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Sample records for auditory perception event-related

  1. From sensation to percept: the neural signature of auditory event-related potentials.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Joos, Kathleen; Gilles, Annick; Van de Heyning, Paul; De Ridder, Dirk; Vanneste, Sven

    2014-05-01

    An external auditory stimulus induces an auditory sensation which may lead to a conscious auditory perception. Although the sensory aspect is well known, it is still a question how an auditory stimulus results in an individual's conscious percept. To unravel the uncertainties concerning the neural correlates of a conscious auditory percept, event-related potentials may serve as a useful tool. In the current review we mainly wanted to shed light on the perceptual aspects of auditory processing and therefore we mainly focused on the auditory late-latency responses. Moreover, there is increasing evidence that perception is an active process in which the brain searches for the information it expects to be present, suggesting that auditory perception requires the presence of both bottom-up, i.e. sensory and top-down, i.e. prediction-driven processing. Therefore, the auditory evoked potentials will be interpreted in the context of the Bayesian brain model, in which the brain predicts which information it expects and when this will happen. The internal representation of the auditory environment will be verified by sensation samples of the environment (P50, N100). When this incoming information violates the expectation, it will induce the emission of a prediction error signal (Mismatch Negativity), activating higher-order neural networks and inducing the update of prior internal representations of the environment (P300). Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  2. Evaluation of auditory perception development in neonates by event-related potential technique.

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    Zhang, Qinfen; Li, Hongxin; Zheng, Aibin; Dong, Xuan; Tu, Wenjuan

    2017-08-01

    To investigate auditory perception development in neonates and correlate it with days after birth, left and right hemisphere development and sex using event-related potential (ERP) technique. Sixty full-term neonates, consisting of 32 males and 28 females, aged 2-28days were included in this study. An auditory oddball paradigm was used to elicit ERPs. N2 wave latencies and areas were recorded at different days after birth, to study on relationship between auditory perception and age, and comparison of left and right hemispheres, and males and females. Average wave forms of ERPs in neonates started from relatively irregular flat-bottomed troughs to relatively regular steep-sided ripples. A good linear relationship between ERPs and days after birth in neonates was observed. As days after birth increased, N2 latencies gradually and significantly shortened, and N2 areas gradually and significantly increased (both Pbrain were significantly greater, and N2 latencies in the central part were significantly shorter in the left hemisphere compared with the right, indicative of left hemisphere dominance (both Pdevelopment. In the days following birth, the auditory perception ability of neonates gradually increases. This occurs predominantly in the left hemisphere, with auditory perception ability appearing to develop earlier in female neonates than in males. ERP can be used as an objective index used to evaluate auditory perception development in neonates. Copyright © 2017 The Japanese Society of Child Neurology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  3. Auditory event-related potentials associated with perceptual reversals of bistable pitch motion.

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    Davidson, Gray D; Pitts, Michael A

    2014-01-01

    Previous event-related potential (ERP) experiments have consistently identified two components associated with perceptual transitions of bistable visual stimuli, the "reversal negativity" (RN) and the "late positive complex" (LPC). The RN (~200 ms post-stimulus, bilateral occipital-parietal distribution) is thought to reflect transitions between neural representations that form the moment-to-moment contents of conscious perception, while the LPC (~400 ms, central-parietal) is considered an index of post-perceptual processing related to accessing and reporting one's percept. To explore the generality of these components across sensory modalities, the present experiment utilized a novel bistable auditory stimulus. Pairs of complex tones with ambiguous pitch relationships were presented sequentially while subjects reported whether they perceived the tone pairs as ascending or descending in pitch. ERPs elicited by the tones were compared according to whether perceived pitch motion changed direction or remained the same across successive trials. An auditory reversal negativity (aRN) component was evident at ~170 ms post-stimulus over bilateral fronto-central scalp locations. An auditory LPC component (aLPC) was evident at subsequent latencies (~350 ms, fronto-central distribution). These two components may be auditory analogs of the visual RN and LPC, suggesting functionally equivalent but anatomically distinct processes in auditory vs. visual bistable perception.

  4. Classification of passive auditory event-related potentials using discriminant analysis and self-organizing feature maps.

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    Schönweiler, R; Wübbelt, P; Tolloczko, R; Rose, C; Ptok, M

    2000-01-01

    Discriminant analysis (DA) and self-organizing feature maps (SOFM) were used to classify passively evoked auditory event-related potentials (ERP) P(1), N(1), P(2) and N(2). Responses from 16 children with severe behavioral auditory perception deficits, 16 children with marked behavioral auditory perception deficits, and 14 controls were examined. Eighteen ERP amplitude parameters were selected for examination of statistical differences between the groups. Different DA methods and SOFM configurations were trained to the values. SOFM had better classification results than DA methods. Subsequently, measures on another 37 subjects that were unknown for the trained SOFM were used to test the reliability of the system. With 10-dimensional vectors, reliable classifications were obtained that matched behavioral auditory perception deficits in 96%, implying central auditory processing disorder (CAPD). The results also support the assumption that CAPD includes a 'non-peripheral' auditory processing deficit. Copyright 2000 S. Karger AG, Basel.

  5. Rendering visual events as sounds: Spatial attention capture by auditory augmented reality.

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    Stone, Scott A; Tata, Matthew S

    2017-01-01

    Many salient visual events tend to coincide with auditory events, such as seeing and hearing a car pass by. Information from the visual and auditory senses can be used to create a stable percept of the stimulus. Having access to related coincident visual and auditory information can help for spatial tasks such as localization. However not all visual information has analogous auditory percepts, such as viewing a computer monitor. Here, we describe a system capable of detecting and augmenting visual salient events into localizable auditory events. The system uses a neuromorphic camera (DAVIS 240B) to detect logarithmic changes of brightness intensity in the scene, which can be interpreted as salient visual events. Participants were blindfolded and asked to use the device to detect new objects in the scene, as well as determine direction of motion for a moving visual object. Results suggest the system is robust enough to allow for the simple detection of new salient stimuli, as well accurately encoding direction of visual motion. Future successes are probable as neuromorphic devices are likely to become faster and smaller in the future, making this system much more feasible.

  6. Rendering visual events as sounds: Spatial attention capture by auditory augmented reality.

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    Scott A Stone

    Full Text Available Many salient visual events tend to coincide with auditory events, such as seeing and hearing a car pass by. Information from the visual and auditory senses can be used to create a stable percept of the stimulus. Having access to related coincident visual and auditory information can help for spatial tasks such as localization. However not all visual information has analogous auditory percepts, such as viewing a computer monitor. Here, we describe a system capable of detecting and augmenting visual salient events into localizable auditory events. The system uses a neuromorphic camera (DAVIS 240B to detect logarithmic changes of brightness intensity in the scene, which can be interpreted as salient visual events. Participants were blindfolded and asked to use the device to detect new objects in the scene, as well as determine direction of motion for a moving visual object. Results suggest the system is robust enough to allow for the simple detection of new salient stimuli, as well accurately encoding direction of visual motion. Future successes are probable as neuromorphic devices are likely to become faster and smaller in the future, making this system much more feasible.

  7. Visual Temporal Acuity Is Related to Auditory Speech Perception Abilities in Cochlear Implant Users.

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    Jahn, Kelly N; Stevenson, Ryan A; Wallace, Mark T

    Despite significant improvements in speech perception abilities following cochlear implantation, many prelingually deafened cochlear implant (CI) recipients continue to rely heavily on visual information to develop speech and language. Increased reliance on visual cues for understanding spoken language could lead to the development of unique audiovisual integration and visual-only processing abilities in these individuals. Brain imaging studies have demonstrated that good CI performers, as indexed by auditory-only speech perception abilities, have different patterns of visual cortex activation in response to visual and auditory stimuli as compared with poor CI performers. However, no studies have examined whether speech perception performance is related to any type of visual processing abilities following cochlear implantation. The purpose of the present study was to provide a preliminary examination of the relationship between clinical, auditory-only speech perception tests, and visual temporal acuity in prelingually deafened adult CI users. It was hypothesized that prelingually deafened CI users, who exhibit better (i.e., more acute) visual temporal processing abilities would demonstrate better auditory-only speech perception performance than those with poorer visual temporal acuity. Ten prelingually deafened adult CI users were recruited for this study. Participants completed a visual temporal order judgment task to quantify visual temporal acuity. To assess auditory-only speech perception abilities, participants completed the consonant-nucleus-consonant word recognition test and the AzBio sentence recognition test. Results were analyzed using two-tailed partial Pearson correlations, Spearman's rho correlations, and independent samples t tests. Visual temporal acuity was significantly correlated with auditory-only word and sentence recognition abilities. In addition, proficient CI users, as assessed via auditory-only speech perception performance, demonstrated

  8. Odors Bias Time Perception in Visual and Auditory Modalities.

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    Yue, Zhenzhu; Gao, Tianyu; Chen, Lihan; Wu, Jiashuang

    2016-01-01

    Previous studies have shown that emotional states alter our perception of time. However, attention, which is modulated by a number of factors, such as emotional events, also influences time perception. To exclude potential attentional effects associated with emotional events, various types of odors (inducing different levels of emotional arousal) were used to explore whether olfactory events modulated time perception differently in visual and auditory modalities. Participants were shown either a visual dot or heard a continuous tone for 1000 or 4000 ms while they were exposed to odors of jasmine, lavender, or garlic. Participants then reproduced the temporal durations of the preceding visual or auditory stimuli by pressing the spacebar twice. Their reproduced durations were compared to those in the control condition (without odor). The results showed that participants produced significantly longer time intervals in the lavender condition than in the jasmine or garlic conditions. The overall influence of odor on time perception was equivalent for both visual and auditory modalities. The analysis of the interaction effect showed that participants produced longer durations than the actual duration in the short interval condition, but they produced shorter durations in the long interval condition. The effect sizes were larger for the auditory modality than those for the visual modality. Moreover, by comparing performance across the initial and the final blocks of the experiment, we found odor adaptation effects were mainly manifested as longer reproductions for the short time interval later in the adaptation phase, and there was a larger effect size in the auditory modality. In summary, the present results indicate that odors imposed differential impacts on reproduced time durations, and they were constrained by different sensory modalities, valence of the emotional events, and target durations. Biases in time perception could be accounted for by a framework of

  9. Odors bias time perception in visual and auditory modalities

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    Zhenzhu eYue

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available Previous studies have shown that emotional states alter our perception of time. However, attention, which is modulated by a number of factors, such as emotional events, also influences time perception. To exclude potential attentional effects associated with emotional events, various types of odors (inducing different levels of emotional arousal were used to explore whether olfactory events modulated time perception differently in visual and auditory modalities. Participants were shown either a visual dot or heard a continuous tone for 1000 ms or 4000 ms while they were exposed to odors of jasmine, lavender, or garlic. Participants then reproduced the temporal durations of the preceding visual or auditory stimuli by pressing the spacebar twice. Their reproduced durations were compared to those in the control condition (without odor. The results showed that participants produced significantly longer time intervals in the lavender condition than in the jasmine or garlic conditions. The overall influence of odor on time perception was equivalent for both visual and auditory modalities. The analysis of the interaction effect showed that participants produced longer durations than the actual duration in the short interval condition, but they produced shorter durations in the long interval condition. The effect sizes were larger for the auditory modality than those for the visual modality. Moreover, by comparing performance across the initial and the final blocks of the experiment, we found odor adaptation effects were mainly manifested as longer reproductions for the short time interval later in the adaptation phase, and there was a larger effect size in the auditory modality. In summary, the present results indicate that odors imposed differential impacts on reproduced time durations, and they were constrained by different sensory modalities, valence of the emotional events, and target durations. Biases in time perception could be accounted for by a

  10. Perceiving temporal regularity in music: The role of auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) in probing beat perception

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Honing, H.; Bouwer, F.L.; Háden, G.P.; Merchant, H.; de Lafuente, V.

    2014-01-01

    The aim of this chapter is to give an overview of how the perception of a regular beat in music can be studied in humans adults, human newborns, and nonhuman primates using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Next to a review of the recent literature on the perception of temporal regularity in

  11. Evidence of a visual-to-auditory cross-modal sensory gating phenomenon as reflected by the human P50 event-related brain potential modulation.

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    Lebib, Riadh; Papo, David; de Bode, Stella; Baudonnière, Pierre Marie

    2003-05-08

    We investigated the existence of a cross-modal sensory gating reflected by the modulation of an early electrophysiological index, the P50 component. We analyzed event-related brain potentials elicited by audiovisual speech stimuli manipulated along two dimensions: congruency and discriminability. The results showed that the P50 was attenuated when visual and auditory speech information were redundant (i.e. congruent), in comparison with this same event-related potential component elicited with discrepant audiovisual dubbing. When hard to discriminate, however, bimodal incongruent speech stimuli elicited a similar pattern of P50 attenuation. We concluded to the existence of a visual-to-auditory cross-modal sensory gating phenomenon. These results corroborate previous findings revealing a very early audiovisual interaction during speech perception. Finally, we postulated that the sensory gating system included a cross-modal dimension.

  12. Auditory distance perception in humans: a review of cues, development, neuronal bases, and effects of sensory loss.

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    Kolarik, Andrew J; Moore, Brian C J; Zahorik, Pavel; Cirstea, Silvia; Pardhan, Shahina

    2016-02-01

    Auditory distance perception plays a major role in spatial awareness, enabling location of objects and avoidance of obstacles in the environment. However, it remains under-researched relative to studies of the directional aspect of sound localization. This review focuses on the following four aspects of auditory distance perception: cue processing, development, consequences of visual and auditory loss, and neurological bases. The several auditory distance cues vary in their effective ranges in peripersonal and extrapersonal space. The primary cues are sound level, reverberation, and frequency. Nonperceptual factors, including the importance of the auditory event to the listener, also can affect perceived distance. Basic internal representations of auditory distance emerge at approximately 6 months of age in humans. Although visual information plays an important role in calibrating auditory space, sensorimotor contingencies can be used for calibration when vision is unavailable. Blind individuals often manifest supranormal abilities to judge relative distance but show a deficit in absolute distance judgments. Following hearing loss, the use of auditory level as a distance cue remains robust, while the reverberation cue becomes less effective. Previous studies have not found evidence that hearing-aid processing affects perceived auditory distance. Studies investigating the brain areas involved in processing different acoustic distance cues are described. Finally, suggestions are given for further research on auditory distance perception, including broader investigation of how background noise and multiple sound sources affect perceived auditory distance for those with sensory loss.

  13. Auditory event-related responses to diphthongs in different attention conditions

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Morris, David Jackson; Steinmetzger, Kurt; Tøndering, John

    2016-01-01

    The modulation of auditory event-related potentials (ERP) by attention generally results in larger amplitudes when stimuli are attended. We measured the P1-N1-P2 acoustic change complex elicited with synthetic overt (second formant, F2 = 1000 Hz) and subtle (F2 = 100 Hz) diphthongs, while subjects...... (i) attended to the auditory stimuli, (ii) ignored the auditory stimuli and watched a film, and (iii) diverted their attention to a visual discrimination task. Responses elicited by diphthongs where F2 values rose and fell were found to be different and this precluded their combined analysis....... Multivariate analysis of ERP components from the rising F2 changes showed main effects of attention on P2 amplitude and latency, and N1-P2 amplitude. P2 amplitude decreased by 40% between the attend and ignore conditions, and by 60% between the attend and divert conditions. The effect of diphthong magnitude...

  14. Perceiving temporal regularity in music: the role of auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) in probing beat perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Honing, Henkjan; Bouwer, Fleur L; Háden, Gábor P

    2014-01-01

    The aim of this chapter is to give an overview of how the perception of a regular beat in music can be studied in humans adults, human newborns, and nonhuman primates using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Next to a review of the recent literature on the perception of temporal regularity in music, we will discuss in how far ERPs, and especially the component called mismatch negativity (MMN), can be instrumental in probing beat perception. We conclude with a discussion on the pitfalls and prospects of using ERPs to probe the perception of a regular beat, in which we present possible constraints on stimulus design and discuss future perspectives.

  15. Auditory, visual, and auditory-visual perceptions of emotions by young children with hearing loss versus children with normal hearing.

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    Most, Tova; Michaelis, Hilit

    2012-08-01

    This study aimed to investigate the effect of hearing loss (HL) on emotion-perception ability among young children with and without HL. A total of 26 children 4.0-6.6 years of age with prelingual sensory-neural HL ranging from moderate to profound and 14 children with normal hearing (NH) participated. They were asked to identify happiness, anger, sadness, and fear expressed by an actress when uttering the same neutral nonsense sentence. Their auditory, visual, and auditory-visual perceptions of the emotional content were assessed. The accuracy of emotion perception among children with HL was lower than that of the NH children in all 3 conditions: auditory, visual, and auditory-visual. Perception through the combined auditory-visual mode significantly surpassed the auditory or visual modes alone in both groups, indicating that children with HL utilized the auditory information for emotion perception. No significant differences in perception emerged according to degree of HL. In addition, children with profound HL and cochlear implants did not perform differently from children with less severe HL who used hearing aids. The relatively high accuracy of emotion perception by children with HL may be explained by their intensive rehabilitation, which emphasizes suprasegmental and paralinguistic aspects of verbal communication.

  16. Temporal integration: intentional sound discrimination does not modulate stimulus-driven processes in auditory event synthesis.

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    Sussman, Elyse; Winkler, István; Kreuzer, Judith; Saher, Marieke; Näätänen, Risto; Ritter, Walter

    2002-12-01

    Our previous study showed that the auditory context could influence whether two successive acoustic changes occurring within the temporal integration window (approximately 200ms) were pre-attentively encoded as a single auditory event or as two discrete events (Cogn Brain Res 12 (2001) 431). The aim of the current study was to assess whether top-down processes could influence the stimulus-driven processes in determining what constitutes an auditory event. Electroencepholagram (EEG) was recorded from 11 scalp electrodes to frequently occurring standard and infrequently occurring deviant sounds. Within the stimulus blocks, deviants either occurred only in pairs (successive feature changes) or both singly and in pairs. Event-related potential indices of change and target detection, the mismatch negativity (MMN) and the N2b component, respectively, were compared with the simultaneously measured performance in discriminating the deviants. Even though subjects could voluntarily distinguish the two successive auditory feature changes from each other, which was also indicated by the elicitation of the N2b target-detection response, top-down processes did not modify the event organization reflected by the MMN response. Top-down processes can extract elemental auditory information from a single integrated acoustic event, but the extraction occurs at a later processing stage than the one whose outcome is indexed by MMN. Initial processes of auditory event-formation are fully governed by the context within which the sounds occur. Perception of the deviants as two separate sound events (the top-down effects) did not change the initial neural representation of the same deviants as one event (indexed by the MMN), without a corresponding change in the stimulus-driven sound organization.

  17. Children's Performance on Pseudoword Repetition Depends on Auditory Trace Quality: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials.

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    Ceponiene, Rita; Service, Elisabet; Kurjenluoma, Sanna; Cheour, Marie; Naatanen, Risto

    1999-01-01

    Compared the mismatch-negativity (MMN) component of auditory event-related brain potentials to explore the relationship between phonological short-term memory and auditory-sensory processing in 7- to 9-year olds scoring the highest and lowest on a pseudoword repetition test. Found that high and low repeaters differed in MMN amplitude to speech…

  18. Differences between human auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) measured at 2 and 4 months after birth

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    van den Heuvel, Marion I.; Otte, Renee A.; Braeken, Marijke A. K. A.; Winkler, Istvan; Kushnerenko, Elena; Van den Bergh, Bea R. H.

    2015-01-01

    Infant auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) show a series of marked changes during the first year of life. These AERP changes indicate important advances in early development. The current study examined AERP differences between 2- and 4-month-old infants. An auditory oddball paradigm was

  19. Auditory perception of a human walker.

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    Cottrell, David; Campbell, Megan E J

    2014-01-01

    When one hears footsteps in the hall, one is able to instantly recognise it as a person: this is an everyday example of auditory biological motion perception. Despite the familiarity of this experience, research into this phenomenon is in its infancy compared with visual biological motion perception. Here, two experiments explored sensitivity to, and recognition of, auditory stimuli of biological and nonbiological origin. We hypothesised that the cadence of a walker gives rise to a temporal pattern of impact sounds that facilitates the recognition of human motion from auditory stimuli alone. First a series of detection tasks compared sensitivity with three carefully matched impact sounds: footsteps, a ball bouncing, and drumbeats. Unexpectedly, participants were no more sensitive to footsteps than to impact sounds of nonbiological origin. In the second experiment participants made discriminations between pairs of the same stimuli, in a series of recognition tasks in which the temporal pattern of impact sounds was manipulated to be either that of a walker or the pattern more typical of the source event (a ball bouncing or a drumbeat). Under these conditions, there was evidence that both temporal and nontemporal cues were important in recognising theses stimuli. It is proposed that the interval between footsteps, which reflects a walker's cadence, is a cue for the recognition of the sounds of a human walking.

  20. Attention, awareness, and the perception of auditory scenes

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    Joel S Snyder

    2012-02-01

    Full Text Available Auditory perception and cognition entails both low-level and high-level processes, which are likely to interact with each other to create our rich conscious experience of soundscapes. Recent research that we review has revealed numerous influences of high-level factors, such as attention, intention, and prior experience, on conscious auditory perception. And recently, studies have shown that auditory scene analysis tasks can exhibit multistability in a manner very similar to ambiguous visual stimuli, presenting a unique opportunity to study neural correlates of auditory awareness and the extent to which mechanisms of perception are shared across sensory modalities. Research has also led to a growing number of techniques through which auditory perception can be manipulated and even completely suppressed. Such findings have important consequences for our understanding of the mechanisms of perception and also should allow scientists to precisely distinguish the influences of different higher-level influences.

  1. Musical experience, auditory perception and reading-related skills in children.

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    Banai, Karen; Ahissar, Merav

    2013-01-01

    The relationships between auditory processing and reading-related skills remain poorly understood despite intensive research. Here we focus on the potential role of musical experience as a confounding factor. Specifically we ask whether the pattern of correlations between auditory and reading related skills differ between children with different amounts of musical experience. Third grade children with various degrees of musical experience were tested on a battery of auditory processing and reading related tasks. Very poor auditory thresholds and poor memory skills were abundant only among children with no musical education. In this population, indices of auditory processing (frequency and interval discrimination thresholds) were significantly correlated with and accounted for up to 13% of the variance in reading related skills. Among children with more than one year of musical training, auditory processing indices were better, yet reading related skills were not correlated with them. A potential interpretation for the reduction in the correlations might be that auditory and reading-related skills improve at different rates as a function of musical training. Participants' previous musical training, which is typically ignored in studies assessing the relations between auditory and reading related skills, should be considered. Very poor auditory and memory skills are rare among children with even a short period of musical training, suggesting musical training could have an impact on both. The lack of correlation in the musically trained population suggests that a short period of musical training does not enhance reading related skills of individuals with within-normal auditory processing skills. Further studies are required to determine whether the associations between musical training, auditory processing and memory are indeed causal or whether children with poor auditory and memory skills are less likely to study music and if so, why this is the case.

  2. Musical experience, auditory perception and reading-related skills in children.

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    Karen Banai

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: The relationships between auditory processing and reading-related skills remain poorly understood despite intensive research. Here we focus on the potential role of musical experience as a confounding factor. Specifically we ask whether the pattern of correlations between auditory and reading related skills differ between children with different amounts of musical experience. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Third grade children with various degrees of musical experience were tested on a battery of auditory processing and reading related tasks. Very poor auditory thresholds and poor memory skills were abundant only among children with no musical education. In this population, indices of auditory processing (frequency and interval discrimination thresholds were significantly correlated with and accounted for up to 13% of the variance in reading related skills. Among children with more than one year of musical training, auditory processing indices were better, yet reading related skills were not correlated with them. A potential interpretation for the reduction in the correlations might be that auditory and reading-related skills improve at different rates as a function of musical training. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Participants' previous musical training, which is typically ignored in studies assessing the relations between auditory and reading related skills, should be considered. Very poor auditory and memory skills are rare among children with even a short period of musical training, suggesting musical training could have an impact on both. The lack of correlation in the musically trained population suggests that a short period of musical training does not enhance reading related skills of individuals with within-normal auditory processing skills. Further studies are required to determine whether the associations between musical training, auditory processing and memory are indeed causal or whether children with poor auditory and

  3. The relationship of phonological ability, speech perception and auditory perception in adults with dyslexia.

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    Jeremy eLaw

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available This study investigated whether auditory, speech perception and phonological skills are tightly interrelated or independently contributing to reading. We assessed each of these three skills in 36 adults with a past diagnosis of dyslexia and 54 matched normal reading adults. Phonological skills were tested by the typical threefold tasks, i.e. rapid automatic naming, verbal short term memory and phonological awareness. Dynamic auditory processing skills were assessed by means of a frequency modulation (FM and an amplitude rise time (RT; an intensity discrimination task (ID was included as a non-dynamic control task. Speech perception was assessed by means of sentences and words in noise tasks. Group analysis revealed significant group differences in auditory tasks (i.e. RT and ID and in phonological processing measures, yet no differences were found for speech perception. In addition, performance on RT discrimination correlated with reading but this relation was mediated by phonological processing and not by speech in noise. Finally, inspection of the individual scores revealed that the dyslexic readers showed an increased proportion of deviant subjects on the slow-dynamic auditory and phonological tasks, yet each individual dyslexic reader does not display a clear pattern of deficiencies across the levels of processing skills. Although our results support phonological and slow-rate dynamic auditory deficits which relate to literacy, they suggest that at the individual level, problems in reading and writing cannot be explained by the cascading auditory theory. Instead, dyslexic adults seem to vary considerably in the extent to which each of the auditory and phonological factors are expressed and interact with environmental and higher-order cognitive influences.

  4. Relating binaural pitch perception to the individual listener's auditory profile.

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    Santurette, Sébastien; Dau, Torsten

    2012-04-01

    The ability of eight normal-hearing listeners and fourteen listeners with sensorineural hearing loss to detect and identify pitch contours was measured for binaural-pitch stimuli and salience-matched monaurally detectable pitches. In an effort to determine whether impaired binaural pitch perception was linked to a specific deficit, the auditory profiles of the individual listeners were characterized using measures of loudness perception, cognitive ability, binaural processing, temporal fine structure processing, and frequency selectivity, in addition to common audiometric measures. Two of the listeners were found not to perceive binaural pitch at all, despite a clear detection of monaural pitch. While both binaural and monaural pitches were detectable by all other listeners, identification scores were significantly lower for binaural than for monaural pitch. A total absence of binaural pitch sensation coexisted with a loss of a binaural signal-detection advantage in noise, without implying reduced cognitive function. Auditory filter bandwidths did not correlate with the difference in pitch identification scores between binaural and monaural pitches. However, subjects with impaired binaural pitch perception showed deficits in temporal fine structure processing. Whether the observed deficits stemmed from peripheral or central mechanisms could not be resolved here, but the present findings may be useful for hearing loss characterization.

  5. Predictive coding of visual-auditory and motor-auditory events: An electrophysiological study.

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    Stekelenburg, Jeroen J; Vroomen, Jean

    2015-11-11

    The amplitude of auditory components of the event-related potential (ERP) is attenuated when sounds are self-generated compared to externally generated sounds. This effect has been ascribed to internal forward modals predicting the sensory consequences of one's own motor actions. Auditory potentials are also attenuated when a sound is accompanied by a video of anticipatory visual motion that reliably predicts the sound. Here, we investigated whether the neural underpinnings of prediction of upcoming auditory stimuli are similar for motor-auditory (MA) and visual-auditory (VA) events using a stimulus omission paradigm. In the MA condition, a finger tap triggered the sound of a handclap whereas in the VA condition the same sound was accompanied by a video showing the handclap. In both conditions, the auditory stimulus was omitted in either 50% or 12% of the trials. These auditory omissions induced early and mid-latency ERP components (oN1 and oN2, presumably reflecting prediction and prediction error), and subsequent higher-order error evaluation processes. The oN1 and oN2 of MA and VA were alike in amplitude, topography, and neural sources despite that the origin of the prediction stems from different brain areas (motor versus visual cortex). This suggests that MA and VA predictions activate a sensory template of the sound in auditory cortex. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled SI: Prediction and Attention. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  6. Temporal factors affecting somatosensory-auditory interactions in speech processing

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    Takayuki eIto

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available Speech perception is known to rely on both auditory and visual information. However, sound specific somatosensory input has been shown also to influence speech perceptual processing (Ito et al., 2009. In the present study we addressed further the relationship between somatosensory information and speech perceptual processing by addressing the hypothesis that the temporal relationship between orofacial movement and sound processing contributes to somatosensory-auditory interaction in speech perception. We examined the changes in event-related potentials in response to multisensory synchronous (simultaneous and asynchronous (90 ms lag and lead somatosensory and auditory stimulation compared to individual unisensory auditory and somatosensory stimulation alone. We used a robotic device to apply facial skin somatosensory deformations that were similar in timing and duration to those experienced in speech production. Following synchronous multisensory stimulation the amplitude of the event-related potential was reliably different from the two unisensory potentials. More importantly, the magnitude of the event-related potential difference varied as a function of the relative timing of the somatosensory-auditory stimulation. Event-related activity change due to stimulus timing was seen between 160-220 ms following somatosensory onset, mostly around the parietal area. The results demonstrate a dynamic modulation of somatosensory-auditory convergence and suggest the contribution of somatosensory information for speech processing process is dependent on the specific temporal order of sensory inputs in speech production.

  7. Cross-modal Association between Auditory and Visuospatial Information in Mandarin Tone Perception in Noise by Native and Non-native Perceivers

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    Beverly Hannah

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Speech perception involves multiple input modalities. Research has indicated that perceivers establish cross-modal associations between auditory and visuospatial events to aid perception. Such intermodal relations can be particularly beneficial for speech development and learning, where infants and non-native perceivers need additional resources to acquire and process new sounds. This study examines how facial articulatory cues and co-speech hand gestures mimicking pitch contours in space affect non-native Mandarin tone perception. Native English as well as Mandarin perceivers identified tones embedded in noise with either congruent or incongruent Auditory-Facial (AF and Auditory-FacialGestural (AFG inputs. Native Mandarin results showed the expected ceiling-level performance in the congruent AF and AFG conditions. In the incongruent conditions, while AF identification was primarily auditory-based, AFG identification was partially based on gestures, demonstrating the use of gestures as valid cues in tone identification. The English perceivers’ performance was poor in the congruent AF condition, but improved significantly in AFG. While the incongruent AF identification showed some reliance on facial information, incongruent AFG identification relied more on gestural than auditory-facial information. These results indicate positive effects of facial and especially gestural input on non-native tone perception, suggesting that cross-modal (visuospatial resources can be recruited to aid auditory perception when phonetic demands are high. The current findings may inform patterns of tone acquisition and development, suggesting how multi-modal speech enhancement principles may be applied to facilitate speech learning.

  8. Intelligence and P3 Components of the Event-Related Potential Elicited during an Auditory Discrimination Task with Masking

    Science.gov (United States)

    De Pascalis, V.; Varriale, V.; Matteoli, A.

    2008-01-01

    The relationship between fluid intelligence (indexed by scores on Raven Progressive Matrices) and auditory discrimination ability was examined by recording event-related potentials from 48 women during the performance of an auditory oddball task with backward masking. High ability (HA) subjects exhibited shorter response times, greater response…

  9. Temporal integration of sequential auditory events: silent period in sound pattern activates human planum temporale.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mustovic, Henrietta; Scheffler, Klaus; Di Salle, Francesco; Esposito, Fabrizio; Neuhoff, John G; Hennig, Jürgen; Seifritz, Erich

    2003-09-01

    Temporal integration is a fundamental process that the brain carries out to construct coherent percepts from serial sensory events. This process critically depends on the formation of memory traces reconciling past with present events and is particularly important in the auditory domain where sensory information is received both serially and in parallel. It has been suggested that buffers for transient auditory memory traces reside in the auditory cortex. However, previous studies investigating "echoic memory" did not distinguish between brain response to novel auditory stimulus characteristics on the level of basic sound processing and a higher level involving matching of present with stored information. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging in combination with a regular pattern of sounds repeated every 100 ms and deviant interspersed stimuli of 100-ms duration, which were either brief presentations of louder sounds or brief periods of silence, to probe the formation of auditory memory traces. To avoid interaction with scanner noise, the auditory stimulation sequence was implemented into the image acquisition scheme. Compared to increased loudness events, silent periods produced specific neural activation in the right planum temporale and temporoparietal junction. Our findings suggest that this area posterior to the auditory cortex plays a critical role in integrating sequential auditory events and is involved in the formation of short-term auditory memory traces. This function of the planum temporale appears to be fundamental in the segregation of simultaneous sound sources.

  10. Visual and auditory perception in preschool children at risk for dyslexia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ortiz, Rosario; Estévez, Adelina; Muñetón, Mercedes; Domínguez, Carolina

    2014-11-01

    Recently, there has been renewed interest in perceptive problems of dyslexics. A polemic research issue in this area has been the nature of the perception deficit. Another issue is the causal role of this deficit in dyslexia. Most studies have been carried out in adult and child literates; consequently, the observed deficits may be the result rather than the cause of dyslexia. This study addresses these issues by examining visual and auditory perception in children at risk for dyslexia. We compared children from preschool with and without risk for dyslexia in auditory and visual temporal order judgment tasks and same-different discrimination tasks. Identical visual and auditory, linguistic and nonlinguistic stimuli were presented in both tasks. The results revealed that the visual as well as the auditory perception of children at risk for dyslexia is impaired. The comparison between groups in auditory and visual perception shows that the achievement of children at risk was lower than children without risk for dyslexia in the temporal tasks. There were no differences between groups in auditory discrimination tasks. The difficulties of children at risk in visual and auditory perceptive processing affected both linguistic and nonlinguistic stimuli. Our conclusions are that children at risk for dyslexia show auditory and visual perceptive deficits for linguistic and nonlinguistic stimuli. The auditory impairment may be explained by temporal processing problems and these problems are more serious for processing language than for processing other auditory stimuli. These visual and auditory perceptive deficits are not the consequence of failing to learn to read, thus, these findings support the theory of temporal processing deficit. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  11. Reduced object related negativity response indicates impaired auditory scene analysis in adults with autistic spectrum disorder

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    Veema Lodhia

    2014-02-01

    Full Text Available Auditory Scene Analysis provides a useful framework for understanding atypical auditory perception in autism. Specifically, a failure to segregate the incoming acoustic energy into distinct auditory objects might explain the aversive reaction autistic individuals have to certain auditory stimuli or environments. Previous research with non-autistic participants has demonstrated the presence of an Object Related Negativity (ORN in the auditory event related potential that indexes pre-attentive processes associated with auditory scene analysis. Also evident is a later P400 component that is attention dependent and thought to be related to decision-making about auditory objects. We sought to determine whether there are differences between individuals with and without autism in the levels of processing indexed by these components. Electroencephalography (EEG was used to measure brain responses from a group of 16 autistic adults, and 16 age- and verbal-IQ-matched typically-developing adults. Auditory responses were elicited using lateralized dichotic pitch stimuli in which inter-aural timing differences create the illusory perception of a pitch that is spatially separated from a carrier noise stimulus. As in previous studies, control participants produced an ORN in response to the pitch stimuli. However, this component was significantly reduced in the participants with autism. In contrast, processing differences were not observed between the groups at the attention-dependent level (P400. These findings suggest that autistic individuals have difficulty segregating auditory stimuli into distinct auditory objects, and that this difficulty arises at an early pre-attentive level of processing.

  12. Event-related potentials to visual, auditory, and bimodal (combined auditory-visual) stimuli.

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    Isoğlu-Alkaç, Ummühan; Kedzior, Karina; Keskindemirci, Gonca; Ermutlu, Numan; Karamursel, Sacit

    2007-02-01

    The purpose of this study was to investigate the response properties of event related potentials to unimodal and bimodal stimulations. The amplitudes of N1 and P2 were larger during bimodal evoked potentials (BEPs) than auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) in the anterior sites and the amplitudes of P1 were larger during BEPs than VEPs especially at the parieto-occipital locations. Responses to bimodal stimulation had longer latencies than responses to unimodal stimulation. The N1 and P2 components were larger in amplitude and longer in latency during the bimodal paradigm and predominantly occurred at the anterior sites. Therefore, the current bimodal paradigm can be used to investigate the involvement and location of specific neural generators that contribute to higher processing of sensory information. Moreover, this paradigm may be a useful tool to investigate the level of sensory dysfunctions in clinical samples.

  13. Differences between human auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) measured at 2 and 4 months after birth.

    Science.gov (United States)

    van den Heuvel, Marion I; Otte, Renée A; Braeken, Marijke A K A; Winkler, István; Kushnerenko, Elena; Van den Bergh, Bea R H

    2015-07-01

    Infant auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) show a series of marked changes during the first year of life. These AERP changes indicate important advances in early development. The current study examined AERP differences between 2- and 4-month-old infants. An auditory oddball paradigm was delivered to infants with a frequent repetitive tone and three rare auditory events. The three rare events included a shorter than the regular inter-stimulus interval (ISI-deviant), white noise segments, and environmental sounds. The results suggest that the N250 infantile AERP component emerges during this period in response to white noise but not to environmental sounds, possibly indicating a developmental step towards separating acoustic deviance from contextual novelty. The scalp distribution of the AERP response to both the white noise and the environmental sounds shifted towards frontal areas and AERP peak latencies were overall lower in infants at 4 than at 2 months of age. These observations indicate improvements in the speed of sound processing and maturation of the frontal attentional network in infants during this period. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  14. The perception of prosody and associated auditory cues in early-implanted children: the role of auditory working memory and musical activities.

