perceptual grouping (integration) of target and distractor tones or of simultaneous attraction to two independent sequences? In three experiments, distractor effects were compared across two different sequence rates. The results suggest that absolute temporal separation, not relative phase, is the critical variable. Experiment 3 also included an anti-phase tapping task that addressed the second question directly. The results suggest that the attraction of taps to distractor tones is caused mainly by temporal integration of target and distractor tones within a fixed window of 100-150 ms duration, with the earlier-occurring tone being weighted more strongly than the later-occurring one.

Sensory Modality and Stimulus Control in the Pigeon: Cross-Species Generality of Single-Incentive Selective-Association Effects

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Panlilio, Leigh V.; Weiss, Stanley J.

2005-01-01

In earlier studies with rats, the effectiveness of the auditory element of a tone--light discriminative stimulus was enhanced when the conditioned incentive value of the compound was negative rather than positive. The present experiment systematically replicated these results in pigeons trained to press a treadle in the presence of a tone--light…

The Utility of Chinese Tone Processing Skill in Detecting Children with English Reading Disabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Anderson, Alida; Wang, Min

2012-01-01

The utility of Chinese tone processing skill in detecting children with English reading difficulties was examined through differences in a Chinese tone experimental task between a group of native English-speaking children with reading disabilities (RD) and a comparison group of children with normal reading development (NRD). General auditory…

Skin-Tone Preferences and Self-Representation in Hispanic Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kaufman, Erin A.; Wiese, Deborah L.

2012-01-01

Skin-tone preferences and colourism within Hispanic children have been largely unexamined in the psychological literature. The objectives of the current study were to investigate Hispanic children's skin-tone preferences and the effect of assessor race and ethnicity on those preferences. To carry out the study, Clark and Clark's colouring task was…

Selective attention and the auditory vertex potential. I - Effects of stimulus delivery rate. II - Effects of signal intensity and masking noise

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schwent, V. L.; Hillyard, S. A.; Galambos, R.

1976-01-01

The effects of varying the rate of delivery of dichotic tone pip stimuli on selective attention measured by evoked-potential amplitudes and signal detectability scores were studied. The subjects attended to one channel (ear) of tones, ignored the other, and pressed a button whenever occasional targets - tones of a slightly higher pitch were detected in the attended ear. Under separate conditions, randomized interstimulus intervals were short, medium, and long. Another study compared the effects of attention on the N1 component of the auditory evoked potential for tone pips presented alone and when white noise was added to make the tones barely above detectability threshold in a three-channel listening task. Major conclusions are that (1) N1 is enlarged to stimuli in an attended channel only in the short interstimulus interval condition (averaging 350 msec), (2) N1 and P3 are related to different modes of selective attention, and (3) attention selectivity in multichannel listening task is greater when tones are faint and/or difficult to detect.

Selective attention and the auditory vertex potential. 2: Effects of signal intensity and masking noise

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schwent, V. L.; Hillyard, S. A.; Galambos, R.

1975-01-01

A randomized sequence of tone bursts was delivered to subjects at short inter-stimulus intervals with the tones originating from one of three spatially and frequency specific channels. The subject's task was to count the tones in one of the three channels at a time, ignoring the other two, and press a button after each tenth tone. In different conditions, tones were given at high and low intensities and with or without a background white noise to mask the tones. The N sub 1 component of the auditory vertex potential was found to be larger in response to attended channel tones in relation to unattended tones. This selective enhancement of N sub 1 was minimal for loud tones presented without noise and increased markedly for the lower tone intensity and in noise added conditions.

Auditory Cortex Is Required for Fear Potentiation of Gap Detection

PubMed Central

Weible, Aldis P.; Liu, Christine; Niell, Cristopher M.

2014-01-01

Auditory cortex is necessary for the perceptual detection of brief gaps in noise, but is not necessary for many other auditory tasks such as frequency discrimination, prepulse inhibition of startle responses, or fear conditioning with pure tones. It remains unclear why auditory cortex should be necessary for some auditory tasks but not others. One possibility is that auditory cortex is causally involved in gap detection and other forms of temporal processing in order to associate meaning with temporally structured sounds. This predicts that auditory cortex should be necessary for associating meaning with gaps. To test this prediction, we developed a fear conditioning paradigm for mice based on gap detection. We found that pairing a 10 or 100 ms gap with an aversive stimulus caused a robust enhancement of gap detection measured 6 h later, which we refer to as fear potentiation of gap detection. Optogenetic suppression of auditory cortex during pairing abolished this fear potentiation, indicating that auditory cortex is critically involved in associating temporally structured sounds with emotionally salient events. PMID:25392510

Macaque Monkeys Discriminate Pitch Relationships

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brosch, Michael; Selezneva, Elena; Bucks, Cornelia; Scheich, Henning

2004-01-01

This study demonstrates that non-human primates can categorize the direction of the pitch change of tones in a sequence. Two "Macaca fascicularis" were trained in a positive-reinforcement behavioral paradigm in which they listened to sequences of a variable number of different acoustic items. The training of discriminating pitch direction was…

Correlations between self-assessed hearing handicap and standard audiometric tests in elderly persons.

PubMed

Pedersen, K; Rosenhall, U

1991-01-01

The relationship between self-assessed hearing handicap and audiometric measures using pure-tone and speech audiometry was studied in a group of elderly persons representative of an urban Swedish population. The study population consisted of two cohorts, one of which was followed longitudinally. Significant correlations between measured and self-assessed hearing were found. Speech discrimination scores showed lower correlations with the self-estimated hearing than pure-tone averages and speech reception threshold. Questions concerning conversation with one person and concerning difficulty in hearing the doorbell showed lower correlations with measured hearing than the other questions. The discrimination score test is an inadequate tool for measuring hearing handicap.

Musical duplex perception: perception of figurally good chords with subliminal distinguishing tones.

PubMed

Hall, M D; Pastore, R E

1992-08-01

In a variant of duplex perception with speech, phoneme perception is maintained when distinguishing components are presented below intensities required for separate detection, forming the basis for the claim that a phonetic module takes precedence over nonspeech processing. This finding is replicated with music chords (C major and minor) created by mixing a piano fifth with a sinusoidal distinguishing tone (E or E flat). Individual threshold intensities for detecting E or E flat in the context of the fixed piano tones are established. Chord discrimination thresholds defined by distinguishing tone intensity were determined. Experiment 2 verified masked detection thresholds and subliminal chord identification for experienced musicians. Accurate chord perception was maintained at distinguishing tone intensities nearly 20 dB below the threshold for separate detection. Speech and music findings are argued to demonstrate general perceptual principles.

Pitch Perception in Tone Language-Speaking Adults With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorders

PubMed Central

Cheng, Stella T. T.; Lam, Gary Y. H.

2017-01-01

Enhanced low-level pitch perception has been universally reported in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). This study examined whether tone language speakers with ASD exhibit this advantage. The pitch perception skill of 20 Cantonese-speaking adults with ASD was compared with that of 20 neurotypical individuals. Participants discriminated pairs of real syllable, pseudo-syllable (syllables that do not conform the phonotactic rules or are accidental gaps), and non-speech (syllables with attenuated high-frequency segmental content) stimuli contrasting pitch levels. The results revealed significantly higher discrimination ability in both groups for the non-speech stimuli than for the pseudo-syllables with one semitone difference. No significant group differences were noted. Different from previous findings, post hoc analysis found that enhanced pitch perception was observed in a subgroup of participants with ASD showing no history of delayed speech onset. The tone language experience may have modulated the pitch processing mechanism in the speakers in both ASD and non-ASD groups. PMID:28616150

Auditory discrimination therapy (ADT) for tinnitus managment: preliminary results.

PubMed

Herraiz, C; Diges, I; Cobo, P; Plaza, G; Aparicio, J M

2006-12-01

This clinical assay has demonstrated the efficacy of auditory discrimination therapy (ADT) in tinnitus management compared with a waiting-list group. In all, 43% of the ADT patients improved their tinnitus, and its intensity together with its handicap were statistically decreased (EMB rating: B-2). To describe the effect of sound discrimination training on tinnitus. ADT designs a procedure to increase the cortical representation of trained frequencies (damaged cochlear areas with a secondary reduction of cortical stimulation) and to shrink the neighbouring over-represented ones (corresponding to tinnitus pitch). This prospective descriptive study included 14 patients with high frequency matched tinnitus. Tinnitus severity was measured according to a visual analogue scale (VAS) and the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI). Patients performed a 10-min auditory discrimination task twice a day for 1 month. Discontinuous 8 kHz pure tones were randomly mixed with 500 ms 'white noise' sounds through a MP3 system. ADT group results were compared with a waiting-list group (n=21). In all, 43% of our patients had improvement in their tinnitus. A significant improvement in VAS (p=0.004) and THI mean scores was achieved (p=0.038). Statistical differences between ADT and the waiting-list group have been proved, considering patients' self-evaluations (p=0.043) and VAS scores (p=0.004). A non-significant reduction of THI was achieved (p=0.113).

Deficits in the Sensitivity to Pitch Sweeps by School-Aged Children Wearing Cochlear Implants

PubMed Central

Deroche, Mickael L. D.; Kulkarni, Aditya M.; Christensen, Julie A.; Limb, Charles J.; Chatterjee, Monita

2016-01-01

Sensitivity to static changes in pitch has been shown to be poorer in school-aged children wearing cochlear implants (CIs) than children with normal hearing (NH), but it is unclear whether this is also the case for dynamic changes in pitch. Yet, dynamically changing pitch has considerable ecological relevance in terms of natural speech, particularly aspects such as intonation, emotion, or lexical tone information. Twenty one children with NH and 23 children wearing a CI participated in this study, along with 18 NH adults and 6 CI adults for comparison. Listeners with CIs used their clinically assigned settings with envelope-based coding strategies. Percent correct was measured in one- or three-interval two-alternative forced choice tasks, for the direction or discrimination of harmonic complexes based on a linearly rising or falling fundamental frequency. Sweep rates were adjusted per subject, in a logarithmic scale, so as to cover the full extent of the psychometric function. Data for up- and down-sweeps were fitted separately, using a maximum-likelihood technique. Fits were similar for up- and down-sweeps in the discrimination task, but diverged in the direction task because psychometric functions for down-sweeps were very shallow. Hits and false alarms were then converted into d′ and beta values, from which a threshold was extracted at a d′ of 0.77. Thresholds were very consistent between the two tasks and considerably higher (worse) for CI listeners than for their NH peers. Thresholds were also higher for children than adults. Factors such as age at implantation, age at profound hearing loss, and duration of CI experience did not play any major role in this sensitivity. Thresholds of dynamic pitch sensitivity (in either task) also correlated with thresholds for static pitch sensitivity and with performance in tasks related to speech prosody. PMID:26973451

A Dangerous Context Changes the Way That Rats Learn about and Discriminate between Innocuous Events in Sensory Preconditioning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Holmes, Nathan M.; Westbrook, R. Frederick

2017-01-01

Four experiments used a sensory preconditioning protocol to examine how a dangerous context influences learning about innocuous events. In Experiments 1, 2, and 3, rats were exposed to presentations of a tone followed immediately or 20-sec later by presentations of a light. These tone-light pairings occurred in a context that was either familiar…

P300 Event-Related Potential as an Indicator of Inattentional Deafness?

PubMed Central

Giraudet, Louise; St-Louis, Marie-Eve; Scannella, Sébastien; Causse, Mickaël

2015-01-01

An analysis of airplane accidents reveals that pilots sometimes purely fail to react to critical auditory alerts. This inability of an auditory stimulus to reach consciousness has been coined under the term of inattentional deafness. Recent data from literature tends to show that tasks involving high cognitive load consume most of the attentional capacities, leaving little or none remaining for processing any unexpected information. In addition, there is a growing body of evidence for a shared attentional capacity between vision and hearing. In this context, the abundant information in modern cockpits is likely to produce inattentional deafness. We investigated this hypothesis by combining electroencephalographic (EEG) measurements with an ecological aviation task performed under contextual variation of the cognitive load (high or low), including an alarm detection task. Two different audio tones were played: standard tones and deviant tones. Participants were instructed to ignore standard tones and to report deviant tones using a response pad. More than 31% of the deviant tones were not detected in the high load condition. Analysis of the EEG measurements showed a drastic diminution of the auditory P300 amplitude concomitant with this behavioral effect, whereas the N100 component was not affected. We suggest that these behavioral and electrophysiological results provide new insights on explaining the trend of pilots’ failure to react to critical auditory information. Relevant applications concern prevention of alarms omission, mental workload measurements and enhanced warning designs. PMID:25714746

Low-frequency interaural cross correlation discrimination in stereophonic reproduction of musical tones

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, Sungyoung; Martens, William L.

2005-04-01

By industry standard (ITU-R. Recommendation BS.775-1), multichannel stereophonic signals within the frequency range of up to 80 or 120 Hz may be mixed and delivered via a single driver (e.g., a subwoofer) without significant impairment of stereophonic sound quality. The assumption that stereophonic information within such low-frequency content is not significant was tested by measuring discrimination thresholds for changes in interaural cross-correlation (IACC) within spectral bands containing the lowest frequency components of low-pitch musical tones. Performances were recorded for three different musical instruments playing single notes ranging in fundamental frequency from 41 Hz to 110 Hz. The recordings, made using a multichannel microphone array composed of five DPA 4006 pressure microphones, were processed to produce a set of stimuli that varied in interaural cross-correlation (IACC) within a low-frequency band, but were otherwise identical in a higher-frequency band. This correlation processing was designed to have minimal effect upon other psychoacoustic variables such as loudness and timbre. The results show that changes in interaural cross correlation (IACC) within low-frequency bands of low-pitch musical tones are most easily discriminated when decorrelated signals are presented via subwoofers positioned at extreme lateral angles (far from the median plane). [Work supported by VRQ.

Enhanced music sensitivity in 9-month-old bilingual infants.

PubMed

Liu, Liquan; Kager, René

2017-02-01

This study explores the influence of bilingualism on the cognitive processing of language and music. Specifically, we investigate how infants learning a non-tone language perceive linguistic and musical pitch and how bilingualism affects cross-domain pitch perception. Dutch monolingual and bilingual infants of 8-9 months participated in the study. All infants had Dutch as one of the first languages. The other first languages, varying among bilingual families, were not tone or pitch accent languages. In two experiments, infants were tested on the discrimination of a lexical (N = 42) or a violin (N = 48) pitch contrast via a visual habituation paradigm. The two contrasts shared identical pitch contours but differed in timbre. Non-tone language learning infants did not discriminate the lexical contrast regardless of their ambient language environment. When perceiving the violin contrast, bilingual but not monolingual infants demonstrated robust discrimination. We attribute bilingual infants' heightened sensitivity in the musical domain to the enhanced acoustic sensitivity stemming from a bilingual environment. The distinct perceptual patterns between language and music and the influence of acoustic salience on perception suggest processing diversion and association in the first year of life. Results indicate that the perception of music may entail both shared neural network with language processing, and unique neural network that is distinct from other cognitive functions.

Working memory for pitch, timbre, and words

PubMed Central

Tillmann, Barbara

2012-01-01

Aiming to further our understanding of fundamental mechanisms of auditory working memory (WM), the present study compared performance for three auditory materials (words, tones, timbres). In a forward recognition task (Experiment 1) participants indicated whether the order of the items in the second sequence was the same as in the first sequence. In a backward recognition task (Experiment 2) participants indicated whether the items of the second sequence were played in the correct backward order. In Experiment 3 participants performed an articulatory suppression task during the retention delay of the backward task. To investigate potential length effects the number of items per sequence was manipulated. Overall findings underline the benefit of a cross-material experimental approach and suggest that human auditory WM is not a unitary system. Whereas WM processes for timbres differed from those for tones and words, similarities and differences were observed for words and tones: Both types of stimuli appear to rely on rehearsal mechanisms, but might differ in the involved sensorimotor codes. PMID:23116413

Frequency Discrimination in Young Infants.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Olsho, Lynne Werner; And Others

Frequency difference thresholds were determined for fourteen 4- to 9-month-old infants (mean age, 6 months 10 days) using a discrimination learning paradigm, following a one-up, two-down staircase procedure. The subject heard 500 msec tone bursts repeated at a rate of one per sec, with a fixed standard frequency. At various points in this pulse…

Motivation and intelligence drive auditory perceptual learning.

PubMed

Amitay, Sygal; Halliday, Lorna; Taylor, Jenny; Sohoglu, Ediz; Moore, David R

2010-03-23

Although feedback on performance is generally thought to promote perceptual learning, the role and necessity of feedback remain unclear. We investigated the effect of providing varying amounts of positive feedback while listeners attempted to discriminate between three identical tones on learning frequency discrimination. Using this novel procedure, the feedback was meaningless and random in relation to the listeners' responses, but the amount of feedback provided (or lack thereof) affected learning. We found that a group of listeners who received positive feedback on 10% of the trials improved their performance on the task (learned), while other groups provided either with excess (90%) or with no feedback did not learn. Superimposed on these group data, however, individual listeners showed other systematic changes of performance. In particular, those with lower non-verbal IQ who trained in the no feedback condition performed more poorly after training. This pattern of results cannot be accounted for by learning models that ascribe an external teacher role to feedback. We suggest, instead, that feedback is used to monitor performance on the task in relation to its perceived difficulty, and that listeners who learn without the benefit of feedback are adept at self-monitoring of performance, a trait that also supports better performance on non-verbal IQ tests. These results show that 'perceptual' learning is strongly influenced by top-down processes of motivation and intelligence.

Development of the adaptive music perception test.

PubMed

Kirchberger, Martin J; Russo, Frank A

2015-01-01

Despite vast amounts of research examining the influence of hearing loss on speech perception, comparatively little is known about its influence on music perception. No standardized test exists to quantify music perception of hearing-impaired (HI) persons in a clinically practical manner. This study presents the Adaptive Music Perception (AMP) test as a tool to assess important aspects of music perception with hearing loss. A computer-driven test was developed to determine the discrimination thresholds of 10 low-level physical dimensions (e.g., duration, level) in the context of perceptual judgments about musical dimensions: meter, harmony, melody, and timbre. In the meter test, the listener is asked to judge whether a tone sequence is duple or triple in meter. The harmony test requires that the listener make judgments about the stability of the chord sequences. In the melody test, the listener must judge whether a comparison melody is the same as a standard melody when presented in transposition and in the context of a chordal accompaniment that serves as a mask. The timbre test requires that the listener determines which of two comparison tones is different in timbre from a standard tone (ABX design). Twenty-one HI participants and 19 normal-hearing (NH) participants were recruited to carry out the music tests. Participants were tested twice on separate occasions to evaluate test-retest reliability. The HI group had significantly higher discrimination thresholds than the NH group in 7 of the 10 low-level physical dimensions: frequency discrimination in the meter test, dissonance and intonation perception in the harmony test, melody-to-chord ratio for both melody types in the melody test, and the perception of brightness and spectral irregularity in the timbre test. Small but significant improvement between test and retest was observed in three dimensions: frequency discrimination (meter test), dissonance (harmony test), and attack length (timbre test). All other dimensions did not show a session effect. Test-retest reliability was poor (<0.6) for spectral irregularity (timbre test); acceptable (>0.6) for pitch and duration (meter test), dissonance and intonation (harmony test), and melody-to-chord ratio I and II (melody test); and excellent (>0.8) for level (meter test) and attack (timbre test). The AMP test revealed differences in a wide range of music perceptual abilities between NH and HI listeners. The recognition of meter was more difficult for HI listeners when the listening task was based on frequency discrimination. The HI group was less sensitive to changes in harmony and had more difficulties with distinguishing melodies in a background of music. In addition, the thresholds to discriminate timbre were significantly higher for the HI group in brightness and spectral irregularity dimensions. The AMP test can be used as a research tool to further investigate music perception with hearing aids and compare the benefit of different music processing strategies for the HI listener. Future testing will involve larger samples with the inclusion of hearing aided conditions allowing for the establishment of norms so that the test might be appropriate for use in clinical practice.

The effect of superior auditory skills on vocal accuracy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Amir, Ofer; Amir, Noam; Kishon-Rabin, Liat

2003-02-01

The relationship between auditory perception and vocal production has been typically investigated by evaluating the effect of either altered or degraded auditory feedback on speech production in either normal hearing or hearing-impaired individuals. Our goal in the present study was to examine this relationship in individuals with superior auditory abilities. Thirteen professional musicians and thirteen nonmusicians, with no vocal or singing training, participated in this study. For vocal production accuracy, subjects were presented with three tones. They were asked to reproduce the pitch using the vowel /a/. This procedure was repeated three times. The fundamental frequency of each production was measured using an autocorrelation pitch detection algorithm designed for this study. The musicians' superior auditory abilities (compared to the nonmusicians) were established in a frequency discrimination task reported elsewhere. Results indicate that (a) musicians had better vocal production accuracy than nonmusicians (production errors of 1/2 a semitone compared to 1.3 semitones, respectively); (b) frequency discrimination thresholds explain 43% of the variance of the production data, and (c) all subjects with superior frequency discrimination thresholds showed accurate vocal production; the reverse relationship, however, does not hold true. In this study we provide empirical evidence to the importance of auditory feedback on vocal production in listeners with superior auditory skills.

Imperfect pitch: Gabor's uncertainty principle and the pitch of extremely brief sounds.

PubMed

Hsieh, I-Hui; Saberi, Kourosh

2016-02-01

How brief must a sound be before its pitch is no longer perceived? The uncertainty tradeoff between temporal and spectral resolution (Gabor's principle) limits the minimum duration required for accurate pitch identification or discrimination. Prior studies have reported that pitch can be extracted from sinusoidal pulses as brief as half a cycle. This finding has been used in a number of classic papers to develop models of pitch encoding. We have found that phase randomization, which eliminates timbre confounds, degrades this ability to chance, raising serious concerns over the foundation on which classic pitch models have been built. The current study investigated whether subthreshold pitch cues may still exist in partial-cycle pulses revealed through statistical integration in a time series containing multiple pulses. To this end, we measured frequency-discrimination thresholds in a two-interval forced-choice task for trains of partial-cycle random-phase tone pulses. We found that residual pitch cues exist in these pulses but discriminating them requires an order of magnitude (ten times) larger frequency difference than that reported previously, necessitating a re-evaluation of pitch models built on earlier findings. We also found that as pulse duration is decreased to less than two cycles its pitch becomes biased toward higher frequencies, consistent with predictions of an auto-correlation model of pitch extraction.

Tone classification of syllable-segmented Thai speech based on multilayer perception

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Satravaha, Nuttavudh; Klinkhachorn, Powsiri; Lass, Norman

2002-05-01

Thai is a monosyllabic tonal language that uses tone to convey lexical information about the meaning of a syllable. Thus to completely recognize a spoken Thai syllable, a speech recognition system not only has to recognize a base syllable but also must correctly identify a tone. Hence, tone classification of Thai speech is an essential part of a Thai speech recognition system. Thai has five distinctive tones (``mid,'' ``low,'' ``falling,'' ``high,'' and ``rising'') and each tone is represented by a single fundamental frequency (F0) pattern. However, several factors, including tonal coarticulation, stress, intonation, and speaker variability, affect the F0 pattern of a syllable in continuous Thai speech. In this study, an efficient method for tone classification of syllable-segmented Thai speech, which incorporates the effects of tonal coarticulation, stress, and intonation, as well as a method to perform automatic syllable segmentation, were developed. Acoustic parameters were used as the main discriminating parameters. The F0 contour of a segmented syllable was normalized by using a z-score transformation before being presented to a tone classifier. The proposed system was evaluated on 920 test utterances spoken by 8 speakers. A recognition rate of 91.36% was achieved by the proposed system.

Difficulties with Pitch Discrimination Influences Pitch Memory Performance: Evidence from Congenital Amusia

PubMed Central

Jiang, Cunmei; Lim, Vanessa K.; Wang, Hang; Hamm, Jeff P.

2013-01-01

Music processing is influenced by pitch perception and memory. Additionally these features interact, with pitch memory performance decreasing as the perceived distance between two pitches decreases. This study examined whether or not the difficulty of pitch discrimination influences pitch retention by testing individuals with congenital amusia. Pitch discrimination difficulty was equated by determining an individual’s threshold with a two down one up staircase procedure and using this to create conditions where two pitches (the standard and the comparison tones) differed by 1x, 2x, and 3x the threshold setting. For comparison with the literature a condition that employed a constant pitch difference of four semitones was also included. The results showed that pitch memory performance improved as the discrimination between the standard and the comparison tones was made easier for both amusic and control groups, and more importantly, that amusics did not show any pitch retention deficits when the discrimination difficulty was equated. In contrast, consistent with previous literature, amusics performed worse than controls when the physical pitch distance was held constant at four semitones. This impaired performance has been interpreted as evidence for pitch memory impairment in the past. However, employing a constant pitch distance always makes the difference closer to the discrimination threshold for the amusic group than for the control group. Therefore, reduced performance in this condition may simply reflect differences in the perceptual difficulty of the discrimination. The findings indicate the importance of equating the discrimination difficulty when investigating memory. PMID:24205375

Are lexical tones musical? Native language's influence on neural response to pitch in different domains.

PubMed

Chen, Ao; Peter, Varghese; Wijnen, Frank; Schnack, Hugo; Burnham, Denis

2018-04-21

Language experience shapes musical and speech pitch processing. We investigated whether speaking a lexical tone language natively modulates neural processing of pitch in language and music as well as their correlation. We tested tone language (Mandarin Chinese), and non-tone language (Dutch) listeners in a passive oddball paradigm measuring mismatch negativity (MMN) for (i) Chinese lexical tones and (ii) three-note musical melodies with similar pitch contours. For lexical tones, Chinese listeners showed a later MMN peak than the non-tone language listeners, whereas for MMN amplitude there were no significant differences between groups. Dutch participants also showed a late discriminative negativity (LDN). In the music condition two MMNs, corresponding to the two notes that differed between the standard and the deviant were found for both groups, and an LDN were found for both the Dutch and the Chinese listeners. The music MMNs were significantly right lateralized. Importantly, significant correlations were found between the lexical tone and the music MMNs for the Dutch but not the Chinese participants. The results suggest that speaking a tone language natively does not necessarily enhance neural responses to pitch either in language or in music, but that it does change the nature of neural pitch processing: non-tone language speakers appear to perceive lexical tones as musical, whereas for tone language speakers, lexical tones and music may activate different neural networks. Neural resources seem to be assigned differently for the lexical tones and for musical melodies, presumably depending on the presence or absence of long-term phonological memory traces. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Random Number Generation and Executive Functions in Parkinson's Disease: An Event-Related Brain Potential Study.

PubMed

Münte, Thomas F; Joppich, Gregor; Däuper, Jan; Schrader, Christoph; Dengler, Reinhard; Heldmann, Marcus

2015-01-01

The generation of random sequences is considered to tax executive functions and has been reported to be impaired in Parkinson's disease (PD) previously. To assess the neurophysiological markers of random number generation in PD. Event-related potentials (ERP) were recorded in 12 PD patients and 12 age-matched normal controls (NC) while either engaging in random number generation (RNG) by pressing the number keys on a computer keyboard in a random sequence or in ordered number generation (ONG) necessitating key presses in the canonical order. Key presses were paced by an external auditory stimulus at a rate of 1 tone every 1800 ms. As a secondary task subjects had to monitor the tone-sequence for a particular target tone to which the number "0" key had to be pressed. This target tone occurred randomly and infrequently, thus creating a secondary oddball task. Behaviorally, PD patients showed an increased tendency to count in steps of one as well as a tendency towards repetition avoidance. Electrophysiologically, the amplitude of the P3 component of the ERP to the target tone of the secondary task was reduced during RNG in PD but not in NC. The behavioral findings indicate less random behavior in PD while the ERP findings suggest that this impairment comes about, because attentional resources are depleted in PD.

Attention-shift vs. response-priming explanations for the spatial cueing effect in cross-modal tasks.

PubMed

Paavilainen, Petri; Illi, Janne; Moisseinen, Nella; Niinisalo, Maija; Ojala, Karita; Reinikainen, Johanna; Vainio, Lari

2016-06-01

The task-irrelevant spatial location of a cue stimulus affects the processing of a subsequent target. This "Posner effect" has been explained by an exogenous attention shift to the spatial location of the cue, improving perceptual processing of the target. We studied whether the left/right location of task-irrelevant and uninformative tones produces cueing effects on the processing of visual targets. Tones were presented randomly from left or right. In the first condition, the subsequent visual target, requiring response either with the left or right hand, was presented peripherally to left or right. In the second condition, the target was a centrally presented left/right-pointing arrow, indicating the response hand. In the third condition, the tone and the central arrow were presented simultaneously. Data were recorded on compatible (the tone location and the response hand were the same) and incompatible trials. Reaction times were longer on incompatible than on compatible trials. The results of the second and third conditions are difficult to explain with the attention-shift model emphasizing improved perceptual processing in the cued location, as the central target did not require any location-based processing. Consequently, as an alternative explanation they suggest response priming in the hand corresponding to the spatial location of the tone. Simultaneous lateralized readiness potential (LRP) recordings were consistent with the behavioral data, the tone cues eliciting on incompatible trials a fast preparation for the incorrect response and on compatible trials preparation for the correct response. © 2016 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The 3-Second Rule in Hereditary Pure Cerebellar Ataxia: A Synchronized Tapping Study

PubMed Central

Matsuda, Shunichi; Matsumoto, Hideyuki; Furubayashi, Toshiaki; Hanajima, Ritsuko; Tsuji, Shoji; Ugawa, Yoshikazu; Terao, Yasuo

2015-01-01

The ‘3-second rule’ has been proposed based on miscellaneous observations that a time period of around 3 seconds constitutes the fundamental unit of time related to the neuro-cognitive machinery in normal humans. The aim of paper was to investigate the temporal processing in patients with spinocerebellar ataxia type 6 (SCA6) and SCA31, pure cerebellar types of spinocerebellar degeneration, using a synchronized tapping task. Seventeen SCA patients (11 SCA6, 6 SCA31) and 17 normal age-matched volunteers participated. The task required subjects to tap a keyboard in synchrony with sequences of auditory stimuli presented at fixed interstimulus intervals (ISIs) between 200 and 4800 ms. In this task, the subjects required non-motor components to estimate the time of forthcoming tone in addition to motor components to tap. Normal subjects synchronized their taps to the presented tones at shorter ISIs, whereas as the ISI became longer, the normal subjects displayed greater latency between the tone and the tapping (transition zone). After the transition zone, normal subjects pressed the button delayed relative to the tone. On the other hand, SCA patients could not synchronize their tapping with the tone even at shorter ISIs, although they pressed the button delayed relative to the tone earlier than normal subjects did. The earliest time of delayed tapping appearance after the transition zone was 4800 ms in normal subjects but 1800 ms in SCA patients. The span of temporal integration in SCA patients is shortened compared to that in normal subjects. This could represent non-motor cerebellar dysfunction in SCA patients. PMID:25706752

Hearing and Seeing Tone through Color: An Efficacy Study of Web-Based, Multimodal Chinese Tone Perception Training

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Godfroid, Aline; Lin, Chin-Hsi; Ryu, Catherine

2017-01-01

Multimodal approaches have been shown to be effective for many learning tasks. In this study, we compared the effectiveness of five multimodal methods for second language (L2) Mandarin tone perception training: three single-cue methods (number, pitch contour, color) and two dual-cue methods (color and number, color and pitch contour). A total of…

Auditory Task Irrelevance: A Basis for Inattentional Deafness

PubMed Central

Scheer, Menja; Bülthoff, Heinrich H.; Chuang, Lewis L.

2018-01-01

Objective This study investigates the neural basis of inattentional deafness, which could result from task irrelevance in the auditory modality. Background Humans can fail to respond to auditory alarms under high workload situations. This failure, termed inattentional deafness, is often attributed to high workload in the visual modality, which reduces one’s capacity for information processing. Besides this, our capacity for processing auditory information could also be selectively diminished if there is no obvious task relevance in the auditory channel. This could be another contributing factor given the rarity of auditory warnings. Method Forty-eight participants performed a visuomotor tracking task while auditory stimuli were presented: a frequent pure tone, an infrequent pure tone, and infrequent environmental sounds. Participants were required either to respond to the presentation of the infrequent pure tone (auditory task-relevant) or not (auditory task-irrelevant). We recorded and compared the event-related potentials (ERPs) that were generated by environmental sounds, which were always task-irrelevant for both groups. These ERPs served as an index for our participants’ awareness of the task-irrelevant auditory scene. Results Manipulation of auditory task relevance influenced the brain’s response to task-irrelevant environmental sounds. Specifically, the late novelty-P3 to irrelevant environmental sounds, which underlies working memory updating, was found to be selectively enhanced by auditory task relevance independent of visuomotor workload. Conclusion Task irrelevance in the auditory modality selectively reduces our brain’s responses to unexpected and irrelevant sounds regardless of visuomotor workload. Application Presenting relevant auditory information more often could mitigate the risk of inattentional deafness. PMID:29578754

Sex differences in discriminating between cues predicting threat and safety.

PubMed

Day, Harriet L L; Reed, Molly M; Stevenson, Carl W

2016-09-01

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is more prevalent in women than men. PTSD is characterized by overgeneralization of fear to innocuous stimuli and involves impaired inhibition of learned fear by cues that predict safety. While evidence indicates that learned fear inhibition through extinction differs in males and females, less is known about sex differences in fear discrimination and safety learning. Here we examined auditory fear discrimination in male and female rats. In Experiment 1A, rats underwent 1-3days of discrimination training consisting of one tone predicting threat (CS+; presented with footshock) and another tone predicting safety (CS-; presented alone). Females, but not males, discriminated between the CS+ and CS- after one day of training. After 2-3days of training, however, males discriminated whereas females generalized between the CS+ and CS-. In Experiment 1B, females showed enhanced anxiety-like behaviour and locomotor activity in the open field, although these results were unlikely to explain the sex differences in fear discrimination. In Experiment 2, we found no differences in shock sensitivity between males and females. In Experiment 3, males and females again discriminated and generalized, respectively, after three days of training. Moreover, fear generalization in females resulted from impaired safety learning, as shown by a retardation test. Whereas subsequent fear conditioning to the previous CS- retarded learning in males, females showed no such retardation. These results suggest that, while females show fear discrimination with limited training, they show fear generalization with extended training due to impaired safety learning. Copyright © 2016 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Change in hippocampal theta activity with transfer from simple discrimination tasks to a simultaneous feature-negative task

PubMed Central

Sakimoto, Yuya; Sakata, Shogo

2014-01-01

It was showed that solving a simple discrimination task (A+, B−) and a simultaneous feature-negative (FN) task (A+, AB−) used the hippocampal-independent strategy. Recently, we showed that the number of sessions required for a rat to completely learn a task differed between the FN and simple discrimination tasks, and there was a difference in hippocampal theta activity between these tasks. These results suggested that solving the FN task relied on a different strategy than the simple discrimination task. In this study, we provided supportive evidence that solving the FN and simple discrimination tasks involved different strategies by examining changes in performance and hippocampal theta activity in the FN task after transfer from the simple discrimination task (A+, B− → A+, AB−). The results of this study showed that performance on the FN task was impaired and there was a difference in hippocampal theta activity between the simple discrimination task and FN task. Thus, we concluded that solving the FN task uses a different strategy than the simple discrimination task. PMID:24917797

Musical experience facilitates lexical tone processing among Mandarin speakers: Behavioral and neural evidence.

PubMed

Tang, Wei; Xiong, Wen; Zhang, Yu-Xuan; Dong, Qi; Nan, Yun

2016-10-01

Music and speech share many sound attributes. Pitch, as the percept of fundamental frequency, often occupies the center of researchers' attention in studies on the relationship between music and speech. One widely held assumption is that music experience may confer an advantage in speech tone processing. The cross-domain effects of musical training on non-tonal language speakers' linguistic pitch processing have been relatively well established. However, it remains unclear whether musical experience improves the processing of lexical tone for native tone language speakers who actually use lexical tones in their daily communication. Using a passive oddball paradigm, the present study revealed that among Mandarin speakers, musicians demonstrated enlarged electrical responses to lexical tone changes as reflected by the increased mismatch negativity (MMN) amplitudes, as well as faster behavioral discrimination performance compared with age- and IQ-matched nonmusicians. The current results suggest that in spite of the preexisting long-term experience with lexical tones in both musicians and nonmusicians, musical experience can still modulate the cortical plasticity of linguistic tone processing and is associated with enhanced neural processing of speech tones. Our current results thus provide the first electrophysiological evidence supporting the notion that pitch expertise in the music domain may indeed be transferable to the speech domain even for native tone language speakers. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Mandarin-English Bilinguals Process Lexical Tones in Newly Learned Words in Accordance with the Language Context.

PubMed

Quam, Carolyn; Creel, Sarah C

2017-01-01

Previous research has mainly considered the impact of tone-language experience on ability to discriminate linguistic pitch, but proficient bilingual listening requires differential processing of sound variation in each language context. Here, we ask whether Mandarin-English bilinguals, for whom pitch indicates word distinctions in one language but not the other, can process pitch differently in a Mandarin context vs. an English context. Across three eye-tracked word-learning experiments, results indicated that tone-intonation bilinguals process tone in accordance with the language context. In Experiment 1, 51 Mandarin-English bilinguals and 26 English speakers without tone experience were taught Mandarin-compatible novel words with tones. Mandarin-English bilinguals out-performed English speakers, and, for bilinguals, overall accuracy was correlated with Mandarin dominance. Experiment 2 taught 24 Mandarin-English bilinguals and 25 English speakers novel words with Mandarin-like tones, but English-like phonemes and phonotactics. The Mandarin-dominance advantages observed in Experiment 1 disappeared when words were English-like. Experiment 3 contrasted Mandarin-like vs. English-like words in a within-subjects design, providing even stronger evidence that bilinguals can process tone language-specifically. Bilinguals (N = 58), regardless of language dominance, attended more to tone than English speakers without Mandarin experience (N = 28), but only when words were Mandarin-like-not when they were English-like. Mandarin-English bilinguals thus tailor tone processing to the within-word language context.

Bouncing Ball with a Uniformly Varying Velocity in a Metronome Synchronization Task.

PubMed

Huang, Yingyu; Gu, Li; Yang, Junkai; Wu, Xiang

2017-09-21

Sensorimotor synchronization (SMS), a fundamental human ability to coordinate movements with external rhythms, has long been thought to be modality specific. In the canonical metronome synchronization task that requires tapping a finger along with an isochronous sequence, a well-established finding is that synchronization is much more stable to an auditory sequence consisting of auditory tones than to a visual sequence consisting of visual flashes. However, recent studies have shown that periodically moving visual stimuli can substantially improve synchronization compared with visual flashes. In particular, synchronization of a visual bouncing ball that has a uniformly varying velocity was found to be not less stable than synchronization of auditory tones. Here, the current protocol describes the application of the bouncing ball with a uniformly varying velocity in a metronome synchronization task. The usage of the bouncing ball in sequences with different inter-onset intervals (IOI) is included. The representative results illustrate synchronization performance of the bouncing ball, as compared with the performances of auditory tones and visual flashes. Given its comparable synchronization performance to that of auditory tones, the bouncing ball is of particular importance for addressing the current research topic of whether modality-specific mechanisms underlay SMS.

Revisiting the "enigma" of musicians with dyslexia: Auditory sequencing and speech abilities.

PubMed

Zuk, Jennifer; Bishop-Liebler, Paula; Ozernov-Palchik, Ola; Moore, Emma; Overy, Katie; Welch, Graham; Gaab, Nadine

2017-04-01

Previous research has suggested a link between musical training and auditory processing skills. Musicians have shown enhanced perception of auditory features critical to both music and speech, suggesting that this link extends beyond basic auditory processing. It remains unclear to what extent musicians who also have dyslexia show these specialized abilities, considering often-observed persistent deficits that coincide with reading impairments. The present study evaluated auditory sequencing and speech discrimination in 52 adults comprised of musicians with dyslexia, nonmusicians with dyslexia, and typical musicians. An auditory sequencing task measuring perceptual acuity for tone sequences of increasing length was administered. Furthermore, subjects were asked to discriminate synthesized syllable continua varying in acoustic components of speech necessary for intraphonemic discrimination, which included spectral (formant frequency) and temporal (voice onset time [VOT] and amplitude envelope) features. Results indicate that musicians with dyslexia did not significantly differ from typical musicians and performed better than nonmusicians with dyslexia for auditory sequencing as well as discrimination of spectral and VOT cues within syllable continua. However, typical musicians demonstrated superior performance relative to both groups with dyslexia for discrimination of syllables varying in amplitude information. These findings suggest a distinct profile of speech processing abilities in musicians with dyslexia, with specific weaknesses in discerning amplitude cues within speech. Because these difficulties seem to remain persistent in adults with dyslexia despite musical training, this study only partly supports the potential for musical training to enhance the auditory processing skills known to be crucial for literacy in individuals with dyslexia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Selective effects of 5-HT2C receptor modulation on performance of a novel valence-probe visual discrimination task and probabilistic reversal learning in mice.