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    Torppa, Ritva; Faulkner, Andrew; Huotilainen, Minna; Järvikivi, Juhani; Lipsanen, Jari; Laasonen, Marja; Vainio, Martti

    2014-03-01

    To study prosodic perception in early-implanted children in relation to auditory discrimination, auditory working memory, and exposure to music. Word and sentence stress perception, discrimination of fundamental frequency (F0), intensity and duration, and forward digit span were measured twice over approximately 16 months. Musical activities were assessed by questionnaire. Twenty-one early-implanted and age-matched normal-hearing (NH) children (4-13 years). Children with cochlear implants (CIs) exposed to music performed better than others in stress perception and F0 discrimination. Only this subgroup of implanted children improved with age in word stress perception, intensity discrimination, and improved over time in digit span. Prosodic perception, F0 discrimination and forward digit span in implanted children exposed to music was equivalent to the NH group, but other implanted children performed more poorly. For children with CIs, word stress perception was linked to digit span and intensity discrimination: sentence stress perception was additionally linked to F0 discrimination. Prosodic perception in children with CIs is linked to auditory working memory and aspects of auditory discrimination. Engagement in music was linked to better performance across a range of measures, suggesting that music is a valuable tool in the rehabilitation of implanted children.

  15. Modulation frequency as a cue for auditory speed perception.

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    Senna, Irene; Parise, Cesare V; Ernst, Marc O

    2017-07-12

    Unlike vision, the mechanisms underlying auditory motion perception are poorly understood. Here we describe an auditory motion illusion revealing a novel cue to auditory speed perception: the temporal frequency of amplitude modulation (AM-frequency), typical for rattling sounds. Naturally, corrugated objects sliding across each other generate rattling sounds whose AM-frequency tends to directly correlate with speed. We found that AM-frequency modulates auditory speed perception in a highly systematic fashion: moving sounds with higher AM-frequency are perceived as moving faster than sounds with lower AM-frequency. Even more interestingly, sounds with higher AM-frequency also induce stronger motion aftereffects. This reveals the existence of specialized neural mechanisms for auditory motion perception, which are sensitive to AM-frequency. Thus, in spatial hearing, the brain successfully capitalizes on the AM-frequency of rattling sounds to estimate the speed of moving objects. This tightly parallels previous findings in motion vision, where spatio-temporal frequency of moving displays systematically affects both speed perception and the magnitude of the motion aftereffects. Such an analogy with vision suggests that motion detection may rely on canonical computations, with similar neural mechanisms shared across the different modalities. © 2017 The Author(s).

  16. Using auditory-visual speech to probe the basis of noise-impaired consonant-vowel perception in dyslexia and auditory neuropathy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramirez, Joshua; Mann, Virginia

    2005-08-01

    Both dyslexics and auditory neuropathy (AN) subjects show inferior consonant-vowel (CV) perception in noise, relative to controls. To better understand these impairments, natural acoustic speech stimuli that were masked in speech-shaped noise at various intensities were presented to dyslexic, AN, and control subjects either in isolation or accompanied by visual articulatory cues. AN subjects were expected to benefit from the pairing of visual articulatory cues and auditory CV stimuli, provided that their speech perception impairment reflects a relatively peripheral auditory disorder. Assuming that dyslexia reflects a general impairment of speech processing rather than a disorder of audition, dyslexics were not expected to similarly benefit from an introduction of visual articulatory cues. The results revealed an increased effect of noise masking on the perception of isolated acoustic stimuli by both dyslexic and AN subjects. More importantly, dyslexics showed less effective use of visual articulatory cues in identifying masked speech stimuli and lower visual baseline performance relative to AN subjects and controls. Last, a significant positive correlation was found between reading ability and the ameliorating effect of visual articulatory cues on speech perception in noise. These results suggest that some reading impairments may stem from a central deficit of speech processing.

  17. Integration of auditory and tactile inputs in musical meter perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huang, Juan; Gamble, Darik; Sarnlertsophon, Kristine; Wang, Xiaoqin; Hsiao, Steven

    2013-01-01

    Musicians often say that they not only hear but also "feel" music. To explore the contribution of tactile information to "feeling" music, we investigated the degree that auditory and tactile inputs are integrated in humans performing a musical meter-recognition task. Subjects discriminated between two types of sequences, "duple" (march-like rhythms) and "triple" (waltz-like rhythms), presented in three conditions: (1) unimodal inputs (auditory or tactile alone); (2) various combinations of bimodal inputs, where sequences were distributed between the auditory and tactile channels such that a single channel did not produce coherent meter percepts; and (3) bimodal inputs where the two channels contained congruent or incongruent meter cues. We first show that meter is perceived similarly well (70-85 %) when tactile or auditory cues are presented alone. We next show in the bimodal experiments that auditory and tactile cues are integrated to produce coherent meter percepts. Performance is high (70-90 %) when all of the metrically important notes are assigned to one channel and is reduced to 60 % when half of these notes are assigned to one channel. When the important notes are presented simultaneously to both channels, congruent cues enhance meter recognition (90 %). Performance dropped dramatically when subjects were presented with incongruent auditory cues (10 %), as opposed to incongruent tactile cues (60 %), demonstrating that auditory input dominates meter perception. These observations support the notion that meter perception is a cross-modal percept with tactile inputs underlying the perception of "feeling" music.

  18. Nicotine enhances an auditory Event-Related Potential component which is inversely related to habituation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Veltri, Theresa; Taroyan, Naira; Overton, Paul G

    2017-07-01

    Nicotine is a psychoactive substance that is commonly consumed in the context of music. However, the reason why music and nicotine are co-consumed is uncertain. One possibility is that nicotine affects cognitive processes relevant to aspects of music appreciation in a beneficial way. Here we investigated this possibility using Event-Related Potentials. Participants underwent a simple decision-making task (to maintain attentional focus), responses to which were signalled by auditory stimuli. Unlike previous research looking at the effects of nicotine on auditory processing, we used complex tones that varied in pitch, a fundamental element of music. In addition, unlike most other studies, we tested non-smoking subjects to avoid withdrawal-related complications. We found that nicotine (4.0 mg, administered as gum) increased P2 amplitude in the frontal region. Since a decrease in P2 amplitude and latency is related to habituation processes, and an enhanced ability to disengage from irrelevant stimuli, our findings suggest that nicotine may cause a reduction in habituation, resulting in non-smokers being less able to adapt to repeated stimuli. A corollary of that decrease in adaptation may be that nicotine extends the temporal window during which a listener is able and willing to engage with a piece of music.

  19. Perception of visual apparent motion is modulated by a gap within concurrent auditory glides, even when it is illusory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Qingcui; Guo, Lu; Bao, Ming; Chen, Lihan

    2015-01-01

    Auditory and visual events often happen concurrently, and how they group together can have a strong effect on what is perceived. We investigated whether/how intra- or cross-modal temporal grouping influenced the perceptual decision of otherwise ambiguous visual apparent motion. To achieve this, we juxtaposed auditory gap transfer illusion with visual Ternus display. The Ternus display involves a multi-element stimulus that can induce either of two different percepts of apparent motion: ‘element motion’ (EM) or ‘group motion’ (GM). In “EM,” the endmost disk is seen as moving back and forth while the middle disk at the central position remains stationary; while in “GM,” both disks appear to move laterally as a whole. The gap transfer illusion refers to the illusory subjective transfer of a short gap (around 100 ms) from the long glide to the short continuous glide when the two glides intercede at the temporal middle point. In our experiments, observers were required to make a perceptual discrimination of Ternus motion in the presence of concurrent auditory glides (with or without a gap inside). Results showed that a gap within a short glide imposed a remarkable effect on separating visual events, and led to a dominant perception of GM as well. The auditory configuration with gap transfer illusion triggered the same auditory capture effect. Further investigations showed that visual interval which coincided with the gap interval (50–230 ms) in the long glide was perceived to be shorter than that within both the short glide and the ‘gap-transfer’ auditory configurations in the same physical intervals (gaps). The results indicated that auditory temporal perceptual grouping takes priority over the cross-modal interaction in determining the final readout of the visual perception, and the mechanism of selective attention on auditory events also plays a role. PMID:26042055

  20. Perception of visual apparent motion is modulated by a gap within concurrent auditory glides, even when it is illusory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Qingcui eWang

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available Auditory and visual events often happen concurrently, and how they group together can have a strong effect on what is perceived. We investigated whether/how intra- or cross-modal temporal grouping influenced the perceptual decision of otherwise ambiguous visual apparent motion. To achieve this, we juxtaposed auditory gap transfer illusion with visual Ternus display. The Ternus display involves a multi-element stimulus that can induce either of two different percepts of apparent motion: ‘element motion’ or ‘group motion’. In element motion, the endmost disk is seen as moving back and forth while the middle disk at the central position remains stationary; while in group motion, both disks appear to move laterally as a whole. The gap transfer illusion refers to the illusory subjective transfer of a short gap (around 100 ms from the long glide to the short continuous glide when the two glides intercede at the temporal middle point. In our experiments, observers were required to make a perceptual discrimination of Ternus motion in the presence of concurrent auditory glides (with or without a gap inside. Results showed that a gap within a short glide imposed a remarkable effect on separating visual events, and led to a dominant perception of group motion as well. The auditory configuration with gap transfer illusion triggered the same auditory capture effect. Further investigations showed that visual interval which coincided with the gap interval (50-230 ms in the long glide was perceived to be shorter than that within both the short glide and the ‘gap-transfer’ auditory configurations in the same physical intervals (gaps. The results indicated that auditory temporal perceptual grouping takes priority over the cross-modal interaction in determining the final readout of the visual perception, and the mechanism of selective attention on auditory events also plays a role.

  1. A comparative study of event-related coupling patterns during an auditory oddball task in schizophrenia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bachiller, Alejandro; Poza, Jesús; Gómez, Carlos; Molina, Vicente; Suazo, Vanessa; Hornero, Roberto

    2015-02-01

    Objective. The aim of this research is to explore the coupling patterns of brain dynamics during an auditory oddball task in schizophrenia (SCH). Approach. Event-related electroencephalographic (ERP) activity was recorded from 20 SCH patients and 20 healthy controls. The coupling changes between auditory response and pre-stimulus baseline were calculated in conventional EEG frequency bands (theta, alpha, beta-1, beta-2 and gamma), using three coupling measures: coherence, phase-locking value and Euclidean distance. Main results. Our results showed a statistically significant increase from baseline to response in theta coupling and a statistically significant decrease in beta-2 coupling in controls. No statistically significant changes were observed in SCH patients. Significance. Our findings support the aberrant salience hypothesis, since SCH patients failed to change their coupling dynamics between stimulus response and baseline when performing an auditory cognitive task. This result may reflect an impaired communication among neural areas, which may be related to abnormal cognitive functions.

  2. Electrophysiological correlates of predictive coding of auditory location in the perception of natural audiovisual events.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stekelenburg, Jeroen J; Vroomen, Jean

    2012-01-01

    In many natural audiovisual events (e.g., a clap of the two hands), the visual signal precedes the sound and thus allows observers to predict when, where, and which sound will occur. Previous studies have reported that there are distinct neural correlates of temporal (when) versus phonetic/semantic (which) content on audiovisual integration. Here we examined the effect of visual prediction of auditory location (where) in audiovisual biological motion stimuli by varying the spatial congruency between the auditory and visual parts. Visual stimuli were presented centrally, whereas auditory stimuli were presented either centrally or at 90° azimuth. Typical sub-additive amplitude reductions (AV - V audiovisual interaction was also found at 40-60 ms (P50) in the spatially congruent condition, while no effect of congruency was found on the suppression of the P2. This indicates that visual prediction of auditory location can be coded very early in auditory processing.

  3. Direct Contribution of Auditory Motion Information to Sound-Induced Visual Motion Perception

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    Souta Hidaka

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available We have recently demonstrated that alternating left-right sound sources induce motion perception to static visual stimuli along the horizontal plane (SIVM: sound-induced visual motion perception, Hidaka et al., 2009. The aim of the current study was to elucidate whether auditory motion signals, rather than auditory positional signals, can directly contribute to the SIVM. We presented static visual flashes at retinal locations outside the fovea together with a lateral auditory motion provided by a virtual stereo noise source smoothly shifting in the horizontal plane. The flashes appeared to move in the situation where auditory positional information would have little influence on the perceived position of visual stimuli; the spatiotemporal position of the flashes was in the middle of the auditory motion trajectory. Furthermore, the auditory motion altered visual motion perception in a global motion display; in this display, different localized motion signals of multiple visual stimuli were combined to produce a coherent visual motion perception so that there was no clear one-to-one correspondence between the auditory stimuli and each visual stimulus. These findings suggest the existence of direct interactions between the auditory and visual modalities in motion processing and motion perception.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  5. Absence of both auditory evoked potentials and auditory percepts dependent on timing cues.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Starr, A; McPherson, D; Patterson, J; Don, M; Luxford, W; Shannon, R; Sininger, Y; Tonakawa, L; Waring, M

    1991-06-01

    An 11-yr-old girl had an absence of sensory components of auditory evoked potentials (brainstem, middle and long-latency) to click and tone burst stimuli that she could clearly hear. Psychoacoustic tests revealed a marked impairment of those auditory perceptions dependent on temporal cues, that is, lateralization of binaural clicks, change of binaural masked threshold with changes in signal phase, binaural beats, detection of paired monaural clicks, monaural detection of a silent gap in a sound, and monaural threshold elevation for short duration tones. In contrast, auditory functions reflecting intensity or frequency discriminations (difference limens) were only minimally impaired. Pure tone audiometry showed a moderate (50 dB) bilateral hearing loss with a disproportionate severe loss of word intelligibility. Those auditory evoked potentials that were preserved included (1) cochlear microphonics reflecting hair cell activity; (2) cortical sustained potentials reflecting processing of slowly changing signals; and (3) long-latency cognitive components (P300, processing negativity) reflecting endogenous auditory cognitive processes. Both the evoked potential and perceptual deficits are attributed to changes in temporal encoding of acoustic signals perhaps occurring at the synapse between hair cell and eighth nerve dendrites. The results from this patient are discussed in relation to previously published cases with absent auditory evoked potentials and preserved hearing.

  6. Subclinical alexithymia modulates early audio-visual perceptive and attentional event-related potentials

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    Dyna eDelle-Vigne

    2014-03-01

    Full Text Available Introduction:Previous studies have highlighted the advantage of audio–visual oddball tasks (instead of unimodal ones in order to electrophysiologically index subclinical behavioral differences. Since alexithymia is highly prevalent in the general population, we investigated whether the use of various bimodal tasks could elicit emotional effects in low- versus high-alexithymic scorers. Methods:Fifty students (33 females were split into groups based on low and high scores on the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. During event-related potential recordings, they were exposed to three kinds of audio–visual oddball tasks: neutral (geometrical forms and bips, animal (dog and cock with their respective shouts, or emotional (faces and voices stimuli. In each condition, participants were asked to quickly detect deviant events occurring amongst a train of frequent matching stimuli (e.g., push a button when a sad face–voice pair appeared amongst a train of neutral face–voice pairs. P100, N100, and P300 components were analyzed: P100 refers to visual perceptive processing, N100 to auditory ones, and the P300 relates to response-related stages. Results:High-alexithymic scorers presented a particular pattern of results when processing the emotional stimulations, reflected in early ERP components by increased P100 and N100 amplitudes in the emotional oddball tasks (P100: pConclusions:Our findings suggest that high-alexithymic scorers require heightened early attentional resources when confronted with emotional stimuli.

  7. A Review of Auditory Prediction and Its Potential Role in Tinnitus Perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Durai, Mithila; O'Keeffe, Mary G; Searchfield, Grant D

    2018-06-01

    The precise mechanisms underlying tinnitus perception and distress are still not fully understood. A recent proposition is that auditory prediction errors and related memory representations may play a role in driving tinnitus perception. It is of interest to further explore this. To obtain a comprehensive narrative synthesis of current research in relation to auditory prediction and its potential role in tinnitus perception and severity. A narrative review methodological framework was followed. The key words Prediction Auditory, Memory Prediction Auditory, Tinnitus AND Memory, Tinnitus AND Prediction in Article Title, Abstract, and Keywords were extensively searched on four databases: PubMed, Scopus, SpringerLink, and PsychINFO. All study types were selected from 2000-2016 (end of 2016) and had the following exclusion criteria applied: minimum age of participants article not available in English. Reference lists of articles were reviewed to identify any further relevant studies. Articles were short listed based on title relevance. After reading the abstracts and with consensus made between coauthors, a total of 114 studies were selected for charting data. The hierarchical predictive coding model based on the Bayesian brain hypothesis, attentional modulation and top-down feedback serves as the fundamental framework in current literature for how auditory prediction may occur. Predictions are integral to speech and music processing, as well as in sequential processing and identification of auditory objects during auditory streaming. Although deviant responses are observable from middle latency time ranges, the mismatch negativity (MMN) waveform is the most commonly studied electrophysiological index of auditory irregularity detection. However, limitations may apply when interpreting findings because of the debatable origin of the MMN and its restricted ability to model real-life, more complex auditory phenomenon. Cortical oscillatory band activity may act as

  8. Auditory event-related potentials in children with benign epilepsy with centro-temporal spikes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tomé, David; Sampaio, Mafalda; Mendes-Ribeiro, José; Barbosa, Fernando; Marques-Teixeira, João

    2014-12-01

    Benign focal epilepsy in childhood with centro-temporal spikes (BECTS) is one of the most common forms of idiopathic epilepsy, with onset from age 3 to 14 years. Although the prognosis for children with BECTS is excellent, some studies have revealed neuropsychological deficits in many domains, including language. Auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) reflect activation of different neuronal populations and are suggested to contribute to the evaluation of auditory discrimination (N1), attention allocation and phonological categorization (N2), and echoic memory (mismatch negativity--MMN). The scarce existing literature about this theme motivated the present study, which aims to investigate and document the existing AERP changes in a group of children with BECTS. AERPs were recorded, during the day, to pure and vocal tones and in a conventional auditory oddball paradigm in five children with BECTS (aged 8-12; mean=10 years; male=5) and in six gender and age-matched controls. Results revealed high amplitude of AERPs for the group of children with BECTS with a slight latency delay more pronounced in fronto-central electrodes. Children with BECTS may have abnormal central auditory processing, reflected by electrophysiological measures such as AERPs. In advance, AERPs seem a good tool to detect and reliably reveal cortical excitability in children with typical BECTS. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  9. Effects of auditory stimuli in the horizontal plane on audiovisual integration: an event-related potential study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Weiping; Li, Qi; Ochi, Tatsuya; Yang, Jingjing; Gao, Yulin; Tang, Xiaoyu; Takahashi, Satoshi; Wu, Jinglong

    2013-01-01

    This article aims to investigate whether auditory stimuli in the horizontal plane, particularly originating from behind the participant, affect audiovisual integration by using behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) measurements. In this study, visual stimuli were presented directly in front of the participants, auditory stimuli were presented at one location in an equidistant horizontal plane at the front (0°, the fixation point), right (90°), back (180°), or left (270°) of the participants, and audiovisual stimuli that include both visual stimuli and auditory stimuli originating from one of the four locations were simultaneously presented. These stimuli were presented randomly with equal probability; during this time, participants were asked to attend to the visual stimulus and respond promptly only to visual target stimuli (a unimodal visual target stimulus and the visual target of the audiovisual stimulus). A significant facilitation of reaction times and hit rates was obtained following audiovisual stimulation, irrespective of whether the auditory stimuli were presented in the front or back of the participant. However, no significant interactions were found between visual stimuli and auditory stimuli from the right or left. Two main ERP components related to audiovisual integration were found: first, auditory stimuli from the front location produced an ERP reaction over the right temporal area and right occipital area at approximately 160-200 milliseconds; second, auditory stimuli from the back produced a reaction over the parietal and occipital areas at approximately 360-400 milliseconds. Our results confirmed that audiovisual integration was also elicited, even though auditory stimuli were presented behind the participant, but no integration occurred when auditory stimuli were presented in the right or left spaces, suggesting that the human brain might be particularly sensitive to information received from behind than both sides.

  10. Saturation of auditory short-term memory causes a plateau in the sustained anterior negativity event-related potential.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alunni-Menichini, Kristelle; Guimond, Synthia; Bermudez, Patrick; Nolden, Sophie; Lefebvre, Christine; Jolicoeur, Pierre

    2014-12-10

    The maintenance of information in auditory short-term memory (ASTM) is accompanied by a sustained anterior negativity (SAN) in the event-related potential measured during the retention interval of simple auditory memory tasks. Previous work on ASTM showed that the amplitude of the SAN increased in negativity as the number of maintained items increases. The aim of the current study was to measure the SAN and observe its behavior beyond the point of saturation of auditory short-term memory. We used atonal pure tones in sequences of 2, 4, 6, or 8t. Our results showed that the amplitude of SAN increased in negativity from 2 to 4 items and then levelled off from 4 to 8 items. Behavioral results suggested that the average span in the task was slightly below 3, which was consistent with the observed plateau in the electrophysiological results. Furthermore, the amplitude of the SAN predicted individual differences in auditory memory capacity. The results support the hypothesis that the SAN is an electrophysiological index of brain activity specifically related to the maintenance of auditory information in ASTM. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  11. Electrophysiological correlates of predictive coding of auditory location in the perception of natural audiovisual events

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    Jeroen eStekelenburg

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available In many natural audiovisual events (e.g., a clap of the two hands, the visual signal precedes the sound and thus allows observers to predict when, where, and which sound will occur. Previous studies have already reported that there are distinct neural correlates of temporal (when versus phonetic/semantic (which content on audiovisual integration. Here we examined the effect of visual prediction of auditory location (where in audiovisual biological motion stimuli by varying the spatial congruency between the auditory and visual part of the audiovisual stimulus. Visual stimuli were presented centrally, whereas auditory stimuli were presented either centrally or at 90° azimuth. Typical subadditive amplitude reductions (AV – V < A were found for the auditory N1 and P2 for spatially congruent and incongruent conditions. The new finding is that the N1 suppression was larger for spatially congruent stimuli. A very early audiovisual interaction was also found at 30-50 ms in the spatially congruent condition, while no effect of congruency was found on the suppression of the P2. This indicates that visual prediction of auditory location can be coded very early in auditory processing.

  12. Auditory perception and attention as reflected by the brain event-related potentials in children with Asperger syndrome.

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    Lepistö, T; Silokallio, S; Nieminen-von Wendt, T; Alku, P; Näätänen, R; Kujala, T

    2006-10-01

    Language development is delayed and deviant in individuals with autism, but proceeds quite normally in those with Asperger syndrome (AS). We investigated auditory-discrimination and orienting in children with AS using an event-related potential (ERP) paradigm that was previously applied to children with autism. ERPs were measured to pitch, duration, and phonetic changes in vowels and to corresponding changes in non-speech sounds. Active sound discrimination was evaluated with a sound-identification task. The mismatch negativity (MMN), indexing sound-discrimination accuracy, showed right-hemisphere dominance in the AS group, but not in the controls. Furthermore, the children with AS had diminished MMN-amplitudes and decreased hit rates for duration changes. In contrast, their MMN to speech pitch changes was parietally enhanced. The P3a, reflecting involuntary orienting to changes, was diminished in the children with AS for speech pitch and phoneme changes, but not for the corresponding non-speech changes. The children with AS differ from controls with respect to their sound-discrimination and orienting abilities. The results of the children with AS are relatively similar to those earlier obtained from children with autism using the same paradigm, although these clinical groups differ markedly in their language development.

  13. Brain dynamics that correlate with effects of learning on auditory distance perception

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    Matthew G. Wisniewski

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Accuracy in auditory distance perception can improve with practice and varies for sounds differing in familiarity. Here, listeners were trained to judge the distances of English, Bengali, and backwards speech sources pre-recorded at near (2-m and far (30-m distances. Listeners’ accuracy was tested before and after training. Improvements from pre-test to post-test were greater for forward speech, demonstrating a learning advantage for forward speech sounds. Independent component (IC processes identified in electroencephalographic (EEG data collected during pre- and post-testing revealed three clusters of ICs across subjects with stimulus-locked spectral perturbations related to learning and accuracy. One cluster exhibited a transient stimulus-locked increase in 4-8 Hz power (theta event-related synchronization; ERS that was smaller after training and largest for backwards speech. For a left temporal cluster, 8-12 Hz decreases in power (alpha event-related desynchronization; ERD were greatest for English speech and less prominent after training. In contrast, a cluster of IC processes centered at or near anterior portions of the medial frontal cortex showed learning-related enhancement of sustained increases in 10-16 Hz power (upper-alpha/low-beta ERS. The degree of this enhancement was positively correlated with the degree of behavioral improvements. Results suggest that neural dynamics in non-auditory cortical areas support distance judgments. Further, frontal cortical networks associated with attentional and/or working memory processes appear to play a role in perceptual learning for source distance.

  14. Prestimulus influences on auditory perception from sensory representations and decision processes.

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    Kayser, Stephanie J; McNair, Steven W; Kayser, Christoph

    2016-04-26

    The qualities of perception depend not only on the sensory inputs but also on the brain state before stimulus presentation. Although the collective evidence from neuroimaging studies for a relation between prestimulus state and perception is strong, the interpretation in the context of sensory computations or decision processes has remained difficult. In the auditory system, for example, previous studies have reported a wide range of effects in terms of the perceptually relevant frequency bands and state parameters (phase/power). To dissociate influences of state on earlier sensory representations and higher-level decision processes, we collected behavioral and EEG data in human participants performing two auditory discrimination tasks relying on distinct acoustic features. Using single-trial decoding, we quantified the relation between prestimulus activity, relevant sensory evidence, and choice in different task-relevant EEG components. Within auditory networks, we found that phase had no direct influence on choice, whereas power in task-specific frequency bands affected the encoding of sensory evidence. Within later-activated frontoparietal regions, theta and alpha phase had a direct influence on choice, without involving sensory evidence. These results delineate two consistent mechanisms by which prestimulus activity shapes perception. However, the timescales of the relevant neural activity depend on the specific brain regions engaged by the respective task.

  15. Effects of Auditory Stimuli on Visual Velocity Perception

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    Michiaki Shibata

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available We investigated the effects of auditory stimuli on the perceived velocity of a moving visual stimulus. Previous studies have reported that the duration of visual events is perceived as being longer for events filled with auditory stimuli than for events not filled with auditory stimuli, ie, the so-called “filled-duration illusion.” In this study, we have shown that auditory stimuli also affect the perceived velocity of a moving visual stimulus. In Experiment 1, a moving comparison stimulus (4.2∼5.8 deg/s was presented together with filled (or unfilled white-noise bursts or with no sound. The standard stimulus was a moving visual stimulus (5 deg/s presented before or after the comparison stimulus. The participants had to judge which stimulus was moving faster. The results showed that the perceived velocity in the auditory-filled condition was lower than that in the auditory-unfilled and no-sound conditions. In Experiment 2, we investigated the effects of auditory stimuli on velocity adaptation. The results showed that the effects of velocity adaptation in the auditory-filled condition were weaker than those in the no-sound condition. These results indicate that auditory stimuli tend to decrease the perceived velocity of a moving visual stimulus.

  16. Cortical Auditory Disorders: A Case of Non-Verbal Disturbances Assessed with Event-Related Brain Potentials

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    Sönke Johannes

    1998-01-01

    Full Text Available In the auditory modality, there has been a considerable debate about some aspects of cortical disorders, especially about auditory forms of agnosia. Agnosia refers to an impaired comprehension of sensory information in the absence of deficits in primary sensory processes. In the non-verbal domain, sound agnosia and amusia have been reported but are frequently accompanied by language deficits whereas pure deficits are rare. Absolute pitch and musicians’ musical abilities have been associated with left hemispheric functions. We report the case of a right handed sound engineer with the absolute pitch who developed sound agnosia and amusia in the absence of verbal deficits after a right perisylvian stroke. His disabilities were assessed with the Seashore Test of Musical Functions, the tests of Wertheim and Botez (Wertheim and Botez, Brain 84, 1961, 19–30 and by event-related potentials (ERP recorded in a modified 'oddball paradigm’. Auditory ERP revealed a dissociation between the amplitudes of the P3a and P3b subcomponents with the P3b being reduced in amplitude while the P3a was undisturbed. This is interpreted as reflecting disturbances in target detection processes as indexed by the P3b. The findings that contradict some aspects of current knowledge about left/right hemispheric specialization in musical processing are discussed and related to the literature concerning cortical auditory disorders.

  17. Cortical auditory disorders: a case of non-verbal disturbances assessed with event-related brain potentials.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Johannes, Sönke; Jöbges, Michael E.; Dengler, Reinhard; Münte, Thomas F.

    1998-01-01

    In the auditory modality, there has been a considerable debate about some aspects of cortical disorders, especially about auditory forms of agnosia. Agnosia refers to an impaired comprehension of sensory information in the absence of deficits in primary sensory processes. In the non-verbal domain, sound agnosia and amusia have been reported but are frequently accompanied by language deficits whereas pure deficits are rare. Absolute pitch and musicians' musical abilities have been associated with left hemispheric functions. We report the case of a right handed sound engineer with the absolute pitch who developed sound agnosia and amusia in the absence of verbal deficits after a right perisylvian stroke. His disabilities were assessed with the Seashore Test of Musical Functions, the tests of Wertheim and Botez (Wertheim and Botez, Brain 84, 1961, 19-30) and by event-related potentials (ERP) recorded in a modified 'oddball paradigm'. Auditory ERP revealed a dissociation between the amplitudes of the P3a and P3b subcomponents with the P3b being reduced in amplitude while the P3a was undisturbed. This is interpreted as reflecting disturbances in target detection processes as indexed by the P3b. The findings that contradict some aspects of current knowledge about left/right hemispheric specialization in musical processing are discussed and related to the literature concerning cortical auditory disorders.

  18. The effect of music on auditory perception in cochlear-implant users and normal-hearing listeners

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Fuller, Christina Diechina

    2016-01-01

    Cochlear implants (CIs) are auditory prostheses for severely deaf people that do not benefit from conventional hearing aids. Speech perception is reasonably good with CIs; other signals such as music perception are challenging. First, the perception of music and music related perception in CI users

  19. Phantom auditory perception (tinnitus): mechanisms of generation and perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jastreboff, P J

    1990-08-01

    Phantom auditory perception--tinnitus--is a symptom of many pathologies. Although there are a number of theories postulating certain mechanisms of its generation, none have been proven yet. This paper analyses the phenomenon of tinnitus from the point of view of general neurophysiology. Existing theories and their extrapolation are presented, together with some new potential mechanisms of tinnitus generation, encompassing the involvement of calcium and calcium channels in cochlear function, with implications for malfunction and aging of the auditory and vestibular systems. It is hypothesized that most tinnitus results from the perception of abnormal activity, defined as activity which cannot be induced by any combination of external sounds. Moreover, it is hypothesized that signal recognition and classification circuits, working on holographic or neuronal network-like representation, are involved in the perception of tinnitus and are subject to plastic modification. Furthermore, it is proposed that all levels of the nervous system, to varying degrees, are involved in tinnitus manifestation. These concepts are used to unravel the inexplicable, unique features of tinnitus and its masking. Some clinical implications of these theories are suggested.

  20. Auditory agnosia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Slevc, L Robert; Shell, Alison R

    2015-01-01

    Auditory agnosia refers to impairments in sound perception and identification despite intact hearing, cognitive functioning, and language abilities (reading, writing, and speaking). Auditory agnosia can be general, affecting all types of sound perception, or can be (relatively) specific to a particular domain. Verbal auditory agnosia (also known as (pure) word deafness) refers to deficits specific to speech processing, environmental sound agnosia refers to difficulties confined to non-speech environmental sounds, and amusia refers to deficits confined to music. These deficits can be apperceptive, affecting basic perceptual processes, or associative, affecting the relation of a perceived auditory object to its meaning. This chapter discusses what is known about the behavioral symptoms and lesion correlates of these different types of auditory agnosia (focusing especially on verbal auditory agnosia), evidence for the role of a rapid temporal processing deficit in some aspects of auditory agnosia, and the few attempts to treat the perceptual deficits associated with auditory agnosia. A clear picture of auditory agnosia has been slow to emerge, hampered by the considerable heterogeneity in behavioral deficits, associated brain damage, and variable assessments across cases. Despite this lack of clarity, these striking deficits in complex sound processing continue to inform our understanding of auditory perception and cognition. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  1. You can't stop the music: reduced auditory alpha power and coupling between auditory and memory regions facilitate the illusory perception of music during noise.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Müller, Nadia; Keil, Julian; Obleser, Jonas; Schulz, Hannah; Grunwald, Thomas; Bernays, René-Ludwig; Huppertz, Hans-Jürgen; Weisz, Nathan

    2013-10-01

    Our brain has the capacity of providing an experience of hearing even in the absence of auditory stimulation. This can be seen as illusory conscious perception. While increasing evidence postulates that conscious perception requires specific brain states that systematically relate to specific patterns of oscillatory activity, the relationship between auditory illusions and oscillatory activity remains mostly unexplained. To investigate this we recorded brain activity with magnetoencephalography and collected intracranial data from epilepsy patients while participants listened to familiar as well as unknown music that was partly replaced by sections of pink noise. We hypothesized that participants have a stronger experience of hearing music throughout noise when the noise sections are embedded in familiar compared to unfamiliar music. This was supported by the behavioral results showing that participants rated the perception of music during noise as stronger when noise was presented in a familiar context. Time-frequency data show that the illusory perception of music is associated with a decrease in auditory alpha power pointing to increased auditory cortex excitability. Furthermore, the right auditory cortex is concurrently synchronized with the medial temporal lobe, putatively mediating memory aspects associated with the music illusion. We thus assume that neuronal activity in the highly excitable auditory cortex is shaped through extensive communication between the auditory cortex and the medial temporal lobe, thereby generating the illusion of hearing music during noise. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  2. Effect of Size Change and Brightness Change of Visual Stimuli on Loudness Perception and Pitch Perception of Auditory Stimuli

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    Syouya Tanabe

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available People obtain a lot of information from visual and auditory sensation on daily life. Regarding the effect of visual stimuli on perception of auditory stimuli, studies of phonological perception and sound localization have been made in great numbers. This study examined the effect of visual stimuli on perception in loudness and pitch of auditory stimuli. We used the image of figures whose size or brightness was changed as visual stimuli, and the sound of pure tone whose loudness or pitch was changed as auditory stimuli. Those visual and auditory stimuli were combined independently to make four types of audio-visual multisensory stimuli for psychophysical experiments. In the experiments, participants judged change in loudness or pitch of auditory stimuli, while they judged the direction of size change or the kind of a presented figure in visual stimuli. Therefore they cannot neglect visual stimuli while they judged auditory stimuli. As a result, perception in loudness and pitch were promoted significantly around their difference limen, when the image was getting bigger or brighter, compared with the case in which the image had no changes. This indicates that perception in loudness and pitch were affected by change in size and brightness of visual stimuli.

  3. Auditory selective attention in adolescents with major depression: An event-related potential study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Greimel, E; Trinkl, M; Bartling, J; Bakos, S; Grossheinrich, N; Schulte-Körne, G

    2015-02-01

    Major depression (MD) is associated with deficits in selective attention. Previous studies in adults with MD using event-related potentials (ERPs) reported abnormalities in the neurophysiological correlates of auditory selective attention. However, it is yet unclear whether these findings can be generalized to MD in adolescence. Thus, the aim of the present ERP study was to explore the neural mechanisms of auditory selective attention in adolescents with MD. 24 male and female unmedicated adolescents with MD and 21 control subjects were included in the study. ERPs were collected during an auditory oddball paradigm. Depressive adolescents tended to show a longer N100 latency to target and non-target tones. Moreover, MD subjects showed a prolonged latency of the P200 component to targets. Across groups, longer P200 latency was associated with a decreased tendency of disinhibited behavior as assessed by a behavioral questionnaire. To be able to draw more precise conclusions about differences between the neural bases of selective attention in adolescents vs. adults with MD, future studies should include both age groups and apply the same experimental setting across all subjects. The study provides strong support for abnormalities in the neurophysiolgical bases of selective attention in adolecents with MD at early stages of auditory information processing. Absent group differences in later ERP components reflecting voluntary attentional processes stand in contrast to results reported in adults with MD and may suggest that adolescents with MD possess mechanisms to compensate for abnormalities in the early stages of selective attention. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  4. A hierarchy of event-related potential markers of auditory processing in disorders of consciousness

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    Steve Beukema

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Functional neuroimaging of covert perceptual and cognitive processes can inform the diagnoses and prognoses of patients with disorders of consciousness, such as the vegetative and minimally conscious states (VS;MCS. Here we report an event-related potential (ERP paradigm for detecting a hierarchy of auditory processes in a group of healthy individuals and patients with disorders of consciousness. Simple cortical responses to sounds were observed in all 16 patients; 7/16 (44% patients exhibited markers of the differential processing of speech and noise; and 1 patient produced evidence of the semantic processing of speech (i.e. the N400 effect. In several patients, the level of auditory processing that was evident from ERPs was higher than the abilities that were evident from behavioural assessment, indicating a greater sensitivity of ERPs in some cases. However, there were no differences in auditory processing between VS and MCS patient groups, indicating a lack of diagnostic specificity for this paradigm. Reliably detecting semantic processing by means of the N400 effect in passively listening single-subjects is a challenge. Multiple assessment methods are needed in order to fully characterise the abilities of patients with disorders of consciousness.

  5. Multisensory object perception in infancy: 4-month-olds perceive a mistuned harmonic as a separate auditory and visual object.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, Nicholas A; Folland, Nicole A; Martinez, Diana M; Trainor, Laurel J

    2017-07-01

    Infants learn to use auditory and visual information to organize the sensory world into identifiable objects with particular locations. Here we use a behavioural method to examine infants' use of harmonicity cues to auditory object perception in a multisensory context. Sounds emitted by different objects sum in the air and the auditory system must figure out which parts of the complex waveform belong to different sources (auditory objects). One important cue to this source separation is that complex tones with pitch typically contain a fundamental frequency and harmonics at integer multiples of the fundamental. Consequently, adults hear a mistuned harmonic in a complex sound as a distinct auditory object (Alain, Theunissen, Chevalier, Batty, & Taylor, 2003). Previous work by our group demonstrated that 4-month-old infants are also sensitive to this cue. They behaviourally discriminate a complex tone with a mistuned harmonic from the same complex with in-tune harmonics, and show an object-related event-related potential (ERP) electrophysiological (EEG) response to the stimulus with mistuned harmonics. In the present study we use an audiovisual procedure to investigate whether infants perceive a complex tone with an 8% mistuned harmonic as emanating from two objects, rather than merely detecting the mistuned cue. We paired in-tune and mistuned complex tones with visual displays that contained either one or two bouncing balls. Four-month-old infants showed surprise at the incongruous pairings, looking longer at the display of two balls when paired with the in-tune complex and at the display of one ball when paired with the mistuned harmonic complex. We conclude that infants use harmonicity as a cue for source separation when integrating auditory and visual information in object perception. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  6. The effect of phasic auditory alerting on visual perception.

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    Petersen, Anders; Petersen, Annemarie Hilkjær; Bundesen, Claus; Vangkilde, Signe; Habekost, Thomas

    2017-08-01

    Phasic alertness refers to a short-lived change in the preparatory state of the cognitive system following an alerting signal. In the present study, we examined the effect of phasic auditory alerting on distinct perceptual processes, unconfounded by motor components. We combined an alerting/no-alerting design with a pure accuracy-based single-letter recognition task. Computational modeling based on Bundesen's Theory of Visual Attention was used to examine the effect of phasic alertness on visual processing speed and threshold of conscious perception. Results show that phasic auditory alertness affects visual perception by increasing the visual processing speed and lowering the threshold of conscious perception (Experiment 1). By manipulating the intensity of the alerting cue, we further observed a positive relationship between alerting intensity and processing speed, which was not seen for the threshold of conscious perception (Experiment 2). This was replicated in a third experiment, in which pupil size was measured as a physiological marker of alertness. Results revealed that the increase in processing speed was accompanied by an increase in pupil size, substantiating the link between alertness and processing speed (Experiment 3). The implications of these results are discussed in relation to a newly developed mathematical model of the relationship between levels of alertness and the speed with which humans process visual information. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  7. Opposite Distortions in Interval Timing Perception for Visual and Auditory Stimuli with Temporal Modulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yuasa, Kenichi; Yotsumoto, Yuko

    2015-01-01

    When an object is presented visually and moves or flickers, the perception of its duration tends to be overestimated. Such an overestimation is called time dilation. Perceived time can also be distorted when a stimulus is presented aurally as an auditory flutter, but the mechanisms and their relationship to visual processing remains unclear. In the present study, we measured interval timing perception while modulating the temporal characteristics of visual and auditory stimuli, and investigated whether the interval times of visually and aurally presented objects shared a common mechanism. In these experiments, participants compared the durations of flickering or fluttering stimuli to standard stimuli, which were presented continuously. Perceived durations for auditory flutters were underestimated, while perceived durations of visual flickers were overestimated. When auditory flutters and visual flickers were presented simultaneously, these distortion effects were cancelled out. When auditory flutters were presented with a constantly presented visual stimulus, the interval timing perception of the visual stimulus was affected by the auditory flutters. These results indicate that interval timing perception is governed by independent mechanisms for visual and auditory processing, and that there are some interactions between the two processing systems.

  8. (A)musicality in Williams syndrome: examining relationships among auditory perception, musical skill, and emotional responsiveness to music.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lense, Miriam D; Shivers, Carolyn M; Dykens, Elisabeth M

    2013-01-01

    Williams syndrome (WS), a genetic, neurodevelopmental disorder, is of keen interest to music cognition researchers because of its characteristic auditory sensitivities and emotional responsiveness to music. However, actual musical perception and production abilities are more variable. We examined musicality in WS through the lens of amusia and explored how their musical perception abilities related to their auditory sensitivities, musical production skills, and emotional responsiveness to music. In our sample of 73 adolescents and adults with WS, 11% met criteria for amusia, which is higher than the 4% prevalence rate reported in the typically developing (TD) population. Amusia was not related to auditory sensitivities but was related to musical training. Performance on the amusia measure strongly predicted musical skill but not emotional responsiveness to music, which was better predicted by general auditory sensitivities. This study represents the first time amusia has been examined in a population with a known neurodevelopmental genetic disorder with a range of cognitive abilities. Results have implications for the relationships across different levels of auditory processing, musical skill development, and emotional responsiveness to music, as well as the understanding of gene-brain-behavior relationships in individuals with WS and TD individuals with and without amusia.

  9. (Amusicality in Williams syndrome: Examining relationships among auditory perception, musical skill, and emotional responsiveness to music

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Miriam eLense

    2013-08-01

    Full Text Available Williams syndrome (WS, a genetic, neurodevelopmental disorder, is of keen interest to music cognition researchers because of its characteristic auditory sensitivities and emotional responsiveness to music. However, actual musical perception and production abilities are more variable. We examined musicality in WS through the lens of amusia and explored how their musical perception abilities related to their auditory sensitivities, musical production skills, and emotional responsiveness to music. In our sample of 73 adolescents and adults with WS, 11% met criteria for amusia, which is higher than the 4% prevalence rate reported in the typically developing population. Amusia was not related to auditory sensitivities but was related to musical training. Performance on the amusia measure strongly predicted musical skill but not emotional responsiveness to music, which was better predicted by general auditory sensitivities. This study represents the first time amusia has been examined in a population with a known neurodevelopmental genetic disorder with a range of cognitive abilities. Results have implications for the relationships across different levels of auditory processing, musical skill development, and emotional responsiveness to music, as well as the understanding of gene-brain-behavior relationships in individuals with WS and typically developing individuals with and without amusia.

  10. Feeling music: integration of auditory and tactile inputs in musical meter perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huang, Juan; Gamble, Darik; Sarnlertsophon, Kristine; Wang, Xiaoqin; Hsiao, Steven

    2012-01-01

    Musicians often say that they not only hear, but also "feel" music. To explore the contribution of tactile information in "feeling" musical rhythm, we investigated the degree that auditory and tactile inputs are integrated in humans performing a musical meter recognition task. Subjects discriminated between two types of sequences, 'duple' (march-like rhythms) and 'triple' (waltz-like rhythms) presented in three conditions: 1) Unimodal inputs (auditory or tactile alone), 2) Various combinations of bimodal inputs, where sequences were distributed between the auditory and tactile channels such that a single channel did not produce coherent meter percepts, and 3) Simultaneously presented bimodal inputs where the two channels contained congruent or incongruent meter cues. We first show that meter is perceived similarly well (70%-85%) when tactile or auditory cues are presented alone. We next show in the bimodal experiments that auditory and tactile cues are integrated to produce coherent meter percepts. Performance is high (70%-90%) when all of the metrically important notes are assigned to one channel and is reduced to 60% when half of these notes are assigned to one channel. When the important notes are presented simultaneously to both channels, congruent cues enhance meter recognition (90%). Performance drops dramatically when subjects were presented with incongruent auditory cues (10%), as opposed to incongruent tactile cues (60%), demonstrating that auditory input dominates meter perception. We believe that these results are the first demonstration of cross-modal sensory grouping between any two senses.

  11. (A)musicality in Williams syndrome: examining relationships among auditory perception, musical skill, and emotional responsiveness to music

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lense, Miriam D.; Shivers, Carolyn M.; Dykens, Elisabeth M.

    2013-01-01

    Williams syndrome (WS), a genetic, neurodevelopmental disorder, is of keen interest to music cognition researchers because of its characteristic auditory sensitivities and emotional responsiveness to music. However, actual musical perception and production abilities are more variable. We examined musicality in WS through the lens of amusia and explored how their musical perception abilities related to their auditory sensitivities, musical production skills, and emotional responsiveness to music. In our sample of 73 adolescents and adults with WS, 11% met criteria for amusia, which is higher than the 4% prevalence rate reported in the typically developing (TD) population. Amusia was not related to auditory sensitivities but was related to musical training. Performance on the amusia measure strongly predicted musical skill but not emotional responsiveness to music, which was better predicted by general auditory sensitivities. This study represents the first time amusia has been examined in a population with a known neurodevelopmental genetic disorder with a range of cognitive abilities. Results have implications for the relationships across different levels of auditory processing, musical skill development, and emotional responsiveness to music, as well as the understanding of gene-brain-behavior relationships in individuals with WS and TD individuals with and without amusia. PMID:23966965

  12. Effects of auditory information on self-motion perception during simultaneous presentation of visual shearing motion

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tanahashi, Shigehito; Ashihara, Kaoru; Ujike, Hiroyasu

    2015-01-01

    Recent studies have found that self-motion perception induced by simultaneous presentation of visual and auditory motion is facilitated when the directions of visual and auditory motion stimuli are identical. They did not, however, examine possible contributions of auditory motion information for determining direction of self-motion perception. To examine this, a visual stimulus projected on a hemisphere screen and an auditory stimulus presented through headphones were presented separately or simultaneously, depending on experimental conditions. The participant continuously indicated the direction and strength of self-motion during the 130-s experimental trial. When the visual stimulus with a horizontal shearing rotation and the auditory stimulus with a horizontal one-directional rotation were presented simultaneously, the duration and strength of self-motion perceived in the opposite direction of the auditory rotation stimulus were significantly longer and stronger than those perceived in the same direction of the auditory rotation stimulus. However, the auditory stimulus alone could not sufficiently induce self-motion perception, and if it did, its direction was not consistent within each experimental trial. We concluded that auditory motion information can determine perceived direction of self-motion during simultaneous presentation of visual and auditory motion information, at least when visual stimuli moved in opposing directions (around the yaw-axis). We speculate that the contribution of auditory information depends on the plausibility and information balance of visual and auditory information. PMID:26113828

  13. A Neural Circuit for Auditory Dominance over Visual Perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Song, You-Hyang; Kim, Jae-Hyun; Jeong, Hye-Won; Choi, Ilsong; Jeong, Daun; Kim, Kwansoo; Lee, Seung-Hee

    2017-02-22

    When conflicts occur during integration of visual and auditory information, one modality often dominates the other, but the underlying neural circuit mechanism remains unclear. Using auditory-visual discrimination tasks for head-fixed mice, we found that audition dominates vision in a process mediated by interaction between inputs from the primary visual (VC) and auditory (AC) cortices in the posterior parietal cortex (PTLp). Co-activation of the VC and AC suppresses VC-induced PTLp responses, leaving AC-induced responses. Furthermore, parvalbumin-positive (PV+) interneurons in the PTLp mainly receive AC inputs, and muscimol inactivation of the PTLp or optogenetic inhibition of its PV+ neurons abolishes auditory dominance in the resolution of cross-modal sensory conflicts without affecting either sensory perception. Conversely, optogenetic activation of PV+ neurons in the PTLp enhances the auditory dominance. Thus, our results demonstrate that AC input-specific feedforward inhibition of VC inputs in the PTLp is responsible for the auditory dominance during cross-modal integration. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  14. The influence of auditory and visual information on the perception of crispy food

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Pocztaruk, R.D.; Abbink, J.H.; Wijk, de R.A.; Frasca, L.C.D.; Gaviao, M.B.D.; Bilt, van de A.

    2011-01-01

    The influence of auditory and/or visual information on the perception of crispy food and on the physiology of chewing was investigated. Participants chewed biscuits of three different levels of crispness under four experimental conditions: no masking, auditory masking, visual masking, and auditory

  15. Perception of stochastically undersampled sound waveforms: A model of auditory deafferentation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Enrique A Lopez-Poveda

    2013-07-01

    Full Text Available Auditory deafferentation, or permanent loss of auditory nerve afferent terminals, occurs after noise overexposure and aging and may accompany many forms of hearing loss. It could cause significant auditory impairment but is undetected by regular clinical tests and so its effects on perception are poorly understood. Here, we hypothesize and test a neural mechanism by which deafferentation could deteriorate perception. The basic idea is that the spike train produced by each auditory afferent resembles a stochastically digitized version of the sound waveform and that the quality of the waveform representation in the whole nerve depends on the number of aggregated spike trains or auditory afferents. We reason that because spikes occur stochastically in time with a higher probability for high- than for low-intensity sounds, more afferents would be required for the nerve to faithfully encode high-frequency or low-intensity waveform features than low-frequency or high-intensity features. Deafferentation would thus degrade the encoding of these features. We further reason that due to the stochastic nature of nerve firing, the degradation would be greater in noise than in quiet. This hypothesis is tested using a vocoder. Sounds were filtered through ten adjacent frequency bands. For the signal in each band, multiple stochastically subsampled copies were obtained to roughly mimic different stochastic representations of that signal conveyed by different auditory afferents innervating a given cochlear region. These copies were then aggregated to obtain an acoustic stimulus. Tone detection and speech identification tests were performed by young, normal-hearing listeners using different numbers of stochastic samplers per frequency band in the vocoder. Results support the hypothesis that stochastic undersampling of the sound waveform, inspired by deafferentation, impairs speech perception in noise more than in quiet, consistent with auditory aging effects.

  16. Perception of stochastically undersampled sound waveforms: a model of auditory deafferentation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lopez-Poveda, Enrique A.; Barrios, Pablo

    2013-01-01

    Auditory deafferentation, or permanent loss of auditory nerve afferent terminals, occurs after noise overexposure and aging and may accompany many forms of hearing loss. It could cause significant auditory impairment but is undetected by regular clinical tests and so its effects on perception are poorly understood. Here, we hypothesize and test a neural mechanism by which deafferentation could deteriorate perception. The basic idea is that the spike train produced by each auditory afferent resembles a stochastically digitized version of the sound waveform and that the quality of the waveform representation in the whole nerve depends on the number of aggregated spike trains or auditory afferents. We reason that because spikes occur stochastically in time with a higher probability for high- than for low-intensity sounds, more afferents would be required for the nerve to faithfully encode high-frequency or low-intensity waveform features than low-frequency or high-intensity features. Deafferentation would thus degrade the encoding of these features. We further reason that due to the stochastic nature of nerve firing, the degradation would be greater in noise than in quiet. This hypothesis is tested using a vocoder. Sounds were filtered through ten adjacent frequency bands. For the signal in each band, multiple stochastically subsampled copies were obtained to roughly mimic different stochastic representations of that signal conveyed by different auditory afferents innervating a given cochlear region. These copies were then aggregated to obtain an acoustic stimulus. Tone detection and speech identification tests were performed by young, normal-hearing listeners using different numbers of stochastic samplers per frequency band in the vocoder. Results support the hypothesis that stochastic undersampling of the sound waveform, inspired by deafferentation, impairs speech perception in noise more than in quiet, consistent with auditory aging effects. PMID:23882176

  17. Prestimulus subsequent memory effects for auditory and visual events.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Otten, Leun J; Quayle, Angela H; Puvaneswaran, Bhamini

    2010-06-01

    It has been assumed that the effective encoding of information into memory primarily depends on neural activity elicited when an event is initially encountered. Recently, it has been shown that memory formation also relies on neural activity just before an event. The precise role of such activity in memory is currently unknown. Here, we address whether prestimulus activity affects the encoding of auditory and visual events, is set up on a trial-by-trial basis, and varies as a function of the type of recognition judgment an item later receives. Electrical brain activity was recorded from the scalps of 24 healthy young adults while they made semantic judgments on randomly intermixed series of visual and auditory words. Each word was preceded by a cue signaling the modality of the upcoming word. Auditory words were preceded by auditory cues and visual words by visual cues. A recognition memory test with remember/know judgments followed after a delay of about 45 min. As observed previously, a negative-going, frontally distributed modulation just before visual word onset predicted later recollection of the word. Crucially, the same effect was found for auditory words and observed on stay as well as switch trials. These findings emphasize the flexibility and general role of prestimulus activity in memory formation, and support a functional interpretation of the activity in terms of semantic preparation. At least with an unpredictable trial sequence, the activity is set up anew on each trial.

  18. A loudspeaker-based room auralization system for auditory perception research

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Buchholz, Jörg; Favrot, Sylvain Emmanuel

    2009-01-01

    Most research on basic auditory function has been conducted in anechoic or almost anechoic environments. The knowledge derived from these experiments cannot directly be transferred to reverberant environments. In order to investigate the auditory signal processing of reverberant sounds....... This system provides a flexible research platform for conducting auditory experiments with normal-hearing, hearing-impaired, and aided hearing-impaired listeners in a fully controlled and realistic environment. This includes measures of basic auditory function (e.g., signal detection, distance perception......) and measures of speech intelligibility. A battery of objective tests (e.g., reverberation time, clarity, interaural correlation coefficient) and subjective tests (e.g., speech reception thresholds) is presented that demonstrates the applicability of the LoRA system....

  19. Auditory stream segregation using bandpass noises: evidence from event-related potentials

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yingjiu eNie

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available The current study measured neural responses to investigate auditory stream segregation of noise stimuli with or without clear spectral contrast. Sequences of alternating A and B noise bursts were presented to elicit stream segregation in normal-hearing listeners. The successive B bursts in each sequence maintained an equal amount of temporal separation with manipulations introduced on the last stimulus. The last B burst was either delayed for 50% of the sequences or not delayed for the other 50%. The A bursts were jittered in between every two adjacent B bursts. To study the effects of spectral separation on streaming, the A and B bursts were further manipulated by using either bandpass-filtered noises widely spaced in center frequency or broadband noises. Event-related potentials (ERPs to the last B bursts were analyzed to compare the neural responses to the delay vs. no-delay trials in both passive and attentive listening conditions. In the passive listening condition, a trend for a possible late mismatch negativity (MMN or late discriminative negativity (LDN response was observed only when the A and B bursts were spectrally separate, suggesting that spectral separation in the A and B burst sequences could be conducive to stream segregation at the pre-attentive level. In the attentive condition, a P300 response was consistently elicited regardless of whether there was spectral separation between the A and B bursts, indicating the facilitative role of voluntary attention in stream segregation. The results suggest that reliable ERP measures can be used as indirect indicators for auditory stream segregation in conditions of weak spectral contrast. These findings have important implications for cochlear implant (CI studies – as spectral information available through a CI device or simulation is substantially degraded, it may require more attention to achieve stream segregation.

  20. Auditory attention in childhood and adolescence: An event-related potential study of spatial selective attention to one of two simultaneous stories

    Science.gov (United States)

    Karns, Christina M.; Isbell, Elif; Giuliano, Ryan J.; Neville, Helen J.

    2015-01-01

    Auditory selective attention is a critical skill for goal-directed behavior, especially where noisy distractions may impede focusing attention. To better understand the developmental trajectory of auditory spatial selective attention in an acoustically complex environment, in the current study we measured auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) in human children across five age groups: 3–5 years; 10 years; 13 years; 16 years; and young adults using a naturalistic dichotic listening paradigm, characterizing the ERP morphology for nonlinguistic and linguistic auditory probes embedded in attended and unattended stories. We documented robust maturational changes in auditory evoked potentials that were specific to the types of probes. Furthermore, we found a remarkable interplay between age and attention-modulation of auditory evoked potentials in terms of morphology and latency from the early years of childhood through young adulthood. The results are consistent with the view that attention can operate across age groups by modulating the amplitude of maturing auditory early-latency evoked potentials or by invoking later endogenous attention processes. Development of these processes is not uniform for probes with different acoustic properties within our acoustically dense speech-based dichotic listening task. In light of the developmental differences we demonstrate, researchers conducting future attention studies of children and adolescents should be wary of combining analyses across diverse ages. PMID:26002721

  1. Auditory attention in childhood and adolescence: An event-related potential study of spatial selective attention to one of two simultaneous stories.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Karns, Christina M; Isbell, Elif; Giuliano, Ryan J; Neville, Helen J

    2015-06-01

    Auditory selective attention is a critical skill for goal-directed behavior, especially where noisy distractions may impede focusing attention. To better understand the developmental trajectory of auditory spatial selective attention in an acoustically complex environment, in the current study we measured auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) across five age groups: 3-5 years; 10 years; 13 years; 16 years; and young adults. Using a naturalistic dichotic listening paradigm, we characterized the ERP morphology for nonlinguistic and linguistic auditory probes embedded in attended and unattended stories. We documented robust maturational changes in auditory evoked potentials that were specific to the types of probes. Furthermore, we found a remarkable interplay between age and attention-modulation of auditory evoked potentials in terms of morphology and latency from the early years of childhood through young adulthood. The results are consistent with the view that attention can operate across age groups by modulating the amplitude of maturing auditory early-latency evoked potentials or by invoking later endogenous attention processes. Development of these processes is not uniform for probes with different acoustic properties within our acoustically dense speech-based dichotic listening task. In light of the developmental differences we demonstrate, researchers conducting future attention studies of children and adolescents should be wary of combining analyses across diverse ages. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  2. Percepts, not acoustic properties, are the units of auditory short-term memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mathias, Samuel R; von Kriegstein, Katharina

    2014-04-01

    For decades, researchers have sought to understand the organizing principles of auditory and visual short-term memory (STM). Previous work in audition has suggested that there are independent memory stores for different sound features, but the nature of the representations retained within these stores is currently unclear. Do they retain perceptual features, or do they instead retain representations of the sound's specific acoustic properties? In the present study we addressed this question by measuring listeners' abilities to keep one of three acoustic properties (interaural time difference [ITD], interaural level difference [ILD], or frequency) in memory when the target sound was followed by interfering sounds that varied randomly in one of the same properties. Critically, ITD and ILD evoked the same percept (spatial location), despite being acoustically different and having different physiological correlates, whereas frequency evoked a different percept (pitch). The results showed that listeners found it difficult to remember the percept of spatial location when the interfering tones varied either in ITD or ILD, but not when they varied in frequency. The study demonstrates that percepts are the units of auditory STM, and provides testable predictions for future neuroscientific work on both auditory and visual STM.

  3. Short-term plasticity in auditory cognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jääskeläinen, Iiro P; Ahveninen, Jyrki; Belliveau, John W; Raij, Tommi; Sams, Mikko

    2007-12-01

    Converging lines of evidence suggest that auditory system short-term plasticity can enable several perceptual and cognitive functions that have been previously considered as relatively distinct phenomena. Here we review recent findings suggesting that auditory stimulation, auditory selective attention and cross-modal effects of visual stimulation each cause transient excitatory and (surround) inhibitory modulations in the auditory cortex. These modulations might adaptively tune hierarchically organized sound feature maps of the auditory cortex (e.g. tonotopy), thus filtering relevant sounds during rapidly changing environmental and task demands. This could support auditory sensory memory, pre-attentive detection of sound novelty, enhanced perception during selective attention, influence of visual processing on auditory perception and longer-term plastic changes associated with perceptual learning.

  4. Event-related delta, theta, alpha and gamma correlates to auditory oddball processing during Vipassana meditation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Delorme, Arnaud; Polich, John

    2013-01-01

    Long-term Vipassana meditators sat in meditation vs. a control (instructed mind wandering) states for 25 min, electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded and condition order counterbalanced. For the last 4 min, a three-stimulus auditory oddball series was presented during both meditation and control periods through headphones and no task imposed. Time-frequency analysis demonstrated that meditation relative to the control condition evinced decreased evoked delta (2–4 Hz) power to distracter stimuli concomitantly with a greater event-related reduction of late (500–900 ms) alpha-1 (8–10 Hz) activity, which indexed altered dynamics of attentional engagement to distracters. Additionally, standard stimuli were associated with increased early event-related alpha phase synchrony (inter-trial coherence) and evoked theta (4–8 Hz) phase synchrony, suggesting enhanced processing of the habituated standard background stimuli. Finally, during meditation, there was a greater differential early-evoked gamma power to the different stimulus classes. Correlation analysis indicated that this effect stemmed from a meditation state-related increase in early distracter-evoked gamma power and phase synchrony specific to longer-term expert practitioners. The findings suggest that Vipassana meditation evokes a brain state of enhanced perceptual clarity and decreased automated reactivity. PMID:22648958

  5. Perceptual consequences of disrupted auditory nerve activity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zeng, Fan-Gang; Kong, Ying-Yee; Michalewski, Henry J; Starr, Arnold

    2005-06-01

    Perceptual consequences of disrupted auditory nerve activity were systematically studied in 21 subjects who had been clinically diagnosed with auditory neuropathy (AN), a recently defined disorder characterized by normal outer hair cell function but disrupted auditory nerve function. Neurological and electrophysical evidence suggests that disrupted auditory nerve activity is due to desynchronized or reduced neural activity or both. Psychophysical measures showed that the disrupted neural activity has minimal effects on intensity-related perception, such as loudness discrimination, pitch discrimination at high frequencies, and sound localization using interaural level differences. In contrast, the disrupted neural activity significantly impairs timing related perception, such as pitch discrimination at low frequencies, temporal integration, gap detection, temporal modulation detection, backward and forward masking, signal detection in noise, binaural beats, and sound localization using interaural time differences. These perceptual consequences are the opposite of what is typically observed in cochlear-impaired subjects who have impaired intensity perception but relatively normal temporal processing after taking their impaired intensity perception into account. These differences in perceptual consequences between auditory neuropathy and cochlear damage suggest the use of different neural codes in auditory perception: a suboptimal spike count code for intensity processing, a synchronized spike code for temporal processing, and a duplex code for frequency processing. We also proposed two underlying physiological models based on desynchronized and reduced discharge in the auditory nerve to successfully account for the observed neurological and behavioral data. These methods and measures cannot differentiate between these two AN models, but future studies using electric stimulation of the auditory nerve via a cochlear implant might. These results not only show the unique

  6. Metal Sounds Stiffer than Drums for Ears, but Not Always for Hands: Low-Level Auditory Features Affect Multisensory Stiffness Perception More than High-Level Categorical Information

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Juan; Ando, Hiroshi

    2016-01-01

    Most real-world events stimulate multiple sensory modalities simultaneously. Usually, the stiffness of an object is perceived haptically. However, auditory signals also contain stiffness-related information, and people can form impressions of stiffness from the different impact sounds of metal, wood, or glass. To understand whether there is any interaction between auditory and haptic stiffness perception, and if so, whether the inferred material category is the most relevant auditory information, we conducted experiments using a force-feedback device and the modal synthesis method to present haptic stimuli and impact sound in accordance with participants’ actions, and to modulate low-level acoustic parameters, i.e., frequency and damping, without changing the inferred material categories of sound sources. We found that metal sounds consistently induced an impression of stiffer surfaces than did drum sounds in the audio-only condition, but participants haptically perceived surfaces with modulated metal sounds as significantly softer than the same surfaces with modulated drum sounds, which directly opposes the impression induced by these sounds alone. This result indicates that, although the inferred material category is strongly associated with audio-only stiffness perception, low-level acoustic parameters, especially damping, are more tightly integrated with haptic signals than the material category is. Frequency played an important role in both audio-only and audio-haptic conditions. Our study provides evidence that auditory information influences stiffness perception differently in unisensory and multisensory tasks. Furthermore, the data demonstrated that sounds with higher frequency and/or shorter decay time tended to be judged as stiffer, and contact sounds of stiff objects had no effect on the haptic perception of soft surfaces. We argue that the intrinsic physical relationship between object stiffness and acoustic parameters may be applied as prior

  7. The relationship between event-related potentials, stress perception and personality type in patients with multiple sclerosis without cognitive impairment: A pilot study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Waliszewska-Prosół, Marta; Nowakowska-Kotas, Marta; Kotas, Roman; Bańkowski, Tomasz; Pokryszko-Dragan, Anna; Podemski, Ryszard

    2018-06-08

    The clinical course of multiple sclerosis (MS) can vary significantly among patients and is affected by exogenous and endogenous factors. Among these, stress and personality type have been gaining more attention. The aim of this study was to investigate the parameters of event-related potentials (ERPs) with regards to stress perception and personality type, as well as cognitive performance in MS patients. The study group consisted of 30 MS patients and 26 healthy controls. Auditory ERPs were performed in both groups, including an analysis of P300 and N200 response parameters. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) was used in the MS group to measure the perception of stress. The D-type Scale (DS14) scale was used to determine the features of Type D personality, characterized by social inhibition and negative affectivity. The score on the PSS corresponded with a moderate or high level of stress perception in 63% of MS patients, while 23% of patients presented with a Type D personality. P300 latencies were significantly longer (p = 0.001), N200 amplitudes were significantly higher (p = 0.004), and N200 latencies were longer in MS patients than in the controls. Strong positive correlations were found between N200 and P300 amplitudes, as well as between the DS14 and PSS results. Most MS patients experience moderate to severe stress. ERP abnormalities were found in MS patients who did not have overt cognitive impairment and showed correlations with stress levels and negative affectivity. Event-related potentials may be useful in assessing the influence of stress and emotions on the course of MS.

  8. Human-assisted sound event recognition for home service robots.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Do, Ha Manh; Sheng, Weihua; Liu, Meiqin

    This paper proposes and implements an open framework of active auditory learning for a home service robot to serve the elderly living alone at home. The framework was developed to realize the various auditory perception capabilities while enabling a remote human operator to involve in the sound event recognition process for elderly care. The home service robot is able to estimate the sound source position and collaborate with the human operator in sound event recognition while protecting the privacy of the elderly. Our experimental results validated the proposed framework and evaluated auditory perception capabilities and human-robot collaboration in sound event recognition.

  9. Spatial auditory attention is modulated by tactile priming.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Menning, Hans; Ackermann, Hermann; Hertrich, Ingo; Mathiak, Klaus

    2005-07-01

    Previous studies have shown that cross-modal processing affects perception at a variety of neuronal levels. In this study, event-related brain responses were recorded via whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG). Spatial auditory attention was directed via tactile pre-cues (primes) to one of four locations in the peripersonal space (left and right hand versus face). Auditory stimuli were white noise bursts, convoluted with head-related transfer functions, which ensured spatial perception of the four locations. Tactile primes (200-300 ms prior to acoustic onset) were applied randomly to one of these locations. Attentional load was controlled by three different visual distraction tasks. The auditory P50m (about 50 ms after stimulus onset) showed a significant "proximity" effect (larger responses to face stimulation as well as a "contralaterality" effect between side of stimulation and hemisphere). The tactile primes essentially reduced both the P50m and N100m components. However, facial tactile pre-stimulation yielded an enhanced ipsilateral N100m. These results show that earlier responses are mainly governed by exogenous stimulus properties whereas cross-sensory interaction is spatially selective at a later (endogenous) processing stage.

  10. Dividing time: Concurrent timing of auditory and visual events by young and elderly adults

    OpenAIRE

    McAuley, J. Devin; Miller, Jonathan P.; Wang, Mo; Pang, Kevin C. H.

    2010-01-01

    This article examines age differences in individual’s ability to produce the durations of learned auditory and visual target events either in isolation (focused attention) or concurrently (divided attention). Young adults produced learned target durations equally well in focused and divided attention conditions. Older adults in contrast showed an age-related increase in timing variability in divided attention conditions that tended to be more pronounced for visual targets than for auditory ta...

  11. Neural Correlates of Realistic and Unrealistic Auditory Space Perception

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Akiko Callan

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available Binaural recordings can simulate externalized auditory space perception over headphones. However, if the orientation of the recorder's head and the orientation of the listener's head are incongruent, the simulated auditory space is not realistic. For example, if a person lying flat on a bed listens to an environmental sound that was recorded by microphones inserted in ears of a person who was in an upright position, the sound simulates an auditory space rotated 90 degrees to the real-world horizontal axis. Our question is whether brain activation patterns are different between the unrealistic auditory space (ie, the orientation of the listener's head and the orientation of the recorder's head are incongruent and the realistic auditory space (ie, the orientations are congruent. River sounds that were binaurally recorded either in a supine position or in an upright body position were served as auditory stimuli. During fMRI experiments, participants listen to the stimuli and pressed one of two buttons indicating the direction of the water flow (horizontal/vertical. Behavioral results indicated that participants could not differentiate between the congruent and the incongruent conditions. However, neuroimaging results showed that the congruent condition activated the planum temporale significantly more than the incongruent condition.

  12. Modeling auditory processing and speech perception in hearing-impaired listeners

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jepsen, Morten Løve

    in a diagnostic rhyme test. The framework was constructed such that discrimination errors originating from the front-end and the back-end were separated. The front-end was fitted to individual listeners with cochlear hearing loss according to non-speech data, and speech data were obtained in the same listeners......A better understanding of how the human auditory system represents and analyzes sounds and how hearing impairment affects such processing is of great interest for researchers in the fields of auditory neuroscience, audiology, and speech communication as well as for applications in hearing......-instrument and speech technology. In this thesis, the primary focus was on the development and evaluation of a computational model of human auditory signal-processing and perception. The model was initially designed to simulate the normal-hearing auditory system with particular focus on the nonlinear processing...

  13. Changes of auditory event-related potentials in ovariectomized rats injected with d-galactose: Protective role of rosmarinic acid.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kantar-Gok, Deniz; Hidisoglu, Enis; Er, Hakan; Acun, Alev Duygu; Olgar, Yusuf; Yargıcoglu, Piraye

    2017-09-01

    Rosmarinic acid (RA), which has multiple bioactive properties, might be a useful agent for protecting central nervous system against age related alterations. In this context, the purpose of the present study was to investigate possible protective effects of RA on mismatch negativity (MMN) component of auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) as an indicator of auditory discrimination and echoic memory in the ovariectomized (OVX) rats injected with d-galactose combined with neurochemical and histological analyses. Ninety female Wistar rats were randomly divided into six groups: sham control (S); RA-treated (R); OVX (O); OVX+RA-treated (OR); OVX+d-galactose-treated (OD); OVX+d-galactose+RA-treated (ODR). Eight weeks later, MMN responses were recorded using the oddball condition. An amplitude reduction of some components of AERPs was observed due to ovariectomy with or without d-galactose administiration and these reduction patterns were diverse for different electrode locations. MMN amplitudes were significantly lower over temporal and right frontal locations in the O and OD groups versus the S and R groups, which was accompanied by increased thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) and hydroxy-2-nonenal (4-HNE) levels. RA treatment significantly increased AERP/MMN amplitudes and lowered the TBARS/4-HNE levels in the OR and ODR groups versus the O and OD groups, respectively. Our findings support the potential benefit of RA in the prevention of auditory distortion related to the estrogen deficiency and d-galactose administration at least partly by antioxidant actions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  14. Auditory feedback affects perception of effort when exercising with a Pulley machine

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bordegoni, Monica; Ferrise, Francesco; Grani, Francesco

    2013-01-01

    In this paper we describe an experiment that investigates the role of auditory feedback in affecting the perception of effort when using a physical pulley machine. Specifically, we investigated whether variations in the amplitude and frequency content of the pulley sound affect perception of effo...

  15. The effect of phasic auditory alerting on visual perception

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Petersen, Anders; Petersen, Annemarie Hilkjær; Bundesen, Claus

    2017-01-01

    /no-alerting design with a pure accuracy-based single-letter recognition task. Computational modeling based on Bundesen’s Theory of Visual Attention was used to examine the effect of phasic alertness on visual processing speed and threshold of conscious perception. Results show that phasic auditory alertness affects...

  16. Person perception precedes theory of mind: an event related potential analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Y W; Lin, C D; Yuan, B; Huang, L; Zhang, W X; Shen, D L

    2010-09-29

    Prior to developing an understanding of another person's mental state, an ability termed "theory of mind" (ToM), a perception of that person's appearance and actions is required. However the relationship between this "person perception" and ToM is unclear. To investigate the time course of ToM and person perception, event-related potentials (ERP) were recorded while 17 normal adults received three kinds of visual stimuli: cartoons involving people (person perception cartoons), cartoons involving people and also requiring ToM for comprehension (ToM cartoons), and scene cartoons. We hypothesized that the respective patterns of brain activation would be different under these three stimuli, at different stages in time. Our findings supported this proposal: the peak amplitudes of P200 for scene cartoons were significantly lower than for person perception or ToM cartoons, while there were no significant differences between the latter two for P200. During the 1000-1300 ms epoch, the mean amplitudes of the late positive components (LPC) for person perception were more positive than for scene representation, while the mean amplitudes of the LPC for ToM were more positive than for person perception. The present study provides preliminary evidence of the neural dynamic that underlies the dissociation between person perception and ToM. Copyright 2010 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  17. Effects of Sound Frequency on Audiovisual Integration: An Event-Related Potential Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Weiping; Yang, Jingjing; Gao, Yulin; Tang, Xiaoyu; Ren, Yanna; Takahashi, Satoshi; Wu, Jinglong

    2015-01-01

    A combination of signals across modalities can facilitate sensory perception. The audiovisual facilitative effect strongly depends on the features of the stimulus. Here, we investigated how sound frequency, which is one of basic features of an auditory signal, modulates audiovisual integration. In this study, the task of the participant was to respond to a visual target stimulus by pressing a key while ignoring auditory stimuli, comprising of tones of different frequencies (0.5, 1, 2.5 and 5 kHz). A significant facilitation of reaction times was obtained following audiovisual stimulation, irrespective of whether the task-irrelevant sounds were low or high frequency. Using event-related potential (ERP), audiovisual integration was found over the occipital area for 0.5 kHz auditory stimuli from 190-210 ms, for 1 kHz stimuli from 170-200 ms, for 2.5 kHz stimuli from 140-200 ms, 5 kHz stimuli from 100-200 ms. These findings suggest that a higher frequency sound signal paired with visual stimuli might be early processed or integrated despite the auditory stimuli being task-irrelevant information. Furthermore, audiovisual integration in late latency (300-340 ms) ERPs with fronto-central topography was found for auditory stimuli of lower frequencies (0.5, 1 and 2.5 kHz). Our results confirmed that audiovisual integration is affected by the frequency of an auditory stimulus. Taken together, the neurophysiological results provide unique insight into how the brain processes a multisensory visual signal and auditory stimuli of different frequencies.