PubMed

Phillips, Benjamin U; Dewan, Sigma; Nilsson, Simon R O; Robbins, Trevor W; Heath, Christopher J; Saksida, Lisa M; Bussey, Timothy J; Alsiö, Johan

2018-04-22

Dysregulation of the serotonin (5-HT) system is a pathophysiological component in major depressive disorder (MDD), a condition closely associated with abnormal emotional responsivity to positive and negative feedback. However, the precise mechanism through which 5-HT tone biases feedback responsivity remains unclear. 5-HT2C receptors (5-HT2CRs) are closely linked with aspects of depressive symptomatology, including abnormalities in reinforcement processes and response to stress. Thus, we aimed to determine the impact of 5-HT2CR function on response to feedback in biased reinforcement learning. We used two touchscreen assays designed to assess the impact of positive and negative feedback on probabilistic reinforcement in mice, including a novel valence-probe visual discrimination (VPVD) and a probabilistic reversal learning procedure (PRL). Systemic administration of a 5-HT2CR agonist and antagonist resulted in selective changes in the balance of feedback sensitivity bias on these tasks. Specifically, on VPVD, SB 242084, the 5-HT2CR antagonist, impaired acquisition of a discrimination dependent on appropriate integration of positive and negative feedback. On PRL, SB 242084 at 1 mg/kg resulted in changes in behaviour consistent with reduced sensitivity to positive feedback. In contrast, WAY 163909, the 5-HT2CR agonist, resulted in changes associated with increased sensitivity to positive feedback and decreased sensitivity to negative feedback. These results suggest that 5-HT2CRs tightly regulate feedback sensitivity bias in mice with consequent effects on learning and cognitive flexibility and specify a framework for the influence of 5-HT2CRs on sensitivity to reinforcement.

The effects of ipsilateral, contralateral, and bilateral broadband noise on the mid-level hump in intensity discriminationa)

PubMed Central

Roverud, Elin; Strickland, Elizabeth A.

2015-01-01

Previous psychoacoustical and physiological studies indicate that the medial olivocochlear reflex (MOCR), a bilateral, sound-evoked reflex, may lead to improved sound intensity discrimination in background noise. The MOCR can decrease the range of basilar-membrane compression and can counteract effects of neural adaptation from background noise. However, the contribution of these processes to intensity discrimination is not well understood. This study examined the effect of ipsilateral, contralateral, and bilateral noise on the “mid-level hump.” The mid-level hump refers to intensity discrimination Weber fractions (WFs) measured for short-duration, high-frequency tones which are poorer at mid levels than at lower or higher levels. The mid-level hump WFs may reflect a limitation due to basilar-membrane compression, and thus may be decreased by the MOCR. The noise was either short (50 ms) or long (150 ms), with the long noise intended to elicit the sluggish MOCR. For a tone in quiet, mid-level hump WFs improved with ipsilateral noise for most listeners, but not with contralateral noise. For a tone in ipsilateral noise, WFs improved with contralateral noise for most listeners, but only when both noises were long. These results are consistent with MOCR-induced WF improvements, possibly via decreases in effects of compression and neural adaptation. PMID:26627798

Pinyin and English Invented Spelling in Chinese-Speaking Students Who Speak English as a Second Language.

PubMed

Ding, Yi; Liu, Ru-De; McBride, Catherine A; Fan, Chung-Hau; Xu, Le; Wang, Jia

2018-05-07

This study examined pinyin (the official phonetic system that transcribes the lexical tones and pronunciation of Chinese characters) invented spelling and English invented spelling in 72 Mandarin-speaking 6th graders who learned English as their second language. The pinyin invented spelling task measured segmental-level awareness including syllable and phoneme awareness, and suprasegmental-level awareness including lexical tones and tone sandhi in Chinese Mandarin. The English invented spelling task manipulated segmental-level awareness including syllable awareness and phoneme awareness, and suprasegmental-level awareness including word stress. This pinyin task outperformed a traditional phonological awareness task that only measured segmental-level awareness and may have optimal utility to measure unique phonological and linguistic features in Chinese reading. The pinyin invented spelling uniquely explained variance in Chinese conventional spelling and word reading in both languages. The English invented spelling uniquely explained variance in conventional spelling and word reading in both languages. Our findings appear to support the role of phonological activation in Chinese reading. Our experimental linguistic manipulations altered the phonological awareness item difficulties.

The influence of linguistic and musical experience on Cantonese word learning.

PubMed

Cooper, Angela; Wang, Yue

2012-06-01

Adult non-native speech perception is subject to influence from multiple factors, including linguistic and extralinguistic experience such as musical training. The present research examines how linguistic and musical factors influence non-native word identification and lexical tone perception. Groups of native tone language (Thai) and non-tone language listeners (English), each subdivided into musician and non-musician groups, engaged in Cantonese tone word training. Participants learned to identify words minimally distinguished by five Cantonese tones during training, also completing musical aptitude and phonemic tone identification tasks. First, the findings suggest that either musical experience or a tone language background leads to significantly better non-native word learning proficiency, as compared to those with neither musical training nor tone language experience. Moreover, the combination of tone language and musical experience did not provide an additional advantage for Thai musicians above and beyond either experience alone. Musicianship was found to be more advantageous than a tone language background for tone identification. Finally, tone identification and musical aptitude scores were significantly correlated with word learning success for English but not Thai listeners. These findings point to a dynamic influence of musical and linguistic experience, both at the tone dentification level and at the word learning stage.

Bimodal distribution of performance in discriminating major/minor modes.

PubMed

Chubb, Charles; Dickson, Christopher A; Dean, Tyler; Fagan, Christopher; Mann, Daniel S; Wright, Charles E; Guan, Maime; Silva, Andrew E; Gregersen, Peter K; Kowalsky, Elena

2013-10-01

This study investigated the abilities of listeners to classify various sorts of musical stimuli as major vs minor. All stimuli combined four pure tones: low and high tonics (G5 and G6), dominant (D), and either a major third (B) or a minor third (B[symbol: see text]). Especially interesting results were obtained using tone-scrambles, randomly ordered sequences of pure tones presented at ≈15 per second. All tone-scrambles tested comprised 16 G's (G5's + G6's), 8 D's, and either 8 B's or 8 B[symbol: see text]'s. The distribution of proportion correct across 275 listeners tested over the course of three experiments was strikingly bimodal, with one mode very close to chance performance, and the other very close to perfect performance. Testing with tone-scrambles thus sorts listeners fairly cleanly into two subpopulations. Listeners in subpopulation 1 are sufficiently sensitive to major vs minor to classify tone-scrambles nearly perfectly; listeners in subpopulation 2 (comprising roughly 70% of the population) have very little sensitivity to major vs minor. Skill in classifying major vs minor tone-scrambles shows a modest correlation of around 0.5 with years of musical training.

Physiotherapy based on the Bobath concept in stroke rehabilitation: a survey within the UK.

PubMed

Lennon, S; Baxter, D; Ashburn, A

2001-04-15

The Bobath concept is one of the most widely used approaches in stroke rehabilitation within Europe. This survey aimed to provide an expert consensus view of the theoretical beliefs underlying current Bobath practise in the UK. Questionnaires (with sections related to: therapist background, physiotherapy management, theoretical beliefs and gait re-education strategies used) were posted to all senior level physiotherapists working in stroke care (n = 1,022). The majority of respondents had more than 10 year's experience overall and at least 5 years experience in stroke care. The Bobath concept was the preferred approach (n = 67%) followed by an 'eclectic' approach (n = 31%). Despite a high level of consensus between groups, there were 13 significant differences highlighted between Bobath and 'eclectic' groups related to recovery, control of tone, the analysis and facilitation of normal movement and function. In summary. Bobath therapists considered that patients needed to have normal tone and use normal movement patterns in order to perform functional tasks. They would delay patients from performing tasks independently if abnormal tone and movement would be reinforced by task practice. They were not opposed to the use of walking aids and orthotics. This survey has raised several issues for debate within physiotherapy such as the automatic translation of movement into function, carry over outside therapy, and the way in which tasks should be practiced. The dominance of the Bobath concept needs to be justified by establishing that it is both effective and efficient at achieving its treatment aims of: normalizing tone, improving intrinsic recovery of the affected side and function within everyday tasks.

Musical Scales in Tone Sequences Improve Temporal Accuracy.

PubMed

Li, Min S; Di Luca, Massimiliano

2018-01-01

Predicting the time of stimulus onset is a key component in perception. Previous investigations of perceived timing have focused on the effect of stimulus properties such as rhythm and temporal irregularity, but the influence of non-temporal properties and their role in predicting stimulus timing has not been exhaustively considered. The present study aims to understand how a non-temporal pattern in a sequence of regularly timed stimuli could improve or bias the detection of temporal deviations. We presented interspersed sequences of 3, 4, 5, and 6 auditory tones where only the timing of the last stimulus could slightly deviate from isochrony. Participants reported whether the last tone was 'earlier' or 'later' relative to the expected regular timing. In two conditions, the tones composing the sequence were either organized into musical scales or they were random tones. In one experiment, all sequences ended with the same tone; in the other experiment, each sequence ended with a different tone. Results indicate higher discriminability of anisochrony with musical scales and with longer sequences, irrespective of the knowledge of the final tone. Such an outcome suggests that the predictability of non-temporal properties, as enabled by the musical scale pattern, can be a factor in determining the sensitivity of time judgments.

Age differences in fear retention and extinction in male Sprague-Dawley rats: Effects of ethanol challenge during conditioning

PubMed Central

Broadwater, Margaret; Spear, Linda P.

2013-01-01

Pavlovian fear conditioning is an ideal model to investigate how learning and memory are influenced by alcohol use during adolescence because the neural mechanisms involved have been studied extensively. In Exp 1, adolescent and adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were non-injected or injected with saline, 1 or 1.5 g/kg ethanol intraperitoneally 10 minutes prior to tone or context conditioning. Twenty-four hours later, animals were tested for tone or context retention and extinction, with examination of extinction retention conducted 24 hours thereafter. In Exp 2, a context extinction session was inserted between the tone conditioning and the tone fear retention/extinction days to reduce pre-CS baseline freezing levels at test. Basal levels of acquisition, fear retention, extinction, and extinction retention after tone conditioning were similar between adolescent and adult rats. In contrast adolescents showed faster context extinction than adults, while again not differing from adults during context acquisition, retention or extinction retention. In terms of ethanol effects, adolescents were less sensitive to ethanol-induced context retention deficits than adults. No age differences emerged in terms of tone fear retention, with ethanol disrupting tone fear retention at both ages in Exp1, but at neither age in Exp 2, a difference seemingly due to group differences in pre-CS freezing during tone testing in Exp 1, but not Exp 2. These results suggest that age differences in the acute effects of ethanol on cognitive function are task-specific, and provide further evidence for age differences cognitive functioning in a task thought to be hippocampally-related. PMID:23810415

Mapping the unconscious maintenance of a lost first language.

PubMed

Pierce, Lara J; Klein, Denise; Chen, Jen-Kai; Delcenserie, Audrey; Genesee, Fred

2014-12-02

Optimal periods during early development facilitate the formation of perceptual representations, laying the framework for future learning. A crucial question is whether such early representations are maintained in the brain over time without continued input. Using functional MRI, we show that internationally adopted (IA) children from China, exposed exclusively to French since adoption (mean age of adoption, 12.8 mo), maintained neural representations of their birth language despite functionally losing that language and having no conscious recollection of it. Their neural patterns during a Chinese lexical tone discrimination task matched those observed in Chinese/French bilinguals who have had continual exposure to Chinese since birth and differed from monolingual French speakers who had never been exposed to Chinese. They processed lexical tone as linguistically relevant, despite having no Chinese exposure for 12.6 y, on average, and no conscious recollection of that language. More specifically, IA participants recruited left superior temporal gyrus/planum temporale, matching the pattern observed in Chinese/French bilinguals. In contrast, French speakers who had never been exposed to Chinese did not recruit this region and instead activated right superior temporal gyrus. We show that neural representations are not overwritten and suggest a special status for language input obtained during the first year of development.

Involvement of the larynx motor area in singing-voice perception: a TMS study†

PubMed Central

Lévêque, Yohana; Muggleton, Neil; Stewart, Lauren; Schön, Daniele

2013-01-01

Recent evidence has reported that the motor system has a role in speech or emotional vocalization discrimination. In the present study we investigated the involvement of the larynx motor representation in singing perception. Twenty-one non-musicians listened to short tones sung by a human voice or played by a machine and performed a categorization task. Thereafter continuous theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation was applied over the right larynx premotor area or on the vertex and the test administered again. Overall, reaction times (RTs) were shorter after stimulation over both sites. Nonetheless and most importantly, RTs became longer for sung than for “machine” sounds after stimulation on the larynx area. This effect suggests that the right premotor region is functionally involved in singing perception and that sound humanness modulates motor resonance. PMID:23874314

Individual differences in cardiac vagal tone are associated with differential neural responses to facial expressions at different spatial frequencies: an ERP and sLORETA study.

PubMed

Park, Gewnhi; Moon, Eunok; Kim, Do-Won; Lee, Seung-Hwan

2012-12-01

A previous study has shown that greater cardiac vagal tone, reflecting effective self-regulatory capacity, was correlated with superior visual discrimination of fearful faces at high spatial frequency Park et al. (Biological Psychology 90:171-178, 2012b). The present study investigated whether individual differences in cardiac vagal tone (indexed by heart rate variability) were associated with different event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in response to fearful and neutral faces. Thirty-six healthy participants discriminated the emotion of fearful and neutral faces at broad, high, and low spatial frequencies, while ERPs were recorded. Participants with low resting heart rate variability-characterized by poor functioning of regulatory systems-exhibited significantly greater N200 activity in response to fearful faces at low spatial frequency and greater LPP responses to neutral faces at high spatial frequency. Source analyses-estimated by standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA)-tended to show that participants with low resting heart rate variability exhibited increased source activity in visual areas, such as the cuneus and the middle occipital gyrus, as compared with participants with high resting heart rate variability. The hyperactive neural activity associated with low cardiac vagal tone may account for hypervigilant response patterns and emotional dysregulation, which heightens the risk of developing physical and emotional problems.

Electrocortical Dynamics in Children with a Language-Learning Impairment Before and After Audiovisual Training.

PubMed

Heim, Sabine; Choudhury, Naseem; Benasich, April A

2016-05-01

Detecting and discriminating subtle and rapid sound changes in the speech environment is a fundamental prerequisite of language processing, and deficits in this ability have frequently been observed in individuals with language-learning impairments (LLI). One approach to studying associations between dysfunctional auditory dynamics and LLI, is to implement a training protocol tapping into this potential while quantifying pre- and post-intervention status. Event-related potentials (ERPs) are highly sensitive to the brain correlates of these dynamic changes and are therefore ideally suited for examining hypotheses regarding dysfunctional auditory processes. In this study, ERP measurements to rapid tone sequences (standard and deviant tone pairs) along with behavioral language testing were performed in 6- to 9-year-old LLI children (n = 21) before and after audiovisual training. A non-treatment group of children with typical language development (n = 12) was also assessed twice at a comparable time interval. The results indicated that the LLI group exhibited considerable gains on standardized measures of language. In terms of ERPs, we found evidence of changes in the LLI group specifically at the level of the P2 component, later than 250 ms after the onset of the second stimulus in the deviant tone pair. These changes suggested enhanced discrimination of deviant from standard tone sequences in widespread cortices, in LLI children after training.

Five-Year-olds' Acoustic Realization of Mandarin Tone Sandhi and Lexical Tones in Context Are Not Yet Fully Adult-Like.

PubMed

Xu Rattanasone, Nan; Tang, Ping; Yuen, Ivan; Gao, Liqun; Demuth, Katherine

2018-01-01

Large numbers of children around the world are learning tone languages, but few studies have examined the acoustic properties of children's early tone productions. Even more scarce are acquisition studies on tone sandhi, a tone change phenomenon which alters the surface realization of lexical tones. Two studies using perceptual coding report the emergence of lexical tone and tone sandhi at around 2 years (Li and Thompson, 1977; Hua and Dodd, 2000). However, the only acoustic study available shows that 3-year-olds are not yet adult-like in their lexical tone productions (Wong, 2012). This raises questions about when children's productions become acoustically adult-like and how their tone productions differ from those of adults. These questions were addressed in the current study which compared Mandarin-speaking pre-schoolers' (3-5-year-olds) tone productions to that of adults. A picture naming task was used with disyllabic real words familiar to pre-schoolers. Overall children produced appropriate tone contours for all tones, i.e., level for tone 1, rising for tones 2, 3 and full sandhi, falling for tone 4 and half sandhi. However, children's productions were not adult-like for tones 3, 4, and the sandhi forms, in terms of coordinating pitch range, slope and curvature , with little evidence of development across ages. These results suggest a protracted process in achieving adult-like acoustic realization of both lexical and sandhi tones.

Tone-deafness – a new disconnection syndrome?

PubMed Central

Loui, Psyche; Alsop, David; Schlaug, Gottfried

2009-01-01

Communicating with one’s environment requires efficient neural interaction between action and perception. Neural substrates ofsound perception and production are connected by the arcuate fasciculus (AF). While AF is known to be involved in language, its roles in non-linguistic functions are unexplored. Here we show that tone-deaf people, with impaired sound perception and production, have reduced AF connectivity. Diffusion tensor tractography and psychophysics were assessed in tone-deaf individuals and matched controls. Abnormally-reduced AF connectivity was observed in the tone-deaf. Furthermore, we observed relationships between AF and auditory-motor behavior: superior and inferior AF branches predict psychophysically-assessed pitch-discrimination and sound production-perception abilities respectively. This neural abnormality suggests that tone-deafness leads to a reduction in connectivity resulting in pitch-related impairments. Results support a dual-stream anatomy of sound production and perception implicated in vocal communications. By identifying white-matter differences and their psychophysical correlates, results contribute to our understanding of how neural connectivity subserves behavior. PMID:19692596

Mandarin-English Bilinguals Process Lexical Tones in Newly Learned Words in Accordance with the Language Context

PubMed Central

Quam, Carolyn; Creel, Sarah C.

2017-01-01

Previous research has mainly considered the impact of tone-language experience on ability to discriminate linguistic pitch, but proficient bilingual listening requires differential processing of sound variation in each language context. Here, we ask whether Mandarin-English bilinguals, for whom pitch indicates word distinctions in one language but not the other, can process pitch differently in a Mandarin context vs. an English context. Across three eye-tracked word-learning experiments, results indicated that tone-intonation bilinguals process tone in accordance with the language context. In Experiment 1, 51 Mandarin-English bilinguals and 26 English speakers without tone experience were taught Mandarin-compatible novel words with tones. Mandarin-English bilinguals out-performed English speakers, and, for bilinguals, overall accuracy was correlated with Mandarin dominance. Experiment 2 taught 24 Mandarin-English bilinguals and 25 English speakers novel words with Mandarin-like tones, but English-like phonemes and phonotactics. The Mandarin-dominance advantages observed in Experiment 1 disappeared when words were English-like. Experiment 3 contrasted Mandarin-like vs. English-like words in a within-subjects design, providing even stronger evidence that bilinguals can process tone language-specifically. Bilinguals (N = 58), regardless of language dominance, attended more to tone than English speakers without Mandarin experience (N = 28), but only when words were Mandarin-like—not when they were English-like. Mandarin-English bilinguals thus tailor tone processing to the within-word language context. PMID:28076400

Neurophysiological Modulations of Non-Verbal and Verbal Dual-Tasks Interference during Word Planning.

PubMed

Fargier, Raphaël; Laganaro, Marina

2016-01-01

Running a concurrent task while speaking clearly interferes with speech planning, but whether verbal vs. non-verbal tasks interfere with the same processes is virtually unknown. We investigated the neural dynamics of dual-task interference on word production using event-related potentials (ERPs) with either tones or syllables as concurrent stimuli. Participants produced words from pictures in three conditions: without distractors, while passively listening to distractors and during a distractor detection task. Production latencies increased for tasks with higher attentional demand and were longer for syllables relative to tones. ERP analyses revealed common modulations by dual-task for verbal and non-verbal stimuli around 240 ms, likely corresponding to lexical selection. Modulations starting around 350 ms prior to vocal onset were only observed when verbal stimuli were involved. These later modulations, likely reflecting interference with phonological-phonetic encoding, were observed only when overlap between tasks was maximal and the same underlying neural circuits were engaged (cross-talk).

Auditory agnosia as a clinical symptom of childhood adrenoleukodystrophy.

PubMed

Furushima, Wakana; Kaga, Makiko; Nakamura, Masako; Gunji, Atsuko; Inagaki, Masumi

2015-08-01

To investigate detailed auditory features in patients with auditory impairment as the first clinical symptoms of childhood adrenoleukodystrophy (CSALD). Three patients who had hearing difficulty as the first clinical signs and/or symptoms of ALD. Precise examination of the clinical characteristics of hearing and auditory function was performed, including assessments of pure tone audiometry, verbal sound discrimination, otoacoustic emission (OAE), and auditory brainstem response (ABR), as well as an environmental sound discrimination test, a sound lateralization test, and a dichotic listening test (DLT). The auditory pathway was evaluated by MRI in each patient. Poor response to calling was detected in all patients. Two patients were not aware of their hearing difficulty, and had been diagnosed with normal hearing by otolaryngologists at first. Pure-tone audiometry disclosed normal hearing in all patients. All patients showed a normal wave V ABR threshold. Three patients showed obvious difficulty in discriminating verbal sounds, environmental sounds, and sound lateralization and strong left-ear suppression in a dichotic listening test. However, once they discriminated verbal sounds, they correctly understood the meaning. Two patients showed elongation of the I-V and III-V interwave intervals in ABR, but one showed no abnormality. MRIs of these three patients revealed signal changes in auditory radiation including in other subcortical areas. The hearing features of these subjects were diagnosed as auditory agnosia and not aphasia. It should be emphasized that when patients are suspected to have hearing impairment but have no abnormalities in pure tone audiometry and/or ABR, this should not be diagnosed immediately as psychogenic response or pathomimesis, but auditory agnosia must also be considered. Copyright © 2014 The Japanese Society of Child Neurology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Face-gender discrimination is possible in the near-absence of attention.

PubMed

Reddy, Leila; Wilken, Patrick; Koch, Christof

2004-03-02

The attentional cost associated with the visual discrimination of the gender of a face was investigated. Participants performed a face-gender discrimination task either alone (single-task) or concurrently (dual-task) with a known attentional demanding task (5-letter T/L discrimination). Overall performance on face-gender discrimination suffered remarkably little under the dual-task condition compared to the single-task condition. Similar results were obtained in experiments that controlled for potential training effects or the use of low-level cues in this discrimination task. Our results provide further evidence against the notion that only low-level representations can be accessed outside the focus of attention.

Cross-language Perception of Non-native Tonal Contrasts: Effects of Native Phonological and Phonetic Influences

PubMed Central

SO, CONNIE K.; BEST, CATHERINE T.

2010-01-01

This study examined the perception of the four Mandarin lexical tones by Mandarin-naïve Hong Kong Cantonese, Japanese, and Canadian English listener groups. Their performance on an identification task, following a brief familiarization task, was analyzed in terms of tonal sensitivities (A-prime scores on correct identifications) and tonal errors (confusions). The A-prime results revealed that the English listeners' sensitivity to Tone 4 identifications specifically was significantly lower than that of the other two groups. The analysis of tonal errors revealed that all listener groups showed perceptual confusion of tone pairs with similar phonetic features (T1–T2, T1–T4 and T2–T3 pairs), but not of those with completely dissimilar features (T1–T3, T2–T4, and T3–T4). Language specific errors were also observed in their performance, which may be explained within the framework of the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM: Best, 1995; Best & Tyler, 2007). The findings imply that linguistic experience with native tones does not necessarily facilitate non-native tone perception. Rather, the phonemic status and the phonetic features (similarities or dissimilarities) between the tonal systems of the target language and the listeners' native languages play critical roles in the perception of non-native tones. PMID:20583732

Neuron activity in rat hippocampus and motor cortex during discrimination reversal.

PubMed

Disterhoft, J F; Segal, M

1978-01-01

Chronic unit activity and gross movement were recorded from rats during two discrimination reversals in a classical appetitive conditioning situation. The anticipatory movement decreased in response to the former CS+ tone and increased to the previous CS- tone after each reversal. Hippocampus and motor cortex were differently related to these two kinds of behavioral change. Response rates of hippocampal neurons were more closely related to the increased movement response to the former CS- which now signaled food. Motor cortex neuron responses were more closely correlated with the decrease in movement responses to the former CS+ which became neutral after the reversal. It appeared that hippocampal neurons could have been involved in one cognitive aspect of the situation, motor cortex neurons in another. The data were related to current functional concepts of these brain regions.

A simulation framework for auditory discrimination experiments: Revealing the importance of across-frequency processing in speech perception.

PubMed

Schädler, Marc René; Warzybok, Anna; Ewert, Stephan D; Kollmeier, Birger

2016-05-01

A framework for simulating auditory discrimination experiments, based on an approach from Schädler, Warzybok, Hochmuth, and Kollmeier [(2015). Int. J. Audiol. 54, 100-107] which was originally designed to predict speech recognition thresholds, is extended to also predict psychoacoustic thresholds. The proposed framework is used to assess the suitability of different auditory-inspired feature sets for a range of auditory discrimination experiments that included psychoacoustic as well as speech recognition experiments in noise. The considered experiments were 2 kHz tone-in-broadband-noise simultaneous masking depending on the tone length, spectral masking with simultaneously presented tone signals and narrow-band noise maskers, and German Matrix sentence test reception threshold in stationary and modulated noise. The employed feature sets included spectro-temporal Gabor filter bank features, Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients, logarithmically scaled Mel-spectrograms, and the internal representation of the Perception Model from Dau, Kollmeier, and Kohlrausch [(1997). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 102(5), 2892-2905]. The proposed framework was successfully employed to simulate all experiments with a common parameter set and obtain objective thresholds with less assumptions compared to traditional modeling approaches. Depending on the feature set, the simulated reference-free thresholds were found to agree with-and hence to predict-empirical data from the literature. Across-frequency processing was found to be crucial to accurately model the lower speech reception threshold in modulated noise conditions than in stationary noise conditions.

The role of central attention in retrieval from visual short-term memory.

PubMed

Magen, Hagit

2017-04-01

The role of central attention in visual short-term memory (VSTM) encoding and maintenance is well established, yet its role in retrieval has been largely unexplored. This study examined the involvement of central attention in retrieval from VSTM using a dual-task paradigm. Participants performed a color change-detection task. Set size varied between 1 and 3 items, and the memory sample was maintained for either a short or a long delay period. A secondary tone discrimination task was introduced at the end of the delay period, shortly before the appearance of a central probe, and occupied central attention while participants were searching within VSTM representations. Similarly to numerous previous studies, reaction time increased as a function of set size reflecting the occurrence of a capacity-limited memory search. When the color targets were maintained over a short delay, memory was searched for the most part without the involvement of central attention. However, with a longer delay period, the search relied entirely on the operation of central attention. Taken together, this study demonstrates that central attention is involved in retrieval from VSTM, but the extent of its involvement depends on the duration of the delay period. Future studies will determine whether the type of memory search (parallel or serial) carried out during retrieval depends on the nature of the attentional mechanism involved the task.

The auditory dynamic attending theory revisited: A closer look at the pitch comparison task.

PubMed

Bauer, Anna-Katharina R; Jaeger, Manuela; Thorne, Jeremy D; Bendixen, Alexandra; Debener, Stefan

2015-11-11

The dynamic attending theory as originally proposed by Jones, 1976. Psychol. Rev. 83(5), 323-355 posits that tone sequences presented at a regular rhythm entrain attentional oscillations and thereby facilitate the processing of sounds presented in phase with this rhythm. The increased interest in neural correlates of dynamic attending requires robust behavioral indicators of the phenomenon. Here we aimed to replicate and complement the most prominent experimental implementation of dynamic attending (Jones et al., 2002. Psychol. Sci. 13(4), 313-319). The paradigm uses a pitch comparison task in which two tones, the initial and the last of a longer series, have to be compared. In-between the two, distractor tones with variable pitch are presented, at a regular pace. A comparison tone presented in phase with the entrained rhythm is hypothesized to lead to better behavioral performance. Aiming for a conceptual replication, four different variations of the original paradigm were created which were followed by an exact replication attempt. Across all five experiments, only 40 of the 140 tested participants showed the hypothesized pattern of an inverted U-shaped profile in task accuracy, and the group average effects did not replicate the pattern reported by Jones et al., 2002. Psychol. Sci. 13(4), 313-319 in any of the five experiments. However, clear evidence for a relationship between musicality and overall behavioral performance was found. This study casts doubt on the suitability of the pitch comparison task for demonstrating auditory dynamic attending. We discuss alternative tasks that have been shown to support dynamic attending theory, thus lending themselves more readily to studying its neural correlates. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled SI: Prediction and Attention. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Predicting Preschool Effortful Control from Toddler Temperament and Parenting Behavior

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cipriano, Elizabeth A.; Stifter, Cynthia A.

2010-01-01

This longitudinal study assessed whether maternal behavior and emotional tone moderated the relationship between toddler temperament and preschooler's effortful control. Maternal behavior and emotional tone were observed during a parent-child competing demands task when children were 2 years of age. Child temperament was also assessed at 2 years…

A history of alternative reinforcement reduces stimulus generalization of ethanol-seeking in a rat recovery model.

PubMed

Ginsburg, Brett C; Lamb, R J

2013-04-01

Longer periods of recovery reduce the likelihood of relapse, which may be due to a reduced ability of various stimuli to occasion alcohol or drug seeking. However, this hypothesis remains largely uninvestigated. Here we assessed the ability of intermediate stimuli to occasion responding for ethanol in rats trained to discriminate an 8 kHz tone signaling a food fixed-ratio (FR) of 5 and an ethanol FR5, from a 16 kHz tone signaling a food FR150 and ethanol FR5. In the presence of the 8 kHz tone responding for food predominates, and in the presence of the 16 kHz tone, responding for ethanol predominates. In the context of alternation between these conditions, varying the tone from 8 to 16 kHz produces a graded increase in ethanol (versus food) responding, consistent with a stimulus generalization function. A recent history of responding under food-predominant choice conditions, either during the test session or in the four sessions that precede it shifts the generalization function downwards. Extending this history to nine sessions shifts the curve further downwards. The stimulus generalization function was similar in a separate group, trained with different relative ratios for food and ethanol, but with similar behavioral allocation under each discriminative stimulus. Finally, withholding access to food and ethanol for 4 or 16 sessions did not affect the stimulus generalization gradient. These results suggest that longer histories of reinforced alternative behavior might reduce the likelihood of relapse by decreasing the control exerted over alcohol- or drug-seeking by stimuli similar to those that previously occasioned alcohol- or drug-seeking. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Congenital amusia in speakers of a tone language: association with lexical tone agnosia.

PubMed

Nan, Yun; Sun, Yanan; Peretz, Isabelle

2010-09-01

Congenital amusia is a neurogenetic disorder that affects the processing of musical pitch in speakers of non-tonal languages like English and French. We assessed whether this musical disorder exists among speakers of Mandarin Chinese who use pitch to alter the meaning of words. Using the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia, we tested 117 healthy young Mandarin speakers with no self-declared musical problems and 22 individuals who reported musical difficulties and scored two standard deviations below the mean obtained by the Mandarin speakers without amusia. These 22 amusic individuals showed a similar pattern of musical impairment as did amusic speakers of non-tonal languages, by exhibiting a more pronounced deficit in melody than in rhythm processing. Furthermore, nearly half the tested amusics had impairments in the discrimination and identification of Mandarin lexical tones. Six showed marked impairments, displaying what could be called lexical tone agnosia, but had normal tone production. Our results show that speakers of tone languages such as Mandarin may experience musical pitch disorder despite early exposure to speech-relevant pitch contrasts. The observed association between the musical disorder and lexical tone difficulty indicates that the pitch disorder as defining congenital amusia is not specific to music or culture but is rather general in nature.

Hyperactivity in boys with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): the association between deficient behavioral inhibition, attentional processes, and objectively measured activity.

PubMed

Alderson, R Matt; Rapport, Mark D; Kasper, Lisa J; Sarver, Dustin E; Kofler, Michael J

2012-01-01

Contemporary models of ADHD hypothesize that hyperactivity reflects a byproduct of inhibition deficits. The current study investigated the relationship between children's motor activity and behavioral inhibition by experimentally manipulating demands placed on the limited-resource inhibition system. Twenty-two boys (ADHD = 11, TD = 11) between the ages of 8 and 12 years completed a conventional stop-signal task, two choice-task variants (no-tone, ignore-tone), and control tasks while their motor activity was measured objectively by actigraphs placed on their nondominant wrist and ankles. All children exhibited significantly higher activity rates under all three experimental tasks relative to control conditions, and children with ADHD moved significantly more than typically developing children across conditions. No differences in activity level were observed between the inhibition and noninhibition experimental tasks for either group, indicating that activity level was primarily associated with basic attentional rather than behavioral inhibition processes.

Dominican Immigrants and Discrimination in a New Destination: The Case of Reading, Pennsylvania*

PubMed Central

Oropesa, R.S.; Jensen, Leif

2014-01-01

The last decade has witnessed the diversification of immigrant destinations in the United States. Although the literature on this phenomenon is burgeoning, research on the experiences of smaller immigrant groups in new destinations is underdeveloped. This is especially the case for those from the Dominican Republic, a group that is expanding beyond the traditional gateway cities of the Northeast. Using a survey of Dominican immigrants in Reading, Pennsylvania, this study has two objectives. The first objective is to describe the prevalence of experiences with institutional and interpersonal discrimination. The second objective is to determine the extent to which these experiences are structured around racial markers (i.e. skin tone), forms of capital, forms of incorporation, and exposure to the U.S. Our results show that a substantial minority of Dominican immigrants claims to have been treated unfairly, primarily because of their “race and ethnicity.” In addition, experiences with some types of discrimination are positively associated with skin tone (i.e., darkness) and several factors that are identified in models of assimilation. PMID:25506273

Is a High Tone Pointy? Speakers of Different Languages Match Mandarin Chinese Tones to Visual Shapes Differently

PubMed Central

Shang, Nan; Styles, Suzy J.

2017-01-01

Studies investigating cross-modal correspondences between auditory pitch and visual shapes have shown children and adults consistently match high pitch to pointy shapes and low pitch to curvy shapes, yet no studies have investigated linguistic-uses of pitch. In the present study, we used a bouba/kiki style task to investigate the sound/shape mappings for Tones of Mandarin Chinese, for three groups of participants with different language backgrounds. We recorded the vowels [i] and [u] articulated in each of the four tones of Mandarin Chinese. In Study 1 a single auditory stimulus was presented with two images (one curvy, one spiky). In Study 2 a single image was presented with two auditory stimuli differing only in tone. Participants were asked to select the best match in an online ‘Quiz.’ Across both studies, we replicated the previously observed ‘u-curvy, i-pointy’ sound/shape cross-modal correspondence in all groups. However, Tones were mapped differently by people with different language backgrounds: speakers of Mandarin Chinese classified as Chinese-dominant systematically matched Tone 1 (high, steady) to the curvy shape and Tone 4 (falling) to the pointy shape, while English speakers with no knowledge of Chinese preferred to match Tone 1 (high, steady) to the pointy shape and Tone 3 (low, dipping) to the curvy shape. These effects were observed most clearly in Study 2 where tone-pairs were contrasted explicitly. These findings are in line with the dominant patterns of linguistic pitch perception for speakers of these languages (pitch-change, and pitch height, respectively). Chinese English balanced bilinguals showed a bivalent pattern, swapping between the Chinese pitch-change pattern and the English pitch-height pattern depending on the task. These findings show for that the supposedly universal pattern of mapping linguistic sounds to shape is modulated by the sensory properties of a speaker’s language system, and that people with high functioning in more than one language can dynamically shift between patterns. PMID:29270147

Auditory-visual integration modulates location-specific repetition suppression of auditory responses.

PubMed

Shrem, Talia; Murray, Micah M; Deouell, Leon Y

2017-11-01

Space is a dimension shared by different modalities, but at what stage spatial encoding is affected by multisensory processes is unclear. Early studies observed attenuation of N1/P2 auditory evoked responses following repetition of sounds from the same location. Here, we asked whether this effect is modulated by audiovisual interactions. In two experiments, using a repetition-suppression paradigm, we presented pairs of tones in free field, where the test stimulus was a tone presented at a fixed lateral location. Experiment 1 established a neural index of auditory spatial sensitivity, by comparing the degree of attenuation of the response to test stimuli when they were preceded by an adapter sound at the same location versus 30° or 60° away. We found that the degree of attenuation at the P2 latency was inversely related to the spatial distance between the test stimulus and the adapter stimulus. In Experiment 2, the adapter stimulus was a tone presented from the same location or a more medial location than the test stimulus. The adapter stimulus was accompanied by a simultaneous flash displayed orthogonally from one of the two locations. Sound-flash incongruence reduced accuracy in a same-different location discrimination task (i.e., the ventriloquism effect) and reduced the location-specific repetition-suppression at the P2 latency. Importantly, this multisensory effect included topographic modulations, indicative of changes in the relative contribution of underlying sources across conditions. Our findings suggest that the auditory response at the P2 latency is affected by spatially selective brain activity, which is affected crossmodally by visual information. © 2017 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Physiological Assessment of Aircraft Pilot Workload in Simulated Landing and Simulated Hostile Threat Environments

DTIC Science & Technology

1984-04-01

999949999999 17 * . TABLE 3.Inter- beat interval (131) changes over 14 blocks of 6 tone trials each f’or the 3...Tone3 were presented • .. 4 binaurally through Sennheiser Model HD 400 earphones. Tone duration was 200 msec at 65 dB. A *run* on this task was...canthus and superior ridge of the left eye. Heart rate (actually quantified as inter- beat -interal, or IBI, in msec) leads were placed on the left

Blink rate, incomplete blinks and computer vision syndrome.

PubMed

Portello, Joan K; Rosenfield, Mark; Chu, Christina A

2013-05-01

Computer vision syndrome (CVS), a highly prevalent condition, is frequently associated with dry eye disorders. Furthermore, a reduced blink rate has been observed during computer use. The present study examined whether post task ocular and visual symptoms are associated with either a decreased blink rate or a higher prevalence of incomplete blinks. An additional trial tested whether increasing the blink rate would reduce CVS symptoms. Subjects (N = 21) were required to perform a continuous 15-minute reading task on a desktop computer at a viewing distance of 50 cm. Subjects were videotaped during the task to determine their blink rate and amplitude. Immediately after the task, subjects completed a questionnaire regarding ocular symptoms experienced during the trial. In a second session, the blink rate was increased by means of an audible tone that sounded every 4 seconds, with subjects being instructed to blink on hearing the tone. The mean blink rate during the task without the audible tone was 11.6 blinks per minute (SD, 7.84). The percentage of blinks deemed incomplete for each subject ranged from 0.9 to 56.5%, with a mean of 16.1% (SD, 15.7). A significant positive correlation was observed between the total symptom score and the percentage of incomplete blinks during the task (p = 0.002). Furthermore, a significant negative correlation was noted between the blink score and symptoms (p = 0.035). Increasing the mean blink rate to 23.5 blinks per minute by means of the audible tone did not produce a significant change in the symptom score. Whereas CVS symptoms are associated with a reduced blink rate, the completeness of the blink may be equally significant. Because instructing a patient to increase his or her blink rate may be ineffective or impractical, actions to achieve complete corneal coverage during blinking may be more helpful in alleviating symptoms during computer operation.

Dissociation of tone and vowel processing in Mandarin idioms.

PubMed

Hu, Jiehui; Gao, Shan; Ma, Weiyi; Yao, Dezhong

2012-09-01

Using event-related potentials, this study measured the access of suprasegmental (tone) and segmental (vowel) information in spoken word recognition with Mandarin idioms. Participants performed a delayed-response acceptability task, in which they judged the correctness of the last word of each idiom, which might deviate from the correct word in either tone or vowel. Results showed that, compared with the correct idioms, a larger early negativity appeared only for vowel violation. Additionally, a larger N400 effect was observed for vowel mismatch than tone mismatch. A control experiment revealed that these differences were not due to low-level physical differences across conditions; instead, they represented the greater constraining power of vowels than tones in the lexical selection and semantic integration of the spoken words. Furthermore, tone violation elicited a more robust late positive component than vowel violation, suggesting different reanalyses of the two types of information. In summary, the current results support a functional dissociation of tone and vowel processing in spoken word recognition. Copyright © 2012 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

A neurally inspired musical instrument classification system based upon the sound onset.

PubMed

Newton, Michael J; Smith, Leslie S

2012-06-01

Physiological evidence suggests that sound onset detection in the auditory system may be performed by specialized neurons as early as the cochlear nucleus. Psychoacoustic evidence shows that the sound onset can be important for the recognition of musical sounds. Here the sound onset is used in isolation to form tone descriptors for a musical instrument classification task. The task involves 2085 isolated musical tones from the McGill dataset across five instrument categories. A neurally inspired tone descriptor is created using a model of the auditory system's response to sound onset. A gammatone filterbank and spiking onset detectors, built from dynamic synapses and leaky integrate-and-fire neurons, create parallel spike trains that emphasize the sound onset. These are coded as a descriptor called the onset fingerprint. Classification uses a time-domain neural network, the echo state network. Reference strategies, based upon mel-frequency cepstral coefficients, evaluated either over the whole tone or only during the sound onset, provide context to the method. Classification success rates for the neurally-inspired method are around 75%. The cepstral methods perform between 73% and 76%. Further testing with tones from the Iowa MIS collection shows that the neurally inspired method is considerably more robust when tested with data from an unrelated dataset.

The effect of binaural beats on verbal working memory and cortical connectivity.