  18. Auditory-Visual Speech Perception in Three- and Four-Year-Olds and Its Relationship to Perceptual Attunement and Receptive Vocabulary

    Science.gov (United States)

    Erdener, Dogu; Burnham, Denis

    2018-01-01

    Despite the body of research on auditory-visual speech perception in infants and schoolchildren, development in the early childhood period remains relatively uncharted. In this study, English-speaking children between three and four years of age were investigated for: (i) the development of visual speech perception--lip-reading and visual…

  19. Neuronal activity in primate prefrontal cortex related to goal-directed behavior during auditory working memory tasks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huang, Ying; Brosch, Michael

    2016-06-01

    Prefrontal cortex (PFC) has been documented to play critical roles in goal-directed behaviors, like representing goal-relevant events and working memory (WM). However, neurophysiological evidence for such roles of PFC has been obtained mainly with visual tasks but rarely with auditory tasks. In the present study, we tested roles of PFC in auditory goal-directed behaviors by recording local field potentials in the auditory region of left ventrolateral PFC while a monkey performed auditory WM tasks. The tasks consisted of multiple events and required the monkey to change its mental states to achieve the reward. The events were auditory and visual stimuli, as well as specific actions. Mental states were engaging in the tasks and holding task-relevant information in auditory WM. We found that, although based on recordings from one hemisphere in one monkey only, PFC represented multiple events that were important for achieving reward, including auditory and visual stimuli like turning on and off an LED, as well as bar touch. The responses to auditory events depended on the tasks and on the context of the tasks. This provides support for the idea that neuronal representations in PFC are flexible and can be related to the behavioral meaning of stimuli. We also found that engaging in the tasks and holding information in auditory WM were associated with persistent changes of slow potentials, both of which are essential for auditory goal-directed behaviors. Our study, on a single hemisphere in a single monkey, reveals roles of PFC in auditory goal-directed behaviors similar to those in visual goal-directed behaviors, suggesting that functions of PFC in goal-directed behaviors are probably common across the auditory and visual modality. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled SI: Auditory working memory. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  20. Dividing time: concurrent timing of auditory and visual events by young and elderly adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McAuley, J Devin; Miller, Jonathan P; Wang, Mo; Pang, Kevin C H

    2010-07-01

    This article examines age differences in individual's ability to produce the durations of learned auditory and visual target events either in isolation (focused attention) or concurrently (divided attention). Young adults produced learned target durations equally well in focused and divided attention conditions. Older adults, in contrast, showed an age-related increase in timing variability in divided attention conditions that tended to be more pronounced for visual targets than for auditory targets. Age-related impairments were associated with a decrease in working memory span; moreover, the relationship between working memory and timing performance was largest for visual targets in divided attention conditions.

  1. Auditory-visual speech integration by prelinguistic infants: perception of an emergent consonant in the McGurk effect.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burnham, Denis; Dodd, Barbara

    2004-12-01

    The McGurk effect, in which auditory [ba] dubbed onto [ga] lip movements is perceived as "da" or "tha," was employed in a real-time task to investigate auditory-visual speech perception in prelingual infants. Experiments 1A and 1B established the validity of real-time dubbing for producing the effect. In Experiment 2, 4 1/2-month-olds were tested in a habituation-test paradigm, in which an auditory-visual stimulus was presented contingent upon visual fixation of a live face. The experimental group was habituated to a McGurk stimulus (auditory [ba] visual [ga]), and the control group to matching auditory-visual [ba]. Each group was then presented with three auditory-only test trials, [ba], [da], and [(delta)a] (as in then). Visual-fixation durations in test trials showed that the experimental group treated the emergent percept in the McGurk effect, [da] or [(delta)a], as familiar (even though they had not heard these sounds previously) and [ba] as novel. For control group infants [da] and [(delta)a] were no more familiar than [ba]. These results are consistent with infants' perception of the McGurk effect, and support the conclusion that prelinguistic infants integrate auditory and visual speech information. Copyright 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  2. Perceptions of Parental Awareness of Emotional Responses to Stressful Life Events.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jobe-Shields, Lisa; Parra, Gilbert R; Buckholdt, Kelly E

    2013-10-01

    There is a need to better understand family processes related to recovery from past stressful life events. The present study aimed to investigate links between perceptions of parental awareness regarding stressful life events, continued event-related rumination, and current symptoms of depression. Students at a diverse, urban university completed a life events checklist and a semi-structured interview regarding family processing of stressful life events, as well as self-report measures of event-related rumination and depression. Results indicated that perceptions of mothers' and fathers' awareness of sadness regarding stressful life events as well as mothers' and fathers' verbal event processing predicted symptoms of event-related rumination and depression. Results support the inclusion of perceptions of parental awareness in the understanding of how emerging adults continue to cope with past stressful life events.

  3. Auditory Perceptual Learning for Speech Perception Can be Enhanced by Audiovisual Training.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bernstein, Lynne E; Auer, Edward T; Eberhardt, Silvio P; Jiang, Jintao

    2013-01-01

    Speech perception under audiovisual (AV) conditions is well known to confer benefits to perception such as increased speed and accuracy. Here, we investigated how AV training might benefit or impede auditory perceptual learning of speech degraded by vocoding. In Experiments 1 and 3, participants learned paired associations between vocoded spoken nonsense words and nonsense pictures. In Experiment 1, paired-associates (PA) AV training of one group of participants was compared with audio-only (AO) training of another group. When tested under AO conditions, the AV-trained group was significantly more accurate than the AO-trained group. In addition, pre- and post-training AO forced-choice consonant identification with untrained nonsense words showed that AV-trained participants had learned significantly more than AO participants. The pattern of results pointed to their having learned at the level of the auditory phonetic features of the vocoded stimuli. Experiment 2, a no-training control with testing and re-testing on the AO consonant identification, showed that the controls were as accurate as the AO-trained participants in Experiment 1 but less accurate than the AV-trained participants. In Experiment 3, PA training alternated AV and AO conditions on a list-by-list basis within participants, and training was to criterion (92% correct). PA training with AO stimuli was reliably more effective than training with AV stimuli. We explain these discrepant results in terms of the so-called "reverse hierarchy theory" of perceptual learning and in terms of the diverse multisensory and unisensory processing resources available to speech perception. We propose that early AV speech integration can potentially impede auditory perceptual learning; but visual top-down access to relevant auditory features can promote auditory perceptual learning.

  4. Differential Recruitment of Auditory Cortices in the Consolidation of Recent Auditory Fearful Memories.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cambiaghi, Marco; Grosso, Anna; Renna, Annamaria; Sacchetti, Benedetto

    2016-08-17

    Memories of frightening events require a protracted consolidation process. Sensory cortex, such as the auditory cortex, is involved in the formation of fearful memories with a more complex sensory stimulus pattern. It remains controversial, however, whether the auditory cortex is also required for fearful memories related to simple sensory stimuli. In the present study, we found that, 1 d after training, the temporary inactivation of either the most anterior region of the auditory cortex, including the primary (Te1) cortex, or the most posterior region, which included the secondary (Te2) component, did not affect the retention of recent memories, which is consistent with the current literature. However, at this time point, the inactivation of the entire auditory cortices completely prevented the formation of new memories. Amnesia was site specific and was not due to auditory stimuli perception or processing and strictly related to the interference with memory consolidation processes. Strikingly, at a late time interval 4 d after training, blocking the posterior part (encompassing the Te2) alone impaired memory retention, whereas the inactivation of the anterior part (encompassing the Te1) left memory unaffected. Together, these data show that the auditory cortex is necessary for the consolidation of auditory fearful memories related to simple tones in rats. Moreover, these results suggest that, at early time intervals, memory information is processed in a distributed network composed of both the anterior and the posterior auditory cortical regions, whereas, at late time intervals, memory processing is concentrated in the most posterior part containing the Te2 region. Memories of threatening experiences undergo a prolonged process of "consolidation" to be maintained for a long time. The dynamic of fearful memory consolidation is poorly understood. Here, we show that 1 d after learning, memory is processed in a distributed network composed of both primary Te1 and

  5. Auditory object perception: A neurobiological model and prospective review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brefczynski-Lewis, Julie A; Lewis, James W

    2017-10-01

    Interaction with the world is a multisensory experience, but most of what is known about the neural correlates of perception comes from studying vision. Auditory inputs enter cortex with its own set of unique qualities, and leads to use in oral communication, speech, music, and the understanding of emotional and intentional states of others, all of which are central to the human experience. To better understand how the auditory system develops, recovers after injury, and how it may have transitioned in its functions over the course of hominin evolution, advances are needed in models of how the human brain is organized to process real-world natural sounds and "auditory objects". This review presents a simple fundamental neurobiological model of hearing perception at a category level that incorporates principles of bottom-up signal processing together with top-down constraints of grounded cognition theories of knowledge representation. Though mostly derived from human neuroimaging literature, this theoretical framework highlights rudimentary principles of real-world sound processing that may apply to most if not all mammalian species with hearing and acoustic communication abilities. The model encompasses three basic categories of sound-source: (1) action sounds (non-vocalizations) produced by 'living things', with human (conspecific) and non-human animal sources representing two subcategories; (2) action sounds produced by 'non-living things', including environmental sources and human-made machinery; and (3) vocalizations ('living things'), with human versus non-human animals as two subcategories therein. The model is presented in the context of cognitive architectures relating to multisensory, sensory-motor, and spoken language organizations. The models' predictive values are further discussed in the context of anthropological theories of oral communication evolution and the neurodevelopment of spoken language proto-networks in infants/toddlers. These phylogenetic

  6. The role of auditory transient and deviance processing in distraction of task performance: a combined behavioral and event-related brain potential study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stefan eBerti

    2013-07-01

    Full Text Available Distraction of goal-oriented performance by a sudden change in the auditory environment is an everyday life experience. Different types of changes can be distracting, including a sudden onset of a transient sound and a slight deviation of otherwise regular auditory background stimulation. With regard to deviance detection, it is assumed that slight changes in a continuous sequence of auditory stimuli are detected by a predictive coding mechanisms and it has been demonstrated that this mechanism is capable of distracting ongoing task performance. In contrast, it is open whether transient detection – which does not rely on predictive coding mechanisms – can trigger behavioral distraction, too. In the present study, the effect of rare auditory changes on visual task performance is tested in an auditory-visual cross-modal distraction paradigm. The rare changes are either embedded within a continuous standard stimulation (triggering deviance detection or are presented within an otherwise silent situation (triggering transient detection. In the event-related brain potentials, deviants elicited the mismatch negativity (MMN while transients elicited an enhanced N1 component, mirroring pre-attentive change detection in both conditions but on the basis of different neuro-cognitive processes. These sensory components are followed by attention related ERP components including the P3a and the reorienting negativity (RON. This demonstrates that both types of changes trigger switches of attention. Finally, distraction of task performance is observable, too, but the impact of deviants is higher compared to transients. These findings suggest different routes of distraction allowing for the automatic processing of a wide range of potentially relevant changes in the environment as a pre-requisite for adaptive behavior.

  7. Musical experience shapes top-down auditory mechanisms: evidence from masking and auditory attention performance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Strait, Dana L; Kraus, Nina; Parbery-Clark, Alexandra; Ashley, Richard

    2010-03-01

    A growing body of research suggests that cognitive functions, such as attention and memory, drive perception by tuning sensory mechanisms to relevant acoustic features. Long-term musical experience also modulates lower-level auditory function, although the mechanisms by which this occurs remain uncertain. In order to tease apart the mechanisms that drive perceptual enhancements in musicians, we posed the question: do well-developed cognitive abilities fine-tune auditory perception in a top-down fashion? We administered a standardized battery of perceptual and cognitive tests to adult musicians and non-musicians, including tasks either more or less susceptible to cognitive control (e.g., backward versus simultaneous masking) and more or less dependent on auditory or visual processing (e.g., auditory versus visual attention). Outcomes indicate lower perceptual thresholds in musicians specifically for auditory tasks that relate with cognitive abilities, such as backward masking and auditory attention. These enhancements were observed in the absence of group differences for the simultaneous masking and visual attention tasks. Our results suggest that long-term musical practice strengthens cognitive functions and that these functions benefit auditory skills. Musical training bolsters higher-level mechanisms that, when impaired, relate to language and literacy deficits. Thus, musical training may serve to lessen the impact of these deficits by strengthening the corticofugal system for hearing. 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  8. The effect of auditory perception training on reading performance of the 8-9-year old female students with dyslexia: A preliminary study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nafiseh Vatandoost

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Background and Aim: Dyslexia is the most common learning disability. One of the main factors have role in this disability is auditory perception imperfection that cause a lot of problems in education. We aimed to study the effect of auditory perception training on reading performance of female students with dyslexia at the third grade of elementary school.Methods: Thirty-eight female students at the third grade of elementary schools of Khomeinishahr City, Iran, were selected by multistage cluster random sampling of them, 20 students which were diagnosed dyslexic by Reading test and Wechsler test, devided randomly to two equal groups of experimental and control. For experimental group, during ten 45-minute sessions, auditory perception training were conducted, but no intervention was done for control group. An participants were re-assessed by Reading test after the intervention (pre- and post- test method. Data were analyed by covariance test.Results: The effect of auditory perception training on reading performance (81% was significant (p<0.0001 for all subtests execpt the separate compound word test.Conclusion: Findings of our study confirm the hypothesis that auditory perception training effects on students' functional reading. So, auditory perception training seems to be necessary for the students with dyslexia.

  9. A Basic Study on P300 Event-Related Potentials Evoked by Simultaneous Presentation of Visual and Auditory Stimuli for the Communication Interface

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Masami Hashimoto

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available We have been engaged in the development of a brain-computer interface (BCI based on the cognitive P300 event-related potentials (ERPs evoked by simultaneous presentation of visual and auditory stimuli in order to assist with the communication in severe physical limitation persons. The purpose of the simultaneous presentation of these stimuli is to give the user more choices as commands. First, we extracted P300 ERPs by either visual oddball paradigm or auditory oddball paradigm. Then amplitude and latency of the P300 ERPs were measured. Second, visual and auditory stimuli were presented simultaneously, we measured the P300 ERPs varying the condition of combinations of these stimuli. In this report, we used 3 colors as visual stimuli and 3 types of MIDI sounds as auditory stimuli. Two types of simultaneous presentations were examined. The one was conducted with random combination. The other was called group stimulation, combining one color, such as red, and one MIDI sound, such as piano, in order to make a group; three groups were made. Each group was presented to users randomly. We evaluated the possibility of BCI using these stimuli from the amplitudes and the latencies of P300 ERPs.

  10. Modelling the Emergence and Dynamics of Perceptual Organisation in Auditory Streaming

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mill, Robert W.; Bőhm, Tamás M.; Bendixen, Alexandra; Winkler, István; Denham, Susan L.

    2013-01-01

    Many sound sources can only be recognised from the pattern of sounds they emit, and not from the individual sound events that make up their emission sequences. Auditory scene analysis addresses the difficult task of interpreting the sound world in terms of an unknown number of discrete sound sources (causes) with possibly overlapping signals, and therefore of associating each event with the appropriate source. There are potentially many different ways in which incoming events can be assigned to different causes, which means that the auditory system has to choose between them. This problem has been studied for many years using the auditory streaming paradigm, and recently it has become apparent that instead of making one fixed perceptual decision, given sufficient time, auditory perception switches back and forth between the alternatives—a phenomenon known as perceptual bi- or multi-stability. We propose a new model of auditory scene analysis at the core of which is a process that seeks to discover predictable patterns in the ongoing sound sequence. Representations of predictable fragments are created on the fly, and are maintained, strengthened or weakened on the basis of their predictive success, and conflict with other representations. Auditory perceptual organisation emerges spontaneously from the nature of the competition between these representations. We present detailed comparisons between the model simulations and data from an auditory streaming experiment, and show that the model accounts for many important findings, including: the emergence of, and switching between, alternative organisations; the influence of stimulus parameters on perceptual dominance, switching rate and perceptual phase durations; and the build-up of auditory streaming. The principal contribution of the model is to show that a two-stage process of pattern discovery and competition between incompatible patterns can account for both the contents (perceptual organisations) and the

  11. Separate representation of stimulus frequency, intensity, and duration in auditory sensory memory: an event-related potential and dipole-model analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Giard, M H; Lavikahen, J; Reinikainen, K; Perrin, F; Bertrand, O; Pernier, J; Näätänen, R

    1995-01-01

    Abstract The present study analyzed the neural correlates of acoustic stimulus representation in echoic sensory memory. The neural traces of auditory sensory memory were indirectly studied by using the mismatch negativity (MMN), an event-related potential component elicited by a change in a repetitive sound. The MMN is assumed to reflect change detection in a comparison process between the sensory input from a deviant stimulus and the neural representation of repetitive stimuli in echoic memory. The scalp topographies of the MMNs elicited by pure tones deviating from standard tones by either frequency, intensity, or duration varied according to the type of stimulus deviance, indicating that the MMNs for different attributes originate, at least in part, from distinct neural populations in the auditory cortex. This result was supported by dipole-model analysis. If the MMN generator process occurs where the stimulus information is stored, these findings strongly suggest that the frequency, intensity, and duration of acoustic stimuli have a separate neural representation in sensory memory.

  12. Classification of Single-Trial Auditory Events Using Dry-Wireless EEG During Real and Motion Simulated Flight

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daniel eCallan

    2015-02-01

    Full Text Available Application of neuro-augmentation technology based on dry-wireless EEG may be considerably beneficial for aviation and space operations because of the inherent dangers involved. In this study we evaluate classification performance of perceptual events using a dry-wireless EEG system during motion platform based flight simulation and actual flight in an open cockpit biplane to determine if the system can be used in the presence of considerable environmental and physiological artifacts. A passive task involving 200 random auditory presentations of a chirp sound was used for evaluation. The advantage of this auditory task is that it does not interfere with the perceptual motor processes involved with piloting the plane. Classification was based on identifying the presentation of a chirp sound versus silent periods. Evaluation of Independent component analysis and Kalman filtering to enhance classification performance by extracting brain activity related to the auditory event from other non-task related brain activity and artifacts was assessed. The results of permutation testing revealed that single trial classification of presence or absence of an auditory event was significantly above chance for all conditions on a novel test set. The best performance could be achieved with both ICA and Kalman filtering relative to no processing: Platform Off (83.4% vs 78.3%, Platform On (73.1% vs 71.6%, Biplane Engine Off (81.1% vs 77.4%, and Biplane Engine On (79.2% vs 66.1%. This experiment demonstrates that dry-wireless EEG can be used in environments with considerable vibration, wind, acoustic noise, and physiological artifacts and achieve good single trial classification performance that is necessary for future successful application of neuro-augmentation technology based on brain-machine interfaces.

  13. Hippocampal P3-Like Auditory Event-Related Potentials are Disrupted in a Rat Model of Cholinergic Degeneration in Alzheimer's Disease: Reversal by Donepezil Treatment

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Laursen, Bettina; Mørk, Arne; Kristiansen, Uffe

    2014-01-01

    P300 (P3) event-related potentials (ERPs) have been suggested to be an endogenous marker of cognitive function and auditory oddball paradigms are frequently used to evaluate P3 ERPs in clinical settings. Deficits in P3 amplitude and latency reflect some of the neurological dysfunctions related...... cholinergic degeneration induced by SAP. SAP-lesioned rats may constitute a suitable model to test the efficacy of pro-cognitive substances in an applied experimental setup....

  14. Modulation of Illusory Auditory Perception by Transcranial Electrical Stimulation

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    Giulia Prete

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available The aim of the present study was to test whether transcranial electrical stimulation can modulate illusory perception in the auditory domain. In two separate experiments we applied transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (anodal/cathodal tDCS, 2 mA; N = 60 and high-frequency transcranial Random Noise Stimulation (hf-tRNS, 1.5 mA, offset 0; N = 45 on the temporal cortex during the presentation of the stimuli eliciting the Deutsch's illusion. The illusion arises when two sine tones spaced one octave apart (400 and 800 Hz are presented dichotically in alternation, one in the left and the other in the right ear, so that when the right ear receives the high tone, the left ear receives the low tone, and vice versa. The majority of the population perceives one high-pitched tone in one ear alternating with one low-pitched tone in the other ear. The results revealed that neither anodal nor cathodal tDCS applied over the left/right temporal cortex modulated the perception of the illusion, whereas hf-tRNS applied bilaterally on the temporal cortex reduced the number of times the sequence of sounds is perceived as the Deutsch's illusion with respect to the sham control condition. The stimulation time before the beginning of the task (5 or 15 min did not influence the perceptual outcome. In accordance with previous findings, we conclude that hf-tRNS can modulate auditory perception more efficiently than tDCS.

  15. The role of temporal structure in the investigation of sensory memory, auditory scene analysis, and speech perception: a healthy-aging perspective.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rimmele, Johanna Maria; Sussman, Elyse; Poeppel, David

    2015-02-01

    Listening situations with multiple talkers or background noise are common in everyday communication and are particularly demanding for older adults. Here we review current research on auditory perception in aging individuals in order to gain insights into the challenges of listening under noisy conditions. Informationally rich temporal structure in auditory signals--over a range of time scales from milliseconds to seconds--renders temporal processing central to perception in the auditory domain. We discuss the role of temporal structure in auditory processing, in particular from a perspective relevant for hearing in background noise, and focusing on sensory memory, auditory scene analysis, and speech perception. Interestingly, these auditory processes, usually studied in an independent manner, show considerable overlap of processing time scales, even though each has its own 'privileged' temporal regimes. By integrating perspectives on temporal structure processing in these three areas of investigation, we aim to highlight similarities typically not recognized. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  16. Arousal and attention re-orienting in autism spectrum disorders: evidence from auditory event-related potentials

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    Elena V Orekhova

    2014-02-01

    Full Text Available The extended phenotype of autism spectrum disorders (ASD includes a combination of arousal regulation problems, sensory modulation difficulties, and attention re-orienting deficit. A slow and inefficient re-orienting to stimuli that appear outside of the attended sensory stream is thought to be especially detrimental for social functioning. Event-related potentials (ERPs and magnetic fields (ERFs may help to reveal which processing stages underlying brain response to unattended but salient sensory event are affected in individuals with ASD. Previous research focusing on two sequential stages of the brain response - automatic detection of physical changes in auditory stream, indexed by mismatch negativity (MMN, and evaluation of stimulus novelty, indexed by P3a component, - found in individuals with ASD either increased, decreased or normal processing of deviance and novelty. The review examines these apparently conflicting results, notes gaps in previous findings, and suggests a potentially unifying hypothesis relating the dampened responses to unattended sensory events to the deficit in rapid arousal process. Specifically, ‘sensory gating’ studies focused on pre-attentive arousal consistently demonstrated that brain response to unattended and temporally novel sound in ASD is already affected at around 100 ms after stimulus onset. We hypothesize that abnormalities in nicotinic cholinergic arousal pathways, previously reported in individuals with ASD, may contribute to these ERP/ERF aberrations and result in attention re-orienting deficit. Such cholinergic dysfunction may be present in individuals with ASD early in life and can influence both sensory processing and attention re-orienting behavior. Identification of early neurophysiological biomarkers for cholinergic deficit would help to detect infants at risk who can potentially benefit from particular types of therapies or interventions.

  17. Visual Timing of Structured Dance Movements Resembles Auditory Rhythm Perception

    Science.gov (United States)

    Su, Yi-Huang; Salazar-López, Elvira

    2016-01-01

    Temporal mechanisms for processing auditory musical rhythms are well established, in which a perceived beat is beneficial for timing purposes. It is yet unknown whether such beat-based timing would also underlie visual perception of temporally structured, ecological stimuli connected to music: dance. In this study, we investigated whether observers extracted a visual beat when watching dance movements to assist visual timing of these movements. Participants watched silent videos of dance sequences and reproduced the movement duration by mental recall. We found better visual timing for limb movements with regular patterns in the trajectories than without, similar to the beat advantage for auditory rhythms. When movements involved both the arms and the legs, the benefit of a visual beat relied only on the latter. The beat-based advantage persisted despite auditory interferences that were temporally incongruent with the visual beat, arguing for the visual nature of these mechanisms. Our results suggest that visual timing principles for dance parallel their auditory counterparts for music, which may be based on common sensorimotor coupling. These processes likely yield multimodal rhythm representations in the scenario of music and dance. PMID:27313900

  18. Meaning From Environmental Sounds: Types of Signal-Referent Relations and Their Effect on Recognizing Auditory Icons

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keller, Peter; Stevens, Catherine

    2004-01-01

    This article addresses the learnability of auditory icons, that is, environmental sounds that refer either directly or indirectly to meaningful events. Direct relations use the sound made by the target event whereas indirect relations substitute a surrogate for the target. Across 3 experiments, different indirect relations (ecological, in which…

  19. Biases in Visual, Auditory, and Audiovisual Perception of Space

    Science.gov (United States)

    Odegaard, Brian; Wozny, David R.; Shams, Ladan

    2015-01-01

    Localization of objects and events in the environment is critical for survival, as many perceptual and motor tasks rely on estimation of spatial location. Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that spatial localizations should generally be accurate. Curiously, some previous studies have reported biases in visual and auditory localizations, but these studies have used small sample sizes and the results have been mixed. Therefore, it is not clear (1) if the reported biases in localization responses are real (or due to outliers, sampling bias, or other factors), and (2) whether these putative biases reflect a bias in sensory representations of space or a priori expectations (which may be due to the experimental setup, instructions, or distribution of stimuli). Here, to address these questions, a dataset of unprecedented size (obtained from 384 observers) was analyzed to examine presence, direction, and magnitude of sensory biases, and quantitative computational modeling was used to probe the underlying mechanism(s) driving these effects. Data revealed that, on average, observers were biased towards the center when localizing visual stimuli, and biased towards the periphery when localizing auditory stimuli. Moreover, quantitative analysis using a Bayesian Causal Inference framework suggests that while pre-existing spatial biases for central locations exert some influence, biases in the sensory representations of both visual and auditory space are necessary to fully explain the behavioral data. How are these opposing visual and auditory biases reconciled in conditions in which both auditory and visual stimuli are produced by a single event? Potentially, the bias in one modality could dominate, or the biases could interact/cancel out. The data revealed that when integration occurred in these conditions, the visual bias dominated, but the magnitude of this bias was reduced compared to unisensory conditions. Therefore, multisensory integration not only improves the

  20. Biases in Visual, Auditory, and Audiovisual Perception of Space.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Brian Odegaard

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Localization of objects and events in the environment is critical for survival, as many perceptual and motor tasks rely on estimation of spatial location. Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that spatial localizations should generally be accurate. Curiously, some previous studies have reported biases in visual and auditory localizations, but these studies have used small sample sizes and the results have been mixed. Therefore, it is not clear (1 if the reported biases in localization responses are real (or due to outliers, sampling bias, or other factors, and (2 whether these putative biases reflect a bias in sensory representations of space or a priori expectations (which may be due to the experimental setup, instructions, or distribution of stimuli. Here, to address these questions, a dataset of unprecedented size (obtained from 384 observers was analyzed to examine presence, direction, and magnitude of sensory biases, and quantitative computational modeling was used to probe the underlying mechanism(s driving these effects. Data revealed that, on average, observers were biased towards the center when localizing visual stimuli, and biased towards the periphery when localizing auditory stimuli. Moreover, quantitative analysis using a Bayesian Causal Inference framework suggests that while pre-existing spatial biases for central locations exert some influence, biases in the sensory representations of both visual and auditory space are necessary to fully explain the behavioral data. How are these opposing visual and auditory biases reconciled in conditions in which both auditory and visual stimuli are produced by a single event? Potentially, the bias in one modality could dominate, or the biases could interact/cancel out. The data revealed that when integration occurred in these conditions, the visual bias dominated, but the magnitude of this bias was reduced compared to unisensory conditions. Therefore, multisensory integration not only

  1. Evaluating the loudness of phantom auditory perception (tinnitus) in rats.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jastreboff, P J; Brennan, J F

    1994-01-01

    Using our behavioral paradigm for evaluating tinnitus, the loudness of salicylate-induced tinnitus was evaluated in 144 rats by comparing their behavioral responses induced by different doses of salicylate to those induced by different intensities of a continuous reference tone mimicking tinnitus. Group differences in resistance to extinction were linearly related to salicylate dose and, at moderate intensities, to the reference tone as well. Comparison of regression equations for salicylate versus tone effects permitted estimation of the loudness of salicylate-induced tinnitus. These results extend the animal model of tinnitus and provide evidence that the loudness of phantom auditory perception is expressed through observable behavior, can be evaluated, and its changes detected.

  2. The Relative Importance of Spatial Versus Temporal Structure in the Perception of Biological Motion: An Event-Related Potential Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hirai, Masahiro; Hiraki, Kazuo

    2006-01-01

    We investigated how the spatiotemporal structure of animations of biological motion (BM) affects brain activity. We measured event-related potentials (ERPs) during the perception of BM under four conditions: normal spatial and temporal structure; scrambled spatial and normal temporal structure; normal spatial and scrambled temporal structure; and…

  3. Auditory Verbal Working Memory as a Predictor of Speech Perception in Modulated Maskers in Listeners With Normal Hearing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Millman, Rebecca E; Mattys, Sven L

    2017-05-24

    Background noise can interfere with our ability to understand speech. Working memory capacity (WMC) has been shown to contribute to the perception of speech in modulated noise maskers. WMC has been assessed with a variety of auditory and visual tests, often pertaining to different components of working memory. This study assessed the relationship between speech perception in modulated maskers and components of auditory verbal working memory (AVWM) over a range of signal-to-noise ratios. Speech perception in noise and AVWM were measured in 30 listeners (age range 31-67 years) with normal hearing. AVWM was estimated using forward digit recall, backward digit recall, and nonword repetition. After controlling for the effects of age and average pure-tone hearing threshold, speech perception in modulated maskers was related to individual differences in the phonological component of working memory (as assessed by nonword repetition) but only in the least favorable signal-to-noise ratio. The executive component of working memory (as assessed by backward digit) was not predictive of speech perception in any conditions. AVWM is predictive of the ability to benefit from temporal dips in modulated maskers: Listeners with greater phonological WMC are better able to correctly identify sentences in modulated noise backgrounds.

  4. GRM7 variants associated with age-related hearing loss based on auditory perception

    Science.gov (United States)

    Newman, Dina L.; Fisher, Laurel M.; Ohmen, Jeffrey; Parody, Robert; Fong, Chin-To; Frisina, Susan T.; Mapes, Frances; Eddins, David A.; Frisina, D. Robert; Frisina, Robert D.; Friedman, Rick A.

    2012-01-01

    Age-related hearing impairment (ARHI), or presbycusis, is a common condition of the elderly that results in significant communication difficulties in daily life. Clinically, it has been defined as a progressive loss of sensitivity to sound, starting at the high frequencies, inability to understand speech, lengthening of the minimum discernable temporal gap in sounds, and a decrease in the ability to filter out background noise. The causes of presbycusis are likely a combination of environmental and genetic factors. Previous research into the genetics of presbycusis has focused solely on hearing as measured by pure-tone thresholds. A few loci have been identified, based on a best ear pure-tone average phenotype, as having a likely role in susceptibility to this type of hearing loss; and GRM7 is the only gene that has achieved genome-wide significance. We examined the association of GRM7 variants identified from the previous study, which used an European cohort with Z-scores based on pure-tone thresholds, in a European–American population from Rochester, NY (N = 687), and used novel phenotypes of presbycusis. In the present study mixed modeling analyses were used to explore the relationship of GRM7 haplotype and SNP genotypes with various measures of auditory perception. Here we show that GRM7 alleles are associated primarily with peripheral measures of hearing loss, and particularly with speech detection in older adults. PMID:23102807

  5. Comparison of effects of valsartan and amlodipine on cognitive functions and auditory p300 event-related potentials in elderly hypertensive patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Katada, Eiichi; Uematsu, Norihiko; Takuma, Yuko; Matsukawa, Noriyuki

    2014-01-01

    We compared the antihypertensive effect of valsartan (VAL) and amlodipine (AML) treatments in elderly hypertensive patients by examining the long-term changes in cognitive function and auditory P300 event-related potentials. We enrolled 20 outpatients, including 12 men and 8 women in the age group of 56 to 81 years who had mild to moderate essential hypertension. The subjects were randomly allocated to receive either 80 mg VAL once a day (10 patients) or 5 mg AML once a day (10 patients). Neuropsychological assessment and auditory P300 event-related potentials were obtained before initiation of VAL or AML treatment and after 6 months of the treatment with VAL or AML. Neuropsychological assessment was evaluated by conducting the Mini-Mental State Examination, the verbal fluency, word-list memory, word-list recall test, word-list recognition, and Trails B tests. Both the groups showed significantly reduced-blood pressure after 6 months of treatment, and the intergroup difference was not significant. The mean baseline Mini-Mental State Examination scores of the VAL and AML groups were not significantly different. Amlodipine treatment did not significantly affect any test score, but VAL treatment significantly increased the word-list memory and word-list recall test scores. Valsartan, and not AML, significantly reduced the mean P300 latency after 6 months. These results suggest that VAL exerts a positive effect on cognitive functions, independent of its antihypertensive effect.

  6. Fundamental deficits of auditory perception in Wernicke's aphasia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Robson, Holly; Grube, Manon; Lambon Ralph, Matthew A; Griffiths, Timothy D; Sage, Karen

    2013-01-01

    This work investigates the nature of the comprehension impairment in Wernicke's aphasia (WA), by examining the relationship between deficits in auditory processing of fundamental, non-verbal acoustic stimuli and auditory comprehension. WA, a condition resulting in severely disrupted auditory comprehension, primarily occurs following a cerebrovascular accident (CVA) to the left temporo-parietal cortex. Whilst damage to posterior superior temporal areas is associated with auditory linguistic comprehension impairments, functional-imaging indicates that these areas may not be specific to speech processing but part of a network for generic auditory analysis. We examined analysis of basic acoustic stimuli in WA participants (n = 10) using auditory stimuli reflective of theories of cortical auditory processing and of speech cues. Auditory spectral, temporal and spectro-temporal analysis was assessed using pure-tone frequency discrimination, frequency modulation (FM) detection and the detection of dynamic modulation (DM) in "moving ripple" stimuli. All tasks used criterion-free, adaptive measures of threshold to ensure reliable results at the individual level. Participants with WA showed normal frequency discrimination but significant impairments in FM and DM detection, relative to age- and hearing-matched controls at the group level (n = 10). At the individual level, there was considerable variation in performance, and thresholds for both FM and DM detection correlated significantly with auditory comprehension abilities in the WA participants. These results demonstrate the co-occurrence of a deficit in fundamental auditory processing of temporal and spectro-temporal non-verbal stimuli in WA, which may have a causal contribution to the auditory language comprehension impairment. Results are discussed in the context of traditional neuropsychology and current models of cortical auditory processing. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  7. Early and late beta-band power reflect audiovisual perception in the McGurk illusion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roa Romero, Yadira; Senkowski, Daniel; Keil, Julian

    2015-04-01

    The McGurk illusion is a prominent example of audiovisual speech perception and the influence that visual stimuli can have on auditory perception. In this illusion, a visual speech stimulus influences the perception of an incongruent auditory stimulus, resulting in a fused novel percept. In this high-density electroencephalography (EEG) study, we were interested in the neural signatures of the subjective percept of the McGurk illusion as a phenomenon of speech-specific multisensory integration. Therefore, we examined the role of cortical oscillations and event-related responses in the perception of congruent and incongruent audiovisual speech. We compared the cortical activity elicited by objectively congruent syllables with incongruent audiovisual stimuli. Importantly, the latter elicited a subjectively congruent percept: the McGurk illusion. We found that early event-related responses (N1) to audiovisual stimuli were reduced during the perception of the McGurk illusion compared with congruent stimuli. Most interestingly, our study showed a stronger poststimulus suppression of beta-band power (13-30 Hz) at short (0-500 ms) and long (500-800 ms) latencies during the perception of the McGurk illusion compared with congruent stimuli. Our study demonstrates that auditory perception is influenced by visual context and that the subsequent formation of a McGurk illusion requires stronger audiovisual integration even at early processing stages. Our results provide evidence that beta-band suppression at early stages reflects stronger stimulus processing in the McGurk illusion. Moreover, stronger late beta-band suppression in McGurk illusion indicates the resolution of incongruent physical audiovisual input and the formation of a coherent, illusory multisensory percept. Copyright © 2015 the American Physiological Society.

  8. Validation of the Emotiv EPOC EEG system for research quality auditory event-related potentials in children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Badcock, Nicholas A; Preece, Kathryn A; de Wit, Bianca; Glenn, Katharine; Fieder, Nora; Thie, Johnson; McArthur, Genevieve

    2015-01-01

    Background. Previous work has demonstrated that a commercial gaming electroencephalography (EEG) system, Emotiv EPOC, can be adjusted to provide valid auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) in adults that are comparable to ERPs recorded by a research-grade EEG system, Neuroscan. The aim of the current study was to determine if the same was true for children. Method. An adapted Emotiv EPOC system and Neuroscan system were used to make simultaneous EEG recordings in nineteen 6- to 12-year-old children under "passive" and "active" listening conditions. In the passive condition, children were instructed to watch a silent DVD and ignore 566 standard (1,000 Hz) and 100 deviant (1,200 Hz) tones. In the active condition, they listened to the same stimuli, and were asked to count the number of 'high' (i.e., deviant) tones. Results. Intraclass correlations (ICCs) indicated that the ERP morphology recorded with the two systems was very similar for the P1, N1, P2, N2, and P3 ERP peaks (r = .82 to .95) in both passive and active conditions, and less so, though still strong, for mismatch negativity ERP component (MMN; r = .67 to .74). There were few differences between peak amplitude and latency estimates for the two systems. Conclusions. An adapted EPOC EEG system can be used to index children's late auditory ERP peaks (i.e., P1, N1, P2, N2, P3) and their MMN ERP component.

  9. Validation of the Emotiv EPOC EEG system for research quality auditory event-related potentials in children

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nicholas A. Badcock

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available Background. Previous work has demonstrated that a commercial gaming electroencephalography (EEG system, Emotiv EPOC, can be adjusted to provide valid auditory event-related potentials (ERPs in adults that are comparable to ERPs recorded by a research-grade EEG system, Neuroscan. The aim of the current study was to determine if the same was true for children.Method. An adapted Emotiv EPOC system and Neuroscan system were used to make simultaneous EEG recordings in nineteen 6- to 12-year-old children under “passive” and “active” listening conditions. In the passive condition, children were instructed to watch a silent DVD and ignore 566 standard (1,000 Hz and 100 deviant (1,200 Hz tones. In the active condition, they listened to the same stimuli, and were asked to count the number of ‘high’ (i.e., deviant tones.Results. Intraclass correlations (ICCs indicated that the ERP morphology recorded with the two systems was very similar for the P1, N1, P2, N2, and P3 ERP peaks (r = .82 to .95 in both passive and active conditions, and less so, though still strong, for mismatch negativity ERP component (MMN; r = .67 to .74. There were few differences between peak amplitude and latency estimates for the two systems.Conclusions. An adapted EPOC EEG system can be used to index children’s late auditory ERP peaks (i.e., P1, N1, P2, N2, P3 and their MMN ERP component.

  10. The attenuation of auditory neglect by implicit cues.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Coleman, A Rand; Williams, J Michael

    2006-09-01

    This study examined implicit semantic and rhyming cues on perception of auditory stimuli among nonaphasic participants who suffered a lesion of the right cerebral hemisphere and auditory neglect of sound perceived by the left ear. Because language represents an elaborate processing of auditory stimuli and the language centers were intact among these patients, it was hypothesized that interactive verbal stimuli presented in a dichotic manner would attenuate neglect. The selected participants were administered an experimental dichotic listening test composed of six types of word pairs: unrelated words, synonyms, antonyms, categorically related words, compound words, and rhyming words. Presentation of word pairs that were semantically related resulted in a dramatic reduction of auditory neglect. Dichotic presentations of rhyming words exacerbated auditory neglect. These findings suggest that the perception of auditory information is strongly affected by the specific content conveyed by the auditory system. Language centers will process a degraded stimulus that contains salient language content. A degraded auditory stimulus is neglected if it is devoid of content that activates the language centers or other cognitive systems. In general, these findings suggest that auditory neglect involves a complex interaction of intact and impaired cerebral processing centers with content that is selectively processed by these centers.

  11. Leftward lateralization of auditory cortex underlies holistic sound perception in Williams syndrome.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wengenroth, Martina; Blatow, Maria; Bendszus, Martin; Schneider, Peter

    2010-08-23

    Individuals with the rare genetic disorder Williams-Beuren syndrome (WS) are known for their characteristic auditory phenotype including strong affinity to music and sounds. In this work we attempted to pinpoint a neural substrate for the characteristic musicality in WS individuals by studying the structure-function relationship of their auditory cortex. Since WS subjects had only minor musical training due to psychomotor constraints we hypothesized that any changes compared to the control group would reflect the contribution of genetic factors to auditory processing and musicality. Using psychoacoustics, magnetoencephalography and magnetic resonance imaging, we show that WS individuals exhibit extreme and almost exclusive holistic sound perception, which stands in marked contrast to the even distribution of this trait in the general population. Functionally, this was reflected by increased amplitudes of left auditory evoked fields. On the structural level, volume of the left auditory cortex was 2.2-fold increased in WS subjects as compared to control subjects. Equivalent volumes of the auditory cortex have been previously reported for professional musicians. There has been an ongoing debate in the neuroscience community as to whether increased gray matter of the auditory cortex in musicians is attributable to the amount of training or innate disposition. In this study musical education of WS subjects was negligible and control subjects were carefully matched for this parameter. Therefore our results not only unravel the neural substrate for this particular auditory phenotype, but in addition propose WS as a unique genetic model for training-independent auditory system properties.

  12. Leftward lateralization of auditory cortex underlies holistic sound perception in Williams syndrome.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Martina Wengenroth

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Individuals with the rare genetic disorder Williams-Beuren syndrome (WS are known for their characteristic auditory phenotype including strong affinity to music and sounds. In this work we attempted to pinpoint a neural substrate for the characteristic musicality in WS individuals by studying the structure-function relationship of their auditory cortex. Since WS subjects had only minor musical training due to psychomotor constraints we hypothesized that any changes compared to the control group would reflect the contribution of genetic factors to auditory processing and musicality. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Using psychoacoustics, magnetoencephalography and magnetic resonance imaging, we show that WS individuals exhibit extreme and almost exclusive holistic sound perception, which stands in marked contrast to the even distribution of this trait in the general population. Functionally, this was reflected by increased amplitudes of left auditory evoked fields. On the structural level, volume of the left auditory cortex was 2.2-fold increased in WS subjects as compared to control subjects. Equivalent volumes of the auditory cortex have been previously reported for professional musicians. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: There has been an ongoing debate in the neuroscience community as to whether increased gray matter of the auditory cortex in musicians is attributable to the amount of training or innate disposition. In this study musical education of WS subjects was negligible and control subjects were carefully matched for this parameter. Therefore our results not only unravel the neural substrate for this particular auditory phenotype, but in addition propose WS as a unique genetic model for training-independent auditory system properties.

  13. The role of semantic self-perceptions in temporal distance perceptions toward autobiographical events: the semantic congruence model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gebauer, Jochen E; Haddock, Geoffrey; Broemer, Philip; von Hecker, Ulrich

    2013-11-01

    Why do some autobiographical events feel as if they happened yesterday, whereas others feel like ancient history? Such temporal distance perceptions have surprisingly little to do with actual calendar time distance. Instead, psychologists have found that people typically perceive positive autobiographical events as overly recent, while perceiving negative events as overly distant. The origins of this temporal distance bias have been sought in self-enhancement strivings and mood congruence between autobiographical events and chronic mood. As such, past research exclusively focused on the evaluative features of autobiographical events, while neglecting semantic features. To close this gap, we introduce a semantic congruence model. Capitalizing on the Big Two self-perception dimensions, Study 1 showed that high semantic congruence between recalled autobiographical events and trait self-perceptions render the recalled events subjectively recent. Specifically, interpersonally warm (competent) individuals perceived autobiographical events reflecting warmth (competence) as relatively recent, but warm (competent) individuals did not perceive events reflecting competence (warmth) as relatively recent. Study 2 found that conscious perceptions of congruence mediate these effects. Studies 3 and 4 showed that neither mood congruence nor self-enhancement account for these results. Study 5 extended the results from the Big Two to the Big Five self-perception dimensions, while affirming the independence of the semantic congruence model from evaluative influences. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

  14. The effects of noise exposure and musical training on suprathreshold auditory processing and speech perception in noise.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yeend, Ingrid; Beach, Elizabeth Francis; Sharma, Mridula; Dillon, Harvey

    2017-09-01

    Recent animal research has shown that exposure to single episodes of intense noise causes cochlear synaptopathy without affecting hearing thresholds. It has been suggested that the same may occur in humans. If so, it is hypothesized that this would result in impaired encoding of sound and lead to difficulties hearing at suprathreshold levels, particularly in challenging listening environments. The primary aim of this study was to investigate the effect of noise exposure on auditory processing, including the perception of speech in noise, in adult humans. A secondary aim was to explore whether musical training might improve some aspects of auditory processing and thus counteract or ameliorate any negative impacts of noise exposure. In a sample of 122 participants (63 female) aged 30-57 years with normal or near-normal hearing thresholds, we conducted audiometric tests, including tympanometry, audiometry, acoustic reflexes, otoacoustic emissions and medial olivocochlear responses. We also assessed temporal and spectral processing, by determining thresholds for detection of amplitude modulation and temporal fine structure. We assessed speech-in-noise perception, and conducted tests of attention, memory and sentence closure. We also calculated participants' accumulated lifetime noise exposure and administered questionnaires to assess self-reported listening difficulty and musical training. The results showed no clear link between participants' lifetime noise exposure and performance on any of the auditory processing or speech-in-noise tasks. Musical training was associated with better performance on the auditory processing tasks, but not the on the speech-in-noise perception tasks. The results indicate that sentence closure skills, working memory, attention, extended high frequency hearing thresholds and medial olivocochlear suppression strength are important factors that are related to the ability to process speech in noise. Crown Copyright © 2017. Published by

  15. ERP evidence that auditory-visual speech facilitates working memory in younger and older adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frtusova, Jana B; Winneke, Axel H; Phillips, Natalie A

    2013-06-01

    Auditory-visual (AV) speech enhances speech perception and facilitates auditory processing, as measured by event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Considering a perspective of shared resources between perceptual and cognitive processes, facilitated speech perception may render more resources available for higher-order functions. This study examined whether AV speech facilitation leads to better working memory (WM) performance in 23 younger and 20 older adults. Participants completed an n-back task (0- to 3-back) under visual-only (V-only), auditory-only (A-only), and AV conditions. The results showed faster responses across all memory loads and improved accuracy in the most demanding conditions (2- and 3-back) during AV compared with unisensory conditions. Older adults benefited from the AV presentation to the same extent as younger adults. WM performance of older adults during the AV presentation did not differ from that of younger adults in the A-only condition, suggesting that an AV presentation can help to counteract some of the age-related WM decline. The ERPs showed a decrease in the auditory N1 amplitude during the AV compared with A-only presentation in older adults, suggesting that the facilitation of perceptual processing becomes especially beneficial with aging. Additionally, the N1 occurred earlier in the AV than in the A-only condition for both age groups. These AV-induced modulations of auditory processing correlated with improvement in certain behavioral and ERP measures of WM. These results support an integrated model between perception and cognition, and suggest that processing speech under AV conditions enhances WM performance of both younger and older adults. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

  16. Classification of underwater target echoes based on auditory perception characteristics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Xiukun; Meng, Xiangxia; Liu, Hang; Liu, Mingye

    2014-06-01

    In underwater target detection, the bottom reverberation has some of the same properties as the target echo, which has a great impact on the performance. It is essential to study the difference between target echo and reverberation. In this paper, based on the unique advantage of human listening ability on objects distinction, the Gammatone filter is taken as the auditory model. In addition, time-frequency perception features and auditory spectral features are extracted for active sonar target echo and bottom reverberation separation. The features of the experimental data have good concentration characteristics in the same class and have a large amount of differences between different classes, which shows that this method can effectively distinguish between the target echo and reverberation.

  17. Tinnitus intensity dependent gamma oscillations of the contralateral auditory cortex.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elsa van der Loo

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Non-pulsatile tinnitus is considered a subjective auditory phantom phenomenon present in 10 to 15% of the population. Tinnitus as a phantom phenomenon is related to hyperactivity and reorganization of the auditory cortex. Magnetoencephalography studies demonstrate a correlation between gamma band activity in the contralateral auditory cortex and the presence of tinnitus. The present study aims to investigate the relation between objective gamma-band activity in the contralateral auditory cortex and subjective tinnitus loudness scores. METHODS AND FINDINGS: In unilateral tinnitus patients (N = 15; 10 right, 5 left source analysis of resting state electroencephalographic gamma band oscillations shows a strong positive correlation with Visual Analogue Scale loudness scores in the contralateral auditory cortex (max r = 0.73, p<0.05. CONCLUSION: Auditory phantom percepts thus show similar sound level dependent activation of the contralateral auditory cortex as observed in normal audition. In view of recent consciousness models and tinnitus network models these results suggest tinnitus loudness is coded by gamma band activity in the contralateral auditory cortex but might not, by itself, be responsible for tinnitus perception.

  18. Acute nicotine fails to alter event-related potential or behavioral performance indices of auditory distraction in cigarette smokers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Knott, Verner J; Scherling, Carole S; Blais, Crystal M; Camarda, Jordan; Fisher, Derek J; Millar, Anne; McIntosh, Judy F

    2006-04-01

    Behavioral studies have shown that nicotine enhances performance in sustained attention tasks, but they have not shown convincing support for the effects of nicotine on tasks requiring selective attention or attentional control under conditions of distraction. We investigated distractibility in 14 smokers (7 females) with event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and behavioral performance measures extracted from an auditory discrimination task requiring a choice reaction time response to short- and long-duration tones, both with and without embedded deviants. Nicotine gum (4 mg), administered in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover design, failed to counter deviant-elicited behavioral distraction (i.e., slower reaction times and increased response errors), and it did not influence the distracter-elicited mismatch negativity, the P300a, or the reorienting negativity ERP components reflecting acoustic change detection, involuntary attentional switching, and attentional reorienting, respectively. Results are discussed in relation to a stimulus-filter model of smoking and in relation to future research directions.

  19. A psychophysical imaging method evidencing auditory cue extraction during speech perception: a group analysis of auditory classification images.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Varnet, Léo; Knoblauch, Kenneth; Serniclaes, Willy; Meunier, Fanny; Hoen, Michel

    2015-01-01

    Although there is a large consensus regarding the involvement of specific acoustic cues in speech perception, the precise mechanisms underlying the transformation from continuous acoustical properties into discrete perceptual units remains undetermined. This gap in knowledge is partially due to the lack of a turnkey solution for isolating critical speech cues from natural stimuli. In this paper, we describe a psychoacoustic imaging method known as the Auditory Classification Image technique that allows experimenters to estimate the relative importance of time-frequency regions in categorizing natural speech utterances in noise. Importantly, this technique enables the testing of hypotheses on the listening strategies of participants at the group level. We exemplify this approach by identifying the acoustic cues involved in da/ga categorization with two phonetic contexts, Al- or Ar-. The application of Auditory Classification Images to our group of 16 participants revealed significant critical regions on the second and third formant onsets, as predicted by the literature, as well as an unexpected temporal cue on the first formant. Finally, through a cluster-based nonparametric test, we demonstrate that this method is sufficiently sensitive to detect fine modifications of the classification strategies between different utterances of the same phoneme.

  20. Auditory Verbal Working Memory as a Predictor of Speech Perception in Modulated Maskers in Listeners With Normal Hearing

    OpenAIRE

    Millman, Rebecca E.; Mattys, Sven L.

    2017-01-01

    Purpose: Background noise can interfere with our ability to understand speech. Working memory capacity (WMC) has been shown to contribute to the perception of speech in modulated noise maskers. WMC has been assessed with a variety of auditory and visual tests, often pertaining to different components of working memory. This study assessed the relationship between speech perception in modulated maskers and components of auditory verbal working memory (AVWM) over a range of signal-to-noise rati...

  1. An Auditory Go/No-Go Study of Event-Related Potentials in Children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Steinmann, Tobias P.; Andrew, Colin M.; Thomsen, Carsten E.

    2011-01-01

    Abstract—In this study event-related potentials (ERPs) were used to investigate the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on response inhibition identified during task performance. ERPs were recorded during a auditory Go/No Go task in two groups of children with mean age of 12:8years (11years to 14......:7years): one diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) or partial FAS (FAS/PFAS; n = 12) and a control group of children of same age whose mothers abstained from alcohol or drank minimally during pregnancy (n = 11). The children were instructed to push a button in response to the Go stimulus...... trials, suggesting a less efficient early classification of the stimulus. P3 showed larger amplitudes to No-Go vs. Go in both groups. The study has provided new evidence for inhibition deficits in FAS/PFAS subjects identified by ERPs....

  2. Event-related brain potential correlates of human auditory sensory memory-trace formation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Haenschel, Corinna; Vernon, David J; Dwivedi, Prabuddh; Gruzelier, John H; Baldeweg, Torsten

    2005-11-09

    The event-related potential (ERP) component mismatch negativity (MMN) is a neural marker of human echoic memory. MMN is elicited by deviant sounds embedded in a stream of frequent standards, reflecting the deviation from an inferred memory trace of the standard stimulus. The strength of this memory trace is thought to be proportional to the number of repetitions of the standard tone, visible as the progressive enhancement of MMN with number of repetitions (MMN memory-trace effect). However, no direct ERP correlates of the formation of echoic memory traces are currently known. This study set out to investigate changes in ERPs to different numbers of repetitions of standards, delivered in a roving-stimulus paradigm in which the frequency of the standard stimulus changed randomly between stimulus trains. Normal healthy volunteers (n = 40) were engaged in two experimental conditions: during passive listening and while actively discriminating changes in tone frequency. As predicted, MMN increased with increasing number of standards. However, this MMN memory-trace effect was caused mainly by enhancement with stimulus repetition of a slow positive wave from 50 to 250 ms poststimulus in the standard ERP, which is termed here "repetition positivity" (RP). This RP was recorded from frontocentral electrodes when participants were passively listening to or actively discriminating changes in tone frequency. RP may represent a human ERP correlate of rapid and stimulus-specific adaptation, a candidate neuronal mechanism underlying sensory memory formation in the auditory cortex.

  3. Neural Correlates of Selective Attention With Hearing Aid Use Followed by ReadMyQuips Auditory Training Program.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rao, Aparna; Rishiq, Dania; Yu, Luodi; Zhang, Yang; Abrams, Harvey

    The objectives of this study were to investigate the effects of hearing aid use and the effectiveness of ReadMyQuips (RMQ), an auditory training program, on speech perception performance and auditory selective attention using electrophysiological measures. RMQ is an audiovisual training program designed to improve speech perception in everyday noisy listening environments. Participants were adults with mild to moderate hearing loss who were first-time hearing aid users. After 4 weeks of hearing aid use, the experimental group completed RMQ training in 4 weeks, and the control group received listening practice on audiobooks during the same period. Cortical late event-related potentials (ERPs) and the Hearing in Noise Test (HINT) were administered at prefitting, pretraining, and post-training to assess effects of hearing aid use and RMQ training. An oddball paradigm allowed tracking of changes in P3a and P3b ERPs to distractors and targets, respectively. Behavioral measures were also obtained while ERPs were recorded from participants. After 4 weeks of hearing aid use but before auditory training, HINT results did not show a statistically significant change, but there was a significant P3a reduction. This reduction in P3a was correlated with improvement in d prime (d') in the selective attention task. Increased P3b amplitudes were also correlated with improvement in d' in the selective attention task. After training, this correlation between P3b and d' remained in the experimental group, but not in the control group. Similarly, HINT testing showed improved speech perception post training only in the experimental group. The criterion calculated in the auditory selective attention task showed a reduction only in the experimental group after training. ERP measures in the auditory selective attention task did not show any changes related to training. Hearing aid use was associated with a decrement in involuntary attention switch to distractors in the auditory selective

  4. The relation between working memory capacity and auditory lateralization in children with auditory processing disorders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moossavi, Abdollah; Mehrkian, Saiedeh; Lotfi, Yones; Faghihzadeh, Soghrat; sajedi, Hamed

    2014-11-01

    Auditory processing disorder (APD) describes a complex and heterogeneous disorder characterized by poor speech perception, especially in noisy environments. APD may be responsible for a range of sensory processing deficits associated with learning difficulties. There is no general consensus about the nature of APD and how the disorder should be assessed or managed. This study assessed the effect of cognition abilities (working memory capacity) on sound lateralization in children with auditory processing disorders, in order to determine how "auditory cognition" interacts with APD. The participants in this cross-sectional comparative study were 20 typically developing and 17 children with a diagnosed auditory processing disorder (9-11 years old). Sound lateralization abilities investigated using inter-aural time (ITD) differences and inter-aural intensity (IID) differences with two stimuli (high pass and low pass noise) in nine perceived positions. Working memory capacity was evaluated using the non-word repetition, and forward and backward digits span tasks. Linear regression was employed to measure the degree of association between working memory capacity and localization tests between the two groups. Children in the APD group had consistently lower scores than typically developing subjects in lateralization and working memory capacity measures. The results showed working memory capacity had significantly negative correlation with ITD errors especially with high pass noise stimulus but not with IID errors in APD children. The study highlights the impact of working memory capacity on auditory lateralization. The finding of this research indicates that the extent to which working memory influences auditory processing depend on the type of auditory processing and the nature of stimulus/listening situation. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. How musical expertise shapes speech perception: evidence from auditory classification images.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Varnet, Léo; Wang, Tianyun; Peter, Chloe; Meunier, Fanny; Hoen, Michel

    2015-09-24

    It is now well established that extensive musical training percolates to higher levels of cognition, such as speech processing. However, the lack of a precise technique to investigate the specific listening strategy involved in speech comprehension has made it difficult to determine how musicians' higher performance in non-speech tasks contributes to their enhanced speech comprehension. The recently developed Auditory Classification Image approach reveals the precise time-frequency regions used by participants when performing phonemic categorizations in noise. Here we used this technique on 19 non-musicians and 19 professional musicians. We found that both groups used very similar listening strategies, but the musicians relied more heavily on the two main acoustic cues, at the first formant onset and at the onsets of the second and third formants onsets. Additionally, they responded more consistently to stimuli. These observations provide a direct visualization of auditory plasticity resulting from extensive musical training and shed light on the level of functional transfer between auditory processing and speech perception.

  6. Neural dynamics underlying attentional orienting to auditory representations in short-term memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Backer, Kristina C; Binns, Malcolm A; Alain, Claude

    2015-01-21

    Sounds are ephemeral. Thus, coherent auditory perception depends on "hearing" back in time: retrospectively attending that which was lost externally but preserved in short-term memory (STM). Current theories of auditory attention assume that sound features are integrated into a perceptual object, that multiple objects can coexist in STM, and that attention can be deployed to an object in STM. Recording electroencephalography from humans, we tested these assumptions, elucidating feature-general and feature-specific neural correlates of auditory attention to STM. Alpha/beta oscillations and frontal and posterior event-related potentials indexed feature-general top-down attentional control to one of several coexisting auditory representations in STM. Particularly, task performance during attentional orienting was correlated with alpha/low-beta desynchronization (i.e., power suppression). However, attention to one feature could occur without simultaneous processing of the second feature of the representation. Therefore, auditory attention to memory relies on both feature-specific and feature-general neural dynamics. Copyright © 2015 the authors 0270-6474/15/351307-12$15.00/0.

  7. Public perceptions of climate change and extreme weather events

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bruine de Bruin, W.; Dessai, S.; Morgan, G.; Taylor, A.; Wong-Parodi, G.

    2013-12-01

    Climate experts face a serious communication challenge. Public debate about climate change continues, even though at the same time people seem to complain about extreme weather events becoming increasingly common. As compared to the abstract concept of ';climate change,' (changes in) extreme weather events are indeed easier to perceive, more vivid, and personally relevant. Public perception research in different countries has suggested that people commonly expect that climate change will lead to increases in temperature, and that unseasonably warm weather is likely to be interpreted as evidence of climate change. However, relatively little is known about whether public concerns about climate change may also be driven by changes in other types of extreme weather events, such as exceptional amounts of precipitation or flooding. We therefore examined how perceptions of and personal experiences with changes in these specific weather events are related to public concerns about climate change. In this presentation, we will discuss findings from two large public perception surveys conducted in flood-prone Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (US) and with a national sample in the UK, where extreme flooding has recently occurred across the country. Participants completed questions about their perceptions of and experiences with specific extreme weather events, and their beliefs about climate change. We then conducted linear regressions to predict individual differences in climate-change beliefs, using perceptions of and experiences with specific extreme weather events as predictors, while controlling for demographic characteristics. The US study found that people (a) perceive flood chances to be increasing over the decades, (b) believe climate change to play a role in increases in future flood chances, and (c) would interpret future increases in flooding as evidence for climate change. The UK study found that (a) UK residents are more likely to perceive increases in ';wet' events such

  8. Auditory N1 reveals planning and monitoring processes during music performance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mathias, Brian; Gehring, William J; Palmer, Caroline

    2017-02-01

    The current study investigated the relationship between planning processes and feedback monitoring during music performance, a complex task in which performers prepare upcoming events while monitoring their sensory outcomes. Theories of action planning in auditory-motor production tasks propose that the planning of future events co-occurs with the perception of auditory feedback. This study investigated the neural correlates of planning and feedback monitoring by manipulating the contents of auditory feedback during music performance. Pianists memorized and performed melodies at a cued tempo in a synchronization-continuation task while the EEG was recorded. During performance, auditory feedback associated with single melody tones was occasionally substituted with tones corresponding to future (next), present (current), or past (previous) melody tones. Only future-oriented altered feedback disrupted behavior: Future-oriented feedback caused pianists to slow down on the subsequent tone more than past-oriented feedback, and amplitudes of the auditory N1 potential elicited by the tone immediately following the altered feedback were larger for future-oriented than for past-oriented or noncontextual (unrelated) altered feedback; larger N1 amplitudes were associated with greater slowing following altered feedback in the future condition only. Feedback-related negativities were elicited in all altered feedback conditions. In sum, behavioral and neural evidence suggests that future-oriented feedback disrupts performance more than past-oriented feedback, consistent with planning theories that posit similarity-based interference between feedback and planning contents. Neural sensory processing of auditory feedback, reflected in the N1 ERP, may serve as a marker for temporal disruption caused by altered auditory feedback in auditory-motor production tasks. © 2016 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

  9. Effect of attentional load on audiovisual speech perception: Evidence from ERPs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Agnès eAlsius

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Seeing articulatory movements influences perception of auditory speech. This is often reflected in a shortened latency of auditory event-related potentials (ERPs generated in the auditory cortex. The present study addressed whether this early neural correlate of audiovisual interaction is modulated by attention. We recorded ERPs in 15 subjects while they were presented with auditory, visual and audiovisual spoken syllables. Audiovisual stimuli consisted of incongruent auditory and visual components known to elicit a McGurk effect, i.e. a visually driven alteration in the auditory speech percept. In a Dual task condition, participants were asked to identify spoken syllables whilst monitoring a rapid visual stream of pictures for targets, i.e., they had to divide their attention. In a Single task condition, participants identified the syllables without any other tasks, i.e., they were asked to ignore the pictures and focus their attention fully on the spoken syllables. The McGurk effect was weaker in the Dual task than in the Single task condition, indicating an effect of attentional load on audiovisual speech perception. Early auditory ERP components, N1 and P2, peaked earlier to audiovisual stimuli than to auditory stimuli when attention was fully focused on syllables, indicating neurophysiological audiovisual interaction. This latency decrement was reduced when attention was loaded, suggesting that attention influences early neural processing of audiovisual speech. We conclude that reduced attention weakens the interaction between vision and audition in speech.

  10. Effect of attentional load on audiovisual speech perception: evidence from ERPs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alsius, Agnès; Möttönen, Riikka; Sams, Mikko E; Soto-Faraco, Salvador; Tiippana, Kaisa

    2014-01-01

    Seeing articulatory movements influences perception of auditory speech. This is often reflected in a shortened latency of auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) generated in the auditory cortex. The present study addressed whether this early neural correlate of audiovisual interaction is modulated by attention. We recorded ERPs in 15 subjects while they were presented with auditory, visual, and audiovisual spoken syllables. Audiovisual stimuli consisted of incongruent auditory and visual components known to elicit a McGurk effect, i.e., a visually driven alteration in the auditory speech percept. In a Dual task condition, participants were asked to identify spoken syllables whilst monitoring a rapid visual stream of pictures for targets, i.e., they had to divide their attention. In a Single task condition, participants identified the syllables without any other tasks, i.e., they were asked to ignore the pictures and focus their attention fully on the spoken syllables. The McGurk effect was weaker in the Dual task than in the Single task condition, indicating an effect of attentional load on audiovisual speech perception. Early auditory ERP components, N1 and P2, peaked earlier to audiovisual stimuli than to auditory stimuli when attention was fully focused on syllables, indicating neurophysiological audiovisual interaction. This latency decrement was reduced when attention was loaded, suggesting that attention influences early neural processing of audiovisual speech. We conclude that reduced attention weakens the interaction between vision and audition in speech.

  11. Electrophysiological evidence for altered visual, but not auditory, selective attention in adolescent cochlear implant users.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harris, Jill; Kamke, Marc R

    2014-11-01

    Selective attention fundamentally alters sensory perception, but little is known about the functioning of attention in individuals who use a cochlear implant. This study aimed to investigate visual and auditory attention in adolescent cochlear implant users. Event related potentials were used to investigate the influence of attention on visual and auditory evoked potentials in six cochlear implant users and age-matched normally-hearing children. Participants were presented with streams of alternating visual and auditory stimuli in an oddball paradigm: each modality contained frequently presented 'standard' and infrequent 'deviant' stimuli. Across different blocks attention was directed to either the visual or auditory modality. For the visual stimuli attention boosted the early N1 potential, but this effect was larger for cochlear implant users. Attention was also associated with a later P3 component for the visual deviant stimulus, but there was no difference between groups in the later attention effects. For the auditory stimuli, attention was associated with a decrease in N1 latency as well as a robust P3 for the deviant tone. Importantly, there was no difference between groups in these auditory attention effects. The results suggest that basic mechanisms of auditory attention are largely normal in children who are proficient cochlear implant users, but that visual attention may be altered. Ultimately, a better understanding of how selective attention influences sensory perception in cochlear implant users will be important for optimising habilitation strategies. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  12. Temporal and identity prediction in visual-auditory events: Electrophysiological evidence from stimulus omissions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    van Laarhoven, Thijs; Stekelenburg, Jeroen J; Vroomen, Jean

    2017-04-15

    A rare omission of a sound that is predictable by anticipatory visual information induces an early negative omission response (oN1) in the EEG during the period of silence where the sound was expected. It was previously suggested that the oN1 was primarily driven by the identity of the anticipated sound. Here, we examined the role of temporal prediction in conjunction with identity prediction of the anticipated sound in the evocation of the auditory oN1. With incongruent audiovisual stimuli (a video of a handclap that is consistently combined with the sound of a car horn) we demonstrate in Experiment 1 that a natural match in identity between the visual and auditory stimulus is not required for inducing the oN1, and that the perceptual system can adapt predictions to unnatural stimulus events. In Experiment 2 we varied either the auditory onset (relative to the visual onset) or the identity of the sound across trials in order to hamper temporal and identity predictions. Relative to the natural stimulus with correct auditory timing and matching audiovisual identity, the oN1 was abolished when either the timing or the identity of the sound could not be predicted reliably from the video. Our study demonstrates the flexibility of the perceptual system in predictive processing (Experiment 1) and also shows that precise predictions of timing and content are both essential elements for inducing an oN1 (Experiment 2). Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  13. Neural coding and perception of pitch in the normal and impaired human auditory system

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Santurette, Sébastien

    2011-01-01

    that the use of spectral cues remained plausible. Simulations of auditory-nerve representations of the complex tones further suggested that a spectrotemporal mechanism combining precise timing information across auditory channels might best account for the behavioral data. Overall, this work provides insights...... investigated using psychophysical methods. First, hearing loss was found to affect the perception of binaural pitch, a pitch sensation created by the binaural interaction of noise stimuli. Specifically, listeners without binaural pitch sensation showed signs of retrocochlear disorders. Despite adverse effects...... of reduced frequency selectivity on binaural pitch perception, the ability to accurately process the temporal fine structure (TFS) of sounds at the output of the cochlear filters was found to be essential for perceiving binaural pitch. Monaural TFS processing also played a major and independent role...

  14. The Neuromagnetic Dynamics of Time Perception

    OpenAIRE

    Carver, Frederick W.; Elvevåg, Brita; Altamura, Mario; Weinberger, Daniel R.; Coppola, Richard

    2012-01-01

    Examining real-time cortical dynamics is crucial for understanding time perception. Using magnetoencephalography we studied auditory duration discrimination of short (.5 s) versus a pitch control. Time-frequency analysis of event-related fields showed widespread beta-band (13-30 Hz) desynchronization during all tone presentations. Synthetic aperture magnetometry indicated automatic primarily sensorimotor responses in short and pitch conditions, with activation specific to timing in bilateral ...

  15. Auditory post-processing in a passive listening task is deficient in Alzheimer's disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bender, Stephan; Bluschke, Annet; Dippel, Gabriel; Rupp, André; Weisbrod, Matthias; Thomas, Christine

    2014-01-01

    To investigate whether automatic auditory post-processing is deficient in patients with Alzheimer's disease and is related to sensory gating. Event-related potentials were recorded during a passive listening task to examine the automatic transient storage of auditory information (short click pairs). Patients with Alzheimer's disease were compared to a healthy age-matched control group. A young healthy control group was included to assess effects of physiological aging. A bilateral frontal negativity in combination with deep temporal positivity occurring 500 ms after stimulus offset was reduced in patients with Alzheimer's disease, but was unaffected by physiological aging. Its amplitude correlated with short-term memory capacity, but was independent of sensory gating in healthy elderly controls. Source analysis revealed a dipole pair in the anterior temporal lobes. Results suggest that auditory post-processing is deficient in Alzheimer's disease, but is not typically related to sensory gating. The deficit could neither be explained by physiological aging nor by problems in earlier stages of auditory perception. Correlations with short-term memory capacity and executive control tasks suggested an association with memory encoding and/or overall cognitive control deficits. An auditory late negative wave could represent a marker of auditory working memory encoding deficits in Alzheimer's disease. Copyright © 2013 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. Effects of acute nicotine on event-related potential and performance indices of auditory distraction in nonsmokers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Knott, Verner J; Bolton, Kiley; Heenan, Adam; Shah, Dhrasti; Fisher, Derek J; Villeneuve, Crystal

    2009-05-01

    Although nicotine has been purported to enhance attentional processes, this has been evidenced mostly in tasks of sustained attention, and its effects on selective attention and attentional control under conditions of distraction are less convincing. This study investigated the effects of nicotine on distractibility in 21 (11 males) nonsmokers with event-related potentials (ERPs) and behavioral performance measures extracted from an auditory discrimination task requiring a choice reaction time response to short- and long-duration tones, with and without imbedded deviants. Administered in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover design, nicotine gum (6 mg) failed to counter deviant-elicited behavioral distraction characterized by longer reaction times and increased response errors. Of the deviant-elicited ERP components, nicotine did not alter the P3a-indexed attentional switching to the deviant, but in females, it tended to diminish the automatic processing of the deviant as shown by a smaller mismatch negativity component, and it attenuated attentional reorienting following deviant-elicited distraction, as reflected by a reduced reorienting negativity ERP component. Results are discussed in relation to attentional models of nicotine and with respect to future research directions.

  17. Spatial Hearing with Incongruent Visual or Auditory Room Cues

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gil-Carvajal, Juan C.; Cubick, Jens; Santurette, Sébastien; Dau, Torsten

    2016-11-01

    In day-to-day life, humans usually perceive the location of sound sources as outside their heads. This externalized auditory spatial perception can be reproduced through headphones by recreating the sound pressure generated by the source at the listener’s eardrums. This requires the acoustical features of the recording environment and listener’s anatomy to be recorded at the listener’s ear canals. Although the resulting auditory images can be indistinguishable from real-world sources, their externalization may be less robust when the playback and recording environments differ. Here we tested whether a mismatch between playback and recording room reduces perceived distance, azimuthal direction, and compactness of the auditory image, and whether this is mostly due to incongruent auditory cues or to expectations generated from the visual impression of the room. Perceived distance ratings decreased significantly when collected in a more reverberant environment than the recording room, whereas azimuthal direction and compactness remained room independent. Moreover, modifying visual room-related cues had no effect on these three attributes, while incongruent auditory room-related cues between the recording and playback room did affect distance perception. Consequently, the external perception of virtual sounds depends on the degree of congruency between the acoustical features of the environment and the stimuli.

  18. How may the basal ganglia contribute to auditory categorization and speech perception?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sung-Joo eLim

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available Listeners must accomplish two complementary perceptual feats in extracting a message from speech. They must discriminate linguistically-relevant acoustic variability and generalize across irrelevant variability. Said another way, they must categorize speech. Since the mapping of acoustic variability is language-specific, these categories must be learned from experience. Thus, understanding how, in general, the auditory system acquires and represents categories can inform us about the toolbox of mechanisms available to speech perception. This perspective invites consideration of findings from cognitive neuroscience literatures outside of the speech domain as a means of constraining models of speech perception. Although neurobiological models of speech perception have mainly focused on cerebral cortex, research outside the speech domain is consistent with the possibility of significant subcortical contributions in category learning. Here, we review the functional role of one such structure, the basal ganglia. We examine research from animal electrophysiology, human neuroimaging, and behavior to consider characteristics of basal ganglia processing that may be advantageous for speech category learning. We also present emerging evidence for a direct role for basal ganglia in learning auditory categories in a complex, naturalistic task intended to model the incidental manner in which speech categories are acquired. To conclude, we highlight new research questions that arise in incorporating the broader neuroscience research literature in modeling speech perception, and suggest how understanding contributions of the basal ganglia can inform attempts to optimize training protocols for learning non-native speech categories in adulthood.

  19. Auditory Motion Elicits a Visual Motion Aftereffect.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berger, Christopher C; Ehrsson, H Henrik

    2016-01-01

    The visual motion aftereffect is a visual illusion in which exposure to continuous motion in one direction leads to a subsequent illusion of visual motion in the opposite direction. Previous findings have been mixed with regard to whether this visual illusion can be induced cross-modally by auditory stimuli. Based on research on multisensory perception demonstrating the profound influence auditory perception can have on the interpretation and perceived motion of visual stimuli, we hypothesized that exposure to auditory stimuli with strong directional motion cues should induce a visual motion aftereffect. Here, we demonstrate that horizontally moving auditory stimuli induced a significant visual motion aftereffect-an effect that was driven primarily by a change in visual motion perception following exposure to leftward moving auditory stimuli. This finding is consistent with the notion that visual and auditory motion perception rely on at least partially overlapping neural substrates.

  20. Auditory Motion Elicits a Visual Motion Aftereffect

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christopher C. Berger

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available The visual motion aftereffect is a visual illusion in which exposure to continuous motion in one direction leads to a subsequent illusion of visual motion in the opposite direction. Previous findings have been mixed with regard to whether this visual illusion can be induced cross-modally by auditory stimuli. Based on research on multisensory perception demonstrating the profound influence auditory perception can have on the interpretation and perceived motion of visual stimuli, we hypothesized that exposure to auditory stimuli with strong directional motion cues should induce a visual motion aftereffect. Here, we demonstrate that horizontally moving auditory stimuli induced a significant visual motion aftereffect—an effect that was driven primarily by a change in visual motion perception following exposure to leftward moving auditory stimuli. This finding is consistent with the notion that visual and auditory motion perception rely on at least partially overlapping neural substrates.