PubMed

Beauchene, Christine; Abaid, Nicole; Moran, Rosalyn; Diana, Rachel A; Leonessa, Alexander

2017-04-01

Synchronization in activated regions of cortical networks affect the brain's frequency response, which has been associated with a wide range of states and abilities, including memory. A non-invasive method for manipulating cortical synchronization is binaural beats. Binaural beats take advantage of the brain's response to two pure tones, delivered independently to each ear, when those tones have a small frequency mismatch. The mismatch between the tones is interpreted as a beat frequency, which may act to synchronize cortical oscillations. Neural synchrony is particularly important for working memory processes, the system controlling online organization and retention of information for successful goal-directed behavior. Therefore, manipulation of synchrony via binaural beats provides a unique window into working memory and associated connectivity of cortical networks. In this study, we examined the effects of different acoustic stimulation conditions during an N-back working memory task, and we measured participant response accuracy and cortical network topology via EEG recordings. Six acoustic stimulation conditions were used: None, Pure Tone, Classical Music, 5 Hz binaural beats, 10 Hz binaural beats, and 15 Hz binaural beats. We determined that listening to 15 Hz binaural beats during an N-Back working memory task increased the individual participant's accuracy, modulated the cortical frequency response, and changed the cortical network connection strengths during the task. Only the 15 Hz binaural beats produced significant change in relative accuracy compared to the None condition. Listening to 15 Hz binaural beats during the N-back task activated salient frequency bands and produced networks characterized by higher information transfer as compared to other auditory stimulation conditions.

Performance variability on perceptual discrimination tasks in profoundly deaf adults with cochlear implants.

PubMed

Hay-McCutcheon, Marcia J; Peterson, Nathaniel R; Pisoni, David B; Kirk, Karen Iler; Yang, Xin; Parton, Jason

The purpose of this study was to evaluate performance on two challenging listening tasks, talker and regional accent discrimination, and to assess variables that could have affected the outcomes. A prospective study using 35 adults with one cochlear implant (CI) or a CI and a contralateral hearing aid (bimodal hearing) was conducted. Adults completed talker and regional accent discrimination tasks. Two-alternative forced-choice tasks were used to assess talker and accent discrimination in a group of adults who ranged in age from 30 years old to 81 years old. A large amount of performance variability was observed across listeners for both discrimination tasks. Three listeners successfully discriminated between talkers for both listening tasks, 14 participants successfully completed one discrimination task and 18 participants were not able to discriminate between talkers for either listening task. Some adults who used bimodal hearing benefitted from the addition of acoustic cues provided through a HA but for others the HA did not help with discrimination abilities. Acoustic speech feature analysis of the test signals indicated that both the talker speaking rate and the fundamental frequency (F0) helped with talker discrimination. For accent discrimination, findings suggested that access to more salient spectral cues was important for better discrimination performance. The ability to perform challenging discrimination tasks successfully likely involves a number of complex interactions between auditory and non-auditory pre- and post-implant factors. To understand why some adults with CIs perform similarly to adults with normal hearing and others experience difficulty discriminating between talkers, further research will be required with larger populations of adults who use unilateral CIs, bilateral CIs and bimodal hearing. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Multiple bottlenecks in hierarchical control of action sequences: what does "response selection" select in skilled typewriting?

PubMed

Yamaguchi, Motonori; Logan, Gordon D; Li, Vanessa

2013-08-01

Does response selection select words or letters in skilled typewriting? Typing performance involves hierarchically organized control processes: an outer loop that controls word level processing, and an inner loop that controls letter (or keystroke) level processing. The present study addressed whether response selection occurs in the outer loop or the inner loop by using the psychological refractory period (PRP) paradigm in which Task1 required typing single words and Task2 required vocal responses to tones. The number of letters (string length) in the words was manipulated to discriminate selection of words from selection of keystrokes. In Experiment 1, the PRP effect depended on string length of words in Task1, suggesting that response selection occurs in the inner loop. To assess contributions of the outer loop, the influence of string length was examined in a lexical-decision task that also involves word encoding and lexical access (Experiment 2), or to-be-typed words were preexposed so outer-loop processing could finish before typing started (Experiment 3). Response time for Task2 (RT2) did not depend on string length with lexical decision, and RT2 still depended on string length with typing preexposed strings. These results support the inner-loop locus of the PRP effect. In Experiment 4, typing was performed as Task2, and the effect of string length on typing RT interacted with stimulus onset asynchrony superadditively, implying that another bottleneck also exists in the outer loop. We conclude that there are at least two bottleneck processes in skilled typewriting. 2013 APA, all rights reserved

Comparing behavioral and physiological measures of combination tones: Sex and race differences

PubMed Central

McFadden, Dennis; Pasanen, Edward G.; Leshikar, Erin M.; Hsieh, Michelle D.; Maloney, Mindy M.

2012-01-01

Both distortion-product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) and performance in an auditory-masking task involving combination tones were measured in the same frequency region in the same ears. In the behavioral task, a signal of 3.6 kHz (duration 300 ms, rise/fall time 20 ms) was masked by a 3.0-kHz tone (62 dB SPL, continuously presented). These two frequencies can produce a combination tone at 2.4 kHz. When a narrowband noise (2.0–2.8 kHz, 17 dB spectrum level) was added as a second masker, detection of the 3.6-kHz signal worsened by 6–9 dB (the Greenwood effect), revealing that listeners had been using the combination tone at 2.4 kHz as a cue for detection at 3.6 kHz. Several outcomes differed markedly by sex and racial background. The Greenwood effect was substantially larger in females than in males, but only for the White group. When the magnitude of the Greenwood effect was compared with the magnitude of the DPOAE measured in the 2.4 kHz region, the correlations typically were modest, but were high for Non-White males. For many subjects, then, most of the DPOAE measured in the ear canal apparently is not related to the combination-tone cue that is masked by the narrowband noise. PMID:22894218

Hearing status in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

PubMed

Ahmadzadeh, A; Daraei, M; Jalessi, M; Peyvandi, A A; Amini, E; Ranjbar, L A; Daneshi, A

2017-10-01

Rheumatoid arthritis is thought to induce conductive hearing loss and/or sensorineural hearing loss. This study evaluated the function of the middle ear and cochlea, and the related factors. Pure tone audiometry, speech reception thresholds, speech discrimination scores, tympanometry, acoustic reflexes, and distortion product otoacoustic emissions were assessed in rheumatoid arthritis patients and healthy volunteers. Pure tone audiometry results revealed a higher bone conduction threshold in the rheumatoid arthritis group, but there was no significant difference when evaluated according to the sensorineural hearing loss definition. Distortion product otoacoustic emissions related prevalence of conductive or mixed hearing loss, tympanometry values, acoustic reflexes, and speech discrimination scores were not significantly different between the two groups. Sensorineural hearing loss was significantly more prevalent in patients who used azathioprine, cyclosporine and etanercept. Higher bone conduction thresholds in some frequencies were detected in rheumatoid arthritis patients that were not clinically significant. Sensorineural hearing loss is significantly more prevalent in refractory rheumatoid arthritis patients.

Auditory spectral versus spatial temporal order judgment: Threshold distribution analysis.

PubMed

Fostick, Leah; Babkoff, Harvey

2017-05-01

Some researchers suggested that one central mechanism is responsible for temporal order judgments (TOJ), within and across sensory channels. This suggestion is supported by findings of similar TOJ thresholds in same modality and cross-modality TOJ tasks. In the present study, we challenge this idea by analyzing and comparing the threshold distributions of the spectral and spatial TOJ tasks. In spectral TOJ, the tones differ in their frequency ("high" and "low") and are delivered either binaurally or monaurally. In spatial (or dichotic) TOJ, the two tones are identical but are presented asynchronously to the two ears and thus differ with respect to which ear received the first tone and which ear received the second tone ("left"/"left"). Although both tasks are regarded as measures of auditory temporal processing, a review of data published in the literature suggests that they trigger different patterns of response. The aim of the current study was to systematically examine spectral and spatial TOJ threshold distributions across a large number of studies. Data are based on 388 participants in 13 spectral TOJ experiments, and 222 participants in 9 spatial TOJ experiments. None of the spatial TOJ distributions deviated significantly from the Gaussian; while all of the spectral TOJ threshold distributions were skewed to the right, with more than half of the participants accurately judging temporal order at very short interstimulus intervals (ISI). The data do not support the hypothesis that 1 central mechanism is responsible for all temporal order judgments. We suggest that different perceptual strategies are employed when performing spectral TOJ than when performing spatial TOJ. We posit that the spectral TOJ paradigm may provide the opportunity for two-tone masking or temporal integration, which is sensitive to the order of the tones and thus provides perceptual cues that may be used to judge temporal order. This possibility should be considered when interpreting spectral TOJ data, especially in the context of comparing different populations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Dual-Task Processing When Task 1 Is Hard and Task 2 Is Easy: Reversed Central Processing Order?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leonhard, Tanja; Fernandez, Susana Ruiz; Ulrich, Rolf; Miller, Jeff

2011-01-01

Five psychological refractory period (PRP) experiments were conducted with an especially time-consuming first task (Experiments 1, 3, and 5: mental rotation; Experiments 2 and 4: memory scanning) and with equal emphasis on the first task and on the second (left-right tone judgment). The standard design with varying stimulus onset asynchronies…

Binaural sluggishness in the perception of tone sequences and speech in noise.

PubMed

Culling, J F; Colburn, H S

2000-01-01

The binaural system is well-known for its sluggish response to changes in the interaural parameters to which it is sensitive. Theories of binaural unmasking have suggested that detection of signals in noise is mediated by detection of differences in interaural correlation. If these theories are correct, improvements in the intelligibility of speech in favorable binaural conditions is most likely mediated by spectro-temporal variations in interaural correlation of the stimulus which mirror the spectro-temporal amplitude modulations of the speech. However, binaural sluggishness should limit the temporal resolution of the representation of speech recovered by this means. The present study tested this prediction in two ways. First, listeners' masked discrimination thresholds for ascending vs descending pure-tone arpeggios were measured as a function of rate of frequency change in the NoSo and NoSpi binaural configurations. Three-tone arpeggios were presented repeatedly and continuously for 1.6 s, masked by a 1.6-s burst of noise. In a two-interval task, listeners determined the interval in which the arpeggios were ascending. The results showed a binaural advantage of 12-14 dB for NoSpi at 3.3 arpeggios per s (arp/s), which reduced to 3-5 dB at 10.4 arp/s. This outcome confirmed that the discrimination of spectro-temporal patterns in noise is susceptible to the effects of binaural sluggishness. Second, listeners' masked speech-reception thresholds were measured in speech-shaped noise using speech which was 1, 1.5, and 2 times the original articulation rate. The articulation rate was increased using a phase-vocoder technique which increased all the modulation frequencies in the speech without altering its pitch. Speech-reception thresholds were, on average, 5.2 dB lower for the NoSpi than for the NoSo configuration, at the original articulation rate. This binaural masking release was reduced to 2.8 dB when the articulation rate was doubled, but the most notable effect was a 6-8 dB increase in thresholds with articulation rate for both configurations. These results suggest that higher modulation frequencies in masked signals cannot be temporally resolved by the binaural system, but that the useful modulation frequencies in speech are sufficiently low (<5 Hz) that they are invulnerable to the effects of binaural sluggishness, even at elevated articulation rates.

Brief bursts of infrasound may improve cognitive function--an fMRI study.

PubMed

Weichenberger, Markus; Kühler, Robert; Bauer, Martin; Hensel, Johannes; Brühl, Rüdiger; Ihlenfeld, Albrecht; Ittermann, Bernd; Gallinat, Jürgen; Koch, Christian; Sander, Tilmann; Kühn, Simone

2015-10-01

At present, infrasound (sound frequency < 20 Hz; IS) is being controversially discussed as a potential mediator of several adverse bodily as well as psychological effects. However, it remains unclear, if and in what way IS influences cognition. Here, we conducted an fMRI experiment, in which 13 healthy participants were exposed to IS, while cognitive performance was assessed in an n-back working memory paradigm. During the task, short sinusoidal tone bursts of 12 Hz were administered monaurally with sound pressure levels that had been determined individually in a categorical loudness scaling session prior to the fMRI experiment. We found that task execution was associated with a significant activation of the prefrontal and the parietal cortex, as well as the striatum and the cerebellum, indicating the recruitment of a cognitive control network. Reverse contrast analysis (n-back with tone vs. n-back without tone) revealed a significant activation of the bilateral primary auditory cortex (Brodmann areas 41, 42). Surprisingly, we also found a strong, yet non-significant trend for an improvement of task performance during IS exposure. There was no correlation between performance and brain activity measures in tone and no-tone condition with sum scores of depression-, anxiety-, and personality factor assessment scales (BDI, STAIX1/X2, BFI-S). Although exerting a pronounced effect on cortical brain activity, we obtained no evidence for an impairment of cognition due to brief bursts of IS. On the contrary, potential improvement of working memory function introduces an entirely new aspect to the debate on IS-related effects. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Detection and localization of sounds: Virtual tones and virtual reality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Peter Xinya

Modern physiologically based binaural models employ internal delay lines in the pathways from left and right peripheries to central processing nuclei. Various models apply the delay lines differently, and give different predictions for the detection of dichotic pitches, wherein listeners hear a virtual tone in the noise background. Two dichotic pitch stimuli (Huggins pitch and binaural coherence edge pitch) with low boundary frequencies were used to test the predictions by two different models. The results from five experiments show that the relative dichotic pitch strengths support the equalization-cancellation model and disfavor the central activity pattern (CAP) model. The CAP model makes predictions for the lateralization of Huggins pitch based on interaural time differences (ITD). By measuring human lateralization for Huggins pitches with two different types of phase boundaries (linear-phase and stepped phase), and by comparing with lateralization of sine-tones, it was shown that the lateralization of Huggins pitch stimuli is similar to that of the corresponding sine-tones, and the lateralizations of Huggins pitch stimuli with the two different boundaries were even more similar to one another. The results agreed roughly with the CAP model predictions. Agreement was significantly improved by incorporating individualized scale factors and offsets into the model, and was further unproved with a model including compression at large ITDs. Furthermore, ambiguous stimuli, with an interaural phase difference of 180 degrees, were consistently lateralized on the left or right based on individual asymmetries---which introduces the concept of "earedness". Interaural phase difference (IPD) and interaural time difference (ITD) are two different forms of temporal cues. With varying frequency, an auditory system based on IPD or ITD gives different quantitative predictions on lateralization. A lateralization experiment with sine tones tested whether human auditory system is an IPD-meter or an ITD-meter. Listeners estimated the lateral positions of 50 sine tones with IPDs ranging from -150° to +150° and with different frequencies, all in the range where signal fine structure supports lateralization. The estimates indicated that listeners lateralize sine tones on the basis of ITD and not IPD. In order to distinguish between sound sources in front and in back, listeners use spectral cues caused by the diffraction by pinna, head, neck and torso. To study this effect, the VRX technique was developed based on transaural technology. The technique was successful in presenting desired spectra into listeners' ears with high accuracy up to 16 kHz. When presented with real source and simulated virtual signal, listeners in an anechoic room could not distinguish between them. Eleven experiments on discrimination between front and back sources were carried out in an anechoic room. The results show several findings. First, the results support a multiple band comparison model, and disfavor a necessary band(s) model. Second, it was found that preserving the spectral dips was more important than preserving the spectral peaks for successful front/back discrimination. Moreover, it was confirmed that neither monaural cues nor interaural spectral level difference cues were adequate for front/back discrimination. Furthermore, listeners' performance did not deteriorate when presented with sharpened spectra. Finally, when presented with an interaural delay less than 200 mus, listeners could succeed to discriminate front from back, although the image was pulled to the side, which suggests that the localizations in azimuthal plane and in sagittal plane are independent within certain limits.

Effects of Focus of Attention on Tone Production in Trained Singers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Atkins, Rebecca L.

2017-01-01

Motor performance in familiar tasks is often advantaged when performers focus on the effects of their movements rather than on the movements themselves. But, this phenomenon has yet to be studied systematically in the context of vocal production. I evaluated 20 trained singers' vocal tone as they varied their focus of attention. Each participant…

The Relationship between Auditory Temporal Processing, Phonemic Awareness, and Reading Disability.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bretherton, Lesley; Holmes, V. M.

2003-01-01

Investigated the relationship between auditory temporal processing of nonspeech sounds and phonological awareness ability in 8- to 12-year-olds with a reading disability, placed in groups based on performance on Tallal's tone-order judgment task. Found that a tone-order deficit did not relate to performance on order processing of speech sounds, to…

Cholinergic Modulation of the Hippocampus during Encoding and Retrieval of Tone/Shock-Induced Fear Conditioning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rogers, Jason L.; Kesner, Raymond P.

2004-01-01

We investigated the role of acetylcholine (ACh) during encoding and retrieval of tone/shock-induced fear conditioning with the aim of testing Hasselmo's cholinergic modulation model of encoding and retrieval using a task sensitive to hippocampal disruption. Lesions of the hippocampus impair acquisition and retention of contextual conditioning with…

A fundamental residue pitch perception bias for tone language speakers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Petitti, Elizabeth

A complex tone composed of only higher-order harmonics typically elicits a pitch percept equivalent to the tone's missing fundamental frequency (f0). When judging the direction of residue pitch change between two such tones, however, listeners may have completely opposite perceptual experiences depending on whether they are biased to perceive changes based on the overall spectrum or the missing f0 (harmonic spacing). Individual differences in residue pitch change judgments are reliable and have been associated with musical experience and functional neuroanatomy. Tone languages put greater pitch processing demands on their speakers than non-tone languages, and we investigated whether these lifelong differences in linguistic pitch processing affect listeners' bias for residue pitch. We asked native tone language speakers and native English speakers to perform a pitch judgment task for two tones with missing fundamental frequencies. Given tone pairs with ambiguous pitch changes, listeners were asked to judge the direction of pitch change, where the direction of their response indicated whether they attended to the overall spectrum (exhibiting a spectral bias) or the missing f0 (exhibiting a fundamental bias). We found that tone language speakers are significantly more likely to perceive pitch changes based on the missing f0 than English speakers. These results suggest that tone-language speakers' privileged experience with linguistic pitch fundamentally tunes their basic auditory processing.

A Tale of Two Features: Perception of Cantonese Lexical Tone and English Lexical Stress in Cantonese-English Bilinguals.

PubMed

Tong, Xiuli; Lee, Stephen Man Kit; Lee, Meg Mei Ling; Burnham, Denis

2015-01-01

This study investigated the similarities and differences in perception of Cantonese tones and English stress patterns by Cantonese-English bilingual children, adults, and English monolingual adults. All three groups were asked to discriminate pairs of syllables that minimally differed in either Cantonese tone or in English stress. Bilingual children's performance on tone perception was comparable to their performance on stress perception. By contrast, bilingual adults' performance on tone perception was lower than their performance on stress perception, and there was a similar pattern in English monolingual adults. Bilingual adults tended to perform better than English monolingual adults on both the tone and stress perception tests. A significant correlation between tone perception and stress perception performance was found in bilingual children but not in bilingual adults. All three groups showed lower accuracy in the high rising-low rising contrast than any of the other 14 Cantonese tone contrasts. The acoustic analyses revealed that average F0, F0 onset, and F0 major slope were the critical acoustic correlates of Cantonese tones, whereas multiple acoustic correlates were salient in English stress, including average F0, spectral balance, duration and intensity. We argue that participants' difficulty in perceiving high rising-low rising contrasts originated from the contrasts' similarities in F0 onset and average F0; indeed the difference between their major slopes was the only cue with which to distinguish them. Acoustic-perceptual correlation analyses showed that although the average F0 and F0 onset were associated with tone perception performance in all three groups, F0 major slope was only associated with tone perception in the bilingual adult group. These results support a dynamic interactive account of suprasegmental speech perception by emphasizing the positive prosodic transfer between Cantonese tone and English stress, and the role that level of bilingual language experience and age play in shaping suprasegmental speech perception.

Attention deficits revealed by passive auditory change detection for pure tones and lexical tones in ADHD children.

PubMed

Yang, Ming-Tao; Hsu, Chun-Hsien; Yeh, Pei-Wen; Lee, Wang-Tso; Liang, Jao-Shwann; Fu, Wen-Mei; Lee, Chia-Ying

2015-01-01

Inattention (IA) has been a major problem in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), accounting for their behavioral and cognitive dysfunctions. However, there are at least three processing steps underlying attentional control for auditory change detection, namely pre-attentive change detection, involuntary attention orienting, and attention reorienting for further evaluation. This study aimed to examine whether children with ADHD would show deficits in any of these subcomponents by using mismatch negativity (MMN), P3a, and late discriminative negativity (LDN) as event-related potential (ERP) markers, under the passive auditory oddball paradigm. Two types of stimuli-pure tones and Mandarin lexical tones-were used to examine if the deficits were general across linguistic and non-linguistic domains. Participants included 15 native Mandarin-speaking children with ADHD and 16 age-matched controls (across groups, age ranged between 6 and 15 years). Two passive auditory oddball paradigms (lexical tones and pure tones) were applied. The pure tone oddball paradigm included a standard stimulus (1000 Hz, 80%) and two deviant stimuli (1015 and 1090 Hz, 10% each). The Mandarin lexical tone oddball paradigm's standard stimulus was /yi3/ (80%) and two deviant stimuli were /yi1/ and /yi2/ (10% each). The results showed no MMN difference, but did show attenuated P3a and enhanced LDN to the large deviants for both pure and lexical tone changes in the ADHD group. Correlation analysis showed that children with higher ADHD tendency, as indexed by parents' and teachers' ratings on ADHD symptoms, showed less positive P3a amplitudes when responding to large lexical tone deviants. Thus, children with ADHD showed impaired auditory change detection for both pure tones and lexical tones in both involuntary attention switching, and attention reorienting for further evaluation. These ERP markers may therefore be used for the evaluation of anti-ADHD drugs that aim to alleviate these dysfunctions.

A Tale of Two Features: Perception of Cantonese Lexical Tone and English Lexical Stress in Cantonese-English Bilinguals

PubMed Central

Tong, Xiuli; Burnham, Denis

2015-01-01

This study investigated the similarities and differences in perception of Cantonese tones and English stress patterns by Cantonese-English bilingual children, adults, and English monolingual adults. All three groups were asked to discriminate pairs of syllables that minimally differed in either Cantonese tone or in English stress. Bilingual children’s performance on tone perception was comparable to their performance on stress perception. By contrast, bilingual adults’ performance on tone perception was lower than their performance on stress perception, and there was a similar pattern in English monolingual adults. Bilingual adults tended to perform better than English monolingual adults on both the tone and stress perception tests. A significant correlation between tone perception and stress perception performance was found in bilingual children but not in bilingual adults. All three groups showed lower accuracy in the high rising-low rising contrast than any of the other 14 Cantonese tone contrasts. The acoustic analyses revealed that average F0, F0 onset, and F0 major slope were the critical acoustic correlates of Cantonese tones, whereas multiple acoustic correlates were salient in English stress, including average F0, spectral balance, duration and intensity. We argue that participants’ difficulty in perceiving high rising-low rising contrasts originated from the contrasts’ similarities in F0 onset and average F0; indeed the difference between their major slopes was the only cue with which to distinguish them. Acoustic-perceptual correlation analyses showed that although the average F0 and F0 onset were associated with tone perception performance in all three groups, F0 major slope was only associated with tone perception in the bilingual adult group. These results support a dynamic interactive account of suprasegmental speech perception by emphasizing the positive prosodic transfer between Cantonese tone and English stress, and the role that level of bilingual language experience and age play in shaping suprasegmental speech perception. PMID:26606073

The effects of interstimulus interval on event-related indices of attention: an auditory selective attention test of perceptual load theory.

PubMed

Gomes, Hilary; Barrett, Sophia; Duff, Martin; Barnhardt, Jack; Ritter, Walter

2008-03-01

We examined the impact of perceptual load by manipulating interstimulus interval (ISI) in two auditory selective attention studies that varied in the difficulty of the target discrimination. In the paradigm, channels were separated by frequency and target/deviant tones were softer in intensity. Three ISI conditions were presented: fast (300ms), medium (600ms) and slow (900ms). Behavioral (accuracy and RT) and electrophysiological measures (Nd, P3b) were observed. In both studies, participants evidenced poorer accuracy during the fast ISI condition than the slow suggesting that ISI impacted task difficulty. However, none of the three measures of processing examined, Nd amplitude, P3b amplitude elicited by unattended deviant stimuli, or false alarms to unattended deviants, were impacted by ISI in the manner predicted by perceptual load theory. The prediction based on perceptual load theory, that there would be more processing of irrelevant stimuli under conditions of low as compared to high perceptual load, was not supported in these auditory studies. Task difficulty/perceptual load impacts the processing of irrelevant stimuli in the auditory modality differently than predicted by perceptual load theory, and perhaps differently than in the visual modality.

Investigating customer racial discrimination in the secondary baseball card market.

PubMed

Primm, Eric; Piquero, Nicole Leeper; Piquero, Alex R; Regoli, Robert M

2011-01-01

A growing body of literature in a variety of disciplines has appeared over the last 20 years examining customer racial bias in the secondary sports card market; however, consensus on the matter has yet to emerge. In this article, we explore the more subtle ways that a player's race/ethnicity may affect the value of his sports card including a player's skin tone (light- to dark-skinned). Data were obtained for 383 black, Latino, and white baseball players who had received at least one vote for induction into Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame including their career performance statistics, rookie card price, card availability, Hall of Fame status, and skin tone. Findings indicate that card availability is the primary determinant of card value while a player's skin tone has no direct effect. Subsequent analysis demonstrates that a player's race (white/non-white) rather than skin tone did have an effect as it interacts with Hall of Fame status to influence his rookie card price.

The effect of binaural beats on verbal working memory and cortical connectivity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Beauchene, Christine; Abaid, Nicole; Moran, Rosalyn; Diana, Rachel A.; Leonessa, Alexander

2017-04-01

Objective. Synchronization in activated regions of cortical networks affect the brain’s frequency response, which has been associated with a wide range of states and abilities, including memory. A non-invasive method for manipulating cortical synchronization is binaural beats. Binaural beats take advantage of the brain’s response to two pure tones, delivered independently to each ear, when those tones have a small frequency mismatch. The mismatch between the tones is interpreted as a beat frequency, which may act to synchronize cortical oscillations. Neural synchrony is particularly important for working memory processes, the system controlling online organization and retention of information for successful goal-directed behavior. Therefore, manipulation of synchrony via binaural beats provides a unique window into working memory and associated connectivity of cortical networks. Approach. In this study, we examined the effects of different acoustic stimulation conditions during an N-back working memory task, and we measured participant response accuracy and cortical network topology via EEG recordings. Six acoustic stimulation conditions were used: None, Pure Tone, Classical Music, 5 Hz binaural beats, 10 Hz binaural beats, and 15 Hz binaural beats. Main results. We determined that listening to 15 Hz binaural beats during an N-Back working memory task increased the individual participant’s accuracy, modulated the cortical frequency response, and changed the cortical network connection strengths during the task. Only the 15 Hz binaural beats produced significant change in relative accuracy compared to the None condition. Significance. Listening to 15 Hz binaural beats during the N-back task activated salient frequency bands and produced networks characterized by higher information transfer as compared to other auditory stimulation conditions.

Binaural hearing in children using Gaussian enveloped and transposed tones.

PubMed

Ehlers, Erica; Kan, Alan; Winn, Matthew B; Stoelb, Corey; Litovsky, Ruth Y

2016-04-01

Children who use bilateral cochlear implants (BiCIs) show significantly poorer sound localization skills than their normal hearing (NH) peers. This difference has been attributed, in part, to the fact that cochlear implants (CIs) do not faithfully transmit interaural time differences (ITDs) and interaural level differences (ILDs), which are known to be important cues for sound localization. Interestingly, little is known about binaural sensitivity in NH children, in particular, with stimuli that constrain acoustic cues in a manner representative of CI processing. In order to better understand and evaluate binaural hearing in children with BiCIs, the authors first undertook a study on binaural sensitivity in NH children ages 8-10, and in adults. Experiments evaluated sound discrimination and lateralization using ITD and ILD cues, for stimuli with robust envelope cues, but poor representation of temporal fine structure. Stimuli were spondaic words, Gaussian-enveloped tone pulse trains (100 pulse-per-second), and transposed tones. Results showed that discrimination thresholds in children were adult-like (15-389 μs for ITDs and 0.5-6.0 dB for ILDs). However, lateralization based on the same binaural cues showed higher variability than seen in adults. Results are discussed in the context of factors that may be responsible for poor representation of binaural cues in bilaterally implanted children.

Action Recognition and Movement Direction Discrimination Tasks Are Associated with Different Adaptation Patterns

PubMed Central

de la Rosa, Stephan; Ekramnia, Mina; Bülthoff, Heinrich H.

2016-01-01

The ability to discriminate between different actions is essential for action recognition and social interactions. Surprisingly previous research has often probed action recognition mechanisms with tasks that did not require participants to discriminate between actions, e.g., left-right direction discrimination tasks. It is not known to what degree visual processes in direction discrimination tasks are also involved in the discrimination of actions, e.g., when telling apart a handshake from a high-five. Here, we examined whether action discrimination is influenced by movement direction and whether direction discrimination depends on the type of action. We used an action adaptation paradigm to target action and direction discrimination specific visual processes. In separate conditions participants visually adapted to forward and backward moving handshake and high-five actions. Participants subsequently categorized either the action or the movement direction of an ambiguous action. The results showed that direction discrimination adaptation effects were modulated by the type of action but action discrimination adaptation effects were unaffected by movement direction. These results suggest that action discrimination and direction categorization rely on partly different visual information. We propose that action discrimination tasks should be considered for the exploration of visual action recognition mechanisms. PMID:26941633

Effect of loudness on reaction time and response force in different motor tasks.

PubMed

Jaśkowski, Piotr; Włodarczyk, Dariusz

2005-12-01

Van der Molen and Keuss, in 1979 and 1981, showed that paradoxically long reaction times occur with extremely strong auditory stimuli when the task is difficult, e.g., choice-by-location or Simon paradigm. It was argued that this paradoxical behavior of RT is due to active inhibition of an arousal-dependent bypassing mechanism to prevent false responses. As the peak force, i.e., maximal force exerted by participants on a response key, is considered to be related to immediate arousal, we predicted that for extremely loud stimuli and for difficult tasks, lengthening of RT should be associated with reduction of peak force. Moreover, these effects should be enhanced when emphasis is on accuracy rather than speed. Although the relation between RT and intensity depended on task difficulty, no increase in RT was found for the loudest tones. Moreover, peak force increased monotonically with loudness, showing no tendency to be suppressed for loudest tones and difficult tasks.

Cerebral blood flow relationships associated with a difficult tone recognition task in trained normal volunteers.

PubMed

Holcomb, H H; Medoff, D R; Caudill, P J; Zhao, Z; Lahti, A C; Dannals, R F; Tamminga, C A

1998-09-01

Tone recognition is partially subserved by neural activity in the right frontal and primary auditory cortices. First we determined the brain areas associated with tone perception and recognition. This study then examined how regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in these and other brain regions correlates with the behavioral characteristics of a difficult tone recognition task. rCBF changes were assessed using H2(15)O positron emission tomography. Subtraction procedures were used to localize significant change regions and correlational analyses were applied to determine how response times (RT) predicted rCBF patterns. Twelve trained normal volunteers were studied in three conditions: REST, sensory motor control (SMC) and decision (DEC). The SMC-REST contrast revealed bilateral activation of primary auditory cortices, cerebellum and bilateral inferior frontal gyri. DEC-SMC produced significant clusters in the right middle and inferior frontal gyri, insula and claustrum; the anterior cingulate gyrus and supplementary motor area; the left insula/claustrum; and the left cerebellum. Correlational analyses, RT versus rCBF from DEC scans, showed a positive correlation in right inferior and middle frontal cortex; rCBF in bilateral auditory cortices and cerebellum exhibited significant negative correlations with RT These changes suggest that neural activity in the right frontal, superior temporal and cerebellar regions shifts back and forth in magnitude depending on whether tone recognition RT is relatively fast or slow, during a difficult, accurate assessment.

The perceptual enhancement of tones by frequency shifts.

PubMed

Demany, Laurent; Carcagno, Samuele; Semal, Catherine

2013-04-01

In a chord of pure tones with a flat spectral profile, one tone can be perceptually enhanced relative to the other tones by the previous presentation of a slightly different chord. "Intensity enhancement" (IE) is obtained when the component tones of the two chords have the same frequencies, but in the first chord the target of enhancement is attenuated relative to the other tones. "Frequency enhancement" (FE) is obtained when both chords have a flat spectral profile, but the target of enhancement shifts in frequency from the first to the second chord. We report here an experiment in which IE and FE were measured using a task requiring the listener to indicate whether or not the second chord included a tone identical to a subsequent probe tone. The results showed that a global attenuation of the first chord relative to the second chord disrupted IE more than FE. This suggests that the mechanisms of IE and FE are not the same. In accordance with this suggestion, computations of the auditory excitation patterns produced by the chords indicate that the mechanism of IE is not sufficient to explain FE for small frequency shifts. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Increased distractibility by task-irrelevant sound changes in abstinent alcoholics.

PubMed

Ahveninen, J; Jääskeläinen, I P; Pekkonen, E; Hallberg, A; Hietanen, M; Näätänen, R; Schröger, E; Sillanaukee, P

2000-12-01

Chronic alcoholism is accompanied by "frontal" neuropsychological deficits that include an inability to maintain focus of attention. This might be associated with pronounced involuntary attention shifting to task-irrelevant stimulus changes and, thereafter, an impaired reorienting to the relevant task. The neural abnormalities that underlie such deficits in alcoholics were explored with event-related potential (ERP) components that disclosed different phases of detection and orienting to stimulus changes. Twenty consecutive abstinent male alcoholics (DSM-IV) and 20 age-matched male controls (healthy social drinkers) were instructed to discriminate equiprobable 100 and 200 msec tones in a reaction-time task (RT) and to ignore occasional, either slight (7%) or wide (70%), frequency changes (hypothesized to increase RT) during an ERP measurement. In the alcoholics, we found pronounced distractibility, evidenced by a RT lag (p < 0.01) caused by deviants, that correlated (Spearman p = 0.5) with a significantly enhanced (p < 0.01) amplitude of mismatch negativity (MMN) to deviants. Significantly increased RT lag for trials subsequent to deviants (slight p < 0.001, wide p < 0.05) in the alcoholics suggested impaired reorienting to the relevant task. The MMN enhancement also predicted poorer hit rates in the alcoholics (Spearman p = 0.6-0.7). Both the MMN enhancement and pronounced distractibility correlated (Spearman p = 0.4) with an early onset of alcoholism. Attentional deficits in the abstinent alcoholics were indicated by the increased distractibility by irrelevant sound changes. The MMN enhancement suggested that this reflects impaired neural inhibition of involuntary attention shifting, being most pronounced in early-onset alcoholics.

Laterality of basic auditory perception.

PubMed

Sininger, Yvonne S; Bhatara, Anjali

2012-01-01

Laterality (left-right ear differences) of auditory processing was assessed using basic auditory skills: (1) gap detection, (2) frequency discrimination, and (3) intensity discrimination. Stimuli included tones (500, 1000, and 4000 Hz) and wide-band noise presented monaurally to each ear of typical adult listeners. The hypothesis tested was that processing of tonal stimuli would be enhanced by left ear (LE) stimulation and noise by right ear (RE) presentations. To investigate the limits of laterality by (1) spectral width, a narrow-band noise (NBN) of 450-Hz bandwidth was evaluated using intensity discrimination, and (2) stimulus duration, 200, 500, and 1000 ms duration tones were evaluated using frequency discrimination. A left ear advantage (LEA) was demonstrated with tonal stimuli in all experiments, but an expected REA for noise stimuli was not found. The NBN stimulus demonstrated no LEA and was characterised as a noise. No change in laterality was found with changes in stimulus durations. The LEA for tonal stimuli is felt to be due to more direct connections between the left ear and the right auditory cortex, which has been shown to be primary for spectral analysis and tonal processing. The lack of a REA for noise stimuli is unexplained. Sex differences in laterality for noise stimuli were noted but were not statistically significant. This study did establish a subtle but clear pattern of LEA for processing of tonal stimuli.

Laterality of Basic Auditory Perception

PubMed Central

Sininger, Yvonne S.; Bhatara, Anjali

2010-01-01

Laterality (left-right ear differences) of auditory processing was assessed using basic auditory skills: 1) gap detection 2) frequency discrimination and 3) intensity discrimination. Stimuli included tones (500, 1000 and 4000 Hz) and wide-band noise presented monaurally to each ear of typical adult listeners. The hypothesis tested was: processing of tonal stimuli would be enhanced by left ear (LE) stimulation and noise by right ear (RE) presentations. To investigate the limits of laterality by 1) spectral width, a narrow band noise (NBN) of 450 Hz bandwidth was evaluated using intensity discrimination and 2) stimulus duration, 200, 500 and 1000 ms duration tones were evaluated using frequency discrimination. Results A left ear advantage (LEA) was demonstrated with tonal stimuli in all experiments but an expected REA for noise stimuli was not found. The NBN stimulus demonstrated no LEA and was characterized as a noise. No change in laterality was found with changes in stimulus durations. The LEA for tonal stimuli is felt to be due to more direct connections between the left ear and the right auditory cortex which has been shown to be primary for spectral analysis and tonal processing. The lack of a REA for noise stimuli is unexplained. Sex differences in laterality for noise stimuli were noted but were not statistically significant. This study did establish a subtle but clear pattern of LEA for processing of tonal stimuli. PMID:22385138

Psychometric functions for pure-tone frequency discrimination.

PubMed

Dai, Huanping; Micheyl, Christophe

2011-07-01

The form of the psychometric function (PF) for auditory frequency discrimination is of theoretical interest and practical importance. In this study, PFs for pure-tone frequency discrimination were measured for several standard frequencies (200-8000 Hz) and levels [35-85 dB sound pressure level (SPL)] in normal-hearing listeners. The proportion-correct data were fitted using a cumulative-Gaussian function of the sensitivity index, d', computed as a power transformation of the frequency difference, Δf. The exponent of the power function corresponded to the slope of the PF on log(d')-log(Δf) coordinates. The influence of attentional lapses on PF-slope estimates was investigated. When attentional lapses were not taken into account, the estimated PF slopes on log(d')-log(Δf) coordinates were found to be significantly lower than 1, suggesting a nonlinear relationship between d' and Δf. However, when lapse rate was included as a free parameter in the fits, PF slopes were found not to differ significantly from 1, consistent with a linear relationship between d' and Δf. This was the case across the wide ranges of frequencies and levels tested in this study. Therefore, spectral and temporal models of frequency discrimination must account for a linear relationship between d' and Δf across a wide range of frequencies and levels. © 2011 Acoustical Society of America

Vocal development and auditory perception in CBA/CaJ mice

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Radziwon, Kelly E.

Mice are useful laboratory subjects because of their small size, their modest cost, and the fact that researchers have created many different strains to study a variety of disorders. In particular, researchers have found nearly 100 naturally occurring mouse mutations with hearing impairments. For these reasons, mice have become an important model for studies of human deafness. Although much is known about the genetic makeup and physiology of the laboratory mouse, far less is known about mouse auditory behavior. To fully understand the effects of genetic mutations on hearing, it is necessary to determine the hearing abilities of these mice. Two experiments here examined various aspects of mouse auditory perception using CBA/CaJ mice, a commonly used mouse strain. The frequency difference limens experiment tested the mouse's ability to discriminate one tone from another based solely on the frequency of the tone. The mice had similar thresholds as wild mice and gerbils but needed a larger change in frequency than humans and cats. The second psychoacoustic experiment sought to determine which cue, frequency or duration, was more salient when the mice had to identify various tones. In this identification task, the mice overwhelmingly classified the tones based on frequency instead of duration, suggesting that mice are using frequency when differentiating one mouse vocalization from another. The other two experiments were more naturalistic and involved both auditory perception and mouse vocal production. Interest in mouse vocalizations is growing because of the potential for mice to become a model of human speech disorders. These experiments traced mouse vocal development from infant to adult, and they tested the mouse's preference for various vocalizations. This was the first known study to analyze the vocalizations of individual mice across development. Results showed large variation in calling rates among the three cages of adult mice but results were highly consistent across all infant vocalizations. Although the preference experiment did not reveal significant differences between various mouse vocalizations, suggestions are given for future attempts to identify mouse preferences for auditory stimuli.

Reprint of: Initial uncertainty impacts statistical learning in sound sequence processing.

PubMed

Todd, Juanita; Provost, Alexander; Whitson, Lisa; Mullens, Daniel

2018-05-18

This paper features two studies confirming a lasting impact of first learning on how subsequent experience is weighted in early relevance-filtering processes. In both studies participants were exposed to sequences of sound that contained a regular pattern on two different timescales. Regular patterning in sound is readily detected by the auditory system and used to form "prediction models" that define the most likely properties of sound to be encountered in a given context. The presence and strength of these prediction models is inferred from changes in automatically elicited components of auditory evoked potentials. Both studies employed sound sequences that contained both a local and longer-term pattern. The local pattern was defined by a regular repeating pure tone occasionally interrupted by a rare deviating tone (p=0.125) that was physically different (a 30msvs. 60ms duration difference in one condition and a 1000Hz vs. 1500Hz frequency difference in the other). The longer-term pattern was defined by the rate at which the two tones alternated probabilities (i.e., the tone that was first rare became common and the tone that was first common became rare). There was no task related to the tones and participants were asked to ignore them while focussing attention on a movie with subtitles. Auditory-evoked potentials revealed long lasting modulatory influences based on whether the tone was initially encountered as rare and unpredictable or common and predictable. The results are interpreted as evidence that probability (or indeed predictability) assigns a differential information-value to the two tones that in turn affects the extent to which prediction models are updated and imposed. These effects are exposed for both common and rare occurrences of the tones. The studies contribute to a body of work that reveals that probabilistic information is not faithfully represented in these early evoked potentials and instead exposes that predictability (or conversely uncertainty) may trigger value-based learning modulations even in task-irrelevant incidental learning. Copyright © 2017 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effects of modulation phase on profile analysis in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rogers, Deanna; Lentz, Jennifer

2003-04-01

The ability to discriminate between sounds with different spectral shapes in the presence of amplitude modulation was measured in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners. The standard stimulus was the sum of equal-amplitude modulated tones, and the signal stimulus was generated by increasing the level of half the tones (up components) and decreasing the level of half the tones (down components). The down components had the same modulation phase, and a phase shift was applied to the up components to encourage segregation from the down tones. The same phase shift was used in both standard and signal stimuli. Profile-analysis thresholds were measured as a function of the phase shift between up and down components. The phase shifts were 0, 30, 45, 60, 90, and 180 deg. As expected, thresholds were lowest when all tones had the same modulation phase and increased somewhat with increasing phase disparity. This small increase in thresholds was similar for both groups. These results suggest that hearing-impaired listeners are able to use modulation phase to group sounds in a manner similar to that of normal listeners. [Work supported by NIH (DC 05835).