  1. Music lessons improve auditory perceptual and cognitive performance in deaf children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rochette, Françoise; Moussard, Aline; Bigand, Emmanuel

    2014-01-01

    Despite advanced technologies in auditory rehabilitation of profound deafness, deaf children often exhibit delayed cognitive and linguistic development and auditory training remains a crucial element of their education. In the present cross-sectional study, we assess whether music would be a relevant tool for deaf children rehabilitation. In normal-hearing children, music lessons have been shown to improve cognitive and linguistic-related abilities, such as phonetic discrimination and reading. We compared auditory perception, auditory cognition, and phonetic discrimination between 14 profoundly deaf children who completed weekly music lessons for a period of 1.5-4 years and 14 deaf children who did not receive musical instruction. Children were assessed on perceptual and cognitive auditory tasks using environmental sounds: discrimination, identification, auditory scene analysis, auditory working memory. Transfer to the linguistic domain was tested with a phonetic discrimination task. Musically trained children showed better performance in auditory scene analysis, auditory working memory and phonetic discrimination tasks, and multiple regressions showed that success on these tasks was at least partly driven by music lessons. We propose that musical education contributes to development of general processes such as auditory attention and perception, which, in turn, facilitate auditory-related cognitive and linguistic processes.

  2. Music lessons improve auditory perceptual and cognitive performance in deaf children

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Françoise eROCHETTE

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Despite advanced technologies in auditory rehabilitation of profound deafness, deaf children often exhibit delayed cognitive and linguistic development and auditory training remains a crucial element of their education. In the present cross-sectional study, we assess whether music would be a relevant tool for deaf children rehabilitation. In normal-hearing children, music lessons have been shown to improve cognitive and linguistic-related abilities, such as phonetic discrimination and reading. We compared auditory perception, auditory cognition, and phonetic discrimination between 14 profoundly deaf children who completed weekly music lessons for a period of 1.5 to 4 years and 14 deaf children who did not receive musical instruction. Children were assessed on perceptual and cognitive auditory tasks using environmental sounds: discrimination, identification, auditory scene analysis, auditory working memory. Transfer to the linguistic domain was tested with a phonetic discrimination task. Musically-trained children showed better performance in auditory scene analysis, auditory working memory and phonetic discrimination tasks, and multiple regressions showed that success on these tasks was at least partly driven by music lessons. We propose that musical education contributes to development of general processes such as auditory attention and perception, which, in turn, facilitate auditory-related cognitive and linguistic processes.

  3. Auditory sensory memory in 2-year-old children: an event-related potential study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Glass, Elisabeth; Sachse, Steffi; von Suchodoletz, Waldemar

    2008-03-26

    Auditory sensory memory is assumed to play an important role in cognitive development, but little is known about it in young children. The aim of this study was to estimate the duration of auditory sensory memory in 2-year-old children. We recorded the mismatch negativity in response to tone stimuli presented with different interstimulus intervals. Our findings suggest that in 2-year-old children the memory representation of the standard tone remains in the sensory memory store for at least 1 s but for less than 2 s. Recording the mismatch negativity with stimuli presented at various interstimulus intervals seems to be a useful method for studying the relationship between auditory sensory memory and normal and disturbed cognitive development.

  4. A psychophysical imaging method evidencing auditory cue extraction during speech perception: a group analysis of auditory classification images.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Léo Varnet

    Full Text Available Although there is a large consensus regarding the involvement of specific acoustic cues in speech perception, the precise mechanisms underlying the transformation from continuous acoustical properties into discrete perceptual units remains undetermined. This gap in knowledge is partially due to the lack of a turnkey solution for isolating critical speech cues from natural stimuli. In this paper, we describe a psychoacoustic imaging method known as the Auditory Classification Image technique that allows experimenters to estimate the relative importance of time-frequency regions in categorizing natural speech utterances in noise. Importantly, this technique enables the testing of hypotheses on the listening strategies of participants at the group level. We exemplify this approach by identifying the acoustic cues involved in da/ga categorization with two phonetic contexts, Al- or Ar-. The application of Auditory Classification Images to our group of 16 participants revealed significant critical regions on the second and third formant onsets, as predicted by the literature, as well as an unexpected temporal cue on the first formant. Finally, through a cluster-based nonparametric test, we demonstrate that this method is sufficiently sensitive to detect fine modifications of the classification strategies between different utterances of the same phoneme.

  5. Perceptual Plasticity for Auditory Object Recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heald, Shannon L. M.; Van Hedger, Stephen C.; Nusbaum, Howard C.

    2017-01-01

    In our auditory environment, we rarely experience the exact acoustic waveform twice. This is especially true for communicative signals that have meaning for listeners. In speech and music, the acoustic signal changes as a function of the talker (or instrument), speaking (or playing) rate, and room acoustics, to name a few factors. Yet, despite this acoustic variability, we are able to recognize a sentence or melody as the same across various kinds of acoustic inputs and determine meaning based on listening goals, expectations, context, and experience. The recognition process relates acoustic signals to prior experience despite variability in signal-relevant and signal-irrelevant acoustic properties, some of which could be considered as “noise” in service of a recognition goal. However, some acoustic variability, if systematic, is lawful and can be exploited by listeners to aid in recognition. Perceivable changes in systematic variability can herald a need for listeners to reorganize perception and reorient their attention to more immediately signal-relevant cues. This view is not incorporated currently in many extant theories of auditory perception, which traditionally reduce psychological or neural representations of perceptual objects and the processes that act on them to static entities. While this reduction is likely done for the sake of empirical tractability, such a reduction may seriously distort the perceptual process to be modeled. We argue that perceptual representations, as well as the processes underlying perception, are dynamically determined by an interaction between the uncertainty of the auditory signal and constraints of context. This suggests that the process of auditory recognition is highly context-dependent in that the identity of a given auditory object may be intrinsically tied to its preceding context. To argue for the flexible neural and psychological updating of sound-to-meaning mappings across speech and music, we draw upon examples

  6. Absence of direction-specific cross-modal visual-auditory adaptation in motion-onset event-related potentials.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grzeschik, Ramona; Lewald, Jörg; Verhey, Jesko L; Hoffmann, Michael B; Getzmann, Stephan

    2016-01-01

    Adaptation to visual or auditory motion affects within-modality motion processing as reflected by visual or auditory free-field motion-onset evoked potentials (VEPs, AEPs). Here, a visual-auditory motion adaptation paradigm was used to investigate the effect of visual motion adaptation on VEPs and AEPs to leftward motion-onset test stimuli. Effects of visual adaptation to (i) scattered light flashes, and motion in the (ii) same or in the (iii) opposite direction of the test stimulus were compared. For the motion-onset VEPs, i.e. the intra-modal adaptation conditions, direction-specific adaptation was observed--the change-N2 (cN2) and change-P2 (cP2) amplitudes were significantly smaller after motion adaptation in the same than in the opposite direction. For the motion-onset AEPs, i.e. the cross-modal adaptation condition, there was an effect of motion history only in the change-P1 (cP1), and this effect was not direction-specific--cP1 was smaller after scatter than after motion adaptation to either direction. No effects were found for later components of motion-onset AEPs. While the VEP results provided clear evidence for the existence of a direction-specific effect of motion adaptation within the visual modality, the AEP findings suggested merely a motion-related, but not a direction-specific effect. In conclusion, the adaptation of veridical auditory motion detectors by visual motion is not reflected by the AEPs of the present study. © 2015 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  7. Impact of Aging on the Auditory System and Related Cognitive Functions: A Narrative Review

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dona M. P. Jayakody

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Age-related hearing loss (ARHL, presbycusis, is a chronic health condition that affects approximately one-third of the world's population. The peripheral and central hearing alterations associated with age-related hearing loss have a profound impact on perception of verbal and non-verbal auditory stimuli. The high prevalence of hearing loss in the older adults corresponds to the increased frequency of dementia in this population. Therefore, researchers have focused their attention on age-related central effects that occur independent of the peripheral hearing loss as well as central effects of peripheral hearing loss and its association with cognitive decline and dementia. Here we review the current evidence for the age-related changes of the peripheral and central auditory system and the relationship between hearing loss and pathological cognitive decline and dementia. Furthermore, there is a paucity of evidence on the relationship between ARHL and established biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease, as the most common cause of dementia. Such studies are critical to be able to consider any causal relationship between dementia and ARHL. While this narrative review will examine the pathophysiological alterations in both the peripheral and central auditory system and its clinical implications, the question remains unanswered whether hearing loss causes cognitive impairment or vice versa.

  8. Auditory stimulus timing influences perceived duration of co-occurring visual stimuli

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vincenzo eRomei

    2011-09-01

    Full Text Available There is increasing interest in multisensory influences upon sensory-specific judgements, such as when auditory stimuli affect visual perception. Here we studied whether the duration of an auditory event can objectively affect the perceived duration of a co-occurring visual event. On each trial, participants were presented with a pair of successive flashes and had to judge whether the first or second was longer. Two beeps were presented with the flashes. The order of short and long stimuli could be the same across audition and vision (audiovisual congruent or reversed, so that the longer flash was accompanied by the shorter beep and vice versa (audiovisual incongruent; or the two beeps could have the same duration as each other. Beeps and flashes could onset synchronously or asynchronously. In a further control experiment, the beep durations were much longer (tripled than the flashes. Results showed that visual duration-discrimination sensitivity (d' was significantly higher for congruent (and significantly lower for incongruent audiovisual synchronous combinations, relative to the visual only presentation. This effect was abolished when auditory and visual stimuli were presented asynchronously, or when sound durations tripled those of flashes. We conclude that the temporal properties of co-occurring auditory stimuli influence the perceived duration of visual stimuli and that this can reflect genuine changes in visual sensitivity rather than mere response bias.

  9. EEG Channel Selection Using Particle Swarm Optimization for the Classification of Auditory Event-Related Potentials

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alejandro Gonzalez

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Brain-machine interfaces (BMI rely on the accurate classification of event-related potentials (ERPs and their performance greatly depends on the appropriate selection of classifier parameters and features from dense-array electroencephalography (EEG signals. Moreover, in order to achieve a portable and more compact BMI for practical applications, it is also desirable to use a system capable of accurate classification using information from as few EEG channels as possible. In the present work, we propose a method for classifying P300 ERPs using a combination of Fisher Discriminant Analysis (FDA and a multiobjective hybrid real-binary Particle Swarm Optimization (MHPSO algorithm. Specifically, the algorithm searches for the set of EEG channels and classifier parameters that simultaneously maximize the classification accuracy and minimize the number of used channels. The performance of the method is assessed through offline analyses on datasets of auditory ERPs from sound discrimination experiments. The proposed method achieved a higher classification accuracy than that achieved by traditional methods while also using fewer channels. It was also found that the number of channels used for classification can be significantly reduced without greatly compromising the classification accuracy.

  10. Perception-production relations in later development of American English rhotics.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tara McAllister Byun

    Full Text Available It is known that some adult listeners have more sharply defined perceptual categories than others, and listeners with more precise auditory targets are also more precise in their production of contrasts. There is additionally evidence that children who have not yet mastered production of a contrast show diminished performance on perceptual measures of the same contrast. To date, however, few studies have investigated developmental perception-production relations using the fine-grained measures typical of adult studies. Existing evidence suggests that perception and production can be closely connected in development, but this relationship may break down as perception and articulation mature at different rates. This study evaluated perception and production of the English /r-w/ contrast in 40 typically-developing children aged 9-14. Perceptual sensitivity was measured with a logistic function fitted over responses in a forced-choice identification task using two synthetic 10-step continua from rake to wake. Participants also produced rhotic and non-rhotic words. Across participants, there was a significant correlation between perceptual acuity and rhoticity in production, although this effect was only observed for one of two continua tested. These results provide preliminary evidence compatible with the hypothesis that children with a more refined auditory target for a sound also produce that sound more accurately.

  11. Rapid Auditory System Adaptation Using a Virtual Auditory Environment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gaëtan Parseihian

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available Various studies have highlighted plasticity of the auditory system from visual stimuli, limiting the trained field of perception. The aim of the present study is to investigate auditory system adaptation using an audio-kinesthetic platform. Participants were placed in a Virtual Auditory Environment allowing the association of the physical position of a virtual sound source with an alternate set of acoustic spectral cues or Head-Related Transfer Function (HRTF through the use of a tracked ball manipulated by the subject. This set-up has the advantage to be not being limited to the visual field while also offering a natural perception-action coupling through the constant awareness of one's hand position. Adaptation process to non-individualized HRTF was realized through a spatial search game application. A total of 25 subjects participated, consisting of subjects presented with modified cues using non-individualized HRTF and a control group using individual measured HRTFs to account for any learning effect due to the game itself. The training game lasted 12 minutes and was repeated over 3 consecutive days. Adaptation effects were measured with repeated localization tests. Results showed a significant performance improvement for vertical localization and a significant reduction in the front/back confusion rate after 3 sessions.

  12. Audiovisual Temporal Perception in Aging: The Role of Multisensory Integration and Age-Related Sensory Loss.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brooks, Cassandra J; Chan, Yu Man; Anderson, Andrew J; McKendrick, Allison M

    2018-01-01

    Within each sensory modality, age-related deficits in temporal perception contribute to the difficulties older adults experience when performing everyday tasks. Since perceptual experience is inherently multisensory, older adults also face the added challenge of appropriately integrating or segregating the auditory and visual cues present in our dynamic environment into coherent representations of distinct objects. As such, many studies have investigated how older adults perform when integrating temporal information across audition and vision. This review covers both direct judgments about temporal information (the sound-induced flash illusion, temporal order, perceived synchrony, and temporal rate discrimination) and judgments regarding stimuli containing temporal information (the audiovisual bounce effect and speech perception). Although an age-related increase in integration has been demonstrated on a variety of tasks, research specifically investigating the ability of older adults to integrate temporal auditory and visual cues has produced disparate results. In this short review, we explore what factors could underlie these divergent findings. We conclude that both task-specific differences and age-related sensory loss play a role in the reported disparity in age-related effects on the integration of auditory and visual temporal information.

  13. Audiovisual Temporal Perception in Aging: The Role of Multisensory Integration and Age-Related Sensory Loss

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brooks, Cassandra J.; Chan, Yu Man; Anderson, Andrew J.; McKendrick, Allison M.

    2018-01-01

    Within each sensory modality, age-related deficits in temporal perception contribute to the difficulties older adults experience when performing everyday tasks. Since perceptual experience is inherently multisensory, older adults also face the added challenge of appropriately integrating or segregating the auditory and visual cues present in our dynamic environment into coherent representations of distinct objects. As such, many studies have investigated how older adults perform when integrating temporal information across audition and vision. This review covers both direct judgments about temporal information (the sound-induced flash illusion, temporal order, perceived synchrony, and temporal rate discrimination) and judgments regarding stimuli containing temporal information (the audiovisual bounce effect and speech perception). Although an age-related increase in integration has been demonstrated on a variety of tasks, research specifically investigating the ability of older adults to integrate temporal auditory and visual cues has produced disparate results. In this short review, we explore what factors could underlie these divergent findings. We conclude that both task-specific differences and age-related sensory loss play a role in the reported disparity in age-related effects on the integration of auditory and visual temporal information. PMID:29867415

  14. Impaired pitch perception and memory in congenital amusia: the deficit starts in the auditory cortex.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Albouy, Philippe; Mattout, Jérémie; Bouet, Romain; Maby, Emmanuel; Sanchez, Gaëtan; Aguera, Pierre-Emmanuel; Daligault, Sébastien; Delpuech, Claude; Bertrand, Olivier; Caclin, Anne; Tillmann, Barbara

    2013-05-01

    Congenital amusia is a lifelong disorder of music perception and production. The present study investigated the cerebral bases of impaired pitch perception and memory in congenital amusia using behavioural measures, magnetoencephalography and voxel-based morphometry. Congenital amusics and matched control subjects performed two melodic tasks (a melodic contour task and an easier transposition task); they had to indicate whether sequences of six tones (presented in pairs) were the same or different. Behavioural data indicated that in comparison with control participants, amusics' short-term memory was impaired for the melodic contour task, but not for the transposition task. The major finding was that pitch processing and short-term memory deficits can be traced down to amusics' early brain responses during encoding of the melodic information. Temporal and frontal generators of the N100m evoked by each note of the melody were abnormally recruited in the amusic brain. Dynamic causal modelling of the N100m further revealed decreased intrinsic connectivity in both auditory cortices, increased lateral connectivity between auditory cortices as well as a decreased right fronto-temporal backward connectivity in amusics relative to control subjects. Abnormal functioning of this fronto-temporal network was also shown during the retention interval and the retrieval of melodic information. In particular, induced gamma oscillations in right frontal areas were decreased in amusics during the retention interval. Using voxel-based morphometry, we confirmed morphological brain anomalies in terms of white and grey matter concentration in the right inferior frontal gyrus and the right superior temporal gyrus in the amusic brain. The convergence between functional and structural brain differences strengthens the hypothesis of abnormalities in the fronto-temporal pathway of the amusic brain. Our data provide first evidence of altered functioning of the auditory cortices during pitch

  15. Age differences in visual-auditory self-motion perception during a simulated driving task

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Robert eRamkhalawansingh

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available Recent evidence suggests that visual-auditory cue integration may change as a function of age such that integration is heightened among older adults. Our goal was to determine whether these changes in multisensory integration are also observed in the context of self-motion perception under realistic task constraints. Thus, we developed a simulated driving paradigm in which we provided older and younger adults with visual motion cues (i.e. optic flow and systematically manipulated the presence or absence of congruent auditory cues to self-motion (i.e. engine, tire, and wind sounds. Results demonstrated that the presence or absence of congruent auditory input had different effects on older and younger adults. Both age groups demonstrated a reduction in speed variability when auditory cues were present compared to when they were absent, but older adults demonstrated a proportionally greater reduction in speed variability under combined sensory conditions. These results are consistent with evidence indicating that multisensory integration is heightened in older adults. Importantly, this study is the first to provide evidence to suggest that age differences in multisensory integration may generalize from simple stimulus detection tasks to the integration of the more complex and dynamic visual and auditory cues that are experienced during self-motion.

  16. Auditory processing, speech perception and phonological ability in pre-school children at high-risk for dyslexia: a longitudinal study of the auditory temporal processing theory

    OpenAIRE

    Boets, Bart; Wouters, Jan; Van Wieringen, Astrid; Ghesquière, Pol

    2007-01-01

    This study investigates whether the core bottleneck of literacy-impairment should be situated at the phonological level or at a more basic sensory level, as postulated by supporters of the auditory temporal processing theory. Phonological ability, speech perception and low-level auditory processing were assessed in a group of 5-year-old pre-school children at high-family risk for dyslexia, compared to a group of well-matched low-risk control children. Based on family risk status and first gra...

  17. Emergence of auditory-visual relations from a visual-visual baseline with auditory-specific consequences in individuals with autism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Varella, André A B; de Souza, Deisy G

    2014-07-01

    Empirical studies have demonstrated that class-specific contingencies may engender stimulus-reinforcer relations. In these studies, crossmodal relations emerged when crossmodal relations comprised the baseline, and intramodal relations emerged when intramodal relations were taught during baseline. This study investigated whether auditory-visual relations (crossmodal) would emerge after participants learned a visual-visual baseline (intramodal) with auditory stimuli presented as specific consequences. Four individuals with autism learned AB and CD relations with class-specific reinforcers. When A1 and C1 were presented as samples, the selections of B1 and D1, respectively, were followed by an edible (R1) and a sound (S1). Selections of B2 and D2 under the control of A2 and C2, respectively, were followed by R2 and S2. Probe trials tested for visual-visual AC, CA, AD, DA, BC, CB, BD, and DB emergent relations and auditory-visual SA, SB, SC, and SD emergent relations. All of the participants demonstrated the emergence of all auditory-visual relations, and three of four participants showed emergence of all visual-visual relations. Thus, the emergence of auditory-visual relations from specific auditory consequences suggests that these relations do not depend on crossmodal baseline training. The procedure has great potential for applied technology to generate auditory-visual discriminations and stimulus classes in the context of behavior-analytic interventions for autism. © Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.

  18. Neurofeedback-Based Enhancement of Single-Trial Auditory Evoked Potentials: Treatment of Auditory Verbal Hallucinations in Schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rieger, Kathryn; Rarra, Marie-Helene; Diaz Hernandez, Laura; Hubl, Daniela; Koenig, Thomas

    2018-03-01

    Auditory verbal hallucinations depend on a broad neurobiological network ranging from the auditory system to language as well as memory-related processes. As part of this, the auditory N100 event-related potential (ERP) component is attenuated in patients with schizophrenia, with stronger attenuation occurring during auditory verbal hallucinations. Changes in the N100 component assumingly reflect disturbed responsiveness of the auditory system toward external stimuli in schizophrenia. With this premise, we investigated the therapeutic utility of neurofeedback training to modulate the auditory-evoked N100 component in patients with schizophrenia and associated auditory verbal hallucinations. Ten patients completed electroencephalography neurofeedback training for modulation of N100 (treatment condition) or another unrelated component, P200 (control condition). On a behavioral level, only the control group showed a tendency for symptom improvement in the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale total score in a pre-/postcomparison ( t (4) = 2.71, P = .054); however, no significant differences were found in specific hallucination related symptoms ( t (7) = -0.53, P = .62). There was no significant overall effect of neurofeedback training on ERP components in our paradigm; however, we were able to identify different learning patterns, and found a correlation between learning and improvement in auditory verbal hallucination symptoms across training sessions ( r = 0.664, n = 9, P = .05). This effect results, with cautious interpretation due to the small sample size, primarily from the treatment group ( r = 0.97, n = 4, P = .03). In particular, a within-session learning parameter showed utility for predicting symptom improvement with neurofeedback training. In conclusion, patients with schizophrenia and associated auditory verbal hallucinations who exhibit a learning pattern more characterized by within-session aptitude may benefit from electroencephalography neurofeedback

  19. Speech Auditory Alerts Promote Memory for Alerted Events in a Video-Simulated Self-Driving Car Ride.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nees, Michael A; Helbein, Benji; Porter, Anna

    2016-05-01

    Auditory displays could be essential to helping drivers maintain situation awareness in autonomous vehicles, but to date, few or no studies have examined the effectiveness of different types of auditory displays for this application scenario. Recent advances in the development of autonomous vehicles (i.e., self-driving cars) have suggested that widespread automation of driving may be tenable in the near future. Drivers may be required to monitor the status of automation programs and vehicle conditions as they engage in secondary leisure or work tasks (entertainment, communication, etc.) in autonomous vehicles. An experiment compared memory for alerted events-a component of Level 1 situation awareness-using speech alerts, auditory icons, and a visual control condition during a video-simulated self-driving car ride with a visual secondary task. The alerts gave information about the vehicle's operating status and the driving scenario. Speech alerts resulted in better memory for alerted events. Both auditory display types resulted in less perceived effort devoted toward the study tasks but also greater perceived annoyance with the alerts. Speech auditory displays promoted Level 1 situation awareness during a simulation of a ride in a self-driving vehicle under routine conditions, but annoyance remains a concern with auditory displays. Speech auditory displays showed promise as a means of increasing Level 1 situation awareness of routine scenarios during an autonomous vehicle ride with an unrelated secondary task. © 2016, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

  20. Adaptation to delayed auditory feedback induces the temporal recalibration effect in both speech perception and production.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yamamoto, Kosuke; Kawabata, Hideaki

    2014-12-01

    We ordinarily speak fluently, even though our perceptions of our own voices are disrupted by various environmental acoustic properties. The underlying mechanism of speech is supposed to monitor the temporal relationship between speech production and the perception of auditory feedback, as suggested by a reduction in speech fluency when the speaker is exposed to delayed auditory feedback (DAF). While many studies have reported that DAF influences speech motor processing, its relationship to the temporal tuning effect on multimodal integration, or temporal recalibration, remains unclear. We investigated whether the temporal aspects of both speech perception and production change due to adaptation to the delay between the motor sensation and the auditory feedback. This is a well-used method of inducing temporal recalibration. Participants continually read texts with specific DAF times in order to adapt to the delay. Then, they judged the simultaneity between the motor sensation and the vocal feedback. We measured the rates of speech with which participants read the texts in both the exposure and re-exposure phases. We found that exposure to DAF changed both the rate of speech and the simultaneity judgment, that is, participants' speech gained fluency. Although we also found that a delay of 200 ms appeared to be most effective in decreasing the rates of speech and shifting the distribution on the simultaneity judgment, there was no correlation between these measurements. These findings suggest that both speech motor production and multimodal perception are adaptive to temporal lag but are processed in distinct ways.

  1. Effects of twenty-minute 3G mobile phone irradiation on event related potential components and early gamma synchronization in auditory oddball paradigm.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stefanics, G; Thuróczy, G; Kellényi, L; Hernádi, I

    2008-11-19

    We investigated the potential effects of 20 min irradiation from a new generation Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) 3G mobile phone on human event related potentials (ERPs) in an auditory oddball paradigm. In a double-blind task design, subjects were exposed to either genuine or sham irradiation in two separate sessions. Before and after irradiation subjects were presented with a random series of 50 ms tone burst (frequent standards: 1 kHz, P=0.8, rare deviants: 1.5 kHz, P=0.2) at a mean repetition rate of 1500 ms while electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded. The subjects' task was to silently count the appearance of targets. The amplitude and latency of the N100, N200, P200 and P300 components for targets and standards were analyzed in 29 subjects. We found no significant effects of electromagnetic field (EMF) irradiation on the amplitude and latency of the above ERP components. In order to study possible effects of EMF on attentional processes, we applied a wavelet-based time-frequency method to analyze the early gamma component of brain responses to auditory stimuli. We found that the early evoked gamma activity was insensitive to UMTS RF exposition. Our results support the notion, that a single 20 min irradiation from new generation 3G mobile phones does not induce measurable changes in latency or amplitude of ERP components or in oscillatory gamma-band activity in an auditory oddball paradigm.

  2. The origin and nature of categorical perception of colour: Evidence from event-related brain potentials.

    OpenAIRE

    Clifford, Alexandra.

    2009-01-01

    Categorical perception (CP) of colour is demonstrated by faster or more accurate discrimination of colours that cross a category boundary, compared to equivalently spaced colours from the same colour category. Despite a plethora of behavioural research exploring the origin and nature of colour CP, the processes involved in the effect are still unresolved. This thesis investigates the time course and underlying mechanisms of colour CP by using the Event-Related Potential (ERP) technique. This ...

  3. Perceptions of Parental Awareness of Emotional Responses to Stressful Life Events

    OpenAIRE

    Jobe-Shields, Lisa; Parra, Gilbert R.; Buckholdt, Kelly E.

    2013-01-01

    There is a need to better understand family processes related to recovery from past stressful life events. The present study aimed to investigate links between perceptions of parental awareness regarding stressful life events, continued event-related rumination, and current symptoms of depression. Students at a diverse, urban university completed a life events checklist and a semi-structured interview regarding family processing of stressful life events, as well as self-report measures of eve...

  4. Animal models for auditory streaming

    Science.gov (United States)

    Itatani, Naoya

    2017-01-01

    Sounds in the natural environment need to be assigned to acoustic sources to evaluate complex auditory scenes. Separating sources will affect the analysis of auditory features of sounds. As the benefits of assigning sounds to specific sources accrue to all species communicating acoustically, the ability for auditory scene analysis is widespread among different animals. Animal studies allow for a deeper insight into the neuronal mechanisms underlying auditory scene analysis. Here, we will review the paradigms applied in the study of auditory scene analysis and streaming of sequential sounds in animal models. We will compare the psychophysical results from the animal studies to the evidence obtained in human psychophysics of auditory streaming, i.e. in a task commonly used for measuring the capability for auditory scene analysis. Furthermore, the neuronal correlates of auditory streaming will be reviewed in different animal models and the observations of the neurons’ response measures will be related to perception. The across-species comparison will reveal whether similar demands in the analysis of acoustic scenes have resulted in similar perceptual and neuronal processing mechanisms in the wide range of species being capable of auditory scene analysis. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Auditory and visual scene analysis’. PMID:28044022

  5. The perception of microsound and its musical implications.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roads, Curtis

    2003-11-01

    Sound particles or microsounds last only a few milliseconds, near the threshold of auditory perception. We can easily analyze the physical properties of sound particles either individually or in masses. However, correlating these properties with human perception remains complicated. One cannot speak of a single time frame, or a "time constant" for the auditory system. The hearing mechanism involves many different agents, each of which operates on its own timescale. The signals being sent by diverse hearing agents are integrated by the brain into a coherent auditory picture. The pioneer of "sound quanta," Dennis Gabor (1900-1979), suggested that at least two mechanisms are at work in microevent detection: one that isolates events, and another that ascertains their pitch. Human hearing imposes a certain minimum duration in order to establish a firm sense of pitch, amplitude, and timbre. This paper traces disparate strands of literature on the topic and summarizes their meaning. Specifically, we examine the perception of intensity and pitch of microsounds, the phenomena of tone fusion and fission, temporal auditory acuity, and preattentive perception. The final section examines the musical implications of microsonic analysis, synthesis, and transformation.

  6. Neurophysiological Effects of Meditation Based on Evoked and Event Related Potential Recordings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Singh, Nilkamal; Telles, Shirley

    2015-01-01

    Evoked potentials (EPs) are a relatively noninvasive method to assess the integrity of sensory pathways. As the neural generators for most of the components are relatively well worked out, EPs have been used to understand the changes occurring during meditation. Event-related potentials (ERPs) yield useful information about the response to tasks, usually assessing attention. A brief review of the literature yielded eleven studies on EPs and seventeen on ERPs from 1978 to 2014. The EP studies covered short, mid, and long latency EPs, using both auditory and visual modalities. ERP studies reported the effects of meditation on tasks such as the auditory oddball paradigm, the attentional blink task, mismatched negativity, and affective picture viewing among others. Both EP and ERPs were recorded in several meditations detailed in the review. Maximum changes occurred in mid latency (auditory) EPs suggesting that maximum changes occur in the corresponding neural generators in the thalamus, thalamic radiations, and primary auditory cortical areas. ERP studies showed meditation can increase attention and enhance efficiency of brain resource allocation with greater emotional control.

  7. Neurophysiological Effects of Meditation Based on Evoked and Event Related Potential Recordings

    Science.gov (United States)

    Singh, Nilkamal; Telles, Shirley

    2015-01-01

    Evoked potentials (EPs) are a relatively noninvasive method to assess the integrity of sensory pathways. As the neural generators for most of the components are relatively well worked out, EPs have been used to understand the changes occurring during meditation. Event-related potentials (ERPs) yield useful information about the response to tasks, usually assessing attention. A brief review of the literature yielded eleven studies on EPs and seventeen on ERPs from 1978 to 2014. The EP studies covered short, mid, and long latency EPs, using both auditory and visual modalities. ERP studies reported the effects of meditation on tasks such as the auditory oddball paradigm, the attentional blink task, mismatched negativity, and affective picture viewing among others. Both EP and ERPs were recorded in several meditations detailed in the review. Maximum changes occurred in mid latency (auditory) EPs suggesting that maximum changes occur in the corresponding neural generators in the thalamus, thalamic radiations, and primary auditory cortical areas. ERP studies showed meditation can increase attention and enhance efficiency of brain resource allocation with greater emotional control. PMID:26137479

  8. The Perception of Cooperativeness Without Any Visual or Auditory Communication.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chang, Dong-Seon; Burger, Franziska; Bülthoff, Heinrich H; de la Rosa, Stephan

    2015-12-01

    Perceiving social information such as the cooperativeness of another person is an important part of human interaction. But can people perceive the cooperativeness of others even without any visual or auditory information? In a novel experimental setup, we connected two people with a rope and made them accomplish a point-collecting task together while they could not see or hear each other. We observed a consistently emerging turn-taking behavior in the interactions and installed a confederate in a subsequent experiment who either minimized or maximized this behavior. Participants experienced this only through the haptic force-feedback of the rope and made evaluations about the confederate after each interaction. We found that perception of cooperativeness was significantly affected only by the manipulation of this turn-taking behavior. Gender- and size-related judgments also significantly differed. Our results suggest that people can perceive social information such as the cooperativeness of other people even in situations where possibilities for communication are minimal.

  9. The Perception of Cooperativeness Without Any Visual or Auditory Communication

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dong-Seon Chang

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Perceiving social information such as the cooperativeness of another person is an important part of human interaction. But can people perceive the cooperativeness of others even without any visual or auditory information? In a novel experimental setup, we connected two people with a rope and made them accomplish a point-collecting task together while they could not see or hear each other. We observed a consistently emerging turn-taking behavior in the interactions and installed a confederate in a subsequent experiment who either minimized or maximized this behavior. Participants experienced this only through the haptic force-feedback of the rope and made evaluations about the confederate after each interaction. We found that perception of cooperativeness was significantly affected only by the manipulation of this turn-taking behavior. Gender- and size-related judgments also significantly differed. Our results suggest that people can perceive social information such as the cooperativeness of other people even in situations where possibilities for communication are minimal.

  10. Simultaneity and Temporal Order Judgments Are Coded Differently and Change With Age: An Event-Related Potential Study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Aysha Basharat

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Multisensory integration is required for a number of daily living tasks where the inability to accurately identify simultaneity and temporality of multisensory events results in errors in judgment leading to poor decision-making and dangerous behavior. Previously, our lab discovered that older adults exhibited impaired timing of audiovisual events, particularly when making temporal order judgments (TOJs. Simultaneity judgments (SJs, however, were preserved across the lifespan. Here, we investigate the difference between the TOJ and SJ tasks in younger and older adults to assess neural processing differences between these two tasks and across the lifespan. Event-related potentials (ERPs were studied to determine between-task and between-age differences. Results revealed task specific differences in perceiving simultaneity and temporal order, suggesting that each task may be subserved via different neural mechanisms. Here, auditory N1 and visual P1 ERP amplitudes confirmed that unisensory processing of audiovisual stimuli did not differ between the two tasks within both younger and older groups, indicating that performance differences between tasks arise either from multisensory integration or higher-level decision-making. Compared to younger adults, older adults showed a sustained higher auditory N1 ERP amplitude response across SOAs, suggestive of broader response properties from an extended temporal binding window. Our work provides compelling evidence that different neural mechanisms subserve the SJ and TOJ tasks and that simultaneity and temporal order perception are coded differently and change with age.

  11. Neural correlates of auditory recognition memory in the primate dorsal temporal pole

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ng, Chi-Wing; Plakke, Bethany

    2013-01-01

    Temporal pole (TP) cortex is associated with higher-order sensory perception and/or recognition memory, as human patients with damage in this region show impaired performance during some tasks requiring recognition memory (Olson et al. 2007). The underlying mechanisms of TP processing are largely based on examination of the visual nervous system in humans and monkeys, while little is known about neuronal activity patterns in the auditory portion of this region, dorsal TP (dTP; Poremba et al. 2003). The present study examines single-unit activity of dTP in rhesus monkeys performing a delayed matching-to-sample task utilizing auditory stimuli, wherein two sounds are determined to be the same or different. Neurons of dTP encode several task-relevant events during the delayed matching-to-sample task, and encoding of auditory cues in this region is associated with accurate recognition performance. Population activity in dTP shows a match suppression mechanism to identical, repeated sound stimuli similar to that observed in the visual object identification pathway located ventral to dTP (Desimone 1996; Nakamura and Kubota 1996). However, in contrast to sustained visual delay-related activity in nearby analogous regions, auditory delay-related activity in dTP is transient and limited. Neurons in dTP respond selectively to different sound stimuli and often change their sound response preferences between experimental contexts. Current findings suggest a significant role for dTP in auditory recognition memory similar in many respects to the visual nervous system, while delay memory firing patterns are not prominent, which may relate to monkeys' shorter forgetting thresholds for auditory vs. visual objects. PMID:24198324

  12. Neural correlates of auditory recognition memory in the primate dorsal temporal pole.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ng, Chi-Wing; Plakke, Bethany; Poremba, Amy

    2014-02-01

    Temporal pole (TP) cortex is associated with higher-order sensory perception and/or recognition memory, as human patients with damage in this region show impaired performance during some tasks requiring recognition memory (Olson et al. 2007). The underlying mechanisms of TP processing are largely based on examination of the visual nervous system in humans and monkeys, while little is known about neuronal activity patterns in the auditory portion of this region, dorsal TP (dTP; Poremba et al. 2003). The present study examines single-unit activity of dTP in rhesus monkeys performing a delayed matching-to-sample task utilizing auditory stimuli, wherein two sounds are determined to be the same or different. Neurons of dTP encode several task-relevant events during the delayed matching-to-sample task, and encoding of auditory cues in this region is associated with accurate recognition performance. Population activity in dTP shows a match suppression mechanism to identical, repeated sound stimuli similar to that observed in the visual object identification pathway located ventral to dTP (Desimone 1996; Nakamura and Kubota 1996). However, in contrast to sustained visual delay-related activity in nearby analogous regions, auditory delay-related activity in dTP is transient and limited. Neurons in dTP respond selectively to different sound stimuli and often change their sound response preferences between experimental contexts. Current findings suggest a significant role for dTP in auditory recognition memory similar in many respects to the visual nervous system, while delay memory firing patterns are not prominent, which may relate to monkeys' shorter forgetting thresholds for auditory vs. visual objects.

  13. Sensory adaptation for timing perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roseboom, Warrick; Linares, Daniel; Nishida, Shin'ya

    2015-04-22

    Recent sensory experience modifies subjective timing perception. For example, when visual events repeatedly lead auditory events, such as when the sound and video tracks of a movie are out of sync, subsequent vision-leads-audio presentations are reported as more simultaneous. This phenomenon could provide insights into the fundamental problem of how timing is represented in the brain, but the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. Here, we show that the effect of recent experience on timing perception is not just subjective; recent sensory experience also modifies relative timing discrimination. This result indicates that recent sensory history alters the encoding of relative timing in sensory areas, excluding explanations of the subjective phenomenon based only on decision-level changes. The pattern of changes in timing discrimination suggests the existence of two sensory components, similar to those previously reported for visual spatial attributes: a lateral shift in the nonlinear transducer that maps relative timing into perceptual relative timing and an increase in transducer slope around the exposed timing. The existence of these components would suggest that previous explanations of how recent experience may change the sensory encoding of timing, such as changes in sensory latencies or simple implementations of neural population codes, cannot account for the effect of sensory adaptation on timing perception.