On the relation between pitch and level.

PubMed

Zheng, Yi; Brette, Romain

2017-05-01

Pitch is the perceptual dimension along which musical notes are ordered from low to high. It is often described as the perceptual correlate of the periodicity of the sound's waveform. Previous reports have shown that pitch can depend slightly on sound level. We wanted to verify that these observations reflect genuine changes in perceived pitch, and were not due to procedural factors or confusion between dimensions of pitch and level. We first conducted a systematic pitch matching task and confirmed that the pitch of low frequency pure tones, but not complex tones, decreases by an amount equivalent to a change in frequency of more than half a semitone when level increases. We then showed that the structure of pitch shifts is anti-symmetric and transitive, as expected for changes in pitch. We also observed shifts in the same direction (although smaller) in an interval matching task. Finally, we observed that musicians are more precise in pitch matching tasks than non-musicians but show the same average shifts with level. These combined experiments confirm that the pitch of low frequency pure tones depends weakly but systematically on level. These observations pose a challenge to current theories of pitch. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Subtle learning and memory impairment in an idiopathic rat model of Alzheimer's disease utilizing cholinergic depletions and β-amyloid.

PubMed

Deibel, S H; Weishaupt, N; Regis, A M; Hong, N S; Keeley, R J; Balog, R J; Bye, C M; Himmler, S M; Whitehead, S N; McDonald, R J

2016-09-01

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a disease of complex etiology, involving multiple risk factors. When these risk factors are presented concomitantly, cognition and brain pathology are more severely compromised than if those risk factors were presented in isolation. Reduced cholinergic tone and elevated amyloid-beta (Aβ) load are pathological hallmarks of AD. The present study sought to investigate brain pathology and alterations in learning and memory when these two factors were presented together in rats. Rats received either sham surgeries, cholinergic depletions of the medial septum, intracerebroventricular Aβ25-35 injections, or both cholinergic depletion and Aβ25-35 injections (Aβ+ACh group). The Aβ+ACh rats were unimpaired in a striatal dependent visual discrimination task, but had impaired acquisition in the standard version of the Morris water task. However, these rats displayed normal Morris water task retention and no impairment in acquisition of a novel platform location during a single massed training session. Aβ+ACh rats did not have exacerbated brain pathology as indicated by activated astroglia, activated microglia, or accumulation of Aβ. These data suggest that cholinergic depletions and Aβ injections elicit subtle cognitive deficits when behavioural testing is conducted shortly after the presentation of these factors. These factors might have altered hippocampal synaptic plasticity and thus resemble early AD pathology. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Children with a history of SLI show reduced sensitivity to audiovisual temporal asynchrony: an ERP study.

PubMed

Kaganovich, Natalya; Schumaker, Jennifer; Leonard, Laurence B; Gustafson, Dana; Macias, Danielle

2014-08-01

The authors examined whether school-age children with a history of specific language impairment (H-SLI), their peers with typical development (TD), and adults differ in sensitivity to audiovisual temporal asynchrony and whether such difference stems from the sensory encoding of audiovisual information. Fifteen H-SLI children, 15 TD children, and 15 adults judged whether a flashed explosion-shaped figure and a 2-kHz pure tone occurred simultaneously. The stimuli were presented at 0-, 100-, 200-, 300-, 400-, and 500-ms temporal offsets. This task was combined with EEG recordings. H-SLI children were profoundly less sensitive to temporal separations between auditory and visual modalities compared with their TD peers. Those H-SLI children who performed better at simultaneity judgment also had higher language aptitude. TD children were less accurate than adults, revealing a remarkably prolonged developmental course of the audiovisual temporal discrimination. Analysis of early event-related potential components suggested that poor sensory encoding was not a key factor in H-SLI children's reduced sensitivity to audiovisual asynchrony. Audiovisual temporal discrimination is impaired in H-SLI children and is still immature during mid-childhood in TD children. The present findings highlight the need for further evaluation of the role of atypical audiovisual processing in the development of SLI.

Children with a history of SLI show reduced sensitivity to audiovisual temporal asynchrony: An ERP Study

PubMed Central

Kaganovich, Natalya; Schumaker, Jennifer; Leonard, Laurence B.; Gustafson, Dana; Macias, Danielle

2014-01-01

Purpose We examined whether school-age children with a history of SLI (H-SLI), their typically developing (TD) peers, and adults differ in sensitivity to audiovisual temporal asynchrony and whether such difference stems from the sensory encoding of audiovisual information. Method 15 H-SLI children, 15 TD children, and 15 adults judged whether a flashed explosion-shaped figure and a 2 kHz pure tone occurred simultaneously. The stimuli were presented at 0, 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500 ms temporal offsets. This task was combined with EEG recordings. Results H-SLI children were profoundly less sensitive to temporal separations between auditory and visual modalities compared to their TD peers. Those H-SLI children who performed better at simultaneity judgment also had higher language aptitude. TD children were less accurate than adults, revealing a remarkably prolonged developmental course of the audiovisual temporal discrimination. Analysis of early ERP components suggested that poor sensory encoding was not a key factor in H-SLI children’s reduced sensitivity to audiovisual asynchrony. Conclusions Audiovisual temporal discrimination is impaired in H-SLI children and is still immature during mid-childhood in TD children. The present findings highlight the need for further evaluation of the role of atypical audiovisual processing in the development of SLI. PMID:24686922

Early Stages of Melody Processing: Stimulus-Sequence and Task-Dependent Neuronal Activity in Monkey Auditory Cortical Fields A1 and R

PubMed Central

Yin, Pingbo; Mishkin, Mortimer; Sutter, Mitchell; Fritz, Jonathan B.

2008-01-01

To explore the effects of acoustic and behavioral context on neuronal responses in the core of auditory cortex (fields A1 and R), two monkeys were trained on a go/no-go discrimination task in which they learned to respond selectively to a four-note target (S+) melody and withhold response to a variety of other nontarget (S−) sounds. We analyzed evoked activity from 683 units in A1/R of the trained monkeys during task performance and from 125 units in A1/R of two naive monkeys. We characterized two broad classes of neural activity that were modulated by task performance. Class I consisted of tone-sequence–sensitive enhancement and suppression responses. Enhanced or suppressed responses to specific tonal components of the S+ melody were frequently observed in trained monkeys, but enhanced responses were rarely seen in naive monkeys. Both facilitatory and suppressive responses in the trained monkeys showed a temporal pattern different from that observed in naive monkeys. Class II consisted of nonacoustic activity, characterized by a task-related component that correlated with bar release, the behavioral response leading to reward. We observed a significantly higher percentage of both Class I and Class II neurons in field R than in A1. Class I responses may help encode a long-term representation of the behaviorally salient target melody. Class II activity may reflect a variety of nonacoustic influences, such as attention, reward expectancy, somatosensory inputs, and/or motor set and may help link auditory perception and behavioral response. Both types of neuronal activity are likely to contribute to the performance of the auditory task. PMID:18842950

Synaesthesia: when coloured sounds taste sweet.

PubMed

Beeli, Gian; Esslen, Michaela; Jäncke, Lutz

2005-03-03

Synaesthesia is the involuntary physical experience of a cross-modal linkage--for example, hearing a tone (the inducing stimulus) evokes an additional sensation of seeing a colour (concurrent perception). Of the different types of synaesthesia, most have colour as the concurrent perception, with concurrent perceptions of smell or taste being rare. Here we describe the case of a musician who experiences different tastes in response to hearing different musical tone intervals, and who makes use of her synaesthetic sensations in the complex task of tone-interval identification. To our knowledge, this combination of inducing stimulus and concurrent perception has not been described before.

Maturation of cortical mismatch responses to occasional pitch change in early infancy: effects of presentation rate and magnitude of change.

PubMed

He, Chao; Hotson, Lisa; Trainor, Laurel J

2009-01-01

Previous studies have reported two types of event-related potential (ERP) mismatch responses in infants to infrequent auditory changes: a broad discriminative positivity in younger infants and a negativity resembling adult mismatch negativity (MMN) in older infants. In the present study, we investigated whether the positive discriminative slow wave and the adult-like MMN are functionally distinct by examining how they are affected by presentation rate and magnitude of change. We measured ERPs from adults, 2-month-olds, and 4-month-olds to a repeating piano tone (standard) that occasionally changed in pitch (deviant). The pitch changes between standards and deviants were either small (1/12 octave) or large (1/2 octave) in magnitude, and the stimulus presentation rate was either slow (800 ms SOA) or fast (400 ms SOA). As the presentation rate increased, both adults and 4-month-olds showed an MMN response that decreased in latency, but was unaffected in amplitude. As the magnitude of the pitch change increased, MMN increased in amplitude. On the other hand, only a broad positive mismatch response was seen in 2-month-olds. As the presentation rate increased, 2-month-olds' responses to standard tones decreased in amplitude while their responses to deviant tones were unaffected. The magnitude of the pitch change did not affect 2-month-olds' responses. These results suggest that pitch is processed differently in auditory cortex by 2-month-olds and 4-month-olds, and that a cortical change-detection mechanism for pitch discrimination similar to that of adults emerges between 2 and 4 months of age.

Paintings discrimination by mice: Different strategies for different paintings.

PubMed

Watanabe, Shigeru

2017-09-01

C57BL/6 mice were trained on simultaneous discrimination of paintings with multiple exemplars, using an operant chamber with a touch screen. The number of exemplars was successively increased up to six. Those mice trained in Kandinsky/Mondrian discrimination showed improved learning and generalization, whereas those trained in Picasso/Renoir discrimination showed no improvements in learning or generalization. These results suggest category-like discrimination in the Kandinsky/Mondrian task, but item-to-item discrimination in the Picasso/Renoir task. Mice maintained their discriminative behavior in a pixelization test with various paintings; however, mice in the Picasso/Renoir task showed poor performance in a test that employed scrambling processing. These results do not indicate that discrimination strategy for any Kandinsky/Mondrian combinations differed from that for any Picasso/Monet combinations but suggest the mice employed different strategies of discrimination tasks depending upon stimuli. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Writing System Modulates the Association between Sensitivity to Acoustic Cues in Music and Reading Ability: Evidence from Chinese-English Bilingual Children.

PubMed

Zhang, Juan; Meng, Yaxuan; Wu, Chenggang; Zhou, Danny Q

2017-01-01

Music and language share many attributes and a large body of evidence shows that sensitivity to acoustic cues in music is positively related to language development and even subsequent reading acquisition. However, such association was mainly found in alphabetic languages. What remains unclear is whether sensitivity to acoustic cues in music is associated with reading in Chinese, a morphosyllabic language. The present study aimed to answer this question by measuring music (i.e., musical metric perception and pitch discrimination), language (i.e., phonological awareness, lexical tone sensitivity), and reading abilities (i.e., word recognition) among 54 third-grade Chinese-English bilingual children. After controlling for age and non-verbal intelligence, we found that both musical metric perception and pitch discrimination accounted for unique variance of Chinese phonological awareness while pitch discrimination rather than musical metric perception predicted Chinese lexical tone sensitivity. More importantly, neither musical metric perception nor pitch discrimination was associated with Chinese reading. As for English, musical metric perception and pitch discrimination were correlated with both English phonological awareness and English reading. Furthermore, sensitivity to acoustic cues in music was associated with English reading through the mediation of English phonological awareness. The current findings indicate that the association between sensitivity to acoustic cues in music and reading may be modulated by writing systems. In Chinese, the mapping between orthography and phonology is not as transparent as in alphabetic languages such as English. Thus, this opaque mapping may alter the auditory perceptual sensitivity in music to Chinese reading.

Writing System Modulates the Association between Sensitivity to Acoustic Cues in Music and Reading Ability: Evidence from Chinese–English Bilingual Children

PubMed Central

Zhang, Juan; Meng, Yaxuan; Wu, Chenggang; Zhou, Danny Q.

2017-01-01

Music and language share many attributes and a large body of evidence shows that sensitivity to acoustic cues in music is positively related to language development and even subsequent reading acquisition. However, such association was mainly found in alphabetic languages. What remains unclear is whether sensitivity to acoustic cues in music is associated with reading in Chinese, a morphosyllabic language. The present study aimed to answer this question by measuring music (i.e., musical metric perception and pitch discrimination), language (i.e., phonological awareness, lexical tone sensitivity), and reading abilities (i.e., word recognition) among 54 third-grade Chinese–English bilingual children. After controlling for age and non-verbal intelligence, we found that both musical metric perception and pitch discrimination accounted for unique variance of Chinese phonological awareness while pitch discrimination rather than musical metric perception predicted Chinese lexical tone sensitivity. More importantly, neither musical metric perception nor pitch discrimination was associated with Chinese reading. As for English, musical metric perception and pitch discrimination were correlated with both English phonological awareness and English reading. Furthermore, sensitivity to acoustic cues in music was associated with English reading through the mediation of English phonological awareness. The current findings indicate that the association between sensitivity to acoustic cues in music and reading may be modulated by writing systems. In Chinese, the mapping between orthography and phonology is not as transparent as in alphabetic languages such as English. Thus, this opaque mapping may alter the auditory perceptual sensitivity in music to Chinese reading. PMID:29170647

Seeing tones and hearing rectangles - Attending to simultaneous auditory and visual events

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Casper, Patricia A.; Kantowitz, Barry H.

1985-01-01

The allocation of attention in dual-task situations depends on both the overall and the momentary demands associated with both tasks. Subjects in an inclusive- or reaction-time task responded to changes in simultaneous sequences of discrete auditory and visual stimuli. Performance on individual trials was affected by (1) the ratio of stimuli in the two tasks, (2) response demands of the two tasks, and (3) patterns inherent in the demands of one task.

Generalized auditory agnosia with spared music recognition in a left-hander. Analysis of a case with a right temporal stroke.

PubMed

Mendez, M F

2001-02-01

After a right temporoparietal stroke, a left-handed man lost the ability to understand speech and environmental sounds but developed greater appreciation for music. The patient had preserved reading and writing but poor verbal comprehension. Slower speech, single syllable words, and minimal written cues greatly facilitated his verbal comprehension. On identifying environmental sounds, he made predominant acoustic errors. Although he failed to name melodies, he could match, describe, and sing them. The patient had normal hearing except for presbyacusis, right-ear dominance for phonemes, and normal discrimination of basic psychoacoustic features and rhythm. Further testing disclosed difficulty distinguishing tone sequences and discriminating two clicks and short-versus-long tones, particularly in the left ear. Together, these findings suggest impairment in a direct route for temporal analysis and auditory word forms in his right hemisphere to Wernicke's area in his left hemisphere. The findings further suggest a separate and possibly rhythm-based mechanism for music recognition.

[Change in the event-related skin conductivity: an indicator of the immediate importance of elaborate information processing?].

PubMed

Zimmer, H

1992-01-01

In recent psychophysiological conceptualizations of the orienting response (OR) within the framework of information processing, the OR is increasingly considered a "call for processing resources", something which is especially inferred from variations in the event-related skin conductance response (SCR). The present study, therefore, was concerned with certain implications arising from this framework or perspective, particularly in regard to the question of whether stimuli eliciting skin conductance responses obligatorily receive/evoke processing priority or not. In order to examine whether these electrodermal responses denote a capturing of attention or merely a call for processing resources, short (1 s) pure sine tones of 65 dB with sudden onset (commonly used as orienting stimuli) were inserted in a reaction time paradigm with an additional memory load. This demand was primarily given because memory processes play a key role in theories of orienting and habituation. The task was run under two different conditions of complexity, factorially combined with a novelty variation of the added auditory stimuli. The results revealed a substantial deterioration of task performance subsequent to the occurrence of the tones, which, however, was dependent on task complexity and on novelty of the tones. The task impairment is particularly remarkable as subjects were asked to avoid distractions by paying attention to the task and as the tones were introduced as subsidiary and task-irrelevant. Together with the missing effects of task complexity on phasic and tonic electrodermal activity, results suggest that information-processing conceptualizations of the OR can only be a meaningful heuristic contribution to theoretical developments about human orienting and its habituation if the setting of processing priority, its conditions, as well as its implications are adequately taken into account. In addition, it seems to be promising to consider the strength of the SCR as an index of urgency of elaborate, attention-demanding processing and not as a peripheral physiological manifestation of the OR, or, respectively, of a call for unspecific processing resources. Such a view would also do justice to the aspect of prioritization. The sufficient conditions for an OR's occurrence could, in this context, be equated with, among others, some of those which activate a mechanism subserving selective attention and, as a possible result, which lead to further and more elaborate processing of potentially important information.

Resting Vagal Tone and Vagal Response to Stress: Associations with Anxiety, Aggression and Perceived Anxiety Control among Youth

PubMed Central

Scott, Brandon G.; Weems, Carl F.

2014-01-01

This study tested the associations of both resting vagal tone and vagal response to stress with anxiety control beliefs, anxiety, and aggression among 80 youth (aged 11-17 years). Measures included physiological assessments of emotion regulation along with youth self-report of anxiety control beliefs, anxiety, and aggression and caregiver reports of their child's anxiety and aggression. Resting vagal tone was positively related to anxiety control beliefs, but negatively associated with anxiety. Conversely, higher levels of anxiety and aggression were associated with increased vagal tone during a cognitive stress task. Findings suggest associations between physiological and self-report of emotion regulation (anxiety control beliefs) and that anxiety and aggression may have specific and non-specific relations with physiological indices of emotion regulation. PMID:24708059

Using Sarcasm to Compliment: Context, Intonation, and the Perception of Statements with a Negative Literal Meaning.

PubMed

Voyer, Daniel; Vu, Janie P

2016-06-01

The present study extended findings of contrast effects in an auditory sarcasm perception task manipulating context and tone of voice. In contrast to previous research that had used sarcastic and sincere statements with a positive literal meaning, the present experiment examined how statements with a negative literal meaning would affect the results. Eighty-four undergraduate students completed a task in which an ambiguous, positive, or negative computer-generated context spoken in a flat emotional tone was followed by a statement with a negative literal meaning spoken in a sincere or sarcastic tone of voice. Results for both the proportion of sarcastic responses and response time showed a significant context by tone interaction, reflecting relatively fast sarcastic responses for the situation in which sarcasm would turn the statement into a compliment (positive context, sarcastic intonation) and fast sincere responses when the literal insult was emphasized (negative context, sincere intonation). However, the ambiguous context produced a pattern of results modulated by the tone of voice that was similar to that observed when the context/intonation pairing could not be interpreted as a compliment or an insult (negative context/sarcastic intonation or positive context/sincere intonation). These findings add to the body of literature suggesting that situational contrast, context, and intonation influence how sarcasm is perceived while demonstrating the importance of the literal meaning in sarcasm perception. They can be interpreted in the context of models of sarcasm comprehension that postulate two stages of processing.

Harmonic context influences pitch class equivalence judgments through gestalt and congruency effects.

PubMed

Slana, Anka; Repovš, Grega; Fitch, W Tecumseh; Gingras, Bruno

2016-05-01

The context in which a stimulus is presented shapes the way it is processed. This effect has been studied extensively in the field of visual perception. Our understanding of how context affects the processing of auditory stimuli is, however, rather limited. Western music is primarily built on melodies (succession of pitches) typically accompanied by chords (harmonic context), which provides a natural template for the study of context effects in auditory processing. Here, we investigated whether pitch class equivalence judgments of tones are affected by the harmonic context within which the target tones are embedded. Nineteen musicians and 19 non-musicians completed a change detection task in which they were asked to determine whether two successively presented target tones, heard either in isolation or with a chordal accompaniment (same or different chords), belonged to the same pitch class. Both musicians and non-musicians were most accurate when the chords remained the same, less so in the absence of chordal accompaniment, and least when the chords differed between both target tones. Further analysis investigating possible mechanisms underpinning these effects of harmonic context on task performance revealed that both a change in gestalt (change in either chord or pitch class), as well as incongruency between change in target tone pitch class and change in chords, led to reduced accuracy and longer reaction times. Our results demonstrate that, similarly to visual processing, auditory processing is influenced by gestalt and congruency effects. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Lexical tone and stuttering in Cantonese.

PubMed

Law, Thomas; Packman, Ann; Onslow, Mark; To, Carol K-S; Tong, Michael C-F; Lee, Kathy Y-S

2018-01-01

Cantonese is a tone language, in which the variation of the fundamental frequency contour of a syllable can change meaning. There are six different lexical tones in Cantonese. While research with Western languages has shown an association between stuttering and syllabic stress, nothing is known about whether stuttering in Cantonese speakers is associated with one or more of the six lexical tones. Such an association has been reported in conversational speech in Mandarin, which is also a tone language, but which varies markedly from Cantonese. Twenty-four native Cantonese-speaking adults who stutter participated in this study, ranging in age from 18-33 years. There were 18 men and 6 women. Participants read aloud 13 Cantonese syllables, each of which was produced with six contrastive lexical tones. All 78 syllables were embedded in the same carrier sentence, to reduce the influence of suprasegmental or linguistic stress, and were presented in random order. No significant differences were found for stuttering moments across the six lexical tones. It is suggested that this is because lexical tones, at least in Cantonese, do not place the task demands on the speech motor system that typify varying syllabic stress in Western languages: variations not only in fundamental frequency, but also in duration and intensity. The findings of this study suggest that treatments for adults who stutter in Western languages, such as speech restructuring, can be used with Cantonese speakers without undue attention to lexical tone.

Musicians' working memory for tones, words, and pseudowords.

PubMed

Benassi-Werke, Mariana E; Queiroz, Marcelo; Araújo, Rúben S; Bueno, Orlando F A; Oliveira, Maria Gabriela M

2012-01-01

Studies investigating factors that influence tone recognition generally use recognition tests, whereas the majority of the studies on verbal material use self-generated responses in the form of serial recall tests. In the present study we intended to investigate whether tonal and verbal materials share the same cognitive mechanisms, by presenting an experimental instrument that evaluates short-term and working memories for tones, using self-generated sung responses that may be compared to verbal tests. This paradigm was designed according to the same structure of the forward and backward digit span tests, but using digits, pseudowords, and tones as stimuli. The profile of amateur singers and professional singers in these tests was compared in forward and backward digit, pseudoword, tone, and contour spans. In addition, an absolute pitch experimental group was included, in order to observe the possible use of verbal labels in tone memorization tasks. In general, we observed that musical schooling has a slight positive influence on the recall of tones, as opposed to verbal material, which is not influenced by musical schooling. Furthermore, the ability to reproduce melodic contours (up and down patterns) is generally higher than the ability to reproduce exact tone sequences. However, backward spans were lower than forward spans for all stimuli (digits, pseudowords, tones, contour). Curiously, backward spans were disproportionately lower for tones than for verbal material-that is, the requirement to recall sequences in backward rather than forward order seems to differentially affect tonal stimuli. This difference does not vary according to musical expertise.

Family enmeshment, adolescent emotional dysregulation, and the moderating role of gender.

PubMed

Kivisto, Katherine Little; Welsh, Deborah P; Darling, Nancy; Culpepper, Christi L

2015-08-01

Enmeshment plays a key role in many families' dysfunctional interactions and may be especially detrimental for adolescents. Sixty-four adolescents completed ratings of family enmeshment, perceived distress tolerance, an interpersonal challenge task, and mood ratings before and immediately after the task. Before and during the challenge task, adolescents' respiratory sinus arrhythmia (an indicator of cardiac vagal tone) was recorded. Associations were tested between adolescents' perceptions of family enmeshment and 3 aspects of adolescent emotional dysregulation. Adolescents who perceived higher family enmeshment also demonstrated greater emotional dysregulation in several domains: negative global appraisals of distress tolerance, stronger increase in subjective negative mood from baseline to postchallenge, lower baseline vagal tone, and vagal augmentation during the challenge task. Gender differences also emerged, such that girls reported more negative distress appraisals overall and enmeshed boys showed greater emotional dysregulation across analyses. Findings are discussed in terms of how clinicians may dynamically assess and treat enmeshment and emotional dysregulation in families with male and female adolescents. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Exploring the source of the mid-level hump for intensity discrimination in quiet and the effects of noisea)

PubMed Central

Roverud, Elin; Strickland, Elizabeth A.

2015-01-01

Intensity discrimination Weber fractions (WFs) measured for short, high-frequency tones in quiet are larger at mid levels than at lower or higher levels. The source of this “mid-level hump” is a matter of debate. One theory is that the mid-level hump reflects basilar-membrane compression, and that WFs decrease at higher levels due to spread-of-excitation cues. To test this theory, Experiment 1 measured the mid-level hump and growth-of-masking functions to estimate the basilar membrane input/output (I/O) function in the same listeners. Results showed the initial rise in WFs could be accounted for by the change in I/O function slope, but there was additional unexplained variability in WFs. Previously, Plack [(1998). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 103(5), 2530–2538] showed that long-duration notched noise (NN) presented with the tone reduced the mid-level hump even with a temporal gap in the NN. Plack concluded the results were consistent with central profile analysis. However, simultaneous, forward, and backward NN were not examined separately, which may independently test peripheral and central mechanisms of the NN. Experiment 2 measured WFs at the mid-level hump in the presence of NN and narrowband noise of different durations and temporal positions relative to the tone. Results varied across subjects, but were consistent with more peripheral mechanisms. PMID:25786945

Effects of frequency discrimination training on tinnitus: results from two randomised controlled trials.

PubMed

Hoare, Derek J; Kowalkowski, Victoria L; Hall, Deborah A

2012-08-01

That auditory perceptual training may alleviate tinnitus draws on two observations: (1) tinnitus probably arises from altered activity within the central auditory system following hearing loss and (2) sound-based training can change central auditory activity. Training that provides sound enrichment across hearing loss frequencies has therefore been hypothesised to alleviate tinnitus. We tested this prediction with two randomised trials of frequency discrimination training involving a total of 70 participants with chronic subjective tinnitus. Participants trained on either (1) a pure-tone standard at a frequency within their region of normal hearing, (2) a pure-tone standard within the region of hearing loss or (3) a high-pass harmonic complex tone spanning a region of hearing loss. Analysis of the primary outcome measure revealed an overall reduction in self-reported tinnitus handicap after training that was maintained at a 1-month follow-up assessment, but there were no significant differences between groups. Secondary analyses also report the effects of different domains of tinnitus handicap on the psychoacoustical characteristics of the tinnitus percept (sensation level, bandwidth and pitch) and on duration of training. Our overall findings and conclusions cast doubt on the superiority of a purely acoustic mechanism to underpin tinnitus remediation. Rather, the nonspecific patterns of improvement are more suggestive that auditory perceptual training affects impact on a contributory mechanism such as selective attention or emotional state.

The time-course of activation in the dorsal and ventral visual streams during landmark cueing and perceptual discrimination tasks.

PubMed

Lambert, Anthony J; Wootton, Adrienne

2017-08-01

Different patterns of high density EEG activity were elicited by the same peripheral stimuli, in the context of Landmark Cueing and Perceptual Discrimination tasks. The C1 component of the visual event-related potential (ERP) at parietal - occipital electrode sites was larger in the Landmark Cueing task, and source localisation suggested greater activation in the superior parietal lobule (SPL) in this task, compared to the Perceptual Discrimination task, indicating stronger early recruitment of the dorsal visual stream. In the Perceptual Discrimination task, source localisation suggested widespread activation of the inferior temporal gyrus (ITG) and fusiform gyrus (FFG), structures associated with the ventral visual stream, during the early phase of the P1 ERP component. Moreover, during a later epoch (171-270ms after stimulus onset) increased temporal-occipital negativity, and stronger recruitment of ITG and FFG were observed in the Perceptual Discrimination task. These findings illuminate the contrasting functions of the dorsal and ventral visual streams, to support rapid shifts of attention in response to contextual landmarks, and conscious discrimination, respectively. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Poor phonemic discrimination does not underlie poor verbal short-term memory in Down syndrome.

PubMed

Purser, Harry R M; Jarrold, Christopher

2013-05-01

Individuals with Down syndrome tend to have a marked impairment of verbal short-term memory. The chief aim of this study was to investigate whether phonemic discrimination contributes to this deficit. The secondary aim was to investigate whether phonological representations are degraded in verbal short-term memory in people with Down syndrome relative to control participants. To answer these questions, two tasks were used: a discrimination task, in which memory load was as low as possible, and a short-term recognition task that used the same stimulus items. Individuals with Down syndrome were found to perform significantly better than a nonverbal-matched typically developing group on the discrimination task, but they performed significantly more poorly than that group on the recognition task. The Down syndrome group was outperformed by an additional vocabulary-matched control group on the discrimination task but was outperformed to a markedly greater extent on the recognition task. Taken together, the results strongly indicate that phonemic discrimination ability is not central to the verbal short-term memory deficit associated with Down syndrome. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A cross-linguistic fMRI study of perception of intonation and emotion in Chinese.

PubMed

Gandour, Jack; Wong, Donald; Dzemidzic, Mario; Lowe, Mark; Tong, Yunxia; Li, Xiaojian

2003-03-01

Conflicting data from neurobehavioral studies of the perception of intonation (linguistic) and emotion (affective) in spoken language highlight the need to further examine how functional attributes of prosodic stimuli are related to hemispheric differences in processing capacity. Because of similarities in their acoustic profiles, intonation and emotion permit us to assess to what extent hemispheric lateralization of speech prosody depends on functional instead of acoustical properties. To examine how the brain processes linguistic and affective prosody, an fMRI study was conducted using Chinese, a tone language in which both intonation and emotion may be signaled prosodically, in addition to lexical tones. Ten Chinese and 10 English subjects were asked to perform discrimination judgments of intonation (I: statement, question) and emotion (E: happy, angry, sad) presented in semantically neutral Chinese sentences. A baseline task required passive listening to the same speech stimuli (S). In direct between-group comparisons, the Chinese group showed left-sided frontoparietal activation for both intonation (I vs. S) and emotion (E vs. S) relative to baseline. When comparing intonation relative to emotion (I vs. E), the Chinese group demonstrated prefrontal activation bilaterally; parietal activation in the left hemisphere only. The reverse comparison (E vs. I), on the other hand, revealed that activation occurred in anterior and posterior prefrontal regions of the right hemisphere only. These findings show that some aspects of perceptual processing of emotion are dissociable from intonation, and, moreover, that they are mediated by the right hemisphere. Copyright 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Tracking Temporal Hazard in the Human Electroencephalogram Using a Forward Encoding Model

PubMed Central

2018-01-01

Abstract Human observers automatically extract temporal contingencies from the environment and predict the onset of future events. Temporal predictions are modeled by the hazard function, which describes the instantaneous probability for an event to occur given it has not occurred yet. Here, we tackle the question of whether and how the human brain tracks continuous temporal hazard on a moment-to-moment basis, and how flexibly it adjusts to strictly implicit variations in the hazard function. We applied an encoding-model approach to human electroencephalographic data recorded during a pitch-discrimination task, in which we implicitly manipulated temporal predictability of the target tones by varying the interval between cue and target tone (i.e. the foreperiod). Critically, temporal predictability either was driven solely by the passage of time (resulting in a monotonic hazard function) or was modulated to increase at intermediate foreperiods (resulting in a modulated hazard function with a peak at the intermediate foreperiod). Forward-encoding models trained to predict the recorded EEG signal from different temporal hazard functions were able to distinguish between experimental conditions, showing that implicit variations of temporal hazard bear tractable signatures in the human electroencephalogram. Notably, this tracking signal was reconstructed best from the supplementary motor area, underlining this area’s link to cognitive processing of time. Our results underline the relevance of temporal hazard to cognitive processing and show that the predictive accuracy of the encoding-model approach can be utilized to track abstract time-resolved stimuli. PMID:29740594

A Follow-Up Study on Music and Lexical Tone Perception in Adult Mandarin-Speaking Cochlear Implant Users.

PubMed

Gu, Xin; Liu, Bo; Liu, Ziye; Qi, Beier; Wang, Shuo; Dong, Ruijuan; Chen, Xueqing; Zhou, Qian

2017-12-01

The aim was to evaluate the development of music and lexical tone perception in Mandarin-speaking adult cochlear implant (CI) users over a period of 1 year. Prospective patient series. Tertiary hospital and research institute. Twenty five adult CI users, with ages ranging from 19 to 75 years old, participated in a year-long follow-up evaluation. There were also 40 normal hearing adult subjects who participated as a control group to provide the normal value range. Musical sounds in cochlear implants (Mu.S.I.C.) test battery was undertaken to evaluate music perception ability. Mandarin Tone Identification in Noise Test (M-TINT) was used to assess lexical tone recognition. The tests for CI users were completed at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after the CI switch-on. Quantitative and statistical analysis of their results from music and tone perception tests. The performance of music perception and tone recognition both demonstrated an overall improvement in outcomes during the entire 1-year follow-up process. The increasing trends were obvious in the early period especially in the first 6 months after switch-on. There was a significant improvement in the melody discrimination (p < 0.01), timbre identification (p < 0.001), tone recognition in quiet (p < 0.0001), and in noise (p < 0.0001). Adult Mandarin-speaking CI users show an increasingly improved performance on music and tone perception during the 1-year follow-up. The improvement was the most prominent in the first 6 months of CI use. It is essential to strengthen the rehabilitation training within the first 6 months.

Task-irrelevant emotion facilitates face discrimination learning.

PubMed

Lorenzino, Martina; Caudek, Corrado

2015-03-01

We understand poorly how the ability to discriminate faces from one another is shaped by visual experience. The purpose of the present study is to determine whether face discrimination learning can be facilitated by facial emotions. To answer this question, we used a task-irrelevant perceptual learning paradigm because it closely mimics the learning processes that, in daily life, occur without a conscious intention to learn and without an attentional focus on specific facial features. We measured face discrimination thresholds before and after training. During the training phase (4 days), participants performed a contrast discrimination task on face images. They were not informed that we introduced (task-irrelevant) subtle variations in the face images from trial to trial. For the Identity group, the task-irrelevant features were variations along a morphing continuum of facial identity. For the Emotion group, the task-irrelevant features were variations along an emotional expression morphing continuum. The Control group did not undergo contrast discrimination learning and only performed the pre-training and post-training tests, with the same temporal gap between them as the other two groups. Results indicate that face discrimination improved, but only for the Emotion group. Participants in the Emotion group, moreover, showed face discrimination improvements also for stimulus variations along the facial identity dimension, even if these (task-irrelevant) stimulus features had not been presented during training. The present results highlight the importance of emotions for face discrimination learning. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Compensation for pitch-shifted auditory feedback during the production of Mandarin tone sequences

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xu, Yi; Larson, Charles R.; Bauer, Jay J.; Hain, Timothy C.

2004-08-01

Recent research has found that while speaking, subjects react to perturbations in pitch of voice auditory feedback by changing their voice fundamental frequency (F0) to compensate for the perceived pitch-shift. The long response latencies (150-200 ms) suggest they may be too slow to assist in on-line control of the local pitch contour patterns associated with lexical tones on a syllable-to-syllable basis. In the present study, we introduced pitch-shifted auditory feedback to native speakers of Mandarin Chinese while they produced disyllabic sequences /ma ma/ with different tonal combinations at a natural speaking rate. Voice F0 response latencies (100-150 ms) to the pitch perturbations were shorter than syllable durations reported elsewhere. Response magnitudes increased from 50 cents during static tone to 85 cents during dynamic tone productions. Response latencies and peak times decreased in phrases involving a dynamic change in F0. The larger response magnitudes and shorter latency and peak times in tasks requiring accurate, dynamic control of F0, indicate this automatic system for regulation of voice F0 may be task-dependent. These findings suggest that auditory feedback may be used to help regulate voice F0 during production of bi-tonal Mandarin phrases.

Auditory temporal perceptual learning and transfer in Chinese-speaking children with developmental dyslexia.

PubMed

Zhang, Manli; Xie, Weiyi; Xu, Yanzhi; Meng, Xiangzhi

2018-03-01

Perceptual learning refers to the improvement of perceptual performance as a function of training. Recent studies found that auditory perceptual learning may improve phonological skills in individuals with developmental dyslexia in alphabetic writing system. However, whether auditory perceptual learning could also benefit the reading skills of those learning the Chinese logographic writing system is, as yet, unknown. The current study aimed to investigate the remediation effect of auditory temporal perceptual learning on Mandarin-speaking school children with developmental dyslexia. Thirty children with dyslexia were screened from a large pool of students in 3th-5th grades. They completed a series of pretests and then were assigned to either a non-training control group or a training group. The training group worked on a pure tone duration discrimination task for 7 sessions over 2 weeks with thirty minutes per session. Post-tests immediately after training and a follow-up test 2 months later were conducted. Analyses revealed a significant training effect in the training group relative to non-training group, as well as near transfer to the temporal interval discrimination task and far transfer to phonological awareness, character recognition and reading fluency. Importantly, the training effect and all the transfer effects were stable at the 2-month follow-up session. Further analyses found that a significant correlation between character recognition performance and learning rate mainly existed in the slow learning phase, the consolidation stage of perceptual learning, and this effect was modulated by an individuals' executive function. These findings indicate that adaptive auditory temporal perceptual learning can lead to learning and transfer effects on reading performance, and shed further light on the potential role of basic perceptual learning in the remediation and prevention of developmental dyslexia. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Comparison of level discrimination, increment detection, and comodulation masking release in the audio- and envelope-frequency domains

PubMed Central

Nelson, Paul C.; Ewert, Stephan D.; Carney, Laurel H.; Dau, Torsten

2008-01-01

In general, the temporal structure of stimuli must be considered to account for certain observations made in detection and masking experiments in the audio-frequency domain. Two such phenomena are (1) a heightened sensitivity to amplitude increments with a temporal fringe compared to gated level discrimination performance and (2) lower tone-in-noise detection thresholds using a modulated masker compared to those using an unmodulated masker. In the current study, translations of these two experiments were carried out to test the hypothesis that analogous cues might be used in the envelope-frequency domain. Pure-tone carrier amplitude-modulation (AM) depth-discrimination thresholds were found to be similar using both traditional gated stimuli and using a temporally modulated fringe for a fixed standard depth (ms=0.25) and a range of AM frequencies (4-64 Hz). In a second experiment, masked sinusoidal AM detection thresholds were compared in conditions with and without slow and regular fluctuations imposed on the instantaneous masker AM depth. Release from masking was obtained only for very slow masker fluctuations (less than 2 Hz). A physiologically motivated model that effectively acts as a first-order envelope change detector accounted for several, but not all, of the key aspects of the data. PMID:17471731

Rate discrimination at low pulse rates in normal-hearing and cochlear implant listeners: Influence of intracochlear stimulation site.

PubMed

Stahl, Pierre; Macherey, Olivier; Meunier, Sabine; Roman, Stéphane

2016-04-01

Temporal pitch perception in cochlear implantees remains weaker than in normal hearing listeners and is usually limited to rates below about 300 pulses per second (pps). Recent studies have suggested that stimulating the apical part of the cochlea may improve the temporal coding of pitch by cochlear implants (CIs), compared to stimulating other sites. The present study focuses on rate discrimination at low pulse rates (ranging from 20 to 104 pps). Two experiments measured and compared pulse rate difference limens (DLs) at four fundamental frequencies (ranging from 20 to 104 Hz) in both CI and normal-hearing (NH) listeners. Experiment 1 measured DLs in users of the (Med-El CI, Innsbruck, Austria) device for two electrodes (one apical and one basal). In experiment 2, DLs for NH listeners were compared for unresolved harmonic complex tones filtered in two frequency regions (lower cut-off frequencies of 1200 and 3600 Hz, respectively) and for different bandwidths. Pulse rate discrimination performance was significantly better when stimulation was provided by the apical electrode in CI users and by the lower-frequency tone complexes in NH listeners. This set of data appears consistent with better temporal coding when stimulation originates from apical regions of the cochlea.

Divided attention modulates semantic activation: evidence from a nonletter-level prime task.

PubMed

Otsuka, Sachio; Kawaguchi, Jun

2007-12-01

Research has recently shown that semantic activation is modulated in proportion to the amount of attention required for letter-level processing of the prime (the attention modulation hypothesis; Smith, Bentin, & Spalek, 2001). In this study, we examined this hypothesis with an auditory divided-attention task. Participants were asked to decide whether the pitch of a probe tone presented with the prime word was higher or lower than the basic tone presented with the fixation cross. Their target task was lexical decision to the target word. Experiment 1 showed that semantic priming was modulated by the amount of attentional resources. Moreover, in Experiment 2, this modulation was also found in a situation that eliminated the possibility of participants' response strategies. Yet, Experiment 3 showed repetition priming to be unaffected. These results support an amended attention modulation hypothesis in which modulation is not limited to letter-level processing.

Verbal strategies and nonverbal cues in school-age children with and without specific language impairment (SLI)

PubMed Central

Eichorn, Naomi; Marton, Klara; Campanelli, Luca; Scheuer, Jessica

2014-01-01

Background Considerable evidence suggests that performance across a variety of cognitive tasks is effectively supported by the use of verbal and nonverbal strategies. Studies exploring the usefulness of such strategies in children with specific language impairment (SLI) are scarce and report inconsistent findings. Aim The present study examined effects of induced labelling and auditory cues on the performance of children with and without SLI during a categorization task. Methods & Procedures Sixty-six school-age children (22 with SLI, 22 age-matched controls, 22 language-matched controls) completed three versions of a computer-based categorization task: one baseline, one requiring overt labelling, and one with auditory cues (tones) on randomized trial blocks. Outcomes & Results Labelling had no effect on performance for typically developing children but resulted in lower accuracy and longer reaction time in children with SLI. The presence of tones had no effect on accuracy but resulted in faster reaction time and post-error slowing across groups. Conclusions & Implications Verbal strategy use was ineffective for typically developing children and negatively affected children with SLI. All children showed faster performance and increased performance monitoring as a result of tones. Overall, effects of strategy use in children appear to vary based on task demands, strategy domain, age, and language ability. Results suggest that children with SLI may benefit from auditory cues in their clinical intervention but that further research is needed to determine when and how verbal strategies might similarly support performance in this population. PMID:24861540

Comparison of bimodal and bilateral cochlear implant users on speech recognition with competing talker, music perception, affective prosody discrimination, and talker identification.

PubMed

Cullington, Helen E; Zeng, Fan-Gang

2011-02-01

Despite excellent performance in speech recognition in quiet, most cochlear implant users have great difficulty with speech recognition in noise, music perception, identifying tone of voice, and discriminating different talkers. This may be partly due to the pitch coding in cochlear implant speech processing. Most current speech processing strategies use only the envelope information; the temporal fine structure is discarded. One way to improve electric pitch perception is to use residual acoustic hearing via a hearing aid on the nonimplanted ear (bimodal hearing). This study aimed to test the hypothesis that bimodal users would perform better than bilateral cochlear implant users on tasks requiring good pitch perception. Four pitch-related tasks were used. 1. Hearing in Noise Test (HINT) sentences spoken by a male talker with a competing female, male, or child talker. 2. Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia. This is a music test with six subtests examining pitch, rhythm and timing perception, and musical memory. 3. Aprosodia Battery. This has five subtests evaluating aspects of affective prosody and recognition of sarcasm. 4. Talker identification using vowels spoken by 10 different talkers (three men, three women, two boys, and two girls). Bilateral cochlear implant users were chosen as the comparison group. Thirteen bimodal and 13 bilateral adult cochlear implant users were recruited; all had good speech perception in quiet. There were no significant differences between the mean scores of the bimodal and bilateral groups on any of the tests, although the bimodal group did perform better than the bilateral group on almost all tests. Performance on the different pitch-related tasks was not correlated, meaning that if a subject performed one task well they would not necessarily perform well on another. The correlation between the bimodal users' hearing threshold levels in the aided ear and their performance on these tasks was weak. Although the bimodal cochlear implant group performed better than the bilateral group on most parts of the four pitch-related tests, the differences were not statistically significant. The lack of correlation between test results shows that the tasks used are not simply providing a measure of pitch ability. Even if the bimodal users have better pitch perception, the real-world tasks used are reflecting more diverse skills than pitch. This research adds to the existing speech perception, language, and localization studies that show no significant difference between bimodal and bilateral cochlear implant users.

Resolving Semantic Interference during Word Production Requires Central Attention

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kleinman, Daniel

2013-01-01

The semantic picture-word interference task has been used to diagnose how speakers resolve competition while selecting words for production. The attentional demands of this resolution process were assessed in 2 dual-task experiments (tone classification followed by picture naming). In Experiment 1, when pictures and distractor words were presented…

The Whole Is More than the Sum of Its Parts--Audiovisual Processing of Phonemes Investigated with ERPs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hessler, Dorte; Jonkers, Roel; Stowe, Laurie; Bastiaanse, Roelien

2013-01-01

In the current ERP study, an active oddball task was carried out, testing pure tones and auditory, visual and audiovisual syllables. For pure tones, an MMN, an N2b, and a P3 were found, confirming traditional findings. Auditory syllables evoked an N2 and a P3. We found that the amplitude of the P3 depended on the distance between standard and…

Task-Oriented, Naturally Elicited Speech (TONE) Database for the Force Requirements Expert System, Hawaii (FRESH)

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-09-01

Group Subgroup Command and control; Computational linguistics; expert system voice recognition; man- machine interface; U.S. Government 19 Abstract...simulates the characteristics of FRESH on a smaller scale. This study assisted NOSC in developing a voice-recognition, man- machine interface that could...scale. This study assisted NOSC in developing a voice-recogni- tion, man- machine interface that could be used with TONE and upgraded at a later date

A Tale of Two Studies: Equal Opportunity Climate and Mission Readiness

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-07-24

we explored a relationship-oriented, stylistic aspect of a leader, leader equal opportunity behavior (LEOB), as a tone-setter that determines the...unnecessary cognitive resources in deciding what, how, and when to invest their energy, time, and attention (i.e., all valued resources) at work...relationship-oriented, stylistic aspect of a leader that acts as a tone-setter that affects the way in which task-oriented leadership is delivered by the

The effect of language experience on perceptual normalization of Mandarin tones and non-speech pitch contours.

PubMed

Luo, Xin; Ashmore, Krista B

2014-06-01

Context-dependent pitch perception helps listeners recognize tones produced by speakers with different fundamental frequencies (f0s). The role of language experience in tone normalization remains unclear. In this cross-language study of tone normalization, native Mandarin and English listeners were asked to recognize Mandarin Tone 1 (high-flat) and Tone 2 (mid-rising) with a preceding Mandarin sentence. To further test whether context-dependent pitch perception is speech-specific or domain-general, both language groups were asked to identify non-speech flat and rising pitch contours with a preceding non-speech flat pitch contour. Results showed that both Mandarin and English listeners made more rising responses with non-speech than with speech stimuli, due to differences in spectral complexity and listening task between the two stimulus types. English listeners made more rising responses than Mandarin listeners with both speech and non-speech stimuli. Contrastive context effects (more rising responses in the high-f0 context than in the low-f0 context) were found with both speech and non-speech stimuli for Mandarin listeners, but not for English listeners. English listeners' lack of tone experience may have caused more rising responses and limited use of context f0 cues. These results suggest that context-dependent pitch perception in tone normalization is domain-general, but influenced by long-term language experience.

Auditory habituation to simple tones: reduced evidence for habituation in children compared to adults

PubMed Central

Muenssinger, Jana; Stingl, Krunoslav T.; Matuz, Tamara; Binder, Gerhard; Ehehalt, Stefan; Preissl, Hubert

2013-01-01

Habituation—the response decrement to repetitively presented stimulation—is a basic cognitive capability and suited to investigate development and integrity of the human brain. To evaluate the developmental process of auditory habituation, the current study used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to investigate auditory habituation, dishabituation and stimulus specificity in children and adults and compared the results between age groups. Twenty-nine children (Mage = 9.69 years, SD ± 0.47) and 14 adults (Mage = 29.29 years, SD ± 3.47) participated in the study and passively listened to a habituation paradigm consisting of 100 trains of tones which were composed of five 500 Hz tones, one 750 Hz tone (dishabituator) and another two 500 Hz tones, respectively while focusing their attention on a silent movie. Adults showed the expected habituation and stimulus specificity within-trains while no response decrement was found between trains. Sensory adaptation or fatigue as a source for response decrement in adults is unlikely due to the strong reaction to the dishabituator (stimulus specificity) and strong mismatch negativity (MMN) responses. However, in children neither habituation nor dishabituation or stimulus specificity could be found within-trains, response decrement was found across trains. It can be speculated that the differences between children and adults are linked to differences in stimulus processing due to attentional processes. This study shows developmental differences in task-related brain activation and discusses the possible influence of broader concepts such as attention, which should be taken into account when comparing performance in an identical task between age groups. PMID:23882207

Tone series and the nature of working memory capacity development.

PubMed

Clark, Katherine M; Hardman, Kyle O; Schachtman, Todd R; Saults, J Scott; Glass, Bret A; Cowan, Nelson

2018-04-01

Recent advances in understanding visual working memory, the limited information held in mind for use in ongoing processing, are extended here to examine auditory working memory development. Research with arrays of visual objects has shown how to distinguish the capacity, in terms of the number of objects retained, from the precision of the object representations. We adapt the technique to sequences of nonmusical tones, in an investigation including children (6-13 years, N = 84) and adults (26-50 years, N = 31). For each series of 1 to 4 tones, the participant responded by using an 80-choice scale to try to reproduce the tone at a queried serial position. Despite the much longer-lasting usefulness of sensory memory for tones compared with visual objects, the observed tone capacity was similar to previous findings for visual capacity. The results also constrain theories of childhood working memory development, indicating increases with age in both the capacity and the precision of the tone representations, similar to the visual studies, rather than age differences in time-based memory decay. The findings, including patterns of correlations between capacity, precision, and some auxiliary tasks and questionnaires, establish capacity and precision as dissociable processes and place important constraints on various hypotheses of working memory development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Deficits in discrimination after experimental frontal brain injury are mediated by motivation and can be improved by nicotinamide administration.

PubMed

Vonder Haar, Cole; Maass, William R; Jacobs, Eric A; Hoane, Michael R

2014-10-15

One of the largest challenges in experimental neurotrauma work is the development of models relevant to the human condition. This includes both creating similar pathophysiology as well as the generation of relevant behavioral deficits. Recent studies have shown that there is a large potential for the use of discrimination tasks in rats to detect injury-induced deficits. The literature on discrimination and TBI is still limited, however. The current study investigated motivational and motor factors that could potentially contribute to deficits in discrimination. In addition, the efficacy of a neuroprotective agent, nicotinamide, was assessed. Rats were trained on a discrimination task and motivation task, given a bilateral frontal controlled cortical impact TBI (+3.0 AP, 0.0 ML from bregma), and then reassessed. They were also assessed on motor ability and Morris water maze (MWM) performance. Experiment 1 showed that TBI resulted in large deficits in discrimination and motivation. No deficits were observed on gross motor measures; however, the vehicle group showed impairments in fine motor control. Both injured groups were impaired on the reference memory MWM, but only nicotinamide-treated rats were impaired on the working memory MWM. Nicotinamide administration improved performance on discrimination and motivation measures. Experiment 2 evaluated retraining on the discrimination task and suggested that motivation may be a large factor underlying discrimination deficits. Retrained rats improved considerably on the discrimination task. The tasks evaluated in this study demonstrate robust deficits and may improve the detection of pharmaceutical effects by being very sensitive to pervasive cognitive deficits that occur after frontal TBI.

An automated psychoacoustic testing apparatus for use in cats.

PubMed

Benovitski, Yuri B; Blamey, Peter J; Rathbone, Graeme D; Fallon, James B

2014-03-01

Animal behavioral studies make a significant contribution to hearing research and provide vital information which is not available from human subjects. Animal psychoacoustics is usually extremely time consuming and labor intensive; in addition, animals may become stressed, especially if restraints or negative reinforcers such as electric shocks are used. We present a novel behavioral experimental system that was developed to allow efficient animal training in response to acoustic stimuli. Cats were required to perform a relatively simple task of moving toward and away from the device depending on whether the members of a tone pair were different or the same in frequency (go/no-go task). The experimental setup proved to be effective, with all animals (N = 7) performing at above 90% correct on an easy task. Animals were trained within 2-4 weeks and then generated a total of 150-200 trials per day, distributed within approximately 8 self initiated sessions. Data collected using this system were stable over 1 week and repeatable over long test periods (14 weeks). Measured frequency discrimination thresholds from 3 animals at 3 different reference frequencies were comparable with previously published results. The main advantages of the system are: relatively simple setup; large amounts of data can be generated without the need of researcher supervision; multiple animals can be tested simultaneously without removal from home pens; and no electric shocks or restraints are required. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Activation of Premotor Vocal Areas during Musical Discrimination

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brown, Steven; Martinez, Michael J.

2007-01-01

Two same/different discrimination tasks were performed by amateur-musician subjects in this functional magnetic resonance imaging study: Melody Discrimination and Harmony Discrimination. Both tasks led to activations not only in classic working memory areas--such as the cingulate gyrus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex--but in a series of…

Accuracy of cochlear implant recipients on pitch perception, melody recognition, and speech reception in noise.

PubMed

Gfeller, Kate; Turner, Christopher; Oleson, Jacob; Zhang, Xuyang; Gantz, Bruce; Froman, Rebecca; Olszewski, Carol

2007-06-01

The purposes of this study were to (a) examine the accuracy of cochlear implant recipients who use different types of devices and signal processing strategies on pitch ranking as a function of size of interval and frequency range and (b) to examine the relations between this pitch perception measure and demographic variables, melody recognition, and speech reception in background noise. One hundred fourteen cochlear implant users and 21 normal-hearing adults were tested on a pitch discrimination task (pitch ranking) that required them to determine direction of pitch change as a function of base frequency and interval size. Three groups were tested: (a) long electrode cochlear implant users (N = 101); (b) short electrode users that received acoustic plus electrical stimulation (A+E) (N = 13); and (c) a normal-hearing (NH) comparison group (N = 21). Pitch ranking was tested at standard frequencies of 131 to 1048 Hz, and the size of the pitch-change intervals ranged from 1 to 4 semitones. A generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) was fit to predict pitch ranking and to determine if group differences exist as a function of base frequency and interval size. Overall significance effects were measured with Chi-square tests and individual effects were measured with t-tests. Pitch ranking accuracy was correlated with demographic measures (age at time of testing, length of profound deafness, months of implant use), frequency difference limens, familiar melody recognition, and two measures of speech reception in noise. The long electrode recipients performed significantly poorer on pitch discrimination than the NH and A+E group. The A+E users performed similarly to the NH listeners as a function of interval size in the lower base frequency range, but their pitch discrimination scores deteriorated slightly in the higher frequency range. The long electrode recipients, although less accurate than participants in the NH and A+E groups, tended to perform with greater accuracy within the higher frequency range. There were statistically significant correlations between pitch ranking and familiar melody recognition as well as with pure-tone frequency difference limens at 200 and 400 Hz. Low-frequency acoustic hearing improves pitch discrimination as compared with traditional, electric-only cochlear implants. These findings have implications for musical tasks such as familiar melody recognition.

Mandarin Chinese Tone Identification in Cochlear Implants: Predictions from Acoustic Models

PubMed Central

Morton, Kenneth D.; Torrione, Peter A.; Throckmorton, Chandra S.; Collins, Leslie M.

2015-01-01

It has been established that current cochlear implants do not supply adequate spectral information for perception of tonal languages. Comprehension of a tonal language, such as Mandarin Chinese, requires recognition of lexical tones. New strategies of cochlear stimulation such as variable stimulation rate and current steering may provide the means of delivering more spectral information and thus may provide the auditory fine structure required for tone recognition. Several cochlear implant signal processing strategies are examined in this study, the continuous interleaved sampling (CIS) algorithm, the frequency amplitude modulation encoding (FAME) algorithm, and the multiple carrier frequency algorithm (MCFA). These strategies provide different types and amounts of spectral information. Pattern recognition techniques can be applied to data from Mandarin Chinese tone recognition tasks using acoustic models as a means of testing the abilities of these algorithms to transmit the changes in fundamental frequency indicative of the four lexical tones. The ability of processed Mandarin Chinese tones to be correctly classified may predict trends in the effectiveness of different signal processing algorithms in cochlear implants. The proposed techniques can predict trends in performance of the signal processing techniques in quiet conditions but fail to do so in noise. PMID:18706497

Representation of Dynamic Interaural Phase Difference in Auditory Cortex of Awake Rhesus Macaques

PubMed Central

Scott, Brian H.; Malone, Brian J.; Semple, Malcolm N.

2009-01-01

Neurons in auditory cortex of awake primates are selective for the spatial location of a sound source, yet the neural representation of the binaural cues that underlie this tuning remains undefined. We examined this representation in 283 single neurons across the low-frequency auditory core in alert macaques, trained to discriminate binaural cues for sound azimuth. In response to binaural beat stimuli, which mimic acoustic motion by modulating the relative phase of a tone at the two ears, these neurons robustly modulate their discharge rate in response to this directional cue. In accordance with prior studies, the preferred interaural phase difference (IPD) of these neurons typically corresponds to azimuthal locations contralateral to the recorded hemisphere. Whereas binaural beats evoke only transient discharges in anesthetized cortex, neurons in awake cortex respond throughout the IPD cycle. In this regard, responses are consistent with observations at earlier stations of the auditory pathway. Discharge rate is a band-pass function of the frequency of IPD modulation in most neurons (73%), but both discharge rate and temporal synchrony are independent of the direction of phase modulation. When subjected to a receiver operator characteristic analysis, the responses of individual neurons are insufficient to account for the perceptual acuity of these macaques in an IPD discrimination task, suggesting the need for neural pooling at the cortical level. PMID:19164111

Representation of dynamic interaural phase difference in auditory cortex of awake rhesus macaques.

PubMed

Scott, Brian H; Malone, Brian J; Semple, Malcolm N

2009-04-01

Neurons in auditory cortex of awake primates are selective for the spatial location of a sound source, yet the neural representation of the binaural cues that underlie this tuning remains undefined. We examined this representation in 283 single neurons across the low-frequency auditory core in alert macaques, trained to discriminate binaural cues for sound azimuth. In response to binaural beat stimuli, which mimic acoustic motion by modulating the relative phase of a tone at the two ears, these neurons robustly modulate their discharge rate in response to this directional cue. In accordance with prior studies, the preferred interaural phase difference (IPD) of these neurons typically corresponds to azimuthal locations contralateral to the recorded hemisphere. Whereas binaural beats evoke only transient discharges in anesthetized cortex, neurons in awake cortex respond throughout the IPD cycle. In this regard, responses are consistent with observations at earlier stations of the auditory pathway. Discharge rate is a band-pass function of the frequency of IPD modulation in most neurons (73%), but both discharge rate and temporal synchrony are independent of the direction of phase modulation. When subjected to a receiver operator characteristic analysis, the responses of individual neurons are insufficient to account for the perceptual acuity of these macaques in an IPD discrimination task, suggesting the need for neural pooling at the cortical level.

[Cognitive rehabilitation of amusia].

PubMed

Weill-Chounlamountry, A; Soyez-Gayout, L; Tessier, C; Pradat-Diehl, P

2008-06-01

The cognitive model of music processing has a modular architecture with two main pathways (a melody pathway and a time pathway) for processing the musical "message" and thus enabling music recognition. It also features a music-specific module for tonal encoding of pitch which stands apart from all other known cognitive systems (including language processing). To the best of our knowledge, rehabilitation therapy for amusia has not yet been reported. We developed a therapeutic method (inspired by work on word deafness) in order to determine whether specific rehabilitation based on melody discrimination could prompt the regression of amusia. We report the case of a patient having developed receptive, acquired amusia four years previously. His tone deafness disorder was assessed using the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA), which revealed impairment of the melody pathway but no deficiency in the time pathway. A computer-assisted rehabilitation method was implemented; it used melody discrimination tasks and an errorless learning paradigm with progressively fading visual cues. After therapy, we noted an improvement in the overall MBEA score and its component subscores which could not be explained by spontaneous recovery (in view of the number of years since the neurological accident). The improvement was maintained at seven months post-therapy. Although post-therapy improvement in daily life was not systematically assessed, the patient started listening to his favourite music again. Specific amusia therapy has shown efficacy.

Allocation of attentional resources during habituation and dishabituation of male sexual arousal.

PubMed

Koukounas, E; Over, R

1999-12-01

A secondary-task probe (tone) was presented intermittently while men viewed erotic film segments across a session involving 18 trials with the same film segment (habituation), then 2 trials with different film segments (novelty) and 2 trials with reinstatement of the original segment (dishabituation). Reaction time to the tone (an index of the extent processing resources were being committed to the erotic stimulus) shifted during the session in parallel with changes that occurred in penile tumescence and subjective sexual arousal. The decrease in sexual arousal over the first 18 trials in the session was accompanied by a progressively faster reaction to the tone, novel stimulation led to recovery of sexual arousal and a slower reaction to the tone, and on trials 21 and 22 sexual arousal and reaction time levels were above the values that prevailed immediately prior to novel stimulation. Results are discussed with reference to the relationship between habituation and attention.

Music Training Can Improve Music and Speech Perception in Pediatric Mandarin-Speaking Cochlear Implant Users.

PubMed

Cheng, Xiaoting; Liu, Yangwenyi; Shu, Yilai; Tao, Duo-Duo; Wang, Bing; Yuan, Yasheng; Galvin, John J; Fu, Qian-Jie; Chen, Bing

2018-01-01

Due to limited spectral resolution, cochlear implants (CIs) do not convey pitch information very well. Pitch cues are important for perception of music and tonal language; it is possible that music training may improve performance in both listening tasks. In this study, we investigated music training outcomes in terms of perception of music, lexical tones, and sentences in 22 young (4.8 to 9.3 years old), prelingually deaf Mandarin-speaking CI users. Music perception was measured using a melodic contour identification (MCI) task. Speech perception was measured for lexical tones and sentences presented in quiet. Subjects received 8 weeks of MCI training using pitch ranges not used for testing. Music and speech perception were measured at 2, 4, and 8 weeks after training was begun; follow-up measures were made 4 weeks after training was stopped. Mean baseline performance was 33.2%, 76.9%, and 45.8% correct for MCI, lexical tone recognition, and sentence recognition, respectively. After 8 weeks of MCI training, mean performance significantly improved by 22.9, 14.4, and 14.5 percentage points for MCI, lexical tone recognition, and sentence recognition, respectively ( p < .05 in all cases). Four weeks after training was stopped, there was no significant change in posttraining music and speech performance. The results suggest that music training can significantly improve pediatric Mandarin-speaking CI users' music and speech perception.

Tone Discrimination as a Window into Acoustic Perceptual Deficits in Parkinson's Disease

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Troche, Joshua; Troche, Michelle S.; Berkowitz, Rebecca; Grossman, Murray; Reilly, Jamie

2012-01-01

Purpose: Deficits in auditory perception compromise a range of linguistic processes in persons with Parkinson's disease (PD), including speech perception and sensitivity to affective and linguistic prosody. An unanswered question is whether this deficit exists not only at the level of speech perception, but also at a more pervasive level of…

Absolute Pitch in Boreal Chickadees and Humans: Exceptions that Test a Phylogenetic Rule

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Weisman, Ronald G.; Balkwill, Laura-Lee; Hoeschele, Marisa; Moscicki, Michele K.; Bloomfield, Laurie L.; Sturdy, Christopher B.

2010-01-01

This research examined generality of the phylogenetic rule that birds discriminate frequency ranges more accurately than mammals. Human absolute pitch chroma possessors accurately tracked transitions between frequency ranges. Independent tests showed that they used note naming (pitch chroma) to remap the tones into ranges; neither possessors nor…

Enhancing Palpation Skills through the Use of Stereognosis Drills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lawrance, Scott E.; Voll, Craig A.; Jochum, Jessica Emlich

2016-01-01

Context: Musculoskeletal palpation is taught in our athletic training programs as part of the injury evaluation process. However, as palpation skills are taught, the focus is oftentimes on accuracy of surface-anatomy landmarks instead of the ability to discriminate qualitative information such as tissue tone, spasm, or pain response from the soft…

Aircraft Alerting Systems Criteria Study. Volume II. Human Factors Guidelines for Aircraft Alerting Systems

DTIC Science & Technology

1977-05-01

Effect of Mixing Flashing and Steady Irrelevant Lights, Ergonomics, Vol. 6 (3), 1963, pp. 27-294. Creelman , C. D., Detection of Signals of Uncertain...Frequency, Acoustical Sok. America-J, Vol. 32 (7), July 1960, pp. 805-10. Creelman , C. D., Detection, Discrimination, and Loudness of Short Tones

Musical ability and non-native speech-sound processing are linked through sensitivity to pitch and spectral information.

PubMed

Kempe, Vera; Bublitz, Dennis; Brooks, Patricia J

2015-05-01

Is the observed link between musical ability and non-native speech-sound processing due to enhanced sensitivity to acoustic features underlying both musical and linguistic processing? To address this question, native English speakers (N = 118) discriminated Norwegian tonal contrasts and Norwegian vowels. Short tones differing in temporal, pitch, and spectral characteristics were used to measure sensitivity to the various acoustic features implicated in musical and speech processing. Musical ability was measured using Gordon's Advanced Measures of Musical Audiation. Results showed that sensitivity to specific acoustic features played a role in non-native speech-sound processing: Controlling for non-verbal intelligence, prior foreign language-learning experience, and sex, sensitivity to pitch and spectral information partially mediated the link between musical ability and discrimination of non-native vowels and lexical tones. The findings suggest that while sensitivity to certain acoustic features partially mediates the relationship between musical ability and non-native speech-sound processing, complex tests of musical ability also tap into other shared mechanisms. © 2014 The British Psychological Society.

Do humans and nonhuman animals share the grouping principles of the Iambic - Trochaic Law?

PubMed Central

de la Mora, Daniela M.; Nespor, Marina; Toro, Juan M.

2014-01-01

The Iambic-Trochaic Law describes humans’ tendency to form trochaic groups over sequences varying in pitch or intensity (i.e., the loudest or highest sound marks group beginnings), and iambic groups over sequences varying in duration (i.e., the longest sound marks group endings). The extent to which these perceptual biases are shared by humans and nonhuman animals is yet unclear. In Experiment 1, we trained rats to discriminate pitch-alternating sequences of tones from sequences randomly varying in pitch. In Experiment 2, rats were trained to discriminate duration-alternating sequences of tones from sequences randomly varying in duration. We found that nonhuman animals group as trochees sequences based on pitch variations, but they do not group as iambs sequences varying in duration. Importantly, humans grouped the same stimuli following the principles of the Iambic-Trochaic Law (Experiment 3). These results suggest an early emergence of the trochaic rhythmic grouping bias based on pitch, possibly relying on perceptual abilities shared by humans and other mammals as well, whereas the iambic rhythmic grouping bias based on duration might depend on language experience. PMID:22956287

Do humans and nonhuman animals share the grouping principles of the iambic-trochaic law?

PubMed

de la Mora, Daniela M; Nespor, Marina; Toro, Juan M

2013-01-01

The iambic-trochaic law describes humans' tendency to form trochaic groups over sequences varying in pitch or intensity (i.e., the loudest or highest sounds mark group beginnings), and iambic groups over sequences varying in duration (i.e., the longest sounds mark group endings). The extent to which these perceptual biases are shared by humans and nonhuman animals is yet unclear. In Experiment 1, we trained rats to discriminate pitch-alternating sequences of tones from sequences randomly varying in pitch. In Experiment 2, rats were trained to discriminate duration-alternating sequences of tones from sequences randomly varying in duration. We found that nonhuman animals group sequences based on pitch variations as trochees, but they do not group sequences varying in duration as iambs. Importantly, humans grouped the same stimuli following the principles of the iambic-trochaic law (Exp. 3). These results suggest the early emergence of the trochaic rhythmic grouping bias based on pitch, possibly relying on perceptual abilities shared by humans and other mammals, whereas the iambic rhythmic grouping bias based on duration might depend on language experience.

Neuronal activity in primate auditory cortex during the performance of audiovisual tasks.

PubMed

Brosch, Michael; Selezneva, Elena; Scheich, Henning

2015-03-01

This study aimed at a deeper understanding of which cognitive and motivational aspects of tasks affect auditory cortical activity. To this end we trained two macaque monkeys to perform two different tasks on the same audiovisual stimulus and to do this with two different sizes of water rewards. The monkeys had to touch a bar after a tone had been turned on together with an LED, and to hold the bar until either the tone (auditory task) or the LED (visual task) was turned off. In 399 multiunits recorded from core fields of auditory cortex we confirmed that during task engagement neurons responded to auditory and non-auditory stimuli that were task-relevant, such as light and water. We also confirmed that firing rates slowly increased or decreased for several seconds during various phases of the tasks. Responses to non-auditory stimuli and slow firing changes were observed during both the auditory and the visual task, with some differences between them. There was also a weak task-dependent modulation of the responses to auditory stimuli. In contrast to these cognitive aspects, motivational aspects of the tasks were not reflected in the firing, except during delivery of the water reward. In conclusion, the present study supports our previous proposal that there are two response types in the auditory cortex that represent the timing and the type of auditory and non-auditory elements of a auditory tasks as well the association between elements. © 2015 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Genetic pleiotropy explains associations between musical auditory discrimination and intelligence.

PubMed

Mosing, Miriam A; Pedersen, Nancy L; Madison, Guy; Ullén, Fredrik

2014-01-01

Musical aptitude is commonly measured using tasks that involve discrimination of different types of musical auditory stimuli. Performance on such different discrimination tasks correlates positively with each other and with intelligence. However, no study to date has explored these associations using a genetically informative sample to estimate underlying genetic and environmental influences. In the present study, a large sample of Swedish twins (N = 10,500) was used to investigate the genetic architecture of the associations between intelligence and performance on three musical auditory discrimination tasks (rhythm, melody and pitch). Phenotypic correlations between the tasks ranged between 0.23 and 0.42 (Pearson r values). Genetic modelling showed that the covariation between the variables could be explained by shared genetic influences. Neither shared, nor non-shared environment had a significant effect on the associations. Good fit was obtained with a two-factor model where one underlying shared genetic factor explained all the covariation between the musical discrimination tasks and IQ, and a second genetic factor explained variance exclusively shared among the discrimination tasks. The results suggest that positive correlations among musical aptitudes result from both genes with broad effects on cognition, and genes with potentially more specific influences on auditory functions.

Genetic Pleiotropy Explains Associations between Musical Auditory Discrimination and Intelligence

PubMed Central

Mosing, Miriam A.; Pedersen, Nancy L.; Madison, Guy; Ullén, Fredrik

2014-01-01

Musical aptitude is commonly measured using tasks that involve discrimination of different types of musical auditory stimuli. Performance on such different discrimination tasks correlates positively with each other and with intelligence. However, no study to date has explored these associations using a genetically informative sample to estimate underlying genetic and environmental influences. In the present study, a large sample of Swedish twins (N = 10,500) was used to investigate the genetic architecture of the associations between intelligence and performance on three musical auditory discrimination tasks (rhythm, melody and pitch). Phenotypic correlations between the tasks ranged between 0.23 and 0.42 (Pearson r values). Genetic modelling showed that the covariation between the variables could be explained by shared genetic influences. Neither shared, nor non-shared environment had a significant effect on the associations. Good fit was obtained with a two-factor model where one underlying shared genetic factor explained all the covariation between the musical discrimination tasks and IQ, and a second genetic factor explained variance exclusively shared among the discrimination tasks. The results suggest that positive correlations among musical aptitudes result from both genes with broad effects on cognition, and genes with potentially more specific influences on auditory functions. PMID:25419664

Gamma-band activation predicts both associative memory and cortical plasticity

PubMed Central

Headley, Drew B.; Weinberger, Norman M.

2011-01-01

Gamma-band oscillations are a ubiquitous phenomenon in the nervous system and have been implicated in multiple aspects of cognition. In particular, the strength of gamma oscillations at the time a stimulus is encoded predicts its subsequent retrieval, suggesting that gamma may reflect enhanced mnemonic processing. Likewise, activity in the gamma-band can modulate plasticity in vitro. However, it is unclear whether experience-dependent plasticity in vivo is also related to gamma-band activation. The aim of the present study is to determine whether gamma activation in primary auditory cortex modulates both the associative memory for an auditory stimulus during classical conditioning and its accompanying specific receptive field plasticity. Rats received multiple daily sessions of single tone/shock trace and two-tone discrimination conditioning, during which local field potentials and multiunit discharges were recorded from chronically implanted electrodes. We found that the strength of tone-induced gamma predicted the acquisition of associative memory 24 h later, and ceased to predict subsequent performance once asymptote was reached. Gamma activation also predicted receptive field plasticity that specifically enhanced representation of the signal tone. This concordance provides a long-sought link between gamma oscillations, cortical plasticity and the formation of new memories. PMID:21900554

Comparison of fMRI data from passive listening and active-response story processing tasks in children

PubMed Central

Vannest, Jennifer J.; Karunanayaka, Prasanna R.; Altaye, Mekibib; Schmithorst, Vincent J.; Plante, Elena M.; Eaton, Kenneth J.; Rasmussen, Jerod M.; Holland, Scott K.

2009-01-01

Purpose To use functional MRI methods to visualize a network of auditory and language-processing brain regions associated with processing an aurally-presented story. We compare a passive listening (PL) story paradigm to an active-response (AR) version including on-line performance monitoring and a sparse acquisition technique. Materials/Methods Twenty children (ages 11−13) completed PL and AR story processing tasks. The PL version presented alternating 30-second blocks of stories and tones; the AR version presented story segments, comprehension questions, and 5s tone sequences, with fMRI acquisitions between stimuli. fMRI data was analyzed using a general linear model approach and paired t-test identifying significant group activation. Results Both tasks activated in primary auditory cortex, superior temporal gyrus bilaterally, left inferior frontal gyrus. The AR task demonstrated more extensive activation, including dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior/posterior cingulate cortex. Comparison of effect size in each paradigm showed a larger effect for the AR paradigm in a left inferior frontal ROI. Conclusion Activation patterns for story processing in children are similar in passive listening and active-response tasks. Increases in extent and magnitude of activation in the AR task are likely associated with memory and attention resources engaged across acquisition intervals. PMID:19306445

Comparison of fMRI data from passive listening and active-response story processing tasks in children.

PubMed

Vannest, Jennifer J; Karunanayaka, Prasanna R; Altaye, Mekibib; Schmithorst, Vincent J; Plante, Elena M; Eaton, Kenneth J; Rasmussen, Jerod M; Holland, Scott K

2009-04-01

To use functional MRI (fMRI) methods to visualize a network of auditory and language-processing brain regions associated with processing an aurally-presented story. We compare a passive listening (PL) story paradigm to an active-response (AR) version including online performance monitoring and a sparse acquisition technique. Twenty children (ages 11-13 years) completed PL and AR story processing tasks. The PL version presented alternating 30-second blocks of stories and tones; the AR version presented story segments, comprehension questions, and 5-second tone sequences, with fMRI acquisitions between stimuli. fMRI data was analyzed using a general linear model approach and paired t-test identifying significant group activation. Both tasks showed activation in the primary auditory cortex, superior temporal gyrus bilaterally, and left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). The AR task demonstrated more extensive activation, including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior/posterior cingulate cortex. Comparison of effect size in each paradigm showed a larger effect for the AR paradigm in a left inferior frontal region-of-interest (ROI). Activation patterns for story processing in children are similar in PL and AR tasks. Increases in extent and magnitude of activation in the AR task are likely associated with memory and attention resources engaged across acquisition intervals.

Multitasking: Effects of processing multiple auditory feature patterns

PubMed Central

Miller, Tova; Chen, Sufen; Lee, Wei Wei; Sussman, Elyse S.

2016-01-01

ERPs and behavioral responses were measured to assess how task-irrelevant sounds interact with task processing demands and affect the ability to monitor and track multiple sound events. Participants listened to four-tone sequential frequency patterns, and responded to frequency pattern deviants (reversals of the pattern). Irrelevant tone feature patterns (duration and intensity) and respective pattern deviants were presented together with frequency patterns and frequency pattern deviants in separate conditions. Responses to task-relevant and task-irrelevant feature pattern deviants were used to test processing demands for irrelevant sound input. Behavioral performance was significantly better when there were no distracting feature patterns. Errors primarily occurred in response to the to-be-ignored feature pattern deviants. Task-irrelevant elicitation of ERP components was consistent with the error analysis, indicating a level of processing for the irrelevant features. Task-relevant elicitation of ERP components was consistent with behavioral performance, demonstrating a “cost” of performance when there were two feature patterns presented simultaneously. These results provide evidence that the brain tracked the irrelevant duration and intensity feature patterns, affecting behavioral performance. Overall, our results demonstrate that irrelevant informational streams are processed at a cost, which may be considered a type of multitasking that is an ongoing, automatic processing of taskirrelevant sensory events. PMID:25939456

Dysfunctional information processing during an auditory event-related potential task in individuals with Internet gaming disorder

PubMed Central

Park, M; Choi, J-S; Park, S M; Lee, J-Y; Jung, H Y; Sohn, B K; Kim, S N; Kim, D J; Kwon, J S

2016-01-01

Internet gaming disorder (IGD) leading to serious impairments in cognitive, psychological and social functions has gradually been increasing. However, very few studies conducted to date have addressed issues related to the event-related potential (ERP) patterns in IGD. Identifying the neurobiological characteristics of IGD is important to elucidate the pathophysiology of this condition. P300 is a useful ERP component for investigating electrophysiological features of the brain. The aims of the present study were to investigate differences between patients with IGD and healthy controls (HCs), with regard to the P300 component of the ERP during an auditory oddball task, and to examine the relationship of this component to the severity of IGD symptoms in identifying the relevant neurophysiological features of IGD. Twenty-six patients diagnosed with IGD and 23 age-, sex-, education- and intelligence quotient-matched HCs participated in this study. During an auditory oddball task, participants had to respond to the rare, deviant tones presented in a sequence of frequent, standard tones. The IGD group exhibited a significant reduction in response to deviant tones compared with the HC group in the P300 amplitudes at the midline centro-parietal electrode regions. We also found a negative correlation between the severity of IGD and P300 amplitudes. The reduced amplitude of the P300 component in an auditory oddball task may reflect dysfunction in auditory information processing and cognitive capabilities in IGD. These findings suggest that reduced P300 amplitudes may be candidate neurobiological marker for IGD. PMID:26812042

Dysfunctional information processing during an auditory event-related potential task in individuals with Internet gaming disorder.

PubMed

Park, M; Choi, J-S; Park, S M; Lee, J-Y; Jung, H Y; Sohn, B K; Kim, S N; Kim, D J; Kwon, J S

2016-01-26

Internet gaming disorder (IGD) leading to serious impairments in cognitive, psychological and social functions has gradually been increasing. However, very few studies conducted to date have addressed issues related to the event-related potential (ERP) patterns in IGD. Identifying the neurobiological characteristics of IGD is important to elucidate the pathophysiology of this condition. P300 is a useful ERP component for investigating electrophysiological features of the brain. The aims of the present study were to investigate differences between patients with IGD and healthy controls (HCs), with regard to the P300 component of the ERP during an auditory oddball task, and to examine the relationship of this component to the severity of IGD symptoms in identifying the relevant neurophysiological features of IGD. Twenty-six patients diagnosed with IGD and 23 age-, sex-, education- and intelligence quotient-matched HCs participated in this study. During an auditory oddball task, participants had to respond to the rare, deviant tones presented in a sequence of frequent, standard tones. The IGD group exhibited a significant reduction in response to deviant tones compared with the HC group in the P300 amplitudes at the midline centro-parietal electrode regions. We also found a negative correlation between the severity of IGD and P300 amplitudes. The reduced amplitude of the P300 component in an auditory oddball task may reflect dysfunction in auditory information processing and cognitive capabilities in IGD. These findings suggest that reduced P300 amplitudes may be candidate neurobiological marker for IGD.

Analysis of high-pitched phonation using three-dimensional computed tomography.

PubMed

Hiramatsu, Hiroyuki; Tokashiki, Ryoji; Nakamura, Hirokazu; Motohashi, Ray; Sakurai, Eriko; Nomoto, Masaki; Toyomura, Fumimasa; Suzuki, Mamoru

2012-09-01

Our aim was to use three-dimensional computed tomography (3DCT) to examine arytenoid cartilage movement during a high-pitched tone task. This was a prospective study. This study included 14 patients with male-to-female gender identity disorder who had undergone 3DCT imaging for surgical simulation between January 2007 and May 2008. First, to prove that the phonation condition was indeed one of the high-pitched phonation, we confirmed the rotational movement of the thyroid cartilage, horizontal gliding movement of the inferior horn, and vocal fold elongation on a high-pitched tone task. Next, we detected the arytenoid cartilage positions of the joint during a comparison of comfortable and high-pitched phonations. We measured the movement direction and movement distance of the arytenoid cartilage. In all cases, the cricothyroid space became narrower (rotation movement), and we observed anterior gliding movement of the inferior horn. In all cases, elongation of the vocal folds by the high-pitched phonation was confirmed and the arytenoid cartilages were displaced both anteriorly and caudally from the position during comfortable phonation by the high-pitched tone task. The arytenoid cartilages did not move posteriorly to elongate the vocal folds during high-pitched phonation. The arytenoid cartilages were pulled anteriorly and moved caudally because of tension associated with vocal fold elongation because of the task of high-pitched phonation. These results suggest that there are no movements at the cricoarytenoid joint that directly control the length of the vocal folds in accordance with pitch. Copyright © 2012 The Voice Foundation. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

Clinical experience with the words-in-noise test on 3430 veterans: comparisons with pure-tone thresholds and word recognition in quiet.