  14. Generalization of conditioned suppression during salicylate-induced phantom auditory perception in rats.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brennan, J F; Jastreboff, P J

    1991-01-01

    Tonal frequency generalization was examined in a total of 114 pigmented male rats, 60 of which were tested under the influence of salicylate-induced phantom auditory perception, introduced before or after lick suppression training. Thirty control subjects received saline injections, and the remaining 24 subjects served as noninjected controls of tonal background effects on generalization. Rats were continuously exposed to background noise alone or with a superimposed tone. Offset of background noise alone (Experiment I), or combined with onset or continuation of the tone (Experiments II and III) served as the conditioned stimulus (CS). In Experiment I, tone presentations were introduced only after suppression training. Depending on the time of salicylate introduction, a strong and differential influence on generalization gradients was observed, which is consistent with subjects' detection of salicylate-induced, high-pitched sound. Moreover, when either 12- or 3 kHz tones were introduced before or after Pavlovian training to mimic salicylate effects in 24 rats, the distortions in generalization gradients resembled trends obtained from respective salicylate injected groups. Experiments II and III were aimed at evaluating the masking effect of salicylate-induced phantom auditory perception on external sounds, with a 5- or a 10-kHz tone imposed continuously on the noise or presented only during the CS. Tests of tonal generalization to frequencies ranging from 4- to 11- kHz showed that in this experimental context salicylate-induced perception did not interfere with the dominant influence of external tones, a result that further strengthens the conclusion of Experiment I.

  15. Effects of inter- and intramodal selective attention to non-spatial visual stimuli: An event-related potential analysis.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    de Ruiter, M.B.; Kok, A.; van der Schoot, M.

    1998-01-01

    Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to trains of rapidly presented auditory and visual stimuli. ERPs in conditions in which Ss attended to different features of visual stimuli were compared with ERPs to the same type of stimuli when Ss attended to different features of auditory stimuli,

  16. Memory for sound, with an ear toward hearing in complex auditory scenes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Snyder, Joel S; Gregg, Melissa K

    2011-10-01

    An area of research that has experienced recent growth is the study of memory during perception of simple and complex auditory scenes. These studies have provided important information about how well auditory objects are encoded in memory and how well listeners can notice changes in auditory scenes. These are significant developments because they present an opportunity to better understand how we hear in realistic situations, how higher-level aspects of hearing such as semantics and prior exposure affect perception, and the similarities and differences between auditory perception and perception in other modalities, such as vision and touch. The research also poses exciting challenges for behavioral and neural models of how auditory perception and memory work.

  17. Feature Assignment in Perception of Auditory Figure

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gregg, Melissa K.; Samuel, Arthur G.

    2012-01-01

    Because the environment often includes multiple sounds that overlap in time, listeners must segregate a sound of interest (the auditory figure) from other co-occurring sounds (the unattended auditory ground). We conducted a series of experiments to clarify the principles governing the extraction of auditory figures. We distinguish between auditory…

  18. Auditory perception and the control of spatially coordinated action of deaf and hearing children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Savelsbergh, G J; Netelenbos, J B; Whiting, H T

    1991-03-01

    From birth onwards, auditory stimulation directs and intensifies visual orientation behaviour. In deaf children, by definition, auditory perception cannot take place and cannot, therefore, make a contribution to visual orientation to objects approaching from outside the initial field of view. In experiment 1, a difference in catching ability is demonstrated between deaf and hearing children (10-13 years of age) when the ball approached from the periphery or from outside the field of view. No differences in catching ability between the two groups occurred when the ball approached from within the field of view. A second experiment was conducted in order to determine if differences in catching ability between deaf and hearing children could be attributed to execution of slow orientating movements and/or slow reaction time as a result of the auditory loss. The deaf children showed slower reaction times. No differences were found in movement times between deaf and hearing children. Overall, the findings suggest that a lack of auditory stimulation during development can lead to deficiencies in the coordination of actions such as catching which are both spatially and temporally constrained.

  19. Babies in traffic: infant vocalizations and listener sex modulate auditory motion perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Neuhoff, John G; Hamilton, Grace R; Gittleson, Amanda L; Mejia, Adolfo

    2014-04-01

    Infant vocalizations and "looming sounds" are classes of environmental stimuli that are critically important to survival but can have dramatically different emotional valences. Here, we simultaneously presented listeners with a stationary infant vocalization and a 3D virtual looming tone for which listeners made auditory time-to-arrival judgments. Negatively valenced infant cries produced more cautious (anticipatory) estimates of auditory arrival time of the tone over a no-vocalization control. Positively valenced laughs had the opposite effect, and across all conditions, men showed smaller anticipatory biases than women. In Experiment 2, vocalization-matched vocoded noise stimuli did not influence concurrent auditory time-to-arrival estimates compared with a control condition. In Experiment 3, listeners estimated the egocentric distance of a looming tone that stopped before arriving. For distant stopping points, women estimated the stopping point as closer when the tone was presented with an infant cry than when it was presented with a laugh. For near stopping points, women showed no differential effect of vocalization type. Men did not show differential effects of vocalization type at either distance. Our results support the idea that both the sex of the listener and the emotional valence of infant vocalizations can influence auditory motion perception and can modulate motor responses to other behaviorally relevant environmental sounds. We also find support for previous work that shows sex differences in emotion processing are diminished under conditions of higher stress.

  20. Transitional Probabilities Are Prioritized over Stimulus/Pattern Probabilities in Auditory Deviance Detection: Memory Basis for Predictive Sound Processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mittag, Maria; Takegata, Rika; Winkler, István

    2016-09-14

    Representations encoding the probabilities of auditory events do not directly support predictive processing. In contrast, information about the probability with which a given sound follows another (transitional probability) allows predictions of upcoming sounds. We tested whether behavioral and cortical auditory deviance detection (the latter indexed by the mismatch negativity event-related potential) relies on probabilities of sound patterns or on transitional probabilities. We presented healthy adult volunteers with three types of rare tone-triplets among frequent standard triplets of high-low-high (H-L-H) or L-H-L pitch structure: proximity deviant (H-H-H/L-L-L), reversal deviant (L-H-L/H-L-H), and first-tone deviant (L-L-H/H-H-L). If deviance detection was based on pattern probability, reversal and first-tone deviants should be detected with similar latency because both differ from the standard at the first pattern position. If deviance detection was based on transitional probabilities, then reversal deviants should be the most difficult to detect because, unlike the other two deviants, they contain no low-probability pitch transitions. The data clearly showed that both behavioral and cortical auditory deviance detection uses transitional probabilities. Thus, the memory traces underlying cortical deviance detection may provide a link between stimulus probability-based change/novelty detectors operating at lower levels of the auditory system and higher auditory cognitive functions that involve predictive processing. Our research presents the first definite evidence for the auditory system prioritizing transitional probabilities over probabilities of individual sensory events. Forming representations for transitional probabilities paves the way for predictions of upcoming sounds. Several recent theories suggest that predictive processing provides the general basis of human perception, including important auditory functions, such as auditory scene analysis. Our

  1. Sensory Entrainment Mechanisms in Auditory Perception: Neural Synchronization Cortico-Striatal Activation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sameiro-Barbosa, Catia M; Geiser, Eveline

    2016-01-01

    The auditory system displays modulations in sensitivity that can align with the temporal structure of the acoustic environment. This sensory entrainment can facilitate sensory perception and is particularly relevant for audition. Systems neuroscience is slowly uncovering the neural mechanisms underlying the behaviorally observed sensory entrainment effects in the human sensory system. The present article summarizes the prominent behavioral effects of sensory entrainment and reviews our current understanding of the neural basis of sensory entrainment, such as synchronized neural oscillations, and potentially, neural activation in the cortico-striatal system.

  2. Sensory Entrainment Mechanisms in Auditory Perception: Neural Synchronization Cortico-Striatal Activation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sameiro-Barbosa, Catia M.; Geiser, Eveline

    2016-01-01

    The auditory system displays modulations in sensitivity that can align with the temporal structure of the acoustic environment. This sensory entrainment can facilitate sensory perception and is particularly relevant for audition. Systems neuroscience is slowly uncovering the neural mechanisms underlying the behaviorally observed sensory entrainment effects in the human sensory system. The present article summarizes the prominent behavioral effects of sensory entrainment and reviews our current understanding of the neural basis of sensory entrainment, such as synchronized neural oscillations, and potentially, neural activation in the cortico-striatal system. PMID:27559306

  3. Neural basis of the time window for subjective motor-auditory integration

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Koichi eToida

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Temporal contiguity between an action and corresponding auditory feedback is crucial to the perception of self-generated sound. However, the neural mechanisms underlying motor–auditory temporal integration are unclear. Here, we conducted four experiments with an oddball paradigm to examine the specific event-related potentials (ERPs elicited by delayed auditory feedback for a self-generated action. The first experiment confirmed that a pitch-deviant auditory stimulus elicits mismatch negativity (MMN and P300, both when it is generated passively and by the participant’s action. In our second and third experiments, we investigated the ERP components elicited by delayed auditory feedback of for a self-generated action. We found that delayed auditory feedback elicited an enhancement of P2 (enhanced-P2 and a N300 component, which were apparently different from the MMN and P300 components observed in the first experiment. We further investigated the sensitivity of the enhanced-P2 and N300 to delay length in our fourth experiment. Strikingly, the amplitude of the N300 increased as a function of the delay length. Additionally, the N300 amplitude was significantly correlated with the conscious detection of the delay (the 50% detection point was around 200 ms, and hence reduction in the feeling of authorship of the sound (the sense of agency. In contrast, the enhanced-P2 was most prominent in short-delay (≤ 200 ms conditions and diminished in long-delay conditions. Our results suggest that different neural mechanisms are employed for the processing of temporally-deviant and pitch-deviant auditory feedback. Additionally, the temporal window for subjective motor–auditory integration is likely about 200 ms, as indicated by these auditory ERP components.

  4. Mapping a lateralisation gradient within the ventral stream for auditory speech perception

    OpenAIRE

    Karsten eSpecht

    2013-01-01

    Recent models on speech perception propose a dual stream processing network, with a dorsal stream, extending from the posterior temporal lobe of the left hemisphere through inferior parietal areas into the left inferior frontal gyrus, and a ventral stream that is assumed to originate in the primary auditory cortex in the upper posterior part of the temporal lobe and to extend towards the anterior part of the temporal lobe, where it may connect to the ventral part of the inferior frontal gyrus...

  5. Mapping a lateralization gradient within the ventral stream for auditory speech perception

    OpenAIRE

    Specht, Karsten

    2013-01-01

    Recent models on speech perception propose a dual-stream processing network, with a dorsal stream, extending from the posterior temporal lobe of the left hemisphere through inferior parietal areas into the left inferior frontal gyrus, and a ventral stream that is assumed to originate in the primary auditory cortex in the upper posterior part of the temporal lobe and to extend toward the anterior part of the temporal lobe, where it may connect to the ventral part of the inferior frontal gyrus....

  6. Top-Down Modulation of Auditory-Motor Integration during Speech Production: The Role of Working Memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guo, Zhiqiang; Wu, Xiuqin; Li, Weifeng; Jones, Jeffery A; Yan, Nan; Sheft, Stanley; Liu, Peng; Liu, Hanjun

    2017-10-25

    Although working memory (WM) is considered as an emergent property of the speech perception and production systems, the role of WM in sensorimotor integration during speech processing is largely unknown. We conducted two event-related potential experiments with female and male young adults to investigate the contribution of WM to the neurobehavioural processing of altered auditory feedback during vocal production. A delayed match-to-sample task that required participants to indicate whether the pitch feedback perturbations they heard during vocalizations in test and sample sequences matched, elicited significantly larger vocal compensations, larger N1 responses in the left middle and superior temporal gyrus, and smaller P2 responses in the left middle and superior temporal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule, somatosensory cortex, right inferior frontal gyrus, and insula compared with a control task that did not require memory retention of the sequence of pitch perturbations. On the other hand, participants who underwent extensive auditory WM training produced suppressed vocal compensations that were correlated with improved auditory WM capacity, and enhanced P2 responses in the left middle frontal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule, right inferior frontal gyrus, and insula that were predicted by pretraining auditory WM capacity. These findings indicate that WM can enhance the perception of voice auditory feedback errors while inhibiting compensatory vocal behavior to prevent voice control from being excessively influenced by auditory feedback. This study provides the first evidence that auditory-motor integration for voice control can be modulated by top-down influences arising from WM, rather than modulated exclusively by bottom-up and automatic processes. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT One outstanding question that remains unsolved in speech motor control is how the mismatch between predicted and actual voice auditory feedback is detected and corrected. The present study

  7. Auditory white noise reduces age-related fluctuations in balance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ross, J M; Will, O J; McGann, Z; Balasubramaniam, R

    2016-09-06

    Fall prevention technologies have the potential to improve the lives of older adults. Because of the multisensory nature of human balance control, sensory therapies, including some involving tactile and auditory noise, are being explored that might reduce increased balance variability due to typical age-related sensory declines. Auditory white noise has previously been shown to reduce postural sway variability in healthy young adults. In the present experiment, we examined this treatment in young adults and typically aging older adults. We measured postural sway of healthy young adults and adults over the age of 65 years during silence and auditory white noise, with and without vision. Our results show reduced postural sway variability in young and older adults with auditory noise, even in the absence of vision. We show that vision and noise can reduce sway variability for both feedback-based and exploratory balance processes. In addition, we show changes with auditory noise in nonlinear patterns of sway in older adults that reflect what is more typical of young adults, and these changes did not interfere with the typical random walk behavior of sway. Our results suggest that auditory noise might be valuable for therapeutic and rehabilitative purposes in older adults with typical age-related balance variability. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. Event-related potential response to auditory social stimuli, parent-reported social communicative deficits and autism risk in school-aged children with congenital visual impairment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Joe Bathelt

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available Communication with visual signals, like facial expression, is important in early social development, but the question if these signals are necessary for typical social development remains to be addressed. The potential impact on social development of being born with no or very low levels of vision is therefore of high theoretical and clinical interest. The current study investigated event-related potential responses to basic social stimuli in a rare group of school-aged children with congenital visual disorders of the anterior visual system (globe of the eye, retina, anterior optic nerve. Early-latency event-related potential responses showed no difference between the VI and control group, suggesting similar initial auditory processing. However, the mean amplitude over central and right frontal channels between 280 and 320 ms was reduced in response to own-name stimuli, but not control stimuli, in children with VI suggesting differences in social processing. Children with VI also showed an increased rate of autistic-related behaviours, pragmatic language deficits, as well as peer relationship and emotional problems on standard parent questionnaires. These findings suggest that vision may be necessary for the typical development of social processing across modalities.

  9. Efficient visual search from synchronized auditory signals requires transient audiovisual events.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Erik Van der Burg

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: A prevailing view is that audiovisual integration requires temporally coincident signals. However, a recent study failed to find any evidence for audiovisual integration in visual search even when using synchronized audiovisual events. An important question is what information is critical to observe audiovisual integration. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here we demonstrate that temporal coincidence (i.e., synchrony of auditory and visual components can trigger audiovisual interaction in cluttered displays and consequently produce very fast and efficient target identification. In visual search experiments, subjects found a modulating visual target vastly more efficiently when it was paired with a synchronous auditory signal. By manipulating the kind of temporal modulation (sine wave vs. square wave vs. difference wave; harmonic sine-wave synthesis; gradient of onset/offset ramps we show that abrupt visual events are required for this search efficiency to occur, and that sinusoidal audiovisual modulations do not support efficient search. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Thus, audiovisual temporal alignment will only lead to benefits in visual search if the changes in the component signals are both synchronized and transient. We propose that transient signals are necessary in synchrony-driven binding to avoid spurious interactions with unrelated signals when these occur close together in time.

  10. Temporal Information Processing as a Basis for Auditory Comprehension: Clinical Evidence from Aphasic Patients

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oron, Anna; Szymaszek, Aneta; Szelag, Elzbieta

    2015-01-01

    Background: Temporal information processing (TIP) underlies many aspects of cognitive functions like language, motor control, learning, memory, attention, etc. Millisecond timing may be assessed by sequencing abilities, e.g. the perception of event order. It may be measured with auditory temporal-order-threshold (TOT), i.e. a minimum time gap…

  11. Auditory agnosia due to long-term severe hydrocephalus caused by spina bifida - specific auditory pathway versus nonspecific auditory pathway.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Qing; Kaga, Kimitaka; Hayashi, Akimasa

    2011-07-01

    A 27-year-old female showed auditory agnosia after long-term severe hydrocephalus due to congenital spina bifida. After years of hydrocephalus, she gradually suffered from hearing loss in her right ear at 19 years of age, followed by her left ear. During the time when she retained some ability to hear, she experienced severe difficulty in distinguishing verbal, environmental, and musical instrumental sounds. However, her auditory brainstem response and distortion product otoacoustic emissions were largely intact in the left ear. Her bilateral auditory cortices were preserved, as shown by neuroimaging, whereas her auditory radiations were severely damaged owing to progressive hydrocephalus. Although she had a complete bilateral hearing loss, she felt great pleasure when exposed to music. After years of self-training to read lips, she regained fluent ability to communicate. Clinical manifestations of this patient indicate that auditory agnosia can occur after long-term hydrocephalus due to spina bifida; the secondary auditory pathway may play a role in both auditory perception and hearing rehabilitation.

  12. The Effects of Compensatory Auditory Stimulation and High-Definition Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (HD-tDCS) on Tinnitus Perception - A Randomized Pilot Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Henin, Simon; Fein, Dovid; Smouha, Eric; Parra, Lucas C

    2016-01-01

    Tinnitus correlates with elevated hearing thresholds and reduced cochlear compression. We hypothesized that reduced peripheral input leads to elevated neuronal gain resulting in the perception of a phantom sound. The purpose of this pilot study was to test whether compensating for this peripheral deficit could reduce the tinnitus percept acutely using customized auditory stimulation. To further enhance the effects of auditory stimulation, this intervention was paired with high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS). A randomized sham-controlled, single blind study was conducted in a clinical setting on adult participants with chronic tinnitus (n = 14). Compensatory auditory stimulation (CAS) and HD-tDCS were administered either individually or in combination in order to access the effects of both interventions on tinnitus perception. CAS consisted of sound exposure typical to daily living (20-minute sound-track of a TV show), which was adapted with compressive gain to compensate for deficits in each subject's individual audiograms. Minimum masking levels and the visual analog scale were used to assess the strength of the tinnitus percept immediately before and after the treatment intervention. CAS reduced minimum masking levels, and visual analog scale trended towards improvement. Effects of HD-tDCS could not be resolved with the current sample size. The results of this pilot study suggest that providing tailored auditory stimulation with frequency-specific gain and compression may alleviate tinnitus in a clinical population. Further experimentation with longer interventions is warranted in order to optimize effect sizes.

  13. Mental Imagery Induces Cross-Modal Sensory Plasticity and Changes Future Auditory Perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berger, Christopher C; Ehrsson, H Henrik

    2018-04-01

    Can what we imagine in our minds change how we perceive the world in the future? A continuous process of multisensory integration and recalibration is responsible for maintaining a correspondence between the senses (e.g., vision, touch, audition) and, ultimately, a stable and coherent perception of our environment. This process depends on the plasticity of our sensory systems. The so-called ventriloquism aftereffect-a shift in the perceived localization of sounds presented alone after repeated exposure to spatially mismatched auditory and visual stimuli-is a clear example of this type of plasticity in the audiovisual domain. In a series of six studies with 24 participants each, we investigated an imagery-induced ventriloquism aftereffect in which imagining a visual stimulus elicits the same frequency-specific auditory aftereffect as actually seeing one. These results demonstrate that mental imagery can recalibrate the senses and induce the same cross-modal sensory plasticity as real sensory stimuli.

  14. Perception and psychological evaluation for visual and auditory environment based on the correlation mechanisms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fujii, Kenji

    2002-06-01

    In this dissertation, the correlation mechanism in modeling the process in the visual perception is introduced. It has been well described that the correlation mechanism is effective for describing subjective attributes in auditory perception. The main result is that it is possible to apply the correlation mechanism to the process in temporal vision and spatial vision, as well as in audition. (1) The psychophysical experiment was performed on subjective flicker rates for complex waveforms. A remarkable result is that the phenomenon of missing fundamental is found in temporal vision as analogous to the auditory pitch perception. This implies the existence of correlation mechanism in visual system. (2) For spatial vision, the autocorrelation analysis provides useful measures for describing three primary perceptual properties of visual texture: contrast, coarseness, and regularity. Another experiment showed that the degree of regularity is a salient cue for texture preference judgment. (3) In addition, the autocorrelation function (ACF) and inter-aural cross-correlation function (IACF) were applied for analysis of the temporal and spatial properties of environmental noise. It was confirmed that the acoustical properties of aircraft noise and traffic noise are well described. These analyses provided useful parameters extracted from the ACF and IACF in assessing the subjective annoyance for noise. Thesis advisor: Yoichi Ando Copies of this thesis written in English can be obtained from Junko Atagi, 6813 Mosonou, Saijo-cho, Higashi-Hiroshima 739-0024, Japan. E-mail address: atagi\\@urban.ne.jp.

  15. Hearing Shapes: Event-related Potentials Reveal the Time Course of Auditory-Visual Sensory Substitution.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Graulty, Christian; Papaioannou, Orestis; Bauer, Phoebe; Pitts, Michael A; Canseco-Gonzalez, Enriqueta

    2018-04-01

    In auditory-visual sensory substitution, visual information (e.g., shape) can be extracted through strictly auditory input (e.g., soundscapes). Previous studies have shown that image-to-sound conversions that follow simple rules [such as the Meijer algorithm; Meijer, P. B. L. An experimental system for auditory image representation. Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 39, 111-121, 1992] are highly intuitive and rapidly learned by both blind and sighted individuals. A number of recent fMRI studies have begun to explore the neuroplastic changes that result from sensory substitution training. However, the time course of cross-sensory information transfer in sensory substitution is largely unexplored and may offer insights into the underlying neural mechanisms. In this study, we recorded ERPs to soundscapes before and after sighted participants were trained with the Meijer algorithm. We compared these posttraining versus pretraining ERP differences with those of a control group who received the same set of 80 auditory/visual stimuli but with arbitrary pairings during training. Our behavioral results confirmed the rapid acquisition of cross-sensory mappings, and the group trained with the Meijer algorithm was able to generalize their learning to novel soundscapes at impressive levels of accuracy. The ERP results revealed an early cross-sensory learning effect (150-210 msec) that was significantly enhanced in the algorithm-trained group compared with the control group as well as a later difference (420-480 msec) that was unique to the algorithm-trained group. These ERP modulations are consistent with previous fMRI results and provide additional insight into the time course of cross-sensory information transfer in sensory substitution.

  16. Differential activity in left inferior frontal gyrus for pseudowords and real words: an event-related fMRI study on auditory lexical decision.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xiao, Zhuangwei; Zhang, John X; Wang, Xiaoyi; Wu, Renhua; Hu, Xiaoping; Weng, Xuchu; Tan, Li Hai

    2005-06-01

    After Newman and Twieg and others, we used a fast event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) design and contrasted the lexical processing of pseudowords and real words. Participants carried out an auditory lexical decision task on a list of randomly intermixed real and pseudo Chinese two-character (or two-syllable) words. The pseudowords were constructed by recombining constituent characters of the real words to control for sublexical code properties. Processing of pseudowords and real words activated a highly comparable network of brain regions, including bilateral inferior frontal gyrus, superior, middle temporal gyrus, calcarine and lingual gyrus, and left supramarginal gyrus. Mirroring a behavioral lexical effect, left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) was significantly more activated for pseudowords than for real words. This result disconfirms a popular view that this area plays a role in grapheme-to-phoneme conversion, as such a conversion process was unnecessary in our task with auditory stimulus presentation. An alternative view was supported that attributes increased activity in left IFG for pseudowords to general processes in decision making, specifically in making positive versus negative responses. Activation in left supramarginal gyrus was of a much larger volume for real words than for pseudowords, suggesting a role of this region in the representation of phonological or semantic information for two-character Chinese words at the lexical level.

  17. Auditory short-term memory in the primate auditory cortex

    OpenAIRE

    Scott, Brian H.; Mishkin, Mortimer

    2015-01-01

    Sounds are fleeting, and assembling the sequence of inputs at the ear into a coherent percept requires auditory memory across various time scales. Auditory short-term memory comprises at least two components: an active ���working memory��� bolstered by rehearsal, and a sensory trace that may be passively retained. Working memory relies on representations recalled from long-term memory, and their rehearsal may require phonological mechanisms unique to humans. The sensory component, passive sho...

  18. Auditory deficits in amusia extend beyond poor pitch perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Whiteford, Kelly L; Oxenham, Andrew J

    2017-05-01

    Congenital amusia is a music perception disorder believed to reflect a deficit in fine-grained pitch perception and/or short-term or working memory for pitch. Because most measures of pitch perception include memory and segmentation components, it has been difficult to determine the true extent of pitch processing deficits in amusia. It is also unclear whether pitch deficits persist at frequencies beyond the range of musical pitch. To address these questions, experiments were conducted with amusics and matched controls, manipulating both the stimuli and the task demands. First, we assessed pitch discrimination at low (500Hz and 2000Hz) and high (8000Hz) frequencies using a three-interval forced-choice task. Amusics exhibited deficits even at the highest frequency, which lies beyond the existence region of musical pitch. Next, we assessed the extent to which frequency coding deficits persist in one- and two-interval frequency-modulation (FM) and amplitude-modulation (AM) detection tasks at 500Hz at slow (f m =4Hz) and fast (f m =20Hz) modulation rates. Amusics still exhibited deficits in one-interval FM detection tasks that should not involve memory or segmentation. Surprisingly, amusics were also impaired on AM detection, which should not involve pitch processing. Finally, direct comparisons between the detection of continuous and discrete FM demonstrated that amusics suffer deficits in both coding and segmenting pitch information. Our results reveal auditory deficits in amusia extending beyond pitch perception that are subtle when controlling for memory and segmentation, and are likely exacerbated in more complex contexts such as musical listening. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  19. Development of a Method to Compensate for Signal Quality Variations in Repeated Auditory Event-Related Potential Recordings

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paukkunen, Antti K. O.; Leminen, Miika M.; Sepponen, Raimo

    2010-01-01

    Reliable measurements are mandatory in clinically relevant auditory event-related potential (AERP)-based tools and applications. The comparability of the results gets worse as a result of variations in the remaining measurement error. A potential method is studied that allows optimization of the length of the recording session according to the concurrent quality of the recorded data. In this way, the sufficiency of the trials can be better guaranteed, which enables control of the remaining measurement error. The suggested method is based on monitoring the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and remaining measurement error which are compared to predefined threshold values. The SNR test is well defined, but the criterion for the measurement error test still requires further empirical testing in practice. According to the results, the reproducibility of average AERPs in repeated experiments is improved in comparison to a case where the number of recorded trials is constant. The test-retest reliability is not significantly changed on average but the between-subject variation in the value is reduced by 33–35%. The optimization of the number of trials also prevents excessive recordings which might be of practical interest especially in the clinical context. The efficiency of the method may be further increased by implementing online tools that improve data consistency. PMID:20407635

  20. Potencial evocado auditivo tardio relacionado a eventos (P300 na síndrome de Down Late auditory event-related evoked potential (P300 in Down's syndrome patients

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carla Patrícia Hernandez Alves Ribeiro César

    2010-04-01

    Full Text Available A síndrome de Down é causada pela trissomia do cromossomo 21 e está associada com alteração do processamento auditivo, distúrbio de aprendizagem e, provavelmente, início precoce de Doença de Alzheimer. OBJETIVO: Avaliar as latências e amplitudes do potencial evocado auditivo tardio relacionado a eventos (P300 e suas alterações em indivíduos jovens adultos com síndrome de Down. MATERIAL E MÉTODO: Estudo de caso prospectivo. Latências e amplitudes do P300 foram avaliadas em 17 indivíduos com síndrome de Down e 34 indivíduos sadios. RESULTADOS: Foram identificadas latências do P300 (N1, P2, N2 e P3 prolongadas e amplitude N2 - P3 diminuída nos indivíduos com síndrome de Down quando comparados ao grupo controle. CONCLUSÃO: Em indivíduos jovens adultos com síndrome de Down ocorre aumento das latências N1, P2, N2 e P3, e diminuição significativa da amplitude N2-P3 do potencial evocado auditivo tardio relacionado a eventos (P300, sugerindo prejuízo da integração da área de associação auditiva com as áreas corticais e subcorticais do sistema nervoso central.Down syndrome is caused by a trisomy of chromosome 21 and is associated with central auditory processing deficit, learning disability and, probably, early-onset Alzheimer's disease. AIM: to evaluate the latencies and amplitudes of evoked late auditory potential related to P300 events and their changes in young adults with Down's syndrome. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Prospective case study. P300 test latency and amplitudes were evaluated in 17 individuals with Down's syndrome and 34 healthy individuals. RESULTS The P300 latency (N1, P2, N2 and P3 was longer and the N2-P3 amplitude was lower in individuals with Down syndrome when compared to those in the control group. CONCLUSION: In young adults with Down syndrome, N1, P2, N2 and P3 latencies of late auditory evoked potential related to P300 events were prolonged, and N2 - P3 amplitudes were significantly reduced

  1. A computational model of human auditory signal processing and perception

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jepsen, Morten Løve; Ewert, Stephan D.; Dau, Torsten

    2008-01-01

    A model of computational auditory signal-processing and perception that accounts for various aspects of simultaneous and nonsimultaneous masking in human listeners is presented. The model is based on the modulation filterbank model described by Dau et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 102, 2892 (1997...... discrimination with pure tones and broadband noise, tone-in-noise detection, spectral masking with narrow-band signals and maskers, forward masking with tone signals and tone or noise maskers, and amplitude-modulation detection with narrow- and wideband noise carriers. The model can account for most of the key...... properties of the data and is more powerful than the original model. The model might be useful as a front end in technical applications....

  2. A new method for detecting interactions between the senses in event-related potentials

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Gondan, Matthias; Röder, B.

    2006-01-01

    Event-related potentials (ERPs) can be used in multisensory research to determine the point in time when different senses start to interact, for example, the auditory and the visual system. For this purpose, the ERP to bimodal stimuli (AV) is often compared to the sum of the ERPs to auditory (A......) and visual (V) stimuli: AV - (A + V). If the result is non-zero, this is interpreted as an indicator for multisensory interactions. Using this method, several studies have demonstrated auditory-visual interactions as early as 50 ms after stimulus onset. The subtraction requires that A, V, and AV do...... not contain common activity: This activity would be subtracted twice from one ERP and would, therefore, contaminate the result. In the present study, ERPs to unimodal, bimodal, and trimodal auditory, visual, and tactile stimuli (T) were recorded. We demonstrate that (T + TAV) - (TA + TV) is equivalent to AV...

  3. Transmodal comparison of auditory, motor, and visual post-processing with and without intentional short-term memory maintenance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bender, Stephan; Behringer, Stephanie; Freitag, Christine M; Resch, Franz; Weisbrod, Matthias

    2010-12-01

    To elucidate the contributions of modality-dependent post-processing in auditory, motor and visual cortical areas to short-term memory. We compared late negative waves (N700) during the post-processing of single lateralized stimuli which were separated by long intertrial intervals across the auditory, motor and visual modalities. Tasks either required or competed with attention to post-processing of preceding events, i.e. active short-term memory maintenance. N700 indicated that cortical post-processing exceeded short movements as well as short auditory or visual stimuli for over half a second without intentional short-term memory maintenance. Modality-specific topographies pointed towards sensory (respectively motor) generators with comparable time-courses across the different modalities. Lateralization and amplitude of auditory/motor/visual N700 were enhanced by active short-term memory maintenance compared to attention to current perceptions or passive stimulation. The memory-related N700 increase followed the characteristic time-course and modality-specific topography of the N700 without intentional memory-maintenance. Memory-maintenance-related lateralized negative potentials may be related to a less lateralised modality-dependent post-processing N700 component which occurs also without intentional memory maintenance (automatic memory trace or effortless attraction of attention). Encoding to short-term memory may involve controlled attention to modality-dependent post-processing. Similar short-term memory processes may exist in the auditory, motor and visual systems. Copyright © 2010 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  4. Vestibular Stimulation and Auditory Perception in Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Azin Salamati

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available Objectives: Rehabilitation strategies play a pivotal role in reliving the inappropriate behaviors and improving children's performance during school. Concentration and visual and auditory comprehension in children are crucial to effective learning and have drawn interest from researchers and clinicians. Vestibular function deficits usually cause high level of alertness and vigilance, and problems in maintaining focus, paying selective attention, and altering in precision and attention to the stimulus. The aim of this study is to investigate the correlation between vestibular stimulation and auditory perception in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Methods: Totally 30 children aged from 7 to 12 years with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder participated in this study. They were assessed based on the criteria of diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. After obtaining guardian and parental consent, they were enrolled and randomly matched on age to two groups of intervention and control. Integrated visual and auditory continuous performance test was carried out as a pre-test. Those in the intervention group received vestibular stimulation during the therapy sessions, twice a week for 10 weeks. At the end the test was done to both groups as post-test. Results: The pre-and post-test scores were measured and compared the differences between means for two subject groups. Statistical analyses found a significant difference for the mean differences regarding auditory comprehension improvement. Discussion: The findings suggest that vestibular training is a reliable and powerful option treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder especially along with other trainings, meaning that stimulating the sense of balance highlights the importance of interaction between inhabitation and cognition.

  5. Changes in event-related potential functional networks predict traumatic brain injury in piglets.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Atlan, Lorre S; Lan, Ingrid S; Smith, Colin; Margulies, Susan S

    2018-06-01

    Traumatic brain injury is a leading cause of cognitive and behavioral deficits in children in the US each year. None of the current diagnostic tools, such as quantitative cognitive and balance tests, have been validated to identify mild traumatic brain injury in infants, adults and animals. In this preliminary study, we report a novel, quantitative tool that has the potential to quickly and reliably diagnose traumatic brain injury and which can track the state of the brain during recovery across multiple ages and species. Using 32 scalp electrodes, we recorded involuntary auditory event-related potentials from 22 awake four-week-old piglets one day before and one, four, and seven days after two different injury types (diffuse and focal) or sham. From these recordings, we generated event-related potential functional networks and assessed whether the patterns of the observed changes in these networks could distinguish brain-injured piglets from non-injured. Piglet brains exhibited significant changes after injury, as evaluated by five network metrics. The injury prediction algorithm developed from our analysis of the changes in the event-related potentials functional networks ultimately produced a tool with 82% predictive accuracy. This novel approach is the first application of auditory event-related potential functional networks to the prediction of traumatic brain injury. The resulting tool is a robust, objective and predictive method that offers promise for detecting mild traumatic brain injury, in particular because collecting event-related potentials data is noninvasive and inexpensive. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  6. An integrative model of auditory phantom perception: tinnitus as a unified percept of interacting separable subnetworks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    De Ridder, Dirk; Vanneste, Sven; Weisz, Nathan; Londero, Alain; Schlee, Winnie; Elgoyhen, Ana Belen; Langguth, Berthold

    2014-07-01

    Tinnitus is a considered to be an auditory phantom phenomenon, a persistent conscious percept of a salient memory trace, externally attributed, in the absence of a sound source. It is perceived as a phenomenological unified coherent percept, binding multiple separable clinical characteristics, such as its loudness, the sidedness, the type (pure tone, noise), the associated distress and so on. A theoretical pathophysiological framework capable of explaining all these aspects in one model is highly needed. The model must incorporate both the deafferentation based neurophysiological models and the dysfunctional noise canceling model, and propose a 'tinnitus core' subnetwork. The tinnitus core can be defined as the minimal set of brain areas that needs to be jointly activated (=subnetwork) for tinnitus to be consciously perceived, devoid of its affective components. The brain areas involved in the other separable characteristics of tinnitus can be retrieved by studies on spontaneous resting state magnetic and electrical activity in people with tinnitus, evaluated for the specific aspect investigated and controlled for other factors. By combining these functional imaging studies with neuromodulation techniques some of the correlations are turned into causal relationships. Thereof, a heuristic pathophysiological framework is constructed, integrating the tinnitus perceptual core with the other tinnitus related aspects. This phenomenological unified percept of tinnitus can be considered an emergent property of multiple, parallel, dynamically changing and partially overlapping subnetworks, each with a specific spontaneous oscillatory pattern and functional connectivity signature. Communication between these different subnetworks is proposed to occur at hubs, brain areas that are involved in multiple subnetworks simultaneously. These hubs can take part in each separable subnetwork at different frequencies. Communication between the subnetworks is proposed to occur at

  7. Different event-related patterns of gamma-band power in brain waves of fast- and slow-reacting subjects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jokeit, H; Makeig, S

    1994-01-01

    Fast- and slow-reacting subjects exhibit different patterns of gamma-band electroencephalogram (EEG) activity when responding as quickly as possible to auditory stimuli. This result appears to confirm long-standing speculations of Wundt that fast- and slow-reacting subjects produce speeded reactions in different ways and demonstrates that analysis of event-related changes in the amplitude of EEG activity recorded from the human scalp can reveal information about event-related brain processes unavailable using event-related potential measures. Time-varying spectral power in a selected (35- to 43-Hz) gamma frequency band was averaged across trials in two experimental conditions: passive listening and speeded reacting to binaural clicks, forming 40-Hz event-related spectral responses. Factor analysis of between-subject event-related spectral response differences split subjects into two near-equal groups composed of faster- and slower-reacting subjects. In faster-reacting subjects, 40-Hz power peaked near 200 ms and 400 ms poststimulus in the react condition, whereas in slower-reacting subjects, 40-Hz power just before stimulus delivery was larger in the react condition. These group differences were preserved in separate averages of relatively long and short reaction-time epochs for each group. gamma-band (20-60 Hz)-filtered event-related potential response averages did not differ between the two groups or conditions. Because of this and because gamma-band power in the auditory event-related potential is small compared with the EEG, the observed event-related spectral response features must represent gamma-band EEG activity reliably induced by, but not phase-locked to, experimental stimuli or events. PMID:8022783

  8. Auditory hallucinations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blom, Jan Dirk

    2015-01-01

    Auditory hallucinations constitute a phenomenologically rich group of endogenously mediated percepts which are associated with psychiatric, neurologic, otologic, and other medical conditions, but which are also experienced by 10-15% of all healthy individuals in the general population. The group of phenomena is probably best known for its verbal auditory subtype, but it also includes musical hallucinations, echo of reading, exploding-head syndrome, and many other types. The subgroup of verbal auditory hallucinations has been studied extensively with the aid of neuroimaging techniques, and from those studies emerges an outline of a functional as well as a structural network of widely distributed brain areas involved in their mediation. The present chapter provides an overview of the various types of auditory hallucination described in the literature, summarizes our current knowledge of the auditory networks involved in their mediation, and draws on ideas from the philosophy of science and network science to reconceptualize the auditory hallucinatory experience, and point out directions for future research into its neurobiologic substrates. In addition, it provides an overview of known associations with various clinical conditions and of the existing evidence for pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic treatments. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  9. Working Memory and Auditory Imagery Predict Sensorimotor Synchronization with Expressively Timed Music.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Colley, Ian D; Keller, Peter E; Halpern, Andrea R

    2017-08-11

    Sensorimotor synchronization (SMS) is prevalent and readily studied in musical settings, as most people are able to perceive and synchronize with a beat (e.g. by finger tapping). We took an individual differences approach to understanding SMS to real music characterized by expressive timing (i.e. fluctuating beat regularity). Given the dynamic nature of SMS, we hypothesized that individual differences in working memory and auditory imagery-both fluid cognitive processes-would predict SMS at two levels: 1) mean absolute asynchrony (a measure of synchronization error), and 2) anticipatory timing (i.e. predicting, rather than reacting to beat intervals). In Experiment 1, participants completed two working memory tasks, four auditory imagery tasks, and an SMS-tapping task. Hierarchical regression models were used to predict SMS performance, with results showing dissociations among imagery types in relation to mean absolute asynchrony, and evidence of a role for working memory in anticipatory timing. In Experiment 2, a new sample of participants completed an expressive timing perception task to examine the role of imagery in perception without action. Results suggest that imagery vividness is important for perceiving and control is important for synchronizing with, irregular but ecologically valid musical time series. Working memory is implicated in synchronizing by anticipating events in the series.