PubMed

Wilson, Richard H

2011-01-01

Since the 1940s, measures of pure-tone sensitivity and speech recognition in quiet have been vital components of the audiologic evaluation. Although early investigators urged that speech recognition in noise also should be a component of the audiologic evaluation, only recently has this suggestion started to become a reality. This report focuses on the Words-in-Noise (WIN) Test, which evaluates word recognition in multitalker babble at seven signal-to-noise ratios and uses the 50% correct point (in dB SNR) calculated with the Spearman-Kärber equation as the primary metric. The WIN was developed and validated in a series of 12 laboratory studies. The current study examined the effectiveness of the WIN materials for measuring the word-recognition performance of patients in a typical clinical setting. To examine the relations among three audiometric measures including pure-tone thresholds, word-recognition performances in quiet, and word-recognition performances in multitalker babble for veterans seeking remediation for their hearing loss. Retrospective, descriptive. The participants were 3430 veterans who for the most part were evaluated consecutively in the Audiology Clinic at the VA Medical Center, Mountain Home, Tennessee. The mean age was 62.3 yr (SD = 12.8 yr). The data were collected in the course of a 60 min routine audiologic evaluation. A history, otoscopy, and aural-acoustic immittance measures also were included in the clinic protocol but were not evaluated in this report. Overall, the 1000-8000 Hz thresholds were significantly lower (better) in the right ear (RE) than in the left ear (LE). There was a direct relation between age and the pure-tone thresholds, with greater change across age in the high frequencies than in the low frequencies. Notched audiograms at 4000 Hz were observed in at least one ear in 41% of the participants with more unilateral than bilateral notches. Normal pure-tone thresholds (≤20 dB HL) were obtained from 6% of the participants. Maximum performance on the Northwestern University Auditory Test No. 6 (NU-6) in quiet was ≥90% correct by 50% of the participants, with an additional 20% performing at ≥80% correct; the RE performed 1-3% better than the LE. Of the 3291 who completed the WIN on both ears, only 7% exhibited normal performance (50% correct point of ≤6 dB SNR). Overall, WIN performance was significantly better in the RE (mean = 13.3 dB SNR) than in the LE (mean = 13.8 dB SNR). Recognition performance on both the NU-6 and the WIN decreased as a function of both pure-tone hearing loss and age. There was a stronger relation between the high-frequency pure-tone average (1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz) and the WIN than between the pure-tone average (500, 1000, and 2000 Hz) and the WIN. The results on the WIN from both the previous laboratory studies and the current clinical study indicate that the WIN is an appropriate clinic instrument to assess word-recognition performance in background noise. Recognition performance on a speech-in-quiet task does not predict performance on a speech-in-noise task, as the two tasks reflect different domains of auditory function. Experience with the WIN indicates that word-in-noise tasks should be considered the "stress test" for auditory function. American Academy of Audiology.

Tactile discrimination activates the visual cortex of the recently blind naive to Braille: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study in humans.

PubMed

Sadato, Norihiro; Okada, Tomohisa; Kubota, Kiyokazu; Yonekura, Yoshiharu

2004-04-08

The occipital cortex of blind subjects is known to be activated during tactile discrimination tasks such as Braille reading. To investigate whether this is due to long-term learning of Braille or to sensory deafferentation, we used fMRI to study tactile discrimination tasks in subjects who had recently lost their sight and never learned Braille. The occipital cortex of the blind subjects without Braille training was activated during the tactile discrimination task, whereas that of control sighted subjects was not. This finding suggests that the activation of the visual cortex of the blind during performance of a tactile discrimination task may be due to sensory deafferentation, wherein a competitive imbalance favors the tactile over the visual modality.

A robotic test of proprioception within the hemiparetic arm post-stroke.

PubMed

Simo, Lucia; Botzer, Lior; Ghez, Claude; Scheidt, Robert A

2014-04-30

Proprioception plays important roles in planning and control of limb posture and movement. The impact of proprioceptive deficits on motor function post-stroke has been difficult to elucidate due to limitations in current tests of arm proprioception. Common clinical tests only provide ordinal assessment of proprioceptive integrity (eg. intact, impaired or absent). We introduce a standardized, quantitative method for evaluating proprioception within the arm on a continuous, ratio scale. We demonstrate the approach, which is based on signal detection theory of sensory psychophysics, in two tasks used to characterize motor function after stroke. Hemiparetic stroke survivors and neurologically intact participants attempted to detect displacement- or force-perturbations robotically applied to their arm in a two-interval, two-alternative forced-choice test. A logistic psychometric function parameterized detection of limb perturbations. The shape of this function is determined by two parameters: one corresponds to a signal detection threshold and the other to variability of responses about that threshold. These two parameters define a space in which proprioceptive sensation post-stroke can be compared to that of neurologically-intact people. We used an auditory tone discrimination task to control for potential comprehension, attention and memory deficits. All but one stroke survivor demonstrated competence in performing two-alternative discrimination in the auditory training test. For the remaining stroke survivors, those with clinically identified proprioceptive deficits in the hemiparetic arm or hand had higher detection thresholds and exhibited greater response variability than individuals without proprioceptive deficits. We then identified a normative parameter space determined by the threshold and response variability data collected from neurologically intact participants. By plotting displacement detection performance within this normative space, stroke survivors with and without intact proprioception could be discriminated on a continuous scale that was sensitive to small performance variations, e.g. practice effects across days. The proposed method uses robotic perturbations similar to those used in ongoing studies of motor function post-stroke. The approach is sensitive to small changes in the proprioceptive detection of hand motions. We expect this new robotic assessment will empower future studies to characterize how proprioceptive deficits compromise limb posture and movement control in stroke survivors.

Change detection technique for muscle tone during static stretching by continuous muscle viscoelasticity monitoring using wearable indentation tester.

PubMed

Okamura, Naomi; Kobayashi, Yo; Sugano, Shigeki; Fujie, Masakatsu G

2017-07-01

Static stretching is widely performed to decrease muscle tone as a part of rehabilitation protocols. Finding out the optimal duration of static stretching is important to minimize the time required for rehabilitation therapy and it would be helpful for maintaining the patient's motivation towards daily rehabilitation tasks. Several studies have been conducted for the evaluation of static stretching; however, the recommended duration of static stretching varies widely between 15-30 s in general, because the traditional methods for the assessment of muscle tone do not monitor the continuous change in the target muscle's state. We have developed a method to monitor the viscoelasticity of one muscle continuously during static stretching, using a wearable indentation tester. In this study, we investigated a suitable signal processing method to detect the time required to change the muscle tone, utilizing the data collected using a wearable indentation tester. By calculating a viscoelastic index with a certain time window, we confirmed that the stretching duration required to bring about a decrease in muscle tone could be obtained with an accuracy in the order of 1 s.

Item-nonspecific proactive interference in monkeys' auditory short-term memory.

PubMed

Bigelow, James; Poremba, Amy

2015-09-01

Recent studies using the delayed matching-to-sample (DMS) paradigm indicate that monkeys' auditory short-term memory (STM) is susceptible to proactive interference (PI). During the task, subjects must indicate whether sample and test sounds separated by a retention interval are identical (match) or not (nonmatch). If a nonmatching test stimulus also occurred on a previous trial, monkeys are more likely to incorrectly make a "match" response (item-specific PI). However, it is not known whether PI may be caused by sounds presented on prior trials that are similar, but nonidentical to the current test stimulus (item-nonspecific PI). This possibility was investigated in two experiments. In Experiment 1, memoranda for each trial comprised tones with a wide range of frequencies, thus minimizing item-specific PI and producing a range of frequency differences among nonidentical tones. In Experiment 2, memoranda were drawn from a set of eight artificial sounds that differed from each other by one, two, or three acoustic dimensions (frequency, spectral bandwidth, and temporal dynamics). Results from both experiments indicate that subjects committed more errors when previously-presented sounds were acoustically similar (though not identical) to the test stimulus of the current trial. Significant effects were produced only by stimuli from the immediately previous trial, suggesting that item-nonspecific PI is less perseverant than item-specific PI, which can extend across noncontiguous trials. Our results contribute to existing human and animal STM literature reporting item-nonspecific PI caused by perceptual similarity among memoranda. Together, these observations underscore the significance of both temporal and discriminability factors in monkeys' STM. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Diminished n1 auditory evoked potentials to oddball stimuli in misophonia patients.

PubMed

Schröder, Arjan; van Diepen, Rosanne; Mazaheri, Ali; Petropoulos-Petalas, Diamantis; Soto de Amesti, Vicente; Vulink, Nienke; Denys, Damiaan

2014-01-01

Misophonia (hatred of sound) is a newly defined psychiatric condition in which ordinary human sounds, such as breathing and eating, trigger impulsive aggression. In the current study, we investigated if a dysfunction in the brain's early auditory processing system could be present in misophonia. We screened 20 patients with misophonia with the diagnostic criteria for misophonia, and 14 matched healthy controls without misophonia, and investigated any potential deficits in auditory processing of misophonia patients using auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) during an oddball task. Subjects watched a neutral silent movie while being presented a regular frequency of beep sounds in which oddball tones of 250 and 4000 Hz were randomly embedded in a stream of repeated 1000 Hz standard tones. We examined the P1, N1, and P2 components locked to the onset of the tones. For misophonia patients, the N1 peak evoked by the oddball tones had smaller mean peak amplitude than the control group. However, no significant differences were found in P1 and P2 components evoked by the oddball tones. There were no significant differences between the misophonia patients and their controls in any of the ERP components to the standard tones. The diminished N1 component to oddball tones in misophonia patients suggests an underlying neurobiological deficit in misophonia patients. This reduction might reflect a basic impairment in auditory processing in misophonia patients.

Perceptual learning of basic visual features remains task specific with Training-Plus-Exposure (TPE) training.

PubMed

Cong, Lin-Juan; Wang, Ru-Jie; Yu, Cong; Zhang, Jun-Yun

2016-01-01

Visual perceptual learning is known to be specific to the trained retinal location, feature, and task. However, location and feature specificity can be eliminated by double-training or TPE training protocols, in which observers receive additional exposure to the transfer location or feature dimension via an irrelevant task besides the primary learning task Here we tested whether these new training protocols could even make learning transfer across different tasks involving discrimination of basic visual features (e.g., orientation and contrast). Observers practiced a near-threshold orientation (or contrast) discrimination task. Following a TPE training protocol, they also received exposure to the transfer task via performing suprathreshold contrast (or orientation) discrimination in alternating blocks of trials in the same sessions. The results showed no evidence for significant learning transfer to the untrained near-threshold contrast (or orientation) discrimination task after discounting the pretest effects and the suprathreshold practice effects. These results thus do not support a hypothetical task-independent component in perceptual learning of basic visual features. They also set the boundary of the new training protocols in their capability to enable learning transfer.

You 'have' to hear this: Using tone of voice to motivate others.

PubMed

Weinstein, Netta; Zougkou, Konstantina; Paulmann, Silke

2018-06-01

The present studies explored the role of prosody in motivating others, and applied self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000) to do so. Initial studies describe patterns of prosody that discriminate motivational speech. Autonomy support was expressed with lower intensity, slower speech rate and less voice energy in both motivationally laden and neutral (but motivationally primed) sentences. In a follow-up study, participants were able to recognize motivational prosody in semantically neutral sentences, suggesting prosody alone may carry motivational content. Findings from subsequent studies also showed that an autonomy-supportive as compared with a controlling tone facilitated positive personal (perceived choice and lower perceived pressure, well-being) and interpersonal (closeness to others and prosocial behaviors) outcomes commonly linked to this type of motivation. Results inform both the social psychology (in particular motivation) and psycho-linguistic (in particular prosody) literatures and offer a first description of how motivational tone alone can shape listeners' experiences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Perceptual Grouping Affects Pitch Judgments Across Time and Frequency

PubMed Central

Borchert, Elizabeth M. O.; Micheyl, Christophe; Oxenham, Andrew J.

2010-01-01

Pitch, the perceptual correlate of fundamental frequency (F0), plays an important role in speech, music and animal vocalizations. Changes in F0 over time help define musical melodies and speech prosody, while comparisons of simultaneous F0 are important for musical harmony, and for segregating competing sound sources. This study compared listeners’ ability to detect differences in F0 between pairs of sequential or simultaneous tones that were filtered into separate, non-overlapping spectral regions. The timbre differences induced by filtering led to poor F0 discrimination in the sequential, but not the simultaneous, conditions. Temporal overlap of the two tones was not sufficient to produce good performance; instead performance appeared to depend on the two tones being integrated into the same perceptual object. The results confirm the difficulty of comparing the pitches of sequential sounds with different timbres and suggest that, for simultaneous sounds, pitch differences may be detected through a decrease in perceptual fusion rather than an explicit coding and comparison of the underlying F0s. PMID:21077719

Affective attention under cognitive load: reduced emotional biases but emergent anxiety-related costs to inhibitory control

PubMed Central

Berggren, Nick; Richards, Anne; Taylor, Joseph; Derakshan, Nazanin

2013-01-01

Trait anxiety is associated with deficits in attentional control, particularly in the ability to inhibit prepotent responses. Here, we investigated this effect while varying the level of cognitive load in a modified antisaccade task that employed emotional facial expressions (neutral, happy, and angry) as targets. Load was manipulated using a secondary auditory task requiring recognition of tones (low load), or recognition of specific tone pitch (high load). Results showed that load increased antisaccade latencies on trials where gaze toward face stimuli should be inhibited. This effect was exacerbated for high anxious individuals. Emotional expression also modulated task performance on antisaccade trials for both high and low anxious participants under low cognitive load, but did not influence performance under high load. Collectively, results (1) suggest that individuals reporting high levels of anxiety are particularly vulnerable to the effects of cognitive load on inhibition, and (2) support recent evidence that loading cognitive processes can reduce emotional influences on attention and cognition. PMID:23717273

An fMRI study of facial emotion processing in patients with schizophrenia.

PubMed

Gur, Raquel E; McGrath, Claire; Chan, Robin M; Schroeder, Lee; Turner, Travis; Turetsky, Bruce I; Kohler, Christian; Alsop, David; Maldjian, Joseph; Ragland, J Daniel; Gur, Ruben C

2002-12-01

Emotion processing deficits are notable in schizophrenia. The authors evaluated cerebral blood flow response in schizophrenia patients during facial emotion processing to test the hypothesis of diminished limbic activation related to emotional relevance of facial stimuli. Fourteen patients with schizophrenia and 14 matched comparison subjects viewed facial displays of happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust as well as neutral faces. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to measure blood-oxygen-level-dependent signal changes as the subjects alternated between tasks of discriminating emotional valence (positive versus negative) and age (over 30 versus under 30) of the faces with an interleaved crosshair reference condition. The groups did not differ in performance on either task. For both tasks, healthy participants showed activation in the fusiform gyrus, occipital lobe, and inferior frontal cortex relative to the resting baseline condition. The increase was greater in the amygdala and hippocampus during the emotional valence discrimination task than during the age discrimination task. In the patients with schizophrenia, minimal focal response was observed for all tasks relative to the resting baseline condition. Contrasting patients and comparison subjects on the emotional valence discrimination task revealed voxels in the left amygdala and bilateral hippocampus in which the comparison subjects had significantly greater activation. Failure to activate limbic regions during emotional valence discrimination may explain emotion processing deficits in patients with schizophrenia. While the lack of limbic recruitment did not significantly impair simple valence discrimination performance in this clinically stable group, it may impact performance of more demanding tasks.

Between- and within-Ear Congruency and Laterality Effects in an Auditory Semantic/Emotional Prosody Conflict Task

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Techentin, Cheryl; Voyer, Daniel; Klein, Raymond M.

2009-01-01

The present study investigated the influence of within- and between-ear congruency on interference and laterality effects in an auditory semantic/prosodic conflict task. Participants were presented dichotically with words (e.g., mad, sad, glad) pronounced in either congruent or incongruent emotional tones (e.g., angry, happy, or sad) and…

Attending to the Execution of a Complex Sensorimotor Skill: Expertise Differences, Choking, and Slumps

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gray, Rob

2004-01-01

A simulated baseball batting task was used to compare the relative effects of attending to extraneous information (tone frequency) and attending to skill execution (direction of bat movement) on performance and swing kinematics and to evaluate how these effects differ as a function of expertise. The extraneous dual task degraded batting…

Human Factors Engineering Bibliographic Series. Volume 2: 1960-1964 Literature

DTIC Science & Technology

1966-10-01

flutter discrimination, melodic and temporal) binaural vs. monaural equipment and methods (e.g., anechoic chambers, audiometric devices, communication...brightness, duration, timbre, vocality) stimulus mixtures (e.g., harmonics, beats , combination tones, modulations) thresholds training, nonverbal--see Training...scales and aids) Beats --see Audition (stimulus mixtures) Bells--see Auditory (displays, nonverbal) Belts, Harnesses, and other Restraining Devices--see

Auditory Processing, Linguistic Prosody Awareness, and Word Reading in Mandarin-Speaking Children Learning English

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chung, Wei-Lun; Jarmulowicz, Linda; Bidelman, Gavin M.

2017-01-01

This study examined language-specific links among auditory processing, linguistic prosody awareness, and Mandarin (L1) and English (L2) word reading in 61 Mandarin-speaking, English-learning children. Three auditory discrimination abilities were measured: pitch contour, pitch interval, and rise time (rate of intensity change at tone onset).…

A Beta Oscillation Network in the Rat Olfactory System During a 2-Alternative Choice Odor Discrimination Task

PubMed Central

Beshel, Jennifer

2010-01-01

We previously showed that in a two-alternative choice (2AC) task, olfactory bulb (OB) gamma oscillations (∼70 Hz in rats) were enhanced during discrimination of structurally similar odorants (fine discrimination) versus discrimination of dissimilar odorants (coarse discrimination). In other studies (mostly employing go/no-go tasks) in multiple labs, beta oscillations (15–35 Hz) dominate the local field potential (LFP) signal in olfactory areas during odor sampling. Here we analyzed the beta frequency band power and pairwise coherence in the 2AC task. We show that in a task dominated by gamma in the OB, beta oscillations are also present in three interconnected olfactory areas (OB and anterior and posterior pyriform cortex). Only the beta band showed consistently elevated coherence during odor sniffing across all odor pairs, classes (alcohols and ketones), and discrimination types (fine and coarse), with stronger effects in first than in final criterion sessions (>70% correct). In the first sessions for fine discrimination odor pairs, beta power for incorrect trials was the same as that for correct trials for the other odor in the pair. This pattern was not repeated in coarse discrimination, in which beta power was elevated for correct relative to incorrect trials. This difference between fine and coarse odor discriminations may relate to different behavioral strategies for learning to differentiate similar versus dissimilar odors. Phase analysis showed that the OB led both pyriform areas in the beta frequency band during odor sniffing. We conclude that the beta band may be the means by which information is transmitted from the OB to higher order areas, even though task specifics modify dominance of one frequency band over another within the OB. PMID:20538778

Transfer of perceptual learning between different visual tasks

PubMed Central

McGovern, David P.; Webb, Ben S.; Peirce, Jonathan W.

2012-01-01

Practice in most sensory tasks substantially improves perceptual performance. A hallmark of this ‘perceptual learning' is its specificity for the basic attributes of the trained stimulus and task. Recent studies have challenged the specificity of learned improvements, although transfer between substantially different tasks has yet to be demonstrated. Here, we measure the degree of transfer between three distinct perceptual tasks. Participants trained on an orientation discrimination, a curvature discrimination, or a ‘global form' task, all using stimuli comprised of multiple oriented elements. Before and after training they were tested on all three and a contrast discrimination control task. A clear transfer of learning was observed, in a pattern predicted by the relative complexity of the stimuli in the training and test tasks. Our results suggest that sensory improvements derived from perceptual learning can transfer between very different visual tasks. PMID:23048211

Transfer of perceptual learning between different visual tasks.

PubMed

McGovern, David P; Webb, Ben S; Peirce, Jonathan W

2012-10-09

Practice in most sensory tasks substantially improves perceptual performance. A hallmark of this 'perceptual learning' is its specificity for the basic attributes of the trained stimulus and task. Recent studies have challenged the specificity of learned improvements, although transfer between substantially different tasks has yet to be demonstrated. Here, we measure the degree of transfer between three distinct perceptual tasks. Participants trained on an orientation discrimination, a curvature discrimination, or a 'global form' task, all using stimuli comprised of multiple oriented elements. Before and after training they were tested on all three and a contrast discrimination control task. A clear transfer of learning was observed, in a pattern predicted by the relative complexity of the stimuli in the training and test tasks. Our results suggest that sensory improvements derived from perceptual learning can transfer between very different visual tasks.

The effects of tones in noise on human annoyance and performance

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Joonhee

Building mechanical equipment often generates prominent tones because most systems include rotating parts like fans and pumps. These tonal noises can cause unpleasant user experiences in spaces and, in turn, lead to increased complaints by building occupants. Currently, architectural engineers can apply the noise criteria guidelines in standards or publications to achieve acceptable noise conditions for assorted types of spaces. However, these criteria do not apply well if the noise contains perceptible tones. The annoyance thresholds experienced by the general population with regards to the degree of tones in noise is a significant piece of knowledge that has not been well-established. Thus, this dissertation addresses the relationship between human perception and noises with tones in the built environment. Four phases of subjective testing were conducted in an indoor acoustic testing chamber at the University of Nebraska to achieve the research objective. The results indicate that even the least prominent tones in noises can significantly decrease the cognitive performance of participants on a mentally demanding task. Factorial repeated-measures analysis of variance of test results have proven that tonality has a crucial influence on working memory capacity of subjects, whereas loudness levels alone did not. A multidimensional annoyance model, incorporating psycho-acoustical attributes of noise in addition to loudness and tonality, has been proposed as a more accurate annoyance model.

Task-specific image partitioning.

PubMed

Kim, Sungwoong; Nowozin, Sebastian; Kohli, Pushmeet; Yoo, Chang D

2013-02-01

Image partitioning is an important preprocessing step for many of the state-of-the-art algorithms used for performing high-level computer vision tasks. Typically, partitioning is conducted without regard to the task in hand. We propose a task-specific image partitioning framework to produce a region-based image representation that will lead to a higher task performance than that reached using any task-oblivious partitioning framework and existing supervised partitioning framework, albeit few in number. The proposed method partitions the image by means of correlation clustering, maximizing a linear discriminant function defined over a superpixel graph. The parameters of the discriminant function that define task-specific similarity/dissimilarity among superpixels are estimated based on structured support vector machine (S-SVM) using task-specific training data. The S-SVM learning leads to a better generalization ability while the construction of the superpixel graph used to define the discriminant function allows a rich set of features to be incorporated to improve discriminability and robustness. We evaluate the learned task-aware partitioning algorithms on three benchmark datasets. Results show that task-aware partitioning leads to better labeling performance than the partitioning computed by the state-of-the-art general-purpose and supervised partitioning algorithms. We believe that the task-specific image partitioning paradigm is widely applicable to improving performance in high-level image understanding tasks.

Brainstem encoding of speech and musical stimuli in congenital amusia: evidence from Cantonese speakers

PubMed Central

Liu, Fang; Maggu, Akshay R.; Lau, Joseph C. Y.; Wong, Patrick C. M.

2015-01-01

Congenital amusia is a neurodevelopmental disorder of musical processing that also impacts subtle aspects of speech processing. It remains debated at what stage(s) of auditory processing deficits in amusia arise. In this study, we investigated whether amusia originates from impaired subcortical encoding of speech (in quiet and noise) and musical sounds in the brainstem. Fourteen Cantonese-speaking amusics and 14 matched controls passively listened to six Cantonese lexical tones in quiet, two Cantonese tones in noise (signal-to-noise ratios at 0 and 20 dB), and two cello tones in quiet while their frequency-following responses (FFRs) to these tones were recorded. All participants also completed a behavioral lexical tone identification task. The results indicated normal brainstem encoding of pitch in speech (in quiet and noise) and musical stimuli in amusics relative to controls, as measured by FFR pitch strength, pitch error, and stimulus-to-response correlation. There was also no group difference in neural conduction time or FFR amplitudes. Both groups demonstrated better FFRs to speech (in quiet and noise) than to musical stimuli. However, a significant group difference was observed for tone identification, with amusics showing significantly lower accuracy than controls. Analysis of the tone confusion matrices suggested that amusics were more likely than controls to confuse between tones that shared similar acoustic features. Interestingly, this deficit in lexical tone identification was not coupled with brainstem abnormality for either speech or musical stimuli. Together, our results suggest that the amusic brainstem is not functioning abnormally, although higher-order linguistic pitch processing is impaired in amusia. This finding has significant implications for theories of central auditory processing, requiring further investigations into how different stages of auditory processing interact in the human brain. PMID:25646077

Brainstem encoding of speech and musical stimuli in congenital amusia: evidence from Cantonese speakers.

PubMed

Liu, Fang; Maggu, Akshay R; Lau, Joseph C Y; Wong, Patrick C M

2014-01-01

Congenital amusia is a neurodevelopmental disorder of musical processing that also impacts subtle aspects of speech processing. It remains debated at what stage(s) of auditory processing deficits in amusia arise. In this study, we investigated whether amusia originates from impaired subcortical encoding of speech (in quiet and noise) and musical sounds in the brainstem. Fourteen Cantonese-speaking amusics and 14 matched controls passively listened to six Cantonese lexical tones in quiet, two Cantonese tones in noise (signal-to-noise ratios at 0 and 20 dB), and two cello tones in quiet while their frequency-following responses (FFRs) to these tones were recorded. All participants also completed a behavioral lexical tone identification task. The results indicated normal brainstem encoding of pitch in speech (in quiet and noise) and musical stimuli in amusics relative to controls, as measured by FFR pitch strength, pitch error, and stimulus-to-response correlation. There was also no group difference in neural conduction time or FFR amplitudes. Both groups demonstrated better FFRs to speech (in quiet and noise) than to musical stimuli. However, a significant group difference was observed for tone identification, with amusics showing significantly lower accuracy than controls. Analysis of the tone confusion matrices suggested that amusics were more likely than controls to confuse between tones that shared similar acoustic features. Interestingly, this deficit in lexical tone identification was not coupled with brainstem abnormality for either speech or musical stimuli. Together, our results suggest that the amusic brainstem is not functioning abnormally, although higher-order linguistic pitch processing is impaired in amusia. This finding has significant implications for theories of central auditory processing, requiring further investigations into how different stages of auditory processing interact in the human brain.

Binaural auditory beats affect vigilance performance and mood.

PubMed

Lane, J D; Kasian, S J; Owens, J E; Marsh, G R

1998-01-01

When two tones of slightly different frequency are presented separately to the left and right ears the listener perceives a single tone that varies in amplitude at a frequency equal to the frequency difference between the two tones, a perceptual phenomenon known as the binaural auditory beat. Anecdotal reports suggest that binaural auditory beats within the electroencephalograph frequency range can entrain EEG activity and may affect states of consciousness, although few scientific studies have been published. This study compared the effects of binaural auditory beats in the EEG beta and EEG theta/delta frequency ranges on mood and on performance of a vigilance task to investigate their effects on subjective and objective measures of arousal. Participants (n = 29) performed a 30-min visual vigilance task on three different days while listening to pink noise containing simple tones or binaural beats either in the beta range (16 and 24 Hz) or the theta/delta range (1.5 and 4 Hz). However, participants were kept blind to the presence of binaural beats to control expectation effects. Presentation of beta-frequency binaural beats yielded more correct target detections and fewer false alarms than presentation of theta/delta frequency binaural beats. In addition, the beta-frequency beats were associated with less negative mood. Results suggest that the presentation of binaural auditory beats can affect psychomotor performance and mood. This technology may have applications for the control of attention and arousal and the enhancement of human performance.

Task-dependent color discrimination

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Poirson, Allen B.; Wandell, Brian A.

1990-01-01

When color video displays are used in time-critical applications (e.g., head-up displays, video control panels), the observer must discriminate among briefly presented targets seen within a complex spatial scene. Color-discrimination threshold are compared by using two tasks. In one task the observer makes color matches between two halves of a continuously displayed bipartite field. In a second task the observer detects a color target in a set of briefly presented objects. The data from both tasks are well summarized by ellipsoidal isosensitivity contours. The fitted ellipsoids differ both in their size, which indicates an absolute sensitivity difference, and orientation, which indicates a relative sensitivity difference.

Caring for muscle spasticity or spasms

MedlinePlus

High muscle tone - care; Increased muscle tension - care; Upper motor neuron syndrome - care; Muscle stiffness - care ... and doing daily tasks. Talk with your health care provider or physical therapist first before starting any ...

Anodal transcranial direct current stimulation of right temporoparietal area inhibits self-recognition.

PubMed

Payne, Sophie; Tsakiris, Manos

2017-02-01

Self-other discrimination is a crucial mechanism for social cognition. Neuroimaging and neurostimulation research has pointed to the involvement of the right temporoparietal region in a variety of self-other discrimination tasks. Although repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation over the right temporoparietal area has been shown to disrupt self-other discrimination in face-recognition tasks, no research has investigated the effect of increasing the cortical excitability in this region on self-other face discrimination. Here we used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to investigate changes in self-other discrimination with a video-morphing task in which the participant's face morphed into, or out of, a familiar other's face. The task was performed before and after 20 min of tDCS targeting the right temporoparietal area (anodal, cathodal, or sham stimulation). Differences in task performance following stimulation were taken to indicate a change in self-other discrimination. Following anodal stimulation only, we observed a significant increase in the amount of self-face needed to distinguish between self and other. The findings are discussed in relation to the control of self and other representations and to domain-general theories of social cognition.

Attentional Demand of a Virtual Reality-Based Reaching Task in Nondisabled Older Adults.

PubMed

Chen, Yi-An; Chung, Yu-Chen; Proffitt, Rachel; Wade, Eric; Winstein, Carolee

2015-12-01

Attention during exercise is known to affect performance; however, the attentional demand inherent to virtual reality (VR)-based exercise is not well understood. We used a dual-task paradigm to compare the attentional demands of VR-based and non-VR-based (conventional, real-world) exercise: 22 non-disabled older adults performed a primary reaching task to virtual and real targets in a counterbalanced block order while verbally responding to an unanticipated auditory tone in one third of the trials. The attentional demand of the primary reaching task was inferred from the voice response time (VRT) to the auditory tone. Participants' engagement level and task experience were also obtained using questionnaires. The virtual target condition was more attention demanding (significantly longer VRT) than the real target condition. Secondary analyses revealed a significant interaction between engagement level and target condition on attentional demand. For participants who were highly engaged, attentional demand was high and independent of target condition. However, for those who were less engaged, attentional demand was low and depended on target condition (i.e., virtual > real). These findings add important knowledge to the growing body of research pertaining to the development and application of technology-enhanced exercise for elders and for rehabilitation purposes.

Attentional Demand of a Virtual Reality-Based Reaching Task in Nondisabled Older Adults

PubMed Central

Chen, Yi-An; Chung, Yu-Chen; Proffitt, Rachel; Wade, Eric; Winstein, Carolee

2015-01-01

Attention during exercise is known to affect performance; however, the attentional demand inherent to virtual reality (VR)-based exercise is not well understood. We used a dual-task paradigm to compare the attentional demands of VR-based and non-VR-based (conventional, real-world) exercise: 22 non-disabled older adults performed a primary reaching task to virtual and real targets in a counterbalanced block order while verbally responding to an unanticipated auditory tone in one third of the trials. The attentional demand of the primary reaching task was inferred from the voice response time (VRT) to the auditory tone. Participants' engagement level and task experience were also obtained using questionnaires. The virtual target condition was more attention demanding (significantly longer VRT) than the real target condition. Secondary analyses revealed a significant interaction between engagement level and target condition on attentional demand. For participants who were highly engaged, attentional demand was high and independent of target condition. However, for those who were less engaged, attentional demand was low and depended on target condition (i.e., virtual > real). These findings add important knowledge to the growing body of research pertaining to the development and application of technology-enhanced exercise for elders and for rehabilitation purposes. PMID:27004233

A New Test of Attention in Listening (TAIL) Predicts Auditory Performance

PubMed Central

Zhang, Yu-Xuan; Barry, Johanna G.; Moore, David R.; Amitay, Sygal

2012-01-01

Attention modulates auditory perception, but there are currently no simple tests that specifically quantify this modulation. To fill the gap, we developed a new, easy-to-use test of attention in listening (TAIL) based on reaction time. On each trial, two clearly audible tones were presented sequentially, either at the same or different ears. The frequency of the tones was also either the same or different (by at least two critical bands). When the task required same/different frequency judgments, presentation at the same ear significantly speeded responses and reduced errors. A same/different ear (location) judgment was likewise facilitated by keeping tone frequency constant. Perception was thus influenced by involuntary orienting of attention along the task-irrelevant dimension. When information in the two stimulus dimensions were congruent (same-frequency same-ear, or different-frequency different-ear), response was faster and more accurate than when they were incongruent (same-frequency different-ear, or different-frequency same-ear), suggesting the involvement of executive control to resolve conflicts. In total, the TAIL yielded five independent outcome measures: (1) baseline reaction time, indicating information processing efficiency, (2) involuntary orienting of attention to frequency and (3) location, and (4) conflict resolution for frequency and (5) location. Processing efficiency and conflict resolution accounted for up to 45% of individual variances in the low- and high-threshold variants of three psychoacoustic tasks assessing temporal and spectral processing. Involuntary orientation of attention to the irrelevant dimension did not correlate with perceptual performance on these tasks. Given that TAIL measures are unlikely to be limited by perceptual sensitivity, we suggest that the correlations reflect modulation of perceptual performance by attention. The TAIL thus has the power to identify and separate contributions of different components of attention to auditory perception. PMID:23300934

Working memory resources are shared across sensory modalities.

PubMed

Salmela, V R; Moisala, M; Alho, K

2014-10-01

A common assumption in the working memory literature is that the visual and auditory modalities have separate and independent memory stores. Recent evidence on visual working memory has suggested that resources are shared between representations, and that the precision of representations sets the limit for memory performance. We tested whether memory resources are also shared across sensory modalities. Memory precision for two visual (spatial frequency and orientation) and two auditory (pitch and tone duration) features was measured separately for each feature and for all possible feature combinations. Thus, only the memory load was varied, from one to four features, while keeping the stimuli similar. In Experiment 1, two gratings and two tones-both containing two varying features-were presented simultaneously. In Experiment 2, two gratings and two tones-each containing only one varying feature-were presented sequentially. The memory precision (delayed discrimination threshold) for a single feature was close to the perceptual threshold. However, as the number of features to be remembered was increased, the discrimination thresholds increased more than twofold. Importantly, the decrease in memory precision did not depend on the modality of the other feature(s), or on whether the features were in the same or in separate objects. Hence, simultaneously storing one visual and one auditory feature had an effect on memory precision equal to those of simultaneously storing two visual or two auditory features. The results show that working memory is limited by the precision of the stored representations, and that working memory can be described as a resource pool that is shared across modalities.

Perceptual learning of basic visual features remains task specific with Training-Plus-Exposure (TPE) training

PubMed Central

Cong, Lin-Juan; Wang, Ru-Jie; Yu, Cong; Zhang, Jun-Yun

2016-01-01

Visual perceptual learning is known to be specific to the trained retinal location, feature, and task. However, location and feature specificity can be eliminated by double-training or TPE training protocols, in which observers receive additional exposure to the transfer location or feature dimension via an irrelevant task besides the primary learning task Here we tested whether these new training protocols could even make learning transfer across different tasks involving discrimination of basic visual features (e.g., orientation and contrast). Observers practiced a near-threshold orientation (or contrast) discrimination task. Following a TPE training protocol, they also received exposure to the transfer task via performing suprathreshold contrast (or orientation) discrimination in alternating blocks of trials in the same sessions. The results showed no evidence for significant learning transfer to the untrained near-threshold contrast (or orientation) discrimination task after discounting the pretest effects and the suprathreshold practice effects. These results thus do not support a hypothetical task-independent component in perceptual learning of basic visual features. They also set the boundary of the new training protocols in their capability to enable learning transfer. PMID:26873777

Understanding the neurophysiological basis of auditory abilities for social communication: a perspective on the value of ethological paradigms.

PubMed

Bennur, Sharath; Tsunada, Joji; Cohen, Yale E; Liu, Robert C

2013-11-01

Acoustic communication between animals requires them to detect, discriminate, and categorize conspecific or heterospecific vocalizations in their natural environment. Laboratory studies of the auditory-processing abilities that facilitate these tasks have typically employed a broad range of acoustic stimuli, ranging from natural sounds like vocalizations to "artificial" sounds like pure tones and noise bursts. However, even when using vocalizations, laboratory studies often test abilities like categorization in relatively artificial contexts. Consequently, it is not clear whether neural and behavioral correlates of these tasks (1) reflect extensive operant training, which drives plastic changes in auditory pathways, or (2) the innate capacity of the animal and its auditory system. Here, we review a number of recent studies, which suggest that adopting more ethological paradigms utilizing natural communication contexts are scientifically important for elucidating how the auditory system normally processes and learns communication sounds. Additionally, since learning the meaning of communication sounds generally involves social interactions that engage neuromodulatory systems differently than laboratory-based conditioning paradigms, we argue that scientists need to pursue more ethological approaches to more fully inform our understanding of how the auditory system is engaged during acoustic communication. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled "Communication Sounds and the Brain: New Directions and Perspectives". Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Supramodal Enhancement of Auditory Perceptual and Cognitive Learning by Video Game Playing.

PubMed

Zhang, Yu-Xuan; Tang, Ding-Lan; Moore, David R; Amitay, Sygal

2017-01-01

Medical rehabilitation involving behavioral training can produce highly successful outcomes, but those successes are obtained at the cost of long periods of often tedious training, reducing compliance. By contrast, arcade-style video games can be entertaining and highly motivating. We examine here the impact of video game play on contiguous perceptual training. We alternated several periods of auditory pure-tone frequency discrimination (FD) with the popular spatial visual-motor game Tetris played in silence. Tetris play alone did not produce any auditory or cognitive benefits. However, when alternated with FD training it enhanced learning of FD and auditory working memory. The learning-enhancing effects of Tetris play cannot be explained simply by the visual-spatial training involved, as the effects were gone when Tetris play was replaced with another visual-spatial task using Tetris-like stimuli but not incorporated into a game environment. The results indicate that game play enhances learning and transfer of the contiguous auditory experiences, pointing to a promising approach for increasing the efficiency and applicability of rehabilitative training.

Emotional stimuli exert parallel effects on attention and memory.

PubMed

Talmi, Deborah; Ziegler, Marilyne; Hawksworth, Jade; Lalani, Safina; Herman, C Peter; Moscovitch, Morris

2013-01-01

Because emotional and neutral stimuli typically differ on non-emotional dimensions, it has been difficult to determine conclusively which factors underlie the ability of emotional stimuli to enhance immediate long-term memory. Here we induced arousal by varying participants' goals, a method that removes many potential confounds between emotional and non-emotional items. Hungry and sated participants encoded food and clothing images under divided attention conditions. Sated participants attended to and recalled food and clothing images equivalently. Hungry participants performed worse on the concurrent tone-discrimination task when they viewed food relative to clothing images, suggesting enhanced attention to food images, and they recalled more food than clothing images. A follow-up regression analysis of the factors predicting memory for individual pictures revealed that food images had parallel effects on attention and memory in hungry participants, so that enhanced attention to food images did not predict their enhanced memory. We suggest that immediate long-term memory for food is enhanced in the hungry state because hunger leads to more distinctive processing of food images rendering them more accessible during retrieval.

The electrocortical correlates of fluctuating states of attention during vigilance tasks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cunningham, Stephen G.; Freeman, Frederick

1994-01-01

This study investigated the electrocortical correlates of attention. Sixteen subjects (seven females, nine males) engaged in a forty-minute target detection vigilance task. Task-irrelevant probe tones were presented every 2-4 seconds. While performing the vigilance task, the subjects were asked to press a button if they were daydreaming (i.e. having a task unrelated thought or TUT). Continuous electroencephalograms (EEG's) and event-related potentials (ERP's) were recorded from the subjects during the entire task. The continuous EEG data were analyzed for differences in absolute power throughout the task as well as before and after the subjects indicated that they were daydreaming (TUT response). ERP's elicited by task-irrelevant probe tones were analyzed in the same manner. The results indicated performance decrements as reflected by increased RT to correct detections, and decreased number of hits. Further, as the task progressed, the number of reports of daydreaming increased. The analysis of the EEG data indicated a significant difference in the absolute power of the different frequency bands across periods. The greatest difference was observed at the posterior parietal electrode sites. In addition, when the EEG data was converted into band ratios (beta/alpha and beta/alpha+theta), the pre-TUT conditions were found to be significantly different than the post-TUT conditions in the posterior sites. The ERP components (N1, N2, and P2) were not significantly different before and after a TUT response or across periods. However, the ERP's across periods exhibited amplitudes that were similar to those found in previous studies of vigilance and ERP's.

The role of motivation in distracting attention away from pain: an experimental study.

PubMed

Verhoeven, Katrien; Crombez, Geert; Eccleston, Christopher; Van Ryckeghem, Dimitri M L; Morley, Stephen; Van Damme, Stefaan

2010-05-01

Research on the effectiveness of distraction as a method of pain control is inconclusive. One mechanism pertains to the motivational relevance of distraction tasks. In this study the motivation to engage in a distraction task during pain was experimentally manipulated. Undergraduate students (N=73) participated in a cold pressor test (CPT) and were randomly assigned to three groups: a distraction-only group performed a tone-detection task during the CPT, a motivated-distraction group performed the same task and received a monetary reward for good task performance, and a control group did not perform the tone-detection task. Results indicated that engagement in the distraction task was better in the motivated-distraction group in comparison with the distraction-only group. Participants in both distraction groups experienced less pain compared to the control group. There were no overall differences in pain intensity between the two distraction groups. The effect of distraction was influenced by the level of catastrophic thinking about pain. For low catastrophizers, both distraction groups reported less pain as compared to the non-distracted control group. This was not the case for high catastrophizers. For high catastrophizers it mattered whether the distraction task was motivationally relevant: high catastrophizers reported less intense pain in the motivated-distraction group, as compared to the non-distracted control group. We conclude that increasing the motivational relevance of the distraction task may increase the effects of distraction, especially for those who catastrophize about pain. Copyright 2010 International Association for the Study of Pain. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Multisensory information boosts numerical matching abilities in young children.

PubMed

Jordan, Kerry E; Baker, Joseph

2011-03-01

This study presents the first evidence that preschool children perform more accurately in a numerical matching task when given multisensory rather than unisensory information about number. Three- to 5-year-old children learned to play a numerical matching game on a touchscreen computer, which asked them to match a sample numerosity with a numerically equivalent choice numerosity. Samples consisted of a series of visual squares on some trials, a series of auditory tones on other trials, and synchronized squares and tones on still other trials. Children performed at chance on this matching task when provided with either type of unisensory sample, but improved significantly when provided with multisensory samples. There was no speed–accuracy tradeoff between unisensory and multisensory trial types. Thus, these findings suggest that intersensory redundancy may improve young children’s abilities to match numerosities.

Validation of SplitVectors Encoding for Quantitative Visualization of Large-Magnitude-Range Vector Fields

PubMed Central

Zhao, Henan; Bryant, Garnett W.; Griffin, Wesley; Terrill, Judith E.; Chen, Jian

2017-01-01

We designed and evaluated SplitVectors, a new vector field display approach to help scientists perform new discrimination tasks on large-magnitude-range scientific data shown in three-dimensional (3D) visualization environments. SplitVectors uses scientific notation to display vector magnitude, thus improving legibility. We present an empirical study comparing the SplitVectors approach with three other approaches - direct linear representation, logarithmic, and text display commonly used in scientific visualizations. Twenty participants performed three domain analysis tasks: reading numerical values (a discrimination task), finding the ratio between values (a discrimination task), and finding the larger of two vectors (a pattern detection task). Participants used both mono and stereo conditions. Our results suggest the following: (1) SplitVectors improve accuracy by about 10 times compared to linear mapping and by four times to logarithmic in discrimination tasks; (2) SplitVectors have no significant differences from the textual display approach, but reduce cluttering in the scene; (3) SplitVectors and textual display are less sensitive to data scale than linear and logarithmic approaches; (4) using logarithmic can be problematic as participants' confidence was as high as directly reading from the textual display, but their accuracy was poor; and (5) Stereoscopy improved performance, especially in more challenging discrimination tasks. PMID:28113469

Validation of SplitVectors Encoding for Quantitative Visualization of Large-Magnitude-Range Vector Fields.

PubMed

Henan Zhao; Bryant, Garnett W; Griffin, Wesley; Terrill, Judith E; Jian Chen

2017-06-01

We designed and evaluated SplitVectors, a new vector field display approach to help scientists perform new discrimination tasks on large-magnitude-range scientific data shown in three-dimensional (3D) visualization environments. SplitVectors uses scientific notation to display vector magnitude, thus improving legibility. We present an empirical study comparing the SplitVectors approach with three other approaches - direct linear representation, logarithmic, and text display commonly used in scientific visualizations. Twenty participants performed three domain analysis tasks: reading numerical values (a discrimination task), finding the ratio between values (a discrimination task), and finding the larger of two vectors (a pattern detection task). Participants used both mono and stereo conditions. Our results suggest the following: (1) SplitVectors improve accuracy by about 10 times compared to linear mapping and by four times to logarithmic in discrimination tasks; (2) SplitVectors have no significant differences from the textual display approach, but reduce cluttering in the scene; (3) SplitVectors and textual display are less sensitive to data scale than linear and logarithmic approaches; (4) using logarithmic can be problematic as participants' confidence was as high as directly reading from the textual display, but their accuracy was poor; and (5) Stereoscopy improved performance, especially in more challenging discrimination tasks.

Right Temporal Cortex is Critical for Utilization of Melodic Contextual Cues in a Pitch Constancy Task

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Warrier, Catherine M.; Zatorre, Robert J.

2004-01-01

Pitch constancy, perceiving the same pitch from tones with differing spectral shapes, requires one to extract the fundamental frequency from two sets of harmonics and compare them. We previously showed this difficult task to be easier when tonal context is present, presumably because the context creates a tonal reference point from which to judge…

Chronic stress and sex differences on the recall of fear conditioning and extinction.

PubMed

Baran, Sarah E; Armstrong, Charles E; Niren, Danielle C; Hanna, Jeffery J; Conrad, Cheryl D

2009-03-01

Chronic stress effects and sex differences were examined on conditioned fear extinction. Male and female Sprague-Dawley rats were chronically stressed by restraint (6 h/d/21 d), conditioned to tone and footshock, followed by extinction after 1 h and 24 h delays. Chronic stress impaired the recall of fear extinction in males, as evidenced by high freezing to tone after the 24 h delay despite exposure to the previous 1 h delay extinction trials, and this effect was not due to ceiling effects from overtraining during conditioning. In contrast, chronic stress attenuated the recall of fear conditioning acquisition in females, regardless of exposure to the 1 h extinction exposure. Since freezing to tone was reinstated following unsignalled footshocks, the deficit in the stressed rats reflected impaired recall rather than impaired consolidation. Sex differences in fear conditioning and extinction were observed in nonstressed controls as well, with control females resisting extinction to tone. Analysis of contextual freezing showed that all groups (control, stress, male, female) increased freezing immediately after the first tone extinction trial, demonstrating contextual discrimination. These findings show that chronic stress and sex interact to influence fear conditioning, with chronic stress impairing the recall of delayed fear extinction in males to implicate the medial prefrontal cortex, disrupting the recall of the fear conditioning acquisition in females to implicate the amygdala, and nonstressed controls exhibiting sex differences in fear conditioning and extinction, which may involve the amygdala and/or corticosterone levels.

Auditory enhancement of increments in spectral amplitude stems from more than one source.

PubMed

Carcagno, Samuele; Semal, Catherine; Demany, Laurent

2012-10-01

A component of a test sound consisting of simultaneous pure tones perceptually "pops out" if the test sound is preceded by a copy of itself with that component attenuated. Although this "enhancement" effect was initially thought to be purely monaural, it is also observable when the test sound and the precursor sound are presented contralaterally (i.e., to opposite ears). In experiment 1, we assessed the magnitude of ipsilateral and contralateral enhancement as a function of the time interval between the precursor and test sounds (10, 100, or 600 ms). The test sound, randomly transposed in frequency from trial to trial, was followed by a probe tone, either matched or mismatched in frequency to the test sound component which was the target of enhancement. Listeners' ability to discriminate matched probes from mismatched probes was taken as an index of enhancement magnitude. The results showed that enhancement decays more rapidly for ipsilateral than for contralateral precursors, suggesting that ipsilateral enhancement and contralateral enhancement stem from at least partly different sources. It could be hypothesized that, in experiment 1, contralateral precursors were effective only because they provided attentional cues about the target tone frequency. In experiment 2, this hypothesis was tested by presenting the probe tone before the precursor sound rather than after the test sound. Although the probe tone was then serving as a frequency cue, contralateral precursors were again found to produce enhancement. This indicates that contralateral enhancement cannot be explained by cuing alone and is a genuine sensory phenomenon.

Spatial gradient for unique-feature detection in patients with unilateral neglect: evidence from auditory and visual search.

PubMed

Eramudugolla, Ranmalee; Mattingley, Jason B

2008-01-01

Patients with unilateral spatial neglect following right hemisphere damage are impaired in detecting contralesional targets in both visual and haptic search tasks, and often show a graded improvement in detection performance for more ipsilesional spatial locations. In audition, multiple simultaneous sounds are most effectively perceived if they are distributed along the frequency dimension. Thus, attention to spectro-temporal features alone can allow detection of a target sound amongst multiple simultaneous distracter sounds, regardless of whether these sounds are spatially separated. Spatial bias in attention associated with neglect should not affect auditory search based on spectro-temporal features of a sound target. We report that a right brain damaged patient with neglect demonstrated a significant gradient favouring the ipsilesional side on a visual search task as well as an auditory search task in which the target was a frequency modulated tone amongst steady distractor tones. No such asymmetry was apparent in the auditory search performance of a control patient with a right hemisphere lesion but no neglect. The results suggest that the spatial bias in attention exhibited by neglect patients affects stimulus processing even when spatial information is irrelevant to the task.

Psychophysical spectro-temporal receptive fields in an auditory task.

PubMed

Shub, Daniel E; Richards, Virginia M

2009-05-01

Psychophysical relative weighting functions, which provide information about the importance of different regions of a stimulus in forming decisions, are traditionally estimated using trial-based procedures, where a single stimulus is presented and a single response is recorded. Everyday listening is much more "free-running" in that we often must detect randomly occurring signals in the presence of a continuous background. Psychophysical relative weighting functions have not been measured with free-running paradigms. Here, we combine a free-running paradigm with the reverse correlation technique used to estimate physiological spectro-temporal receptive fields (STRFs) to generate psychophysical relative weighting functions that are analogous to physiological STRFs. The psychophysical task required the detection of a fixed target signal (a sequence of spectro-temporally coherent tone pips with a known frequency) in the presence of a continuously presented informational masker (spectro-temporally random tone pips). A comparison of psychophysical relative weighting functions estimated with the current free-running paradigm and trial-based paradigms, suggests that in informational-masking tasks subjects' decision strategies are similar in both free-running and trial-based paradigms. For more cognitively challenging tasks there may be differences in the decision strategies with free-running and trial-based paradigms.

Diminished N1 Auditory Evoked Potentials to Oddball Stimuli in Misophonia Patients

PubMed Central

Schröder, Arjan; van Diepen, Rosanne; Mazaheri, Ali; Petropoulos-Petalas, Diamantis; Soto de Amesti, Vicente; Vulink, Nienke; Denys, Damiaan

2014-01-01

Misophonia (hatred of sound) is a newly defined psychiatric condition in which ordinary human sounds, such as breathing and eating, trigger impulsive aggression. In the current study, we investigated if a dysfunction in the brain’s early auditory processing system could be present in misophonia. We screened 20 patients with misophonia with the diagnostic criteria for misophonia, and 14 matched healthy controls without misophonia, and investigated any potential deficits in auditory processing of misophonia patients using auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) during an oddball task. Subjects watched a neutral silent movie while being presented a regular frequency of beep sounds in which oddball tones of 250 and 4000 Hz were randomly embedded in a stream of repeated 1000 Hz standard tones. We examined the P1, N1, and P2 components locked to the onset of the tones. For misophonia patients, the N1 peak evoked by the oddball tones had smaller mean peak amplitude than the control group. However, no significant differences were found in P1 and P2 components evoked by the oddball tones. There were no significant differences between the misophonia patients and their controls in any of the ERP components to the standard tones. The diminished N1 component to oddball tones in misophonia patients suggests an underlying neurobiological deficit in misophonia patients. This reduction might reflect a basic impairment in auditory processing in misophonia patients. PMID:24782731

Examining the relationship between skilled music training and attention.

PubMed

Wang, Xiao; Ossher, Lynn; Reuter-Lorenz, Patricia A

2015-11-01

While many aspects of cognition have been investigated in relation to skilled music training, surprisingly little work has examined the connection between music training and attentional abilities. The present study investigated the performance of skilled musicians on cognitively demanding sustained attention tasks, measuring both temporal and visual discrimination over a prolonged duration. Participants with extensive formal music training were found to have superior performance on a temporal discrimination task, but not a visual discrimination task, compared to participants with no music training. In addition, no differences were found between groups in vigilance decrement in either type of task. Although no differences were evident in vigilance per se, the results indicate that performance in an attention-demanding temporal discrimination task was superior in individuals with extensive music training. We speculate that this basic cognitive ability may contribute to advantages that musicians show in other cognitive measures. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Different Neuroplasticity for Task Targets and Distractors

PubMed Central

Spingath, Elsie Y.; Kang, Hyun Sug; Plummer, Thane; Blake, David T.

2011-01-01

Adult learning-induced sensory cortex plasticity results in enhanced action potential rates in neurons that have the most relevant information for the task, or those that respond strongly to one sensory stimulus but weakly to its comparison stimulus. Current theories suggest this plasticity is caused when target stimulus evoked activity is enhanced by reward signals from neuromodulatory nuclei. Prior work has found evidence suggestive of nonselective enhancement of neural responses, and suppression of responses to task distractors, but the differences in these effects between detection and discrimination have not been directly tested. Using cortical implants, we defined physiological responses in macaque somatosensory cortex during serial, matched, detection and discrimination tasks. Nonselective increases in neural responsiveness were observed during detection learning. Suppression of responses to task distractors was observed during discrimination learning, and this suppression was specific to cortical locations that sampled responses to the task distractor before learning. Changes in receptive field size were measured as the area of skin that had a significant response to a constant magnitude stimulus, and these areal changes paralleled changes in responsiveness. From before detection learning until after discrimination learning, the enduring changes were selective suppression of cortical locations responsive to task distractors, and nonselective enhancement of responsiveness at cortical locations selective for target and control skin sites. A comparison of observations in prior studies with the observed plasticity effects suggests that the non-selective response enhancement and selective suppression suffice to explain known plasticity phenomena in simple spatial tasks. This work suggests that differential responsiveness to task targets and distractors in primary sensory cortex for a simple spatial detection and discrimination task arise from nonselective increases in response over a broad cortical locus that includes the representation of the task target, and selective suppression of responses to the task distractor within this locus. PMID:21297962

Extrapyramidal signs in normal pressure hydrocephalus: an objective assessment

PubMed Central

Mandir, Allen S; Hilfiker, Jennifer; Thomas, George; Minahan, Robert E; Crawford, Thomas O; Williams, Michael A; Rigamonti, Daniele

2007-01-01

Background Beyond the classic Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH) triad of gait disturbance, incontinence, and dementia are characteristic signs of motor dysfunction in NPH patients. We used highly sensitive and objective methods to characterize upper limb extrapyramidal signs in a series of NPH subjects compared with controls. Concentrated evaluation of these profound, yet underappreciated movement disorders of NPH before and after techniques of therapeutic intervention may lead to improved diagnosis, insight into pathophysiology, and targeted treatment. Methods Twenty-two (22) consecutive NPH patients and 17 controls performed an upper limb motor task battery where highly sensitive and objective measures of akinesia/bradykinesia, tone, and tremor were conducted. NPH subjects performed this test battery before and more than 36 h after continuous CSF drainage via a spinal catheter over 72 h and, in those subjects undergoing permanent ventriculo-peritoneal shunt placement, at least 12 weeks later. Control subjects performed the task battery at the same dates as the NPH subjects. Statistical analyses were applied to group populations of NPH and control subjects and repeated measures for within subject performance. Results Twenty (20) NPH subjects remained in the study following CSF drainage as did 14 controls. NPH subjects demonstrated akinesia/bradykinesia (prolonged reaction and movement times) and increased resting tone compared with controls. Furthermore, the NPH group demonstrated increased difficulty with self-initiated tasks compared with stimulus-initiated tasks. Following CSF drainage, some NPH subjects demonstrated reduced movement times with greater improvement in self- versus stimulus-initiated tasks. Group reaction time was unchanged. Resting tremor present in one NPH subject resolved following shunt placement. Tone measures were consistent for all subjects throughout the study. Conclusion Clinical motor signs of NPH subjects extend beyond gait deficits and include extrapyramidal manifestations of bradykinesia, akinesia, rigidity, and propensity to perform more poorly when external cues to move are absent. Objective improvement of some but not all of these features was seen following temporary or permanent CSF diversion. PMID:17697324

Social and nonsocial category discriminations in a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and American black bears (Ursus americanus).

PubMed

Vonk, Jennifer; Johnson-Ulrich, Zoe

2014-09-01

One captive adult chimpanzee and 3 adult American black bears were presented with a series of natural category discrimination tasks on a touch-screen computer. This is the first explicit comparison of bear and primate abilities using identical tasks, and the first test of a social concept in a carnivore. The discriminations involved a social relationship category (mother/offspring) and a nonsocial category involving food items. The social category discrimination could be made using knowledge of the overarching mother/offspring concept, whereas the nonsocial category discriminations could be made only by using perceptual rules, such as "choose images that show larger and smaller items of the same type." The bears failed to show above-chance transfer on either the social or nonsocial discriminations, indicating that they did not use either the perceptual rule or knowledge of the overarching concept of mother/offspring to guide their choices in these tasks. However, at least 1 bear remembered previously reinforced stimuli when these stimuli were recombined, later. The chimpanzee showed transfer on a control task and did not consistently apply a perceptual rule to solve the nonsocial task, so it is possible that he eventually acquired the social concept. Further comparisons between species on identical tasks assessing social knowledge will help illuminate the selective pressures responsible for a range of social cognitive skills.

The Categorisation of Non-Categorical Colours: A Novel Paradigm in Colour Perception

PubMed Central

Cropper, Simon J.; Kvansakul, Jessica G. S.; Little, Daniel R.

2013-01-01

In this paper, we investigate a new paradigm for studying the development of the colour ‘signal’ by having observers discriminate and categorize the same set of controlled and calibrated cardinal coloured stimuli. Notably, in both tasks, each observer was free to decide whether two pairs of colors were the same or belonged to the same category. The use of the same stimulus set for both tasks provides, we argue, an incremental behavioural measure of colour processing from detection through discrimination to categorisation. The measured data spaces are different for the two tasks, and furthermore the categorisation data is unique to each observer. In addition, we develop a model which assumes that the principal difference between the tasks is the degree of similarity between the stimuli which has different constraints for the categorisation task compared to the discrimination task. This approach not only makes sense of the current (and associated) data but links the processes of discrimination and categorisation in a novel way and, by implication, expands upon the previous research linking categorisation to other tasks not limited to colour perception. PMID:23536899

The categorisation of non-categorical colours: a novel paradigm in colour perception.

PubMed

Cropper, Simon J; Kvansakul, Jessica G S; Little, Daniel R

2013-01-01

In this paper, we investigate a new paradigm for studying the development of the colour 'signal' by having observers discriminate and categorize the same set of controlled and calibrated cardinal coloured stimuli. Notably, in both tasks, each observer was free to decide whether two pairs of colors were the same or belonged to the same category. The use of the same stimulus set for both tasks provides, we argue, an incremental behavioural measure of colour processing from detection through discrimination to categorisation. The measured data spaces are different for the two tasks, and furthermore the categorisation data is unique to each observer. In addition, we develop a model which assumes that the principal difference between the tasks is the degree of similarity between the stimuli which has different constraints for the categorisation task compared to the discrimination task. This approach not only makes sense of the current (and associated) data but links the processes of discrimination and categorisation in a novel way and, by implication, expands upon the previous research linking categorisation to other tasks not limited to colour perception.

Pitch and Time Processing in Speech and Tones: The Effects of Musical Training and Attention

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sares, Anastasia G.; Foster, Nicholas E. V.; Allen, Kachina; Hyde, Krista L.

2018-01-01

Purpose: Musical training is often linked to enhanced auditory discrimination, but the relative roles of pitch and time in music and speech are unclear. Moreover, it is unclear whether pitch and time processing are correlated across individuals and how they may be affected by attention. This study aimed to examine pitch and time processing in…

A Review. A Real-Time Microcomputer-Assisted System for Translating Aural, Monophonic Tones into Music Notation as an Aid in Sight-Singing.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Higgins, William R.

1987-01-01

Reviews a dissertation in which the problems of real-time pitch detection by computer were studied in an attempt to develop a learning tool for sightsinging students. Specialized hardware and software were developed to discriminate aural pitches and to display them in real-time using standard notation. (BSR)

Age effects on discrimination of timing in auditory sequences

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fitzgibbons, Peter J.; Gordon-Salant, Sandra

2004-08-01

The experiments examined age-related changes in temporal sensitivity to increments in the interonset intervals (IOI) of components in tonal sequences. Discrimination was examined using reference sequences consisting of five 50-ms tones separated by silent intervals; tone frequencies were either fixed at 4 kHz or varied within a 2-4-kHz range to produce spectrally complex patterns. The tonal IOIs within the reference sequences were either equal (200 or 600 ms) or varied individually with an average value of 200 or 600 ms to produce temporally complex patterns. The difference limen (DL) for increments of IOI was measured. Comparison sequences featured either equal increments in all tonal IOIs or increments in a single target IOI, with the sequential location of the target changing randomly across trials. Four groups of younger and older adults with and without sensorineural hearing loss participated. Results indicated that DLs for uniform changes of sequence rate were smaller than DLs for single target intervals, with the largest DLs observed for single targets embedded within temporally complex sequences. Older listeners performed more poorly than younger listeners in all conditions, but the largest age-related differences were observed for temporally complex stimulus conditions. No systematic effects of hearing loss were observed.

Pitch discrimination as a function of the inter-stimulus interval: Evidence against a simple model of perceptual memory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Demany, Laurent; Montandon, Gaspard; Semal, Catherine

2003-04-01

A listener's ability to compare two sounds separated by a silent time interval T is limited by a sum of ``sensory noise'' and ``memory noise.'' The present work was intended to test a model according to which these two components of internal noise are independent and, for a given sensory continuum, the memory noise depends only on T. In three experiments using brief sounds (<80 ms), pitch discrimination performances were measured in terms of d' as a function of T (0.1-4 s) and a physical parameter affecting the amount of sensory noise (pitch salience). As T increased, d' first increased rapidly and then declined more slowly. According to the tested model, the relative decline of d' beyond the optimal value of T should have been slower when pitch salience was low (large amount of sensory noise) than when pitch salience was high (small amount of sensory noise). However, this prediction was disproved in each of the three experiments. It was also found, when a ``roving'' procedure was used, that the optimal value of T was markedly shorter for very brief tone bursts (6 sine cycles) than for longer tone bursts (30 sine cycles).

Discrimination of static and dynamic spectral patterns by children and young adults in relationship to speech perception in noise.

PubMed

Rayes, Hanin; Sheft, Stanley; Shafiro, Valeriy

2014-01-01

Past work has shown relationship between the ability to discriminate spectral patterns and measures of speech intelligibility. The purpose of this study was to investigate the ability of both children and young adults to discriminate static and dynamic spectral patterns, comparing performance between the two groups and evaluating within-group results in terms of relationship to speech-in-noise perception. Data were collected from normal-hearing children (age range: 5.4 - 12.8 yrs) and young adults (mean age: 22.8 yrs) on two spectral discrimination tasks and speech-in-noise perception. The first discrimination task, involving static spectral profiles, measured the ability to detect a change in the phase of a low-density sinusoidal spectral ripple of wideband noise. Using dynamic spectral patterns, the second task determined the signal-to-noise ratio needed to discriminate the temporal pattern of frequency fluctuation imposed by stochastic low-rate frequency modulation (FM). Children performed significantly poorer than young adults on both discrimination tasks. For children, a significant correlation between speech-in-noise perception and spectral-pattern discrimination was obtained only with the dynamic patterns of the FM condition, with partial correlation suggesting that factors related to the children's age mediated the relationship.

Reduced chromatic discrimination in children with autism spectrum disorders.

PubMed

Franklin, Anna; Sowden, Paul; Notman, Leslie; Gonzalez-Dixon, Melissa; West, Dorotea; Alexander, Iona; Loveday, Stephen; White, Alex

2010-01-01

Atypical perception in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is well documented (Dakin & Frith, 2005). However, relatively little is known about colour perception in ASD. Less accurate performance on certain colour tasks has led some to argue that chromatic discrimination is reduced in ASD relative to typical development (Franklin, Sowden, Burley, Notman & Alder, 2008). The current investigation assessed chromatic discrimination in children with high-functioning autism (HFA) and typically developing (TD) children matched on age and non-verbal cognitive ability, using the Farnsworth-Munsell 100 hue test (Experiment 1) and a threshold discrimination task (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, more errors on the chromatic discrimination task were made by the HFA than the TD group. Comparison with test norms revealed that performance for the HFA group was at a similar level to typically developing children around 3 years younger. In Experiment 2, chromatic thresholds were elevated for the HFA group relative to the TD group. For both experiments, reduced chromatic discrimination in ASD was due to a general reduction in chromatic sensitivity rather than a specific difficulty with either red-green or blue-yellow subsystems of colour vision. The absence of group differences on control tasks ruled out an explanation in terms of general task ability rather than chromatic sensitivity. Theories to account for the reduction in chromatic discrimination in HFA are discussed, and findings are related to cortical models of perceptual processing in ASD.

Encoding frequency contrast in primate auditory cortex

PubMed Central

Scott, Brian H.; Semple, Malcolm N.

2014-01-01

Changes in amplitude and frequency jointly determine much of the communicative significance of complex acoustic signals, including human speech. We have previously described responses of neurons in the core auditory cortex of awake rhesus macaques to sinusoidal amplitude modulation (SAM) signals. Here we report a complementary study of sinusoidal frequency modulation (SFM) in the same neurons. Responses to SFM were analogous to SAM responses in that changes in multiple parameters defining SFM stimuli (e.g., modulation frequency, modulation depth, carrier frequency) were robustly encoded in the temporal dynamics of the spike trains. For example, changes in the carrier frequency produced highly reproducible changes in shapes of the modulation period histogram, consistent with the notion that the instantaneous probability of discharge mirrors the moment-by-moment spectrum at low modulation rates. The upper limit for phase locking was similar across SAM and SFM within neurons, suggesting shared biophysical constraints on temporal processing. Using spike train classification methods, we found that neural thresholds for modulation depth discrimination are typically far lower than would be predicted from frequency tuning to static tones. This “dynamic hyperacuity” suggests a substantial central enhancement of the neural representation of frequency changes relative to the auditory periphery. Spike timing information was superior to average rate information when discriminating among SFM signals, and even when discriminating among static tones varying in frequency. This finding held even when differences in total spike count across stimuli were normalized, indicating both the primacy and generality of temporal response dynamics in cortical auditory processing. PMID:24598525

Statistical learning of speech sounds is most robust during the period of perceptual attunement.

PubMed

Liu, Liquan; Kager, René

2017-12-01

Although statistical learning has been shown to be a domain-general mechanism, its constraints, such as its interactions with perceptual development, are less well understood and discussed. This study is among the first to investigate the distributional learning of lexical pitch in non-tone-language-learning infants, exploring its interaction with language-specific perceptual attunement during the first 2years after birth. A total of 88 normally developing Dutch infants of 5, 11, and 14months were tested via a distributional learning paradigm and were familiarized on a unimodal or bimodal distribution of high-level versus high-falling tones in Mandarin Chinese. After familiarization, they were tested on a tonal contrast that shared equal distributional information in either modality. At 5months, infants in both conditions discriminated the contrast, whereas 11-month-olds showed discrimination only in the bimodal condition. By 14months, infants failed to discriminate the contrast in either condition. Results indicate interplay between infants' long-term linguistic experience throughout development and short-term distributional learning during the experiment, and they suggest that the influence of tonal distributional learning varies along the perceptual attunement trajectory, such that opportunities for distributional learning effects appear to be constrained in the beginning and at the end of perceptual attunement. The current study contributes to previous research by demonstrating an effect of age on learning from distributional cues. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Emotionally negative pictures increase attention to a subsequent auditory stimulus.

PubMed

Tartar, Jaime L; de Almeida, Kristen; McIntosh, Roger C; Rosselli, Monica; Nash, Allan J

2012-01-01

Emotionally negative stimuli serve as a mechanism of biological preparedness to enhance attention. We hypothesized that emotionally negative stimuli would also serve as motivational priming to increase attention resources for subsequent stimuli. To that end, we tested 11 participants in a dual sensory modality task, wherein emotionally negative pictures were contrasted with emotionally neutral pictures and each picture was followed 600 ms later by a tone in an auditory oddball paradigm. Each trial began with a picture displayed for 200 ms; half of the trials began with an emotionally negative picture and half of the trials began with an emotionally neutral picture; 600 ms following picture presentation, the participants heard either an oddball tone or a standard tone. At the end of each trial (picture followed by tone), the participants categorized, with a button press, the picture and tone combination. As expected, and consistent with previous studies, we found an enhanced visual late positive potential (latency range=300-700 ms) to the negative picture stimuli. We further found that compared to neutral pictures, negative pictures resulted in early attention and orienting effects to subsequent tones (measured through an enhanced N1 and N2) and sustained attention effects only to the subsequent oddball tones (measured through late processing negativity, latency range=400-700 ms). Number pad responses to both the picture and tone category showed the shortest response latencies and greatest percentage of correct picture-tone categorization on the negative picture followed by oddball tone trials. Consistent with previous work on natural selective attention, our results support the idea that emotional stimuli can alter attention resource allocation. This finding has broad implications for human attention and performance as it specifically shows the conditions in which an emotionally negative stimulus can result in extended stimulus evaluation. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Auditory processing and morphological anomalies in medial geniculate nucleus of Cntnap2 mutant mice.

PubMed

Truong, Dongnhu T; Rendall, Amanda R; Castelluccio, Brian C; Eigsti, Inge-Marie; Fitch, R Holly

2015-12-01

Genetic epidemiological studies support a role for CNTNAP2 in developmental language disorders such as autism spectrum disorder, specific language impairment, and dyslexia. Atypical language development and function represent a core symptom of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), with evidence suggesting that aberrant auditory processing-including impaired spectrotemporal processing and enhanced pitch perception-may both contribute to an anomalous language phenotype. Investigation of gene-brain-behavior relationships in social and repetitive ASD symptomatology have benefited from experimentation on the Cntnap2 knockout (KO) mouse. However, auditory-processing behavior and effects on neural structures within the central auditory pathway have not been assessed in this model. Thus, this study examined whether auditory-processing abnormalities were associated with mutation of the Cntnap2 gene in mice. Cntnap2 KO mice were assessed on auditory-processing tasks including silent gap detection, embedded tone detection, and pitch discrimination. Cntnap2 knockout mice showed deficits in silent gap detection but a surprising superiority in pitch-related discrimination as compared with controls. Stereological analysis revealed a reduction in the number and density of neurons, as well as a shift in neuronal size distribution toward smaller neurons, in the medial geniculate nucleus of mutant mice. These findings are consistent with a central role for CNTNAP2 in the ontogeny and function of neural systems subserving auditory processing and suggest that developmental disruption of these neural systems could contribute to the atypical language phenotype seen in autism spectrum disorder. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Do Rats Use Shape to Solve "Shape Discriminations"?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Minini, Loredana; Jeffery, Kathryn J.

2006-01-01

Visual discrimination tasks are increasingly used to explore the neurobiology of vision in rodents, but it remains unclear how the animals solve these tasks: Do they process shapes holistically, or by using low-level features such as luminance and angle acuity? In the present study we found that when discriminating triangles from squares, rats did…

Activation of the Basolateral Amygdala Induces Long-Term Enhancement of Specific Memory Representations in the Cerebral Cortex

PubMed Central

Chavez, Candice M.; McGaugh, James L.; Weinberger, Norman M.

2013-01-01

The basolateral amygdala (BLA) modulates memory, particularly for arousing or emotional events, during post-training periods of consolidation. It strengthens memories whose substrates in part or whole are stored remotely, in structures such as the hippocampus, striatum and cerebral cortex. However, the mechanisms by which the BLA influences distant memory traces are unknown, largely because of the need for identifiable target mnemonic representations. Associative tuning plasticity in the primary auditory cortex (A1) constitutes a well-characterized candidate specific memory substrate that is ubiquitous across species, tasks and motivational states. When tone predicts reinforcement, the tuning of cells in A1 shifts toward or to the signal frequency within its tonotopic map, producing an over-representation of behaviorally important sounds. Tuning shifts have the cardinal attributes of forms of memory, including associativity, specificity, rapid induction, consolidation and long-term retention and are therefore likely memory representations. We hypothesized that the BLA strengthens memories by increasing their cortical representations. We recorded multiple unit activity from A1 of rats that received a single discrimination training session in which two tones (2.0 s) separated by 1.25 octaves were either paired with brief electrical stimulation (400 ms) of the BLA (CS+) or not (CS−). Frequency response areas generated by presenting a matrix of test tones (0.5–53.82 kHz, 0–70 dB) were obtained before training and daily for three weeks post-training. Tuning both at threshold and above threshold shifted predominantly toward the CS+ beginning on Day 1. Tuning shifts were maintained for the entire three weeks. Absolute threshold and bandwidth decreased, producing less enduring increases in sensitivity and selectivity. BLA-induced tuning shifts were associative, highly specific and long-lasting. We propose that the BLA strengthens memory for important experiences by increasing the number of neurons that come to best represent that event. Traumatic, intrusive memories might reflect abnormally extensive representational networks due to hyper-activity of the BLA consequent to the release of excessive amounts of stress hormones. PMID:23266792

Clinical assessment and three-dimensional movement analysis: An integrated approach for upper limb evaluation in children with unilateral cerebral palsy

PubMed Central

Ortibus, Els; Simon-Martinez, Cristina; Desloovere, Kaat; Molenaers, Guy; Klingels, Katrijn; Feys, Hilde

2017-01-01

Introduction The clinical application of upper limb (UL) three-dimensional movement analysis (3DMA) in children with unilateral cerebral palsy (uCP) remains challenging, despite its benefits compared to conventional clinical scales. Moreover, knowledge on UL movement pathology and how this relates to clinical parameters remains scarce. Therefore, we investigated UL kinematics across different manual ability classification system (MACS) levels and explored the relation between clinical and kinematic parameters in children with uCP. Patients and methods Fifty children (MACS: I = 15, II = 26, III = 9) underwent an UL evaluation of sensorimotor impairments (grip force, muscle strength, muscle tone, two-point discrimination, stereognosis), bimanual performance (Assisting Hand Assessment, AHA), unimanual capacity (Melbourne Assessment 2, MA2) and UL-3DMA during hand-to-head, hand-to-mouth and reach-to-grasp tasks. Global parameters (Arm Profile Score (APS), duration, (timing of) maximum velocity, trajectory straightness) and joint specific parameters (angles at task endpoint, ROM and Arm Variable Scores (AVS)) were extracted. The APS and AVS refer respectively to the total amount of movement pathology and movement deviations of wrist, elbow, shoulder, scapula and trunk. Results Longer movement durations and increased APS were found with higher MACS-levels (p<0.001). Increased APS was also associated with more severe sensorimotor impairments (r = -0.30-(-0.73)) and with lower AHA and MA2-scores (r = -0.50-(-0.86)). For the joint specific parameters, stronger movement deviations distally were significantly associated with increased muscle weakness (r = -0.32-(-0.74)) and muscle tone (r = 0.33-(-0.61)); proximal movement deviations correlated only with muscle weakness (r = -0.35–0.59). Regression analysis exposed grip force as the most important predictor for the variability in APS (p<0.002). Conclusion We found increased movement pathology with increasing MACS-levels and demonstrated the adverse impact of especially muscle weakness. The lower correlations suggest that 3DMA provides additional information regarding UL motor function, particularly for the proximal joints. Integrating both methods seems clinically meaningful to obtain a comprehensive representation of all aspects of a child’s UL functioning. PMID:28671953

Clinical assessment and three-dimensional movement analysis: An integrated approach for upper limb evaluation in children with unilateral cerebral palsy.

PubMed

Mailleux, Lisa; Jaspers, Ellen; Ortibus, Els; Simon-Martinez, Cristina; Desloovere, Kaat; Molenaers, Guy; Klingels, Katrijn; Feys, Hilde

2017-01-01

The clinical application of upper limb (UL) three-dimensional movement analysis (3DMA) in children with unilateral cerebral palsy (uCP) remains challenging, despite its benefits compared to conventional clinical scales. Moreover, knowledge on UL movement pathology and how this relates to clinical parameters remains scarce. Therefore, we investigated UL kinematics across different manual ability classification system (MACS) levels and explored the relation between clinical and kinematic parameters in children with uCP. Fifty children (MACS: I = 15, II = 26, III = 9) underwent an UL evaluation of sensorimotor impairments (grip force, muscle strength, muscle tone, two-point discrimination, stereognosis), bimanual performance (Assisting Hand Assessment, AHA), unimanual capacity (Melbourne Assessment 2, MA2) and UL-3DMA during hand-to-head, hand-to-mouth and reach-to-grasp tasks. Global parameters (Arm Profile Score (APS), duration, (timing of) maximum velocity, trajectory straightness) and joint specific parameters (angles at task endpoint, ROM and Arm Variable Scores (AVS)) were extracted. The APS and AVS refer respectively to the total amount of movement pathology and movement deviations of wrist, elbow, shoulder, scapula and trunk. Longer movement durations and increased APS were found with higher MACS-levels (p<0.001). Increased APS was also associated with more severe sensorimotor impairments (r = -0.30-(-0.73)) and with lower AHA and MA2-scores (r = -0.50-(-0.86)). For the joint specific parameters, stronger movement deviations distally were significantly associated with increased muscle weakness (r = -0.32-(-0.74)) and muscle tone (r = 0.33-(-0.61)); proximal movement deviations correlated only with muscle weakness (r = -0.35-0.59). Regression analysis exposed grip force as the most important predictor for the variability in APS (p<0.002). We found increased movement pathology with increasing MACS-levels and demonstrated the adverse impact of especially muscle weakness. The lower correlations suggest that 3DMA provides additional information regarding UL motor function, particularly for the proximal joints. Integrating both methods seems clinically meaningful to obtain a comprehensive representation of all aspects of a child's UL functioning.

Auditory discrimination training for tinnitus treatment: the effect of different paradigms.

PubMed

Herraiz, Carlos; Diges, I; Cobo, P; Aparicio, J M; Toledano, A

2010-07-01

Acoustic deprivation, i.e. hearing loss, is responsible for a cascade of processes resulting in reorganisation of the cortex. Tinnitus mechanisms are explained by synchronization of the neural spontaneous activity and might be related to cortical re-mapping. Auditory discrimination training (ADT) has demonstrated in both animals and humans to induce tonotopical changes in the auditory pathways through neural plasticity. We hypothesize that ADT could have some effect on tinnitus perception. The objective of this study is to compare the effect on tinnitus following two paradigms of ADT. Only patients from 20 to 60 years of age were recruited. Inclusion criteria were pure tone tinnitus of mild or moderate handicap according to the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory score (<56). ADT patients were randomized in two groups: SAME (ADT in the same frequency of tinnitus pitch, 20 patients) and NONSAME (ADT in the frequency one-octave below tinnitus pitch, 21 patients). Groups of pair of tones (70% standard tones ST, 30% deviant tones ST + 0.1-0.5 kHz) were randomly mixed for 20 min/day during 1 month. Patient had to mark when the two sounds of the pair were similar or different. Control group included 26 patients from the waiting list (WLG). Patients were also divided according to the trained frequency and the deepest hearing-impaired frequency. Outcome parameters were set up according to the answer to the question "is your tinnitus better, same, or worse with the treatment?" (RESP), the tinnitus handicap inventory (THI) and the visual analogue scale from 1 to 10 on tinnitus intensity (VAS). Tinnitus improved in 42.2% of the patients (RESP). VAS and THI scores were reduced but only THI differences were statistically significant (P = 0.003). ADT patients improved significantly compared with WLG in RESP and THI scores (P < 0.01). Training frequencies one-octave below the tinnitus pitch (NONSAME) decreased significantly THI scores compared with patients trained frequencies similar to tinnitus pitch (SAME, P = 0.035). RESP and VAS scores decreased more in NONSAME group though differences were not significant. We did not find any differences when comparing the group training the deepest hearing-impaired frequency and the group who trained other frequencies. Auditory discrimination training significantly improved tinnitus handicap compared to a waiting list group. Those patients who trained frequencies one octave below the tinnitus pitch had better outcome than those who performed the ADT with frequencies similar to the tinnitus pitch (P = 0.035).

The effect of auditory memory load on intensity resolution in individuals with Parkinson's disease

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Richardson, Kelly C.

Purpose: The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effect of auditory memory load on intensity resolution in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) as compared to two groups of listeners without PD. Methods: Nineteen individuals with Parkinson's disease, ten healthy age- and hearing-matched adults, and ten healthy young adults were studied. All listeners participated in two intensity discrimination tasks differing in auditory memory load; a lower memory load, 4IAX task and a higher memory load, ABX task. Intensity discrimination performance was assessed using a bias-free measurement of signal detectability known as d' (d-prime). Listeners further participated in a continuous loudness scaling task where they were instructed to rate the loudness level of each signal intensity using a computerized 150mm visual analogue scale. Results: Group discrimination functions indicated significantly lower intensity discrimination sensitivity (d') across tasks for the individuals with PD, as compared to the older and younger controls. No significant effect of aging on intensity discrimination was observed for either task. All three listeners groups demonstrated significantly lower intensity discrimination sensitivity for the higher auditory memory load, ABX task, compared to the lower auditory memory load, 4IAX task. Furthermore, a significant effect of aging was identified for the loudness scaling condition. The younger controls were found to rate most stimuli along the continuum as significantly louder than the older controls and the individuals with PD. Conclusions: The persons with PD showed evidence of impaired auditory perception for intensity information, as compared to the older and younger controls. The significant effect of aging on loudness perception may indicate peripheral and/or central auditory involvement.

Plausibility assessment of a 2-state self-paced mental task-based BCI using the no-control performance analysis.

PubMed

Faradji, Farhad; Ward, Rabab K; Birch, Gary E

2009-06-15

The feasibility of having a self-paced brain-computer interface (BCI) based on mental tasks is investigated. The EEG signals of four subjects performing five mental tasks each are used in the design of a 2-state self-paced BCI. The output of the BCI should only be activated when the subject performs a specific mental task and should remain inactive otherwise. For each subject and each task, the feature coefficient and the classifier that yield the best performance are selected, using the autoregressive coefficients as the features. The classifier with a zero false positive rate and the highest true positive rate is selected as the best classifier. The classifiers tested include: linear discriminant analysis, quadratic discriminant analysis, Mahalanobis discriminant analysis, support vector machine, and radial basis function neural network. The results show that: (1) some classifiers obtained the desired zero false positive rate; (2) the linear discriminant analysis classifier does not yield acceptable performance; (3) the quadratic discriminant analysis classifier outperforms the Mahalanobis discriminant analysis classifier and performs almost as well as the radial basis function neural network; and (4) the support vector machine classifier has the highest true positive rates but unfortunately has nonzero false positive rates in most cases.

A System Approach to Navy Medical Education and Training. Appendix 14. Field Medical Technician.

DTIC Science & Technology

1974-08-31

TREATMENT FOR BACILLARY DYSENTERY 50 IPALPATE (FFELI BLADDER FOR DISTENSION (FULLNESSI T TURN PAGE LEFT PAGE Oc FIELr uEDICINE TASK FOlKLET | TASK NO. I...IOBSEPVE/PEPOrT PATIENT’S muSCLE TONE. F.G. RIGId, FLACCID, ISPASTIC, SPAS-S t 4 JOBSERV- PATIENT’S PHYSICAL MCVEMENT, E.G. MUSCULAR C01PDINATIO’t

Left occipitotemporal cortex contributes to the discrimination of tool-associated hand actions: fMRI and TMS evidence

PubMed Central

Perini, Francesca; Caramazza, Alfonso; Peelen, Marius V.

2014-01-01

Functional neuroimaging studies have implicated the left lateral occipitotemporal cortex (LOTC) in both tool and hand perception but the functional role of this region is not fully known. Here, by using a task manipulation, we tested whether tool-/hand-selective LOTC contributes to the discrimination of tool-associated hand actions. Participants viewed briefly presented pictures of kitchen and garage tools while they performed one of two tasks: in the action task, they judged whether the tool is associated with a hand rotation action (e.g., screwdriver) or a hand squeeze action (e.g., garlic press), while in the location task they judged whether the tool is typically found in the kitchen (e.g., garlic press) or in the garage (e.g., screwdriver). Both tasks were performed on the same stimulus set and were matched for difficulty. Contrasting fMRI responses between these tasks showed stronger activity during the action task than the location task in both tool- and hand-selective LOTC regions, which closely overlapped. No differences were found in nearby object- and motion-selective control regions. Importantly, these findings were confirmed by a TMS study, which showed that effective TMS over the tool-/hand-selective LOTC region significantly slowed responses for tool action discriminations relative to tool location discriminations, with no such difference during sham TMS. We conclude that left LOTC contributes to the discrimination of tool-associated hand actions. PMID:25140142

Cortical Neuroprosthesis Merges Visible and Invisible Light Without Impairing Native Sensory Function

PubMed Central

Thomson, Eric E.; Zea, Ivan; França, Wendy

2017-01-01

Abstract Adult rats equipped with a sensory prosthesis, which transduced infrared (IR) signals into electrical signals delivered to somatosensory cortex (S1), took approximately 4 d to learn a four-choice IR discrimination task. Here, we show that when such IR signals are projected to the primary visual cortex (V1), rats that are pretrained in a visual-discrimination task typically learn the same IR discrimination task on their first day of training. However, without prior training on a visual discrimination task, the learning rates for S1- and V1-implanted animals converged, suggesting there is no intrinsic difference in learning rate between the two areas. We also discovered that animals were able to integrate IR information into the ongoing visual processing stream in V1, performing a visual-IR integration task in which they had to combine IR and visual information. Furthermore, when the IR prosthesis was implanted in S1, rats showed no impairment in their ability to use their whiskers to perform a tactile discrimination task. Instead, in some rats, this ability was actually enhanced. Cumulatively, these findings suggest that cortical sensory neuroprostheses can rapidly augment the representational scope of primary sensory areas, integrating novel sources of information into ongoing processing while incurring minimal loss of native function. PMID:29279860

Effects of musical training on the auditory cortex in children.

PubMed

Trainor, Laurel J; Shahin, Antoine; Roberts, Larry E

2003-11-01

Several studies of the effects of musical experience on sound representations in the auditory cortex are reviewed. Auditory evoked potentials are compared in response to pure tones, violin tones, and piano tones in adult musicians versus nonmusicians as well as in 4- to 5-year-old children who have either had or not had extensive musical experience. In addition, the effects of auditory frequency discrimination training in adult nonmusicians on auditory evoked potentials are examined. It was found that the P2-evoked response is larger in both adult and child musicians than in nonmusicians and that auditory training enhances this component in nonmusician adults. The results suggest that the P2 is particularly neuroplastic and that the effects of musical experience can be seen early in development. They also suggest that although the effects of musical training on cortical representations may be greater if training begins in childhood, the adult brain is also open to change. These results are discussed with respect to potential benefits of early musical training as well as potential benefits of musical experience in aging.

The Chronometry of Mental Ability: An Event-Related Potential Analysis of an Auditory Oddball Discrimination Task

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beauchamp, Chris M.; Stelmack, Robert M.

2006-01-01

The relation between intelligence and speed of auditory discrimination was investigated during an auditory oddball task with backward masking. In target discrimination conditions that varied in the interval between the target and the masking stimuli and in the tonal frequency of the target and masking stimuli, higher ability participants (HA)…

A Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study of Sustained Attention to Local and Global Target Features

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

De Joux, Neil; Russell, Paul N.; Helton, William S.

2013-01-01

Despite a long history of vigilance research, the role of global and local feature discrimination in vigilance tasks has been relatively neglected. In this experiment participants performed a sustained attention task requiring either global or local shape stimuli discrimination. Reaction time to local feature discriminations was characterized by a…

Stimulus-response correspondence in go-nogo and choice tasks: Are reactions altered by the presence of an irrelevant salient object?

PubMed

Lien, Mei-Ching; Pedersen, Logan; Proctor, Robert W

2016-11-01

In 2-choice tasks, responses are faster when stimulus location corresponds to response location, even when stimulus location is irrelevant. Dolk et al. (J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 39:1248-1260, 2013a) found this stimulus-response correspondence effect with a single response location in a go-nogo task when an irrelevant Japanese waving cat was present. They argued that salient objects trigger spatial coding of the response relative to that object. We examined this claim using both behavioral and lateralized readiness potential (LRP) measures. In Experiment 1 participants determined the pitch of a left- or right-positioned tone, whereas in Experiment 2 they determined the color of a dot within a centrally located hand pointing left, right, or straight ahead. In both experiments, participants performed a go-nogo task with the right-index finger and a 2-choice task with both index fingers, with a left-positioned Japanese waving cat present or absent. For the go-nogo task, the cat induced a correspondence effect on response times (RT) to the tones (Experiment 1) but not the visual stimuli (Experiment 2). For the 2-choice task, a correspondence effect was evident in all conditions in both experiments. Cat's presence/absence did not significantly modulate the effect for right and left responses, although there was a trend toward increased RT and LRP for right responses in Experiment 1. The results imply that a salient, irrelevant object could provide a reference frame for response coding when attention is available to process it, as is likely in an auditory task (Experiment 1) but not a visual task (Experiment 2).

Visual Task Demands and the Auditory Mismatch Negativity: An Empirical Study and a Meta-Analysis

PubMed Central

Wiens, Stefan; Szychowska, Malina; Nilsson, Mats E.

2016-01-01

Because the auditory system is particularly useful in monitoring the environment, previous research has examined whether task-irrelevant, auditory distracters are processed even if subjects focus their attention on visual stimuli. This research suggests that attentionally demanding visual tasks decrease the auditory mismatch negativity (MMN) to simultaneously presented auditory distractors. Because a recent behavioral study found that high visual perceptual load decreased detection sensitivity of simultaneous tones, we used a similar task (n = 28) to determine if high visual perceptual load would reduce the auditory MMN. Results suggested that perceptual load did not decrease the MMN. At face value, these nonsignificant findings may suggest that effects of perceptual load on the MMN are smaller than those of other demanding visual tasks. If so, effect sizes should differ systematically between the present and previous studies. We conducted a selective meta-analysis of published studies in which the MMN was derived from the EEG, the visual task demands were continuous and varied between high and low within the same task, and the task-irrelevant tones were presented in a typical oddball paradigm simultaneously with the visual stimuli. Because the meta-analysis suggested that the present (null) findings did not differ systematically from previous findings, the available evidence was combined. Results of this meta-analysis confirmed that demanding visual tasks reduce the MMN to auditory distracters. However, because the meta-analysis was based on small studies and because of the risk for publication biases, future studies should be preregistered with large samples (n > 150) to provide confirmatory evidence for the results of the present meta-analysis. These future studies should also use control conditions that reduce confounding effects of neural adaptation, and use load manipulations that are defined independently from their effects on the MMN. PMID:26741815

Acquisition of a visual discrimination and reversal learning task by Labrador retrievers.

PubMed

Lazarowski, Lucia; Foster, Melanie L; Gruen, Margaret E; Sherman, Barbara L; Case, Beth C; Fish, Richard E; Milgram, Norton W; Dorman, David C

2014-05-01

Optimal cognitive ability is likely important for military working dogs (MWD) trained to detect explosives. An assessment of a dog's ability to rapidly learn discriminations might be useful in the MWD selection process. In this study, visual discrimination and reversal tasks were used to assess cognitive performance in Labrador retrievers selected for an explosives detection program using a modified version of the Toronto General Testing Apparatus (TGTA), a system developed for assessing performance in a battery of neuropsychological tests in canines. The results of the current study revealed that, as previously found with beagles tested using the TGTA, Labrador retrievers (N = 16) readily acquired both tasks and learned the discrimination task significantly faster than the reversal task. The present study confirmed that the modified TGTA system is suitable for cognitive evaluations in Labrador retriever MWDs and can be used to further explore effects of sex, phenotype, age, and other factors in relation to canine cognition and learning, and may provide an additional screening tool for MWD selection.

Topographic EEG activations during timbre and pitch discrimination tasks using musical sounds.

PubMed

Auzou, P; Eustache, F; Etevenon, P; Platel, H; Rioux, P; Lambert, J; Lechevalier, B; Zarifian, E; Baron, J C

1995-01-01

Successive auditory stimulation sequences were presented binaurally to 18 young normal volunteers. Five conditions were investigated: two reference tasks, assumed to involve passive listening to couples of musical sounds, and three discrimination tasks, one dealing with pitch, and two with timbre (either with or without the attack). A symmetrical montage of 16 EEG channels was recorded for each subject across the different conditions. Two quantitative parameters of EEG activity were compared among the different sequences within five distinct frequency bands. As compared to a rest (no stimulation) condition, both passive listening conditions led to changes in primary auditory cortex areas. Both discrimination tasks for pitch and timbre led to right hemisphere EEG changes, organized in two poles: an anterior one and a posterior one. After discussing the electrophysiological aspects of this work, these results are interpreted in terms of a network including the right temporal neocortex and the right frontal lobe to maintain the acoustical information in an auditory working memory necessary to carry out the discrimination task.

Sensorimotor synchronization: neurophysiological markers of the asynchrony in a finger-tapping task.

PubMed

Bavassi, Luz; Kamienkowski, Juan E; Sigman, Mariano; Laje, Rodrigo

2017-01-01

Sensorimotor synchronization (SMS) is a form of referential behavior in which an action is coordinated with a predictable external stimulus. The neural bases of the synchronization ability remain unknown, even in the simpler, paradigmatic task of finger tapping to a metronome. In this task the subject is instructed to tap in synchrony with a periodic sequence of brief tones, and the time difference between each response and the corresponding stimulus tone (asynchrony) is recorded. We make a step towards the identification of the neurophysiological markers of SMS by recording high-density EEG event-related potentials and the concurrent behavioral response-stimulus asynchronies during an isochronous paced finger-tapping task. Using principal component analysis, we found an asymmetry between the traces for advanced and delayed responses to the stimulus, in accordance with previous behavioral observations from perturbation studies. We also found that the amplitude of the second component encodes the higher-level percept of asynchrony 100 ms after the current stimulus. Furthermore, its amplitude predicts the asynchrony of the next step, past 300 ms from the previous stimulus, independently of the period length. Moreover, the neurophysiological processing of synchronization errors is performed within a fixed-duration interval after the stimulus. Our results suggest that the correction of a large asynchrony in a periodic task and the recovery of synchrony after a perturbation could be driven by similar neural processes.

Using digital colour to increase the realistic appearance of SEM micrographs of bloodstains.

PubMed

Hortolà, Policarp

2010-10-01

Although in the scientific-research literature the micrographs from scanning electron microscopes (SEMs) are usually displayed in greyscale, the potential of colour resources provided by the SEM-coupled image-acquiring systems and, subsidiarily, by image-manipulation free softwares deserves be explored as a tool for colouring SEM micrographs of bloodstains. After acquiring greyscale SEM micrographs of a (dark red to the naked eye) human blood smear on grey chert, they were manually obtained in red tone using both the SEM-coupled image-acquiring system and an image-manipulation free software, as well as they were automatically generated in thermal tone using the SEM-coupled system. Red images obtained by the SEM-coupled system demonstrated lower visual-discrimination capability than the other coloured images, whereas those in red generated by the free software rendered better magnitude of scopic information than the red images generated by the SEM-coupled system. Thermal-tone images, although were further from the real sample colour than the red ones, not only increased their realistic appearance over the greyscale images, but also yielded the best visual-discrimination capability among all the coloured SEM micrographs, and fairly enhanced the relief effect of the SEM micrographs over both the greyscale and the red images. The application of digital colour by means of the facilities provided by an SEM-coupled image-acquiring system or, when required, by an image-manipulation free software provides a user-friendly, quick and inexpensive way of obtaining coloured SEM micrographs of bloodstains, avoiding to do sophisticated, time-consuming colouring procedures. Although this work was focused on bloodstains, well probably other monochromatic or quasi-monochromatic samples are also susceptible of increasing their realistic appearance by colouring them using the simple methods utilized in this study.

Attention-driven auditory cortex short-term plasticity helps segregate relevant sounds from noise.

PubMed

Ahveninen, Jyrki; Hämäläinen, Matti; Jääskeläinen, Iiro P; Ahlfors, Seppo P; Huang, Samantha; Lin, Fa-Hsuan; Raij, Tommi; Sams, Mikko; Vasios, Christos E; Belliveau, John W

2011-03-08

How can we concentrate on relevant sounds in noisy environments? A "gain model" suggests that auditory attention simply amplifies relevant and suppresses irrelevant afferent inputs. However, it is unclear whether this suffices when attended and ignored features overlap to stimulate the same neuronal receptive fields. A "tuning model" suggests that, in addition to gain, attention modulates feature selectivity of auditory neurons. We recorded magnetoencephalography, EEG, and functional MRI (fMRI) while subjects attended to tones delivered to one ear and ignored opposite-ear inputs. The attended ear was switched every 30 s to quantify how quickly the effects evolve. To produce overlapping inputs, the tones were presented alone vs. during white-noise masking notch-filtered ±1/6 octaves around the tone center frequencies. Amplitude modulation (39 vs. 41 Hz in opposite ears) was applied for "frequency tagging" of attention effects on maskers. Noise masking reduced early (50-150 ms; N1) auditory responses to unattended tones. In support of the tuning model, selective attention canceled out this attenuating effect but did not modulate the gain of 50-150 ms activity to nonmasked tones or steady-state responses to the maskers themselves. These tuning effects originated at nonprimary auditory cortices, purportedly occupied by neurons that, without attention, have wider frequency tuning than ±1/6 octaves. The attentional tuning evolved rapidly, during the first few seconds after attention switching, and correlated with behavioral discrimination performance. In conclusion, a simple gain model alone cannot explain auditory selective attention. In nonprimary auditory cortices, attention-driven short-term plasticity retunes neurons to segregate relevant sounds from noise.

Meta-analytic review of the development of face discrimination in infancy: Face race, face gender, infant age, and methodology moderate face discrimination.

PubMed

Sugden, Nicole A; Marquis, Alexandra R

2017-11-01

Infants show facility for discriminating between individual faces within hours of birth. Over the first year of life, infants' face discrimination shows continued improvement with familiar face types, such as own-race faces, but not with unfamiliar face types, like other-race faces. The goal of this meta-analytic review is to provide an effect size for infants' face discrimination ability overall, with own-race faces, and with other-race faces within the first year of life, how this differs with age, and how it is influenced by task methodology. Inclusion criteria were (a) infant participants aged 0 to 12 months, (b) completing a human own- or other-race face discrimination task, (c) with discrimination being determined by infant looking. Our analysis included 30 works (165 samples, 1,926 participants participated in 2,623 tasks). The effect size for infants' face discrimination was small, 6.53% greater than chance (i.e., equal looking to the novel and familiar). There was a significant difference in discrimination by race, overall (own-race, 8.18%; other-race, 3.18%) and between ages (own-race: 0- to 4.5-month-olds, 7.32%; 5- to 7.5-month-olds, 9.17%; and 8- to 12-month-olds, 7.68%; other-race: 0- to 4.5-month-olds, 6.12%; 5- to 7.5-month-olds, 3.70%; and 8- to 12-month-olds, 2.79%). Multilevel linear (mixed-effects) models were used to predict face discrimination; infants' capacity to discriminate faces is sensitive to face characteristics including race, gender, and emotion as well as the methods used, including task timing, coding method, and visual angle. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

An Inexpensive and Automated Method for Presenting Olfactory or Tactile Stimuli to Rats in a Two-Choice Discrimination Task

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Iversen, Iver H.

2008-01-01

An inexpensive and automated method for presentation of olfactory or tactile stimuli in a two-choice task for rats was implemented with the use of a computer-controlled bidirectional motor. The motor rotated a disk that presented two stimuli of different texture for tactile discrimination, or different odor for olfactory discrimination. Because…

Do rats use shape to solve “shape discriminations”?

PubMed Central

Minini, Loredana; Jeffery, Kathryn J.

2006-01-01

Visual discrimination tasks are increasingly used to explore the neurobiology of vision in rodents, but it remains unclear how the animals solve these tasks: Do they process shapes holistically, or by using low-level features such as luminance and angle acuity? In the present study we found that when discriminating triangles from squares, rats did not use shape but instead relied on local luminance differences in the lower hemifield. A second experiment prevented this strategy by using stimuli—squares and rectangles—that varied in size and location, and for which the only constant predictor of reward was aspect ratio (ratio of height to width: a simple descriptor of “shape”). Rats eventually learned to use aspect ratio but only when no other discriminand was available, and performance remained very poor even at asymptote. These results suggest that although rats can process both dimensions simultaneously, they do not naturally solve shape discrimination tasks this way. This may reflect either a failure to visually process global shape information or a failure to discover shape as the discriminative stimulus in a simultaneous discrimination. Either way, our results suggest that simultaneous shape discrimination is not a good task for studies of visual perception in rodents. PMID:16705141

Transfer in motion perceptual learning depends on the difficulty of the training task.

PubMed

Wang, Xiaoxiao; Zhou, Yifeng; Liu, Zili

2013-06-07

One hypothesis in visual perceptual learning is that the amount of transfer depends on the difficulty of the training and transfer tasks (Ahissar & Hochstein, 1997; Liu, 1995, 1999). Jeter, Dosher, Petrov, and Lu (2009), using an orientation discrimination task, challenged this hypothesis by arguing that the amount of transfer depends only on the transfer task but not on the training task. Here we show in a motion direction discrimination task that the amount of transfer indeed depends on the difficulty of the training task. Specifically, participants were first trained with either 4° or 8° direction discrimination along one average direction. Their transfer performance was then tested along an average direction 90° away from the trained direction. A variety of transfer measures consistently demonstrated that transfer performance depended on whether the participants were trained on 4° or 8° directional difference. The results contradicted the prediction that transfer was independent of the training task difficulty.

Two-Point Orientation Discrimination Versus the Traditional Two-Point Test for Tactile Spatial Acuity Assessment

PubMed Central

Tong, Jonathan; Mao, Oliver; Goldreich, Daniel

2013-01-01

Two-point discrimination is widely used to measure tactile spatial acuity. The validity of the two-point threshold as a spatial acuity measure rests on the assumption that two points can be distinguished from one only when the two points are sufficiently separated to evoke spatially distinguishable foci of neural activity. However, some previous research has challenged this view, suggesting instead that two-point task performance benefits from an unintended non-spatial cue, allowing spuriously good performance at small tip separations. We compared the traditional two-point task to an equally convenient alternative task in which participants attempt to discern the orientation (vertical or horizontal) of two points of contact. We used precision digital readout calipers to administer two-interval forced-choice versions of both tasks to 24 neurologically healthy adults, on the fingertip, finger base, palm, and forearm. We used Bayesian adaptive testing to estimate the participants’ psychometric functions on the two tasks. Traditional two-point performance remained significantly above chance levels even at zero point separation. In contrast, two-point orientation discrimination approached chance as point separation approached zero, as expected for a valid measure of tactile spatial acuity. Traditional two-point performance was so inflated at small point separations that 75%-correct thresholds could be determined on all tested sites for fewer than half of participants. The 95%-correct thresholds on the two tasks were similar, and correlated with receptive field spacing. In keeping with previous critiques, we conclude that the traditional two-point task provides an unintended non-spatial cue, resulting in spuriously good performance at small spatial separations. Unlike two-point discrimination, two-point orientation discrimination rigorously measures tactile spatial acuity. We recommend the use of two-point orientation discrimination for neurological assessment. PMID:24062677

A Comparison of Five FMRI Protocols for Mapping Speech Comprehension Systems

PubMed Central

Binder, Jeffrey R.; Swanson, Sara J.; Hammeke, Thomas A.; Sabsevitz, David S.

2008-01-01

Aims Many fMRI protocols for localizing speech comprehension have been described, but there has been little quantitative comparison of these methods. We compared five such protocols in terms of areas activated, extent of activation, and lateralization. Methods FMRI BOLD signals were measured in 26 healthy adults during passive listening and active tasks using words and tones. Contrasts were designed to identify speech perception and semantic processing systems. Activation extent and lateralization were quantified by counting activated voxels in each hemisphere for each participant. Results Passive listening to words produced bilateral superior temporal activation. After controlling for pre-linguistic auditory processing, only a small area in the left superior temporal sulcus responded selectively to speech. Active tasks engaged an extensive, bilateral attention and executive processing network. Optimal results (consistent activation and strongly lateralized pattern) were obtained by contrasting an active semantic decision task with a tone decision task. There was striking similarity between the network of brain regions activated by the semantic task and the network of brain regions that showed task-induced deactivation, suggesting that semantic processing occurs during the resting state. Conclusions FMRI protocols for mapping speech comprehension systems differ dramatically in pattern, extent, and lateralization of activation. Brain regions involved in semantic processing were identified only when an active, non-linguistic task was used as a baseline, supporting the notion that semantic processing occurs whenever attentional resources are not controlled. Identification of these lexical-semantic regions is particularly important for predicting language outcome in patients undergoing temporal lobe surgery. PMID:18513352

Motion direction discrimination training reduces perceived motion repulsion.

PubMed

Jia, Ke; Li, Sheng

2017-04-01

Participants often exaggerate the perceived angular separation between two simultaneously presented motion stimuli, which is referred to as motion repulsion. The overestimation helps participants differentiate between the two superimposed motion directions, yet it causes the impairment of direction perception. Since direction perception can be refined through perceptual training, we here attempted to investigate whether the training of a direction discrimination task changes the amount of motion repulsion. Our results showed a direction-specific learning effect, which was accompanied by a reduced amount of motion repulsion both for the trained and the untrained directions. The reduction of the motion repulsion disappeared when the participants were trained on a luminance discrimination task (control experiment 1) or a speed discrimination task (control experiment 2), ruling out any possible interpretation in terms of adaptation or training-induced attentional bias. Furthermore, training with a direction discrimination task along a direction 150° away from both directions in the transparent stimulus (control experiment 3) also had little effect on the amount of motion repulsion, ruling out the contribution of task learning. The changed motion repulsion observed in the main experiment was consistent with the prediction of the recurrent model of perceptual learning. Therefore, our findings demonstrate that training in direction discrimination can benefit the precise direction perception of the transparent stimulus and provide new evidence for the recurrent model of perceptual learning.

Binaural speech discrimination under noise in hearing-impaired listeners

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kumar, K. V.; Rao, A. B.

1988-01-01

This paper presents the results of an assessment of speech discrimination by hearing-impaired listeners (sensori-neural, conductive, and mixed groups) under binaural free-field listening in the presence of background noise. Subjects with pure-tone thresholds greater than 20 dB in 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 kHz were presented with a version of the W-22 list of phonetically balanced words under three conditions: (1) 'quiet', with the chamber noise below 28 dB and speech at 60 dB; (2) at a constant S/N ratio of +10 dB, and with a background white noise at 70 dB; and (3) same as condition (2), but with the background noise at 80 dB. The mean speech discrimination scores decreased significantly with noise in all groups. However, the decrease in binaural speech discrimination scores with an increase in hearing impairment was less for material presented under the noise conditions than for the material presented in quiet.

Effects of language experience and expectations on attention to consonants and tones in English and Mandarin Chinese.

PubMed

Lin, Mengxi; Francis, Alexander L

2014-11-01

Both long-term native language experience and immediate linguistic expectations can affect listeners' use of acoustic information when making a phonetic decision. In this study, a Garner selective attention task was used to investigate differences in attention to consonants and tones by American English-speaking listeners (N = 20) and Mandarin Chinese-speaking listeners hearing speech in either American English (N = 17) or Mandarin Chinese (N = 20). To minimize the effects of lexical differences and differences in the linguistic status of pitch across the two languages, stimuli and response conditions were selected such that all tokens constitute legitimate words in both languages and all responses required listeners to make decisions that were linguistically meaningful in their native language. Results showed that regardless of ambient language, Chinese listeners processed consonant and tone in a combined manner, consistent with previous research. In contrast, English listeners treated tones and consonants as perceptually separable. Results are discussed in terms of the role of sub-phonemic differences in acoustic cues across language, and the linguistic status of consonants and pitch contours in the two languages.

Non-musicians also have a piano in the head: evidence for spatial-musical associations from line bisection tracking.

PubMed

Hartmann, Matthias

2017-02-01

The spatial representation of ordinal sequences (numbers, time, tones) seems to be a fundamental cognitive property. While an automatic association between horizontal space and pitch height (left-low pitch, right-high pitch) is constantly reported in musicians, the evidence for such an association in non-musicians is mixed. In this study, 20 non-musicians performed a line bisection task while listening to irrelevant high- and low-pitched tones and white noise (control condition). While pitch height had no influence on the final bisection point, participants' movement trajectories showed systematic biases: When approaching the line and touching the line for the first time (initial bisection point), the mouse cursor was directed more rightward for high-pitched tones compared to low-pitched tones and noise. These results show that non-musicians also have a subtle but nevertheless automatic association between pitch height and the horizontal space. This suggests that spatial-musical associations do not necessarily depend on constant sensorimotor experiences (as it is the case for musicians) but rather reflect the seemingly inescapable tendency to represent ordinal information on a horizontal line.

Auditory evoked fields to vocalization during passive listening and active generation in adults who stutter.

PubMed

Beal, Deryk S; Cheyne, Douglas O; Gracco, Vincent L; Quraan, Maher A; Taylor, Margot J; De Nil, Luc F

2010-10-01

We used magnetoencephalography to investigate auditory evoked responses to speech vocalizations and non-speech tones in adults who do and do not stutter. Neuromagnetic field patterns were recorded as participants listened to a 1 kHz tone, playback of their own productions of the vowel /i/ and vowel-initial words, and actively generated the vowel /i/ and vowel-initial words. Activation of the auditory cortex at approximately 50 and 100 ms was observed during all tasks. A reduction in the peak amplitudes of the M50 and M100 components was observed during the active generation versus passive listening tasks dependent on the stimuli. Adults who stutter did not differ in the amount of speech-induced auditory suppression relative to fluent speakers. Adults who stutter had shorter M100 latencies for the actively generated speaking tasks in the right hemisphere relative to the left hemisphere but the fluent speakers showed similar latencies across hemispheres. During passive listening tasks, adults who stutter had longer M50 and M100 latencies than fluent speakers. The results suggest that there are timing, rather than amplitude, differences in auditory processing during speech in adults who stutter and are discussed in relation to hypotheses of auditory-motor integration breakdown in stuttering. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Electromagnetic correlates of musical expertise in processing of tone patterns.

PubMed

Kuchenbuch, Anja; Paraskevopoulos, Evangelos; Herholz, Sibylle C; Pantev, Christo

2012-01-01

Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we investigated the influence of long term musical training on the processing of partly imagined tone patterns (imagery condition) compared to the same perceived patterns (perceptual condition). The magnetic counterpart of the mismatch negativity (MMNm) was recorded and compared between musicians and non-musicians in order to assess the effect of musical training on the detection of deviants to tone patterns. The results indicated a clear MMNm in the perceptual condition as well as in a simple pitch oddball (control) condition in both groups. However, there was no significant mismatch response in either group in the imagery condition despite above chance behavioral performance in the task of detecting deviant tones. The latency and the laterality of the MMNm in the perceptual condition differed significantly between groups, with an earlier MMNm in musicians, especially in the left hemisphere. In contrast the MMNm amplitudes did not differ significantly between groups. The behavioral results revealed a clear effect of long-term musical training in both experimental conditions. The obtained results represent new evidence that the processing of tone patterns is faster and more strongly lateralized in musically trained subjects, which is consistent with other findings in different paradigms of enhanced auditory neural system functioning due to long-term musical training.

Effects of Posture and Stimulus Spectral Composition on Peripheral Physiological Responses to Loud Sounds

PubMed Central

Koch, Jennifer; Flemming, Jan; Zeffiro, Thomas; Rufer, Michael; Orr, Scott P.; Mueller-Pfeiffer, Christoph

2016-01-01

In the “loud-tone” procedure, a series of brief, loud, pure-tone stimuli are presented in a task-free situation. It is an established paradigm for measuring autonomic sensitization in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Successful use of this procedure during fMRI requires elicitation of brain responses that have sufficient signal-noise ratios when recorded in a supine, rather than sitting, position. We investigated the modulating effects of posture and stimulus spectral composition on peripheral psychophysiological responses to loud sounds. Healthy subjects (N = 24) weekly engaged in a loud-tone-like procedure that presented 500 msec, 95 dB sound pressure level, pure-tone or white-noise stimuli, either while sitting or supine and while peripheral physiological responses were recorded. Heart rate, skin conductance, and eye blink electromyographic responses were larger to white-noise than pure-tone stimuli (p’s < 0.001, generalized eta squared 0.073–0.076). Psychophysiological responses to the stimuli were similar in the sitting and supine position (p’s ≥ 0.082). Presenting white noise, rather than pure-tone, stimuli may improve the detection sensitivity of the neural concomitants of heightened autonomic responses by generating larger responses. Recording in the supine position appears to have little or no impact on psychophysiological response magnitudes to the auditory stimuli. PMID:27583659

Brief Report: Eye Movements during Visual Search Tasks Indicate Enhanced Stimulus Discriminability in Subjects with PDD

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kemner, Chantal; van Ewijk, Lizet; van Engeland, Herman; Hooge, Ignace

2008-01-01

Subjects with PDD excel on certain visuo-spatial tasks, amongst which visual search tasks, and this has been attributed to enhanced perceptual discrimination. However, an alternative explanation is that subjects with PDD show a different, more effective search strategy. The present study aimed to test both hypotheses, by measuring eye movements…

View-invariant object recognition ability develops after discrimination, not mere exposure, at several viewing angles.

PubMed

Yamashita, Wakayo; Wang, Gang; Tanaka, Keiji

2010-01-01

One usually fails to recognize an unfamiliar object across changes in viewing angle when it has to be discriminated from similar distractor objects. Previous work has demonstrated that after long-term experience in discriminating among a set of objects seen from the same viewing angle, immediate recognition of the objects across 30-60 degrees changes in viewing angle becomes possible. The capability for view-invariant object recognition should develop during the within-viewing-angle discrimination, which includes two kinds of experience: seeing individual views and discriminating among the objects. The aim of the present study was to determine the relative contribution of each factor to the development of view-invariant object recognition capability. Monkeys were first extensively trained in a task that required view-invariant object recognition (Object task) with several sets of objects. The animals were then exposed to a new set of objects over 26 days in one of two preparatory tasks: one in which each object view was seen individually, and a second that required discrimination among the objects at each of four viewing angles. After the preparatory period, we measured the monkeys' ability to recognize the objects across changes in viewing angle, by introducing the object set to the Object task. Results indicated significant view-invariant recognition after the second but not first preparatory task. These results suggest that discrimination of objects from distractors at each of several viewing angles is required for the development of view-invariant recognition of the objects when the distractors are similar to the objects.

Brain Mechanisms Supporting Discrimination of Sensory Features of Pain: A New Model

PubMed Central

Oshiro, Yoshitetsu; Quevedo, Alexandre S.; McHaffie, John G.; Kraft, Robert A.; Coghill, Robert C.

2010-01-01

Pain can be very intense or only mild, and can be well localized or diffuse. To date, little is known as to how such distinct sensory aspects of noxious stimuli are processed by the human brain. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and a delayed match-to-sample task, we show that discrimination of pain intensity, a non-spatial aspect of pain, activates a ventrally directed pathway extending bilaterally from the insular cortex to the prefrontal cortex. This activation is distinct from the dorsally-directed activation of the posterior parietal cortex and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex that occurs during spatial discrimination of pain. Both intensity and spatial discrimination tasks activate highly similar aspects of the anterior cingulate cortex, suggesting that this structure contributes to common elements of the discrimination task such as the monitoring of sensory comparisons and response selection. Taken together, these results provide the foundation for a new model of pain in which bidirectional dorsal and ventral streams preferentially amplify and process distinct sensory features of noxious stimuli according to top-down task demands. PMID:19940188

In Vivo Determination of the Complex Elastic Moduli of Cetacean Head Tissue

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-03-01

digitization of the modulated carrier signaT. Pure-tone ultrasonic vibrometry has been implemented in both air - coupled and water- coupled systems for...and J. Sabatier, " Air - coupled ultrasonic sensing of grass-covered vibrating surfaces; qualitative comparisons with laser vibrometry ", J. Acoust. Soc...follow-on grant. 2.2 Range discrimination in continuous-wave ultrasonic vibrometry The following Is adapted from a manuscript in preparation for

Motor contributions to the temporal precision of auditory attention

PubMed Central

Morillon, Benjamin; Schroeder, Charles E.; Wyart, Valentin

2014-01-01

In temporal—or dynamic—attending theory, it is proposed that motor activity helps to synchronize temporal fluctuations of attention with the timing of events in a task-relevant stream, thus facilitating sensory selection. Here we develop a mechanistic behavioural account for this theory by asking human participants to track a slow reference beat, by noiseless finger pressing, while extracting auditory target tones delivered on-beat and interleaved with distractors. We find that overt rhythmic motor activity improves the segmentation of auditory information by enhancing sensitivity to target tones while actively suppressing distractor tones. This effect is triggered by cyclic fluctuations in sensory gain locked to individual motor acts, scales parametrically with the temporal predictability of sensory events and depends on the temporal alignment between motor and attention fluctuations. Together, these findings reveal how top-down influences associated with a rhythmic motor routine sharpen sensory representations, enacting auditory ‘active sensing’. PMID:25314898

Cardiac vagal tone is correlated with selective attention to neutral distractors under load.

PubMed

Park, Gewnhi; Vasey, Michael W; Van Bavel, Jay J; Thayer, Julian F

2013-04-01

We examined whether cardiac vagal tone (indexed by heart rate variability, HRV) was associated with the functioning of selective attention under load. Participants were instructed to detect a target letter among letter strings superimposed on either fearful or neutral distractor faces. Under low load, when letter strings consisted of six target letters, there was no difference between people with high and low HRV on task performance. Under high load, when letter strings consisted of one target letter and five nontarget letters, people with high HRV were faster in trials with neutral distractors, but not with fearful distractors. However, people with low HRV were slower in trials with both fearful and neutral distractors. The current research suggests cardiac vagal tone is associated with successful control of selective attention critical for goal-directed behavior, and its impact is greater when fewer cognitive resources are available. Copyright © 2013 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Motor contributions to the temporal precision of auditory attention.

PubMed

Morillon, Benjamin; Schroeder, Charles E; Wyart, Valentin

2014-10-15

In temporal-or dynamic-attending theory, it is proposed that motor activity helps to synchronize temporal fluctuations of attention with the timing of events in a task-relevant stream, thus facilitating sensory selection. Here we develop a mechanistic behavioural account for this theory by asking human participants to track a slow reference beat, by noiseless finger pressing, while extracting auditory target tones delivered on-beat and interleaved with distractors. We find that overt rhythmic motor activity improves the segmentation of auditory information by enhancing sensitivity to target tones while actively suppressing distractor tones. This effect is triggered by cyclic fluctuations in sensory gain locked to individual motor acts, scales parametrically with the temporal predictability of sensory events and depends on the temporal alignment between motor and attention fluctuations. Together, these findings reveal how top-down influences associated with a rhythmic motor routine sharpen sensory representations, enacting auditory 'active sensing'.

A novel perceptual discrimination training task: Reducing fear overgeneralization in the context of fear learning.

PubMed

Ginat-Frolich, Rivkah; Klein, Zohar; Katz, Omer; Shechner, Tomer

2017-06-01

Generalization is an adaptive learning mechanism, but it can be maladaptive when it occurs in excess. A novel perceptual discrimination training task was therefore designed to moderate fear overgeneralization. We hypothesized that improvement in basic perceptual discrimination would translate into lower fear overgeneralization in affective cues. Seventy adults completed a fear-conditioning task prior to being allocated into training or placebo groups. Predesignated geometric shape pairs were constructed for the training task. A target shape from each pair was presented. Thereafter, participants in the training group were shown both shapes and asked to identify the image that differed from the target. Placebo task participants only indicated the location of each shape on the screen. All participants then viewed new geometric pairs and indicated whether they were identical or different. Finally, participants completed a fear generalization test consisting of perceptual morphs ranging from the CS + to the CS-. Fear-conditioning was observed through physiological and behavioural measures. Furthermore, the training group performed better than the placebo group on the assessment task and exhibited decreased fear generalization in response to threat/safety cues. The findings offer evidence for the effectiveness of the novel discrimination training task, setting the stage for future research with clinical populations. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Differential effect of an anticholinergic antidepressant on sleep-dependent memory consolidation.

PubMed

Goerke, Monique; Cohrs, Stefan; Rodenbeck, Andrea; Kunz, Dieter

2014-05-01

Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is considered critical to the consolidation of procedural memory - the memory of skills and habits. Many antidepressants strongly suppress REM sleep, however, and procedural memory consolidation has been shown to be impaired in depressed patients on antidepressant therapy. As a result, it is important to determine whether antidepressive therapy can lead to amnestic impairment. We thus investigated the effects of the anticholinergic antidepressant amitriptyline on sleep-dependent memory consolidation. Double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized, parallel-group study. Sleep laboratory. Twenty-five healthy men (mean age: 26.8 ± 5.6 y). 75 mg amitriptyline versus placebo. To test memory consolidation, a visual discrimination task, a finger-tapping task, the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test, and the Rey Auditory-Verbal Learning Test were performed. Sleep was measured using polysomnography. Our findings show that amitriptyline profoundly suppressed REM sleep and impaired perceptual skill learning, but not motor skill or declarative learning. Our study is the first to demonstrate that an antidepressant can affect procedural memory consolidation in healthy subjects. Moreover, considering the results of a recent study, in which selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors were shown not to impair procedural memory consolidation, our findings suggest that procedural memory consolidation is not facilitated by the characteristics of REM sleep captured by visual sleep scoring, but rather by the high cholinergic tone associated with REM sleep. Our study contributes to the understanding of potentially undesirable behavioral effects of amitriptyline.

Heart Rate Variability and Cardiac Vagal Tone in Psychophysiological Research – Recommendations for Experiment Planning, Data Analysis, and Data Reporting

PubMed Central

Laborde, Sylvain; Mosley, Emma; Thayer, Julian F.

2017-01-01

Psychophysiological research integrating heart rate variability (HRV) has increased during the last two decades, particularly given the fact that HRV is able to index cardiac vagal tone. Cardiac vagal tone, which represents the contribution of the parasympathetic nervous system to cardiac regulation, is acknowledged to be linked with many phenomena relevant for psychophysiological research, including self-regulation at the cognitive, emotional, social, and health levels. The ease of HRV collection and measurement coupled with the fact it is relatively affordable, non-invasive and pain free makes it widely accessible to many researchers. This ease of access should not obscure the difficulty of interpretation of HRV findings that can be easily misconstrued, however, this can be controlled to some extent through correct methodological processes. Standards of measurement were developed two decades ago by a Task Force within HRV research, and recent reviews updated several aspects of the Task Force paper. However, many methodological aspects related to HRV in psychophysiological research have to be considered if one aims to be able to draw sound conclusions, which makes it difficult to interpret findings and to compare results across laboratories. Those methodological issues have mainly been discussed in separate outlets, making difficult to get a grasp on them, and thus this paper aims to address this issue. It will help to provide psychophysiological researchers with recommendations and practical advice concerning experimental designs, data analysis, and data reporting. This will ensure that researchers starting a project with HRV and cardiac vagal tone are well informed regarding methodological considerations in order for their findings to contribute to knowledge advancement in their field. PMID:28265249