  10. Event-related potential response to auditory social stimuli, parent-reported social communicative deficits and autism risk in school-aged children with congenital visual impairment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bathelt, Joe; Dale, Naomi; de Haan, Michelle

    2017-10-01

    Communication with visual signals, like facial expression, is important in early social development, but the question if these signals are necessary for typical social development remains to be addressed. The potential impact on social development of being born with no or very low levels of vision is therefore of high theoretical and clinical interest. The current study investigated event-related potential responses to basic social stimuli in a rare group of school-aged children with congenital visual disorders of the anterior visual system (globe of the eye, retina, anterior optic nerve). Early-latency event-related potential responses showed no difference between the VI and control group, suggesting similar initial auditory processing. However, the mean amplitude over central and right frontal channels between 280 and 320ms was reduced in response to own-name stimuli, but not control stimuli, in children with VI suggesting differences in social processing. Children with VI also showed an increased rate of autistic-related behaviours, pragmatic language deficits, as well as peer relationship and emotional problems on standard parent questionnaires. These findings suggest that vision may be necessary for the typical development of social processing across modalities. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  11. Neural responses to complex auditory rhythms: the role of attending

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Heather L Chapin

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this study was to explore the role of attention in pulse and meter perception using complex rhythms. We used a selective attention paradigm in which participants attended to either a complex auditory rhythm or a visually presented word list. Performance on a reproduction task was used to gauge whether participants were attending to the appropriate stimulus. We hypothesized that attention to complex rhythms – which contain no energy at the pulse frequency – would lead to activations in motor areas involved in pulse perception. Moreover, because multiple repetitions of a complex rhythm are needed to perceive a pulse, activations in pulse related areas would be seen only after sufficient time had elapsed for pulse perception to develop. Selective attention was also expected to modulate activity in sensory areas specific to the modality. We found that selective attention to rhythms led to increased BOLD responses in basal ganglia, and basal ganglia activity was observed only after the rhythms had cycled enough times for a stable pulse percept to develop. These observations suggest that attention is needed to recruit motor activations associated with the perception of pulse in complex rhythms. Moreover, attention to the auditory stimulus enhanced activity in an attentional sensory network including primary auditory, insula, anterior cingulate, and prefrontal cortex, and suppressed activity in sensory areas associated with attending to the visual stimulus.

  12. Auditory Training Effects on the Listening Skills of Children With Auditory Processing Disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Loo, Jenny Hooi Yin; Rosen, Stuart; Bamiou, Doris-Eva

    2016-01-01

    Children with auditory processing disorder (APD) typically present with "listening difficulties,"' including problems understanding speech in noisy environments. The authors examined, in a group of such children, whether a 12-week computer-based auditory training program with speech material improved the perception of speech-in-noise test performance, and functional listening skills as assessed by parental and teacher listening and communication questionnaires. The authors hypothesized that after the intervention, (1) trained children would show greater improvements in speech-in-noise perception than untrained controls; (2) this improvement would correlate with improvements in observer-rated behaviors; and (3) the improvement would be maintained for at least 3 months after the end of training. This was a prospective randomized controlled trial of 39 children with normal nonverbal intelligence, ages 7 to 11 years, all diagnosed with APD. This diagnosis required a normal pure-tone audiogram and deficits in at least two clinical auditory processing tests. The APD children were randomly assigned to (1) a control group that received only the current standard treatment for children diagnosed with APD, employing various listening/educational strategies at school (N = 19); or (2) an intervention group that undertook a 3-month 5-day/week computer-based auditory training program at home, consisting of a wide variety of speech-based listening tasks with competing sounds, in addition to the current standard treatment. All 39 children were assessed for language and cognitive skills at baseline and on three outcome measures at baseline and immediate postintervention. Outcome measures were repeated 3 months postintervention in the intervention group only, to assess the sustainability of treatment effects. The outcome measures were (1) the mean speech reception threshold obtained from the four subtests of the listening in specialized noise test that assesses sentence perception in

  13. Auditory Multi-Stability: Idiosyncratic Perceptual Switching Patterns, Executive Functions and Personality Traits.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dávid Farkas

    Full Text Available Multi-stability refers to the phenomenon of perception stochastically switching between possible interpretations of an unchanging stimulus. Despite considerable variability, individuals show stable idiosyncratic patterns of switching between alternative perceptions in the auditory streaming paradigm. We explored correlates of the individual switching patterns with executive functions, personality traits, and creativity. The main dimensions on which individual switching patterns differed from each other were identified using multidimensional scaling. Individuals with high scores on the dimension explaining the largest portion of the inter-individual variance switched more often between the alternative perceptions than those with low scores. They also perceived the most unusual interpretation more often, and experienced all perceptual alternatives with a shorter delay from stimulus onset. The ego-resiliency personality trait, which reflects a tendency for adaptive flexibility and experience seeking, was significantly positively related to this dimension. Taking these results together we suggest that this dimension may reflect the individual's tendency for exploring the auditory environment. Executive functions were significantly related to some of the variables describing global properties of the switching patterns, such as the average number of switches. Thus individual patterns of perceptual switching in the auditory streaming paradigm are related to some personality traits and executive functions.

  14. Minimal effects of visual memory training on the auditory performance of adult cochlear implant users

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oba, Sandra I.; Galvin, John J.; Fu, Qian-Jie

    2014-01-01

    Auditory training has been shown to significantly improve cochlear implant (CI) users’ speech and music perception. However, it is unclear whether post-training gains in performance were due to improved auditory perception or to generally improved attention, memory and/or cognitive processing. In this study, speech and music perception, as well as auditory and visual memory were assessed in ten CI users before, during, and after training with a non-auditory task. A visual digit span (VDS) task was used for training, in which subjects recalled sequences of digits presented visually. After the VDS training, VDS performance significantly improved. However, there were no significant improvements for most auditory outcome measures (auditory digit span, phoneme recognition, sentence recognition in noise, digit recognition in noise), except for small (but significant) improvements in vocal emotion recognition and melodic contour identification. Post-training gains were much smaller with the non-auditory VDS training than observed in previous auditory training studies with CI users. The results suggest that post-training gains observed in previous studies were not solely attributable to improved attention or memory, and were more likely due to improved auditory perception. The results also suggest that CI users may require targeted auditory training to improve speech and music perception. PMID:23516087

  15. Risk Perceptions in Diabetic Patients Who Have Experienced Adverse Events

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sachs, Mikkel Lindskov; Sporrong, Sofia Kälvemark; Colding-Jørgensen, Morten

    2017-01-01

    as part of a benefit-risk assessment. However, the degree of heterogeneity of the patient population is critical for how accurately they can be represented by individuals. OBJECTIVES: This study aims to explore patients' risk perception of rare, serious adverse effects of medicines with regard to blood......, perceptions of the terms rare and serious, and overall levels of risk aversion. A thematic analysis of the interviews, including a consensus discussion, was carried out. RESULTS: Interestingly, respondents rarely made a clear distinction between medicines-induced AEs and complications related to disease...... focused on common and less serious AEs, thus disregarding rare and more serious events. CONCLUSION: The study suggests that experience of AEs, related to either medicines or disease, constitutes an important factor of patient risk perception. We therefore propose that serious adverse experiences should...

  16. Demodulation Processes in Auditory Perception

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Feth, Lawrence

    1997-01-01

    The long range goal of this project was the understanding of human auditory processing of information conveyed by complex, time varying signals such as speech, music or important environmental sounds...

  17. Evaluating auditory perception and communication demands required to carry out work tasks and complimentary hearing resources and skills for older workers with hearing loss.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jennings, M B; Shaw, L; Hodgins, H; Kuchar, D A; Bataghva, L Poost-Foroosh

    2010-01-01

    For older workers with acquired hearing loss, this loss as well as the changing nature of work and the workforce, may lead to difficulties and disadvantages in obtaining and maintaining employment. Currently there are very few instruments that can assist workplaces, employers and workers to prepare for older workers with hearing loss or with the evaluation of auditory perception demands of work, especially those relevant to communication, and safety sensitive workplaces that require high levels of communication. This paper introduces key theoretical considerations that informed the development of a new framework, The Audiologic Ergonomic (AE) Framework to guide audiologists, work rehabilitation professionals and workers in developing tools to support the identification and evaluation of auditory perception demands in the workplace, the challenges to communication and the subsequent productivity and safety in the performance of work duties by older workers with hearing loss. The theoretical concepts underpinning this framework are discussed along with next steps in developing tools such as the Canadian Hearing Demands Tool (C-HearD Tool) in advancing approaches to evaluate auditory perception and communication demands in the workplace.

  18. Neural correlates of auditory scale illusion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kuriki, Shinya; Numao, Ryousuke; Nemoto, Iku

    2016-09-01

    The auditory illusory perception "scale illusion" occurs when ascending and descending musical scale tones are delivered in a dichotic manner, such that the higher or lower tone at each instant is presented alternately to the right and left ears. Resulting tone sequences have a zigzag pitch in one ear and the reversed (zagzig) pitch in the other ear. Most listeners hear illusory smooth pitch sequences of up-down and down-up streams in the two ears separated in higher and lower halves of the scale. Although many behavioral studies have been conducted, how and where in the brain the illusory percept is formed have not been elucidated. In this study, we conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging using sequential tones that induced scale illusion (ILL) and those that mimicked the percept of scale illusion (PCP), and we compared the activation responses evoked by those stimuli by region-of-interest analysis. We examined the effects of adaptation, i.e., the attenuation of response that occurs when close-frequency sounds are repeated, which might interfere with the changes in activation by the illusion process. Results of the activation difference of the two stimuli, measured at varied tempi of tone presentation, in the superior temporal auditory cortex were not explained by adaptation. Instead, excess activation of the ILL stimulus from the PCP stimulus at moderate tempi (83 and 126 bpm) was significant in the posterior auditory cortex with rightward superiority, while significant prefrontal activation was dominant at the highest tempo (245 bpm). We suggest that the area of the planum temporale posterior to the primary auditory cortex is mainly involved in the illusion formation, and that the illusion-related process is strongly dependent on the rate of tone presentation. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  19. Electrophysiological Evidence of Developmental Changes in the Duration of Auditory Sensory Memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gomes, Hilary; And Others

    1999-01-01

    Investigated developmental change in duration of auditory sensory memory for tonal frequency by measuring mismatch negativity, an electrophysiological component of the auditory event-related potential that is relatively insensitive to attention and does not require a behavioral response. Findings among children and adults suggest that there are…

  20. Laterality of basic auditory perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  1. Minimal effects of visual memory training on auditory performance of adult cochlear implant users.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oba, Sandra I; Galvin, John J; Fu, Qian-Jie

    2013-01-01

    Auditory training has been shown to significantly improve cochlear implant (CI) users' speech and music perception. However, it is unclear whether posttraining gains in performance were due to improved auditory perception or to generally improved attention, memory, and/or cognitive processing. In this study, speech and music perception, as well as auditory and visual memory, were assessed in 10 CI users before, during, and after training with a nonauditory task. A visual digit span (VDS) task was used for training, in which subjects recalled sequences of digits presented visually. After the VDS training, VDS performance significantly improved. However, there were no significant improvements for most auditory outcome measures (auditory digit span, phoneme recognition, sentence recognition in noise, digit recognition in noise), except for small (but significant) improvements in vocal emotion recognition and melodic contour identification. Posttraining gains were much smaller with the nonauditory VDS training than observed in previous auditory training studies with CI users. The results suggest that posttraining gains observed in previous studies were not solely attributable to improved attention or memory and were more likely due to improved auditory perception. The results also suggest that CI users may require targeted auditory training to improve speech and music perception.

  2. Dynamics of auditory working memory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jochen eKaiser

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available Working memory denotes the ability to retain stimuli in mind that are no longer physically present and to perform mental operations on them. Electro- and magnetoencephalography allow investigating the short-term maintenance of acoustic stimuli at a high temporal resolution. Studies investigating working memory for non-spatial and spatial auditory information have suggested differential roles of regions along the putative auditory ventral and dorsal streams, respectively, in the processing of the different sound properties. Analyses of event-related potentials have shown sustained, memory load-dependent deflections over the retention periods. The topography of these waves suggested an involvement of modality-specific sensory storage regions. Spectral analysis has yielded information about the temporal dynamics of auditory working memory processing of individual stimuli, showing activation peaks during the delay phase whose timing was related to task performance. Coherence at different frequencies was enhanced between frontal and sensory cortex. In summary, auditory working memory seems to rely on the dynamic interplay between frontal executive systems and sensory representation regions.

  3. Is the auditory sensory memory sensitive to visual information?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Besle, Julien; Fort, Alexandra; Giard, Marie-Hélène

    2005-10-01

    The mismatch negativity (MMN) component of auditory event-related brain potentials can be used as a probe to study the representation of sounds in auditory sensory memory (ASM). Yet it has been shown that an auditory MMN can also be elicited by an illusory auditory deviance induced by visual changes. This suggests that some visual information may be encoded in ASM and is accessible to the auditory MMN process. It is not known, however, whether visual information affects ASM representation for any audiovisual event or whether this phenomenon is limited to specific domains in which strong audiovisual illusions occur. To highlight this issue, we have compared the topographies of MMNs elicited by non-speech audiovisual stimuli deviating from audiovisual standards on the visual, the auditory, or both dimensions. Contrary to what occurs with audiovisual illusions, each unimodal deviant elicited sensory-specific MMNs, and the MMN to audiovisual deviants included both sensory components. The visual MMN was, however, different from a genuine visual MMN obtained in a visual-only control oddball paradigm, suggesting that auditory and visual information interacts before the MMN process occurs. Furthermore, the MMN to audiovisual deviants was significantly different from the sum of the two sensory-specific MMNs, showing that the processes of visual and auditory change detection are not completely independent.

  4. Intentional switching in auditory selective attention: Exploring age-related effects in a spatial setup requiring speech perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oberem, Josefa; Koch, Iring; Fels, Janina

    2017-06-01

    Using a binaural-listening paradigm, age-related differences in the ability to intentionally switch auditory selective attention between two speakers, defined by their spatial location, were examined. Therefore 40 normal-hearing participants (20 young, Ø 24.8years; 20 older Ø 67.8years) were tested. The spatial reproduction of stimuli was provided by headphones using head-related-transfer-functions of an artificial head. Spoken number words of two speakers were presented simultaneously to participants from two out of eight locations on the horizontal plane. Guided by a visual cue indicating the spatial location of the target speaker, the participants were asked to categorize the target's number word into smaller vs. greater than five while ignoring the distractor's speech. Results showed significantly higher reaction times and error rates for older participants. The relative influence of the spatial switch of the target-speaker (switch or repetition of speaker's direction in space) was identical across age groups. Congruency effects (stimuli spoken by target and distractor may evoke the same answer or different answers) were increased for older participants and depend on the target's position. Results suggest that the ability to intentionally switch auditory attention to a new cued location was unimpaired whereas it was generally harder for older participants to suppress processing the distractor's speech. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  5. Hippocampal P3-like auditory event-related potentials are disrupted in a rat model of cholinergic degeneration in Alzheimer's disease: reversal by donepezil treatment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laursen, Bettina; Mørk, Arne; Kristiansen, Uffe; Bastlund, Jesper Frank

    2014-01-01

    P300 (P3) event-related potentials (ERPs) have been suggested to be an endogenous marker of cognitive function and auditory oddball paradigms are frequently used to evaluate P3 ERPs in clinical settings. Deficits in P3 amplitude and latency reflect some of the neurological dysfunctions related to several psychiatric and neurological diseases, e.g., Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, only a very limited number of rodent studies have addressed the back-translational validity of the P3-like ERPs as suitable markers of cognition. Thus, the potential of rodent P3-like ERPs to predict pro-cognitive effects in humans remains to be fully validated. The current study characterizes P3-like ERPs in the 192-IgG-SAP (SAP) rat model of the cholinergic degeneration associated with AD. Following training in a combined auditory oddball and lever-press setup, rats were subjected to bilateral intracerebroventricular infusion of 1.25 μg SAP or PBS (sham lesion) and recording electrodes were implanted in hippocampal CA1. Relative to sham-lesioned rats, SAP-lesioned rats had significantly reduced amplitude of P3-like ERPs. P3 amplitude was significantly increased in SAP-treated rats following pre-treatment with 1 mg/kg donepezil. Infusion of SAP reduced the hippocampal choline acetyltransferase activity by 75%. Behaviorally defined cognitive performance was comparable between treatment groups. The present study suggests that AD-like deficits in P3-like ERPs may be mimicked by the basal forebrain cholinergic degeneration induced by SAP. SAP-lesioned rats may constitute a suitable model to test the efficacy of pro-cognitive substances in an applied experimental setup.

  6. Deviance-Related Responses along the Auditory Hierarchy: Combined FFR, MLR and MMN Evidence

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shiga, Tetsuya; Althen, Heike; Cornella, Miriam; Zarnowiec, Katarzyna; Yabe, Hirooki; Escera, Carles

    2015-01-01

    The mismatch negativity (MMN) provides a correlate of automatic auditory discrimination in human auditory cortex that is elicited in response to violation of any acoustic regularity. Recently, deviance-related responses were found at much earlier cortical processing stages as reflected by the middle latency response (MLR) of the auditory evoked potential, and even at the level of the auditory brainstem as reflected by the frequency following response (FFR). However, no study has reported deviance-related responses in the FFR, MLR and long latency response (LLR) concurrently in a single recording protocol. Amplitude-modulated (AM) sounds were presented to healthy human participants in a frequency oddball paradigm to investigate deviance-related responses along the auditory hierarchy in the ranges of FFR, MLR and LLR. AM frequency deviants modulated the FFR, the Na and Nb components of the MLR, and the LLR eliciting the MMN. These findings demonstrate that it is possible to elicit deviance-related responses at three different levels (FFR, MLR and LLR) in one single recording protocol, highlight the involvement of the whole auditory hierarchy in deviance detection and have implications for cognitive and clinical auditory neuroscience. Moreover, the present protocol provides a new research tool into clinical neuroscience so that the functional integrity of the auditory novelty system can now be tested as a whole in a range of clinical populations where the MMN was previously shown to be defective. PMID:26348628

  7. Spatio-temporal patterns of event-related potentials related to audiovisual synchrony judgments in older adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chan, Yu Man; Pianta, Michael Julian; Bode, Stefan; McKendrick, Allison Maree

    2017-07-01

    Older adults have altered perception of the relative timing between auditory and visual stimuli, even when stimuli are scaled to equate detectability. To help understand why, this study investigated the neural correlates of audiovisual synchrony judgments in older adults using electroencephalography (EEG). Fourteen younger (18-32 year old) and 16 older (61-74 year old) adults performed an audiovisual synchrony judgment task on flash-pip stimuli while EEG was recorded. All participants were assessed to have healthy vision and hearing for their age. Observers responded to whether audiovisual pairs were perceived as synchronous or asynchronous via a button press. The results showed that the onset of predictive sensory information for synchrony judgments was not different between groups. Channels over auditory areas contributed more to this predictive sensory information than visual areas. The spatial-temporal profile of the EEG activity also indicates that older adults used different resources to maintain a similar level of performance in audiovisual synchrony judgments compared with younger adults. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  8. Auditory temporal processing skills in musicians with dyslexia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bishop-Liebler, Paula; Welch, Graham; Huss, Martina; Thomson, Jennifer M; Goswami, Usha

    2014-08-01

    The core cognitive difficulty in developmental dyslexia involves phonological processing, but adults and children with dyslexia also have sensory impairments. Impairments in basic auditory processing show particular links with phonological impairments, and recent studies with dyslexic children across languages reveal a relationship between auditory temporal processing and sensitivity to rhythmic timing and speech rhythm. As rhythm is explicit in music, musical training might have a beneficial effect on the auditory perception of acoustic cues to rhythm in dyslexia. Here we took advantage of the presence of musicians with and without dyslexia in musical conservatoires, comparing their auditory temporal processing abilities with those of dyslexic non-musicians matched for cognitive ability. Musicians with dyslexia showed equivalent auditory sensitivity to musicians without dyslexia and also showed equivalent rhythm perception. The data support the view that extensive rhythmic experience initiated during childhood (here in the form of music training) can affect basic auditory processing skills which are found to be deficient in individuals with dyslexia. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  9. Diminished auditory sensory gating during active auditory verbal hallucinations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thoma, Robert J; Meier, Andrew; Houck, Jon; Clark, Vincent P; Lewine, Jeffrey D; Turner, Jessica; Calhoun, Vince; Stephen, Julia

    2017-10-01

    Auditory sensory gating, assessed in a paired-click paradigm, indicates the extent to which incoming stimuli are filtered, or "gated", in auditory cortex. Gating is typically computed as the ratio of the peak amplitude of the event related potential (ERP) to a second click (S2) divided by the peak amplitude of the ERP to a first click (S1). Higher gating ratios are purportedly indicative of incomplete suppression of S2 and considered to represent sensory processing dysfunction. In schizophrenia, hallucination severity is positively correlated with gating ratios, and it was hypothesized that a failure of sensory control processes early in auditory sensation (gating) may represent a larger system failure within the auditory data stream; resulting in auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH). EEG data were collected while patients (N=12) with treatment-resistant AVH pressed a button to indicate the beginning (AVH-on) and end (AVH-off) of each AVH during a paired click protocol. For each participant, separate gating ratios were computed for the P50, N100, and P200 components for each of the AVH-off and AVH-on states. AVH trait severity was assessed using the Psychotic Symptoms Rating Scales AVH Total score (PSYRATS). The results of a mixed model ANOVA revealed an overall effect for AVH state, such that gating ratios were significantly higher during the AVH-on state than during AVH-off for all three components. PSYRATS score was significantly and negatively correlated with N100 gating ratio only in the AVH-off state. These findings link onset of AVH with a failure of an empirically-defined auditory inhibition system, auditory sensory gating, and pave the way for a sensory gating model of AVH. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  10. Auditory-somatosensory temporal sensitivity improves when the somatosensory event is caused by voluntary body movement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Norimichi Kitagawa

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available When we actively interact with the environment, it is crucial that we perceive a precise temporal relationship between our own actions and sensory effects to guide our body movements.Thus, we hypothesized that voluntary movements improve perceptual sensitivity to the temporal disparity between auditory and movement-related somatosensory events compared to when they are delivered passively to sensory receptors. In the voluntary condition, participants voluntarily tapped a button, and a noise burst was presented at various onset asynchronies relative to the button press. The participants made either 'sound-first' or 'touch-first' responses. We found that the performance of temporal order judgment (TOJ in the voluntary condition (as indexed by the just noticeable difference was significantly better (M=42.5 ms ±3.8 s.e.m than that when their finger was passively stimulated (passive condition: M=66.8 ms ±6.3 s.e.m. We further examined whether the performance improvement with voluntary action can be attributed to the prediction of the timing of the stimulation from sensory cues (sensory-based prediction, kinesthetic cues contained in voluntary action, and/or to the prediction of stimulation timing from the efference copy of the motor command (motor-based prediction. When the participant’s finger was moved passively to press the button (involuntary condition and when three noise bursts were presented before the target burst with regular intervals (predictable condition, the TOJ performance was not improved from that in the passive condition. These results suggest that the improvement in sensitivity to temporal disparity between somatosensory and auditory events caused by the voluntary action cannot be attributed to sensory-based prediction and kinesthetic cues. Rather, the prediction from the efference copy of the motor command would be crucial for improving the temporal sensitivity.

  11. Auditory Verbal Working Memory as a Predictor of Speech Perception in Modulated Maskers in Listeners with Normal Hearing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Millman, Rebecca E.; Mattys, Sven L.

    2017-01-01

    Purpose: Background noise can interfere with our ability to understand speech. Working memory capacity (WMC) has been shown to contribute to the perception of speech in modulated noise maskers. WMC has been assessed with a variety of auditory and visual tests, often pertaining to different components of working memory. This study assessed the…

  12. Mapping a lateralisation gradient within the ventral stream for auditory speech perception

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Karsten eSpecht

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available Recent models on speech perception propose a dual stream processing network, with a dorsal stream, extending from the posterior temporal lobe of the left hemisphere through inferior parietal areas into the left inferior frontal gyrus, and a ventral stream that is assumed to originate in the primary auditory cortex in the upper posterior part of the temporal lobe and to extend towards the anterior part of the temporal lobe, where it may connect to the ventral part of the inferior frontal gyrus. This article describes and reviews the results from a series of complementary functional magnetic imaging (fMRI studies that aimed to trace the hierarchical processing network for speech comprehension within the left and right hemisphere with a particular focus on the temporal lobe and the ventral stream. As hypothesised, the results demonstrate a bilateral involvement of the temporal lobes in the processing of speech signals. However, an increasing leftward asymmetry was detected from auditory-phonetic to lexico-semantic processing and along the posterior-anterior axis, thus forming a lateralisation gradient. This increasing leftward lateralisation was particularly evident for the left superior temporal sulcus (STS and more anterior parts of the temporal lobe.

  13. Mapping a lateralization gradient within the ventral stream for auditory speech perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Specht, Karsten

    2013-01-01

    Recent models on speech perception propose a dual-stream processing network, with a dorsal stream, extending from the posterior temporal lobe of the left hemisphere through inferior parietal areas into the left inferior frontal gyrus, and a ventral stream that is assumed to originate in the primary auditory cortex in the upper posterior part of the temporal lobe and to extend toward the anterior part of the temporal lobe, where it may connect to the ventral part of the inferior frontal gyrus. This article describes and reviews the results from a series of complementary functional magnetic resonance imaging studies that aimed to trace the hierarchical processing network for speech comprehension within the left and right hemisphere with a particular focus on the temporal lobe and the ventral stream. As hypothesized, the results demonstrate a bilateral involvement of the temporal lobes in the processing of speech signals. However, an increasing leftward asymmetry was detected from auditory-phonetic to lexico-semantic processing and along the posterior-anterior axis, thus forming a "lateralization" gradient. This increasing leftward lateralization was particularly evident for the left superior temporal sulcus and more anterior parts of the temporal lobe.

  14. An analysis of nonlinear dynamics underlying neural activity related to auditory induction in the rat auditory cortex.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Noto, M; Nishikawa, J; Tateno, T

    2016-03-24

    A sound interrupted by silence is perceived as discontinuous. However, when high-intensity noise is inserted during the silence, the missing sound may be perceptually restored and be heard as uninterrupted. This illusory phenomenon is called auditory induction. Recent electrophysiological studies have revealed that auditory induction is associated with the primary auditory cortex (A1). Although experimental evidence has been accumulating, the neural mechanisms underlying auditory induction in A1 neurons are poorly understood. To elucidate this, we used both experimental and computational approaches. First, using an optical imaging method, we characterized population responses across auditory cortical fields to sound and identified five subfields in rats. Next, we examined neural population activity related to auditory induction with high temporal and spatial resolution in the rat auditory cortex (AC), including the A1 and several other AC subfields. Our imaging results showed that tone-burst stimuli interrupted by a silent gap elicited early phasic responses to the first tone and similar or smaller responses to the second tone following the gap. In contrast, tone stimuli interrupted by broadband noise (BN), considered to cause auditory induction, considerably suppressed or eliminated responses to the tone following the noise. Additionally, tone-burst stimuli that were interrupted by notched noise centered at the tone frequency, which is considered to decrease the strength of auditory induction, partially restored the second responses from the suppression caused by BN. To phenomenologically mimic the neural population activity in the A1 and thus investigate the mechanisms underlying auditory induction, we constructed a computational model from the periphery through the AC, including a nonlinear dynamical system. The computational model successively reproduced some of the above-mentioned experimental results. Therefore, our results suggest that a nonlinear, self

  15. From Sensory Perception to Lexical-Semantic Processing: An ERP Study in Non-Verbal Children with Autism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cantiani, Chiara; Choudhury, Naseem A; Yu, Yan H; Shafer, Valerie L; Schwartz, Richard G; Benasich, April A

    2016-01-01

    This study examines electrocortical activity associated with visual and auditory sensory perception and lexical-semantic processing in nonverbal (NV) or minimally-verbal (MV) children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Currently, there is no agreement on whether these children comprehend incoming linguistic information and whether their perception is comparable to that of typically developing children. Event-related potentials (ERPs) of 10 NV/MV children with ASD and 10 neurotypical children were recorded during a picture-word matching paradigm. Atypical ERP responses were evident at all levels of processing in children with ASD. Basic perceptual processing was delayed in both visual and auditory domains but overall was similar in amplitude to typically-developing children. However, significant differences between groups were found at the lexical-semantic level, suggesting more atypical higher-order processes. The results suggest that although basic perception is relatively preserved in NV/MV children with ASD, higher levels of processing, including lexical- semantic functions, are impaired. The use of passive ERP paradigms that do not require active participant response shows significant potential for assessment of non-compliant populations such as NV/MV children with ASD.

  16. From Sensory Perception to Lexical-Semantic Processing: An ERP Study in Non-Verbal Children with Autism

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cantiani, Chiara; Choudhury, Naseem A.; Yu, Yan H.; Shafer, Valerie L.; Schwartz, Richard G.; Benasich, April A.

    2016-01-01

    This study examines electrocortical activity associated with visual and auditory sensory perception and lexical-semantic processing in nonverbal (NV) or minimally-verbal (MV) children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Currently, there is no agreement on whether these children comprehend incoming linguistic information and whether their perception is comparable to that of typically developing children. Event-related potentials (ERPs) of 10 NV/MV children with ASD and 10 neurotypical children were recorded during a picture-word matching paradigm. Atypical ERP responses were evident at all levels of processing in children with ASD. Basic perceptual processing was delayed in both visual and auditory domains but overall was similar in amplitude to typically-developing children. However, significant differences between groups were found at the lexical-semantic level, suggesting more atypical higher-order processes. The results suggest that although basic perception is relatively preserved in NV/MV children with ASD, higher levels of processing, including lexical- semantic functions, are impaired. The use of passive ERP paradigms that do not require active participant response shows significant potential for assessment of non-compliant populations such as NV/MV children with ASD. PMID:27560378

  17. Hostile attribution biases for relationally provocative situations and event-related potentials.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Godleski, Stephanie A; Ostrov, Jamie M; Houston, Rebecca J; Schlienz, Nicolas J

    2010-04-01

    This exploratory study investigates how hostile attribution biases for relationally provocative situations may be related to neurocognitive processing using the P300 event-related potential. Participants were 112 (45 women) emerging adults enrolled in a large, public university in upstate New York. Participants completed self-report measures on relational aggression and hostile attribution biases and performed an auditory perseveration task to elicit the P300. It was found that hostile attribution biases for relational provocation situations was associated with a larger P300 amplitude above and beyond the role of hostile attribution biases for instrumental situations, relational aggression, and gender. Larger P300 amplitude is interpreted to reflect greater allocation of cognitive resources or enhanced "attending" to salient stimuli. Implications for methodological approaches to studying aggression and hostile attribution biases and for theory are discussed, as well as implications for the fields of developmental psychology and psychopathology. Copyright 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  18. Contextual modulation of primary visual cortex by auditory signals.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Petro, L S; Paton, A T; Muckli, L

    2017-02-19

    Early visual cortex receives non-feedforward input from lateral and top-down connections (Muckli & Petro 2013 Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 23, 195-201. (doi:10.1016/j.conb.2013.01.020)), including long-range projections from auditory areas. Early visual cortex can code for high-level auditory information, with neural patterns representing natural sound stimulation (Vetter et al. 2014 Curr. Biol. 24, 1256-1262. (doi:10.1016/j.cub.2014.04.020)). We discuss a number of questions arising from these findings. What is the adaptive function of bimodal representations in visual cortex? What type of information projects from auditory to visual cortex? What are the anatomical constraints of auditory information in V1, for example, periphery versus fovea, superficial versus deep cortical layers? Is there a putative neural mechanism we can infer from human neuroimaging data and recent theoretical accounts of cortex? We also present data showing we can read out high-level auditory information from the activation patterns of early visual cortex even when visual cortex receives simple visual stimulation, suggesting independent channels for visual and auditory signals in V1. We speculate which cellular mechanisms allow V1 to be contextually modulated by auditory input to facilitate perception, cognition and behaviour. Beyond cortical feedback that facilitates perception, we argue that there is also feedback serving counterfactual processing during imagery, dreaming and mind wandering, which is not relevant for immediate perception but for behaviour and cognition over a longer time frame.This article is part of the themed issue 'Auditory and visual scene analysis'. © 2017 The Authors.

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  20. Physiological activation of the human cerebral cortex during auditory perception and speech revealed by regional increases in cerebral blood flow

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lassen, N A; Friberg, L

    1988-01-01

    by measuring regional cerebral blood flow CBF after intracarotid Xenon-133 injection are reviewed with emphasis on tests involving auditory perception and speech, and approach allowing to visualize Wernicke and Broca's areas and their contralateral homologues in vivo. The completely atraumatic tomographic CBF...

  1. Changes in auditory perceptions and cortex resulting from hearing recovery after extended congenital unilateral hearing loss

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jill B Firszt

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available Monaural hearing induces auditory system reorganization. Imbalanced input also degrades time-intensity cues for sound localization and signal segregation for listening in noise. While there have been studies of bilateral auditory deprivation and later hearing restoration (e.g. cochlear implants, less is known about unilateral auditory deprivation and subsequent hearing improvement. We investigated effects of long-term congenital unilateral hearing loss on localization, speech understanding, and cortical organization following hearing recovery. Hearing in the congenitally affected ear of a 41 year old female improved significantly after stapedotomy and reconstruction. Pre-operative hearing threshold levels showed unilateral, mixed, moderately-severe to profound hearing loss. The contralateral ear had hearing threshold levels within normal limits. Testing was completed prior to, and three and nine months after surgery. Measurements were of sound localization with intensity-roved stimuli and speech recognition in various noise conditions. We also evoked magnetic resonance signals with monaural stimulation to the unaffected ear. Activation magnitudes were determined in core, belt, and parabelt auditory cortex regions via an interrupted single event design. Hearing improvement following 40 years of congenital unilateral hearing loss resulted in substantially improved sound localization and speech recognition in noise. Auditory cortex also reorganized. Contralateral auditory cortex responses were increased after hearing recovery and the extent of activated cortex was bilateral, including a greater portion of the posterior superior temporal plane. Thus, prolonged predominant monaural stimulation did not prevent auditory system changes consequent to restored binaural hearing. Results support future research of unilateral auditory deprivation effects and plasticity, with consideration for length of deprivation, age at hearing correction, degree and type

  2. Limbic-Auditory Interactions of Tinnitus: An Evaluation Using Diffusion Tensor Imaging.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gunbey, H P; Gunbey, E; Aslan, K; Bulut, T; Unal, A; Incesu, L

    2017-06-01

    Tinnitus is defined as an imaginary subjective perception in the absence of an external sound. Convergent evidence proposes that tinnitus perception includes auditory, attentional and emotional components. The aim of this study was to investigate the thalamic, auditory and limbic interactions associated with tinnitus-related distress by Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI). A total of 36 tinnitus patients, 20 healthy controls underwent an audiological examination, as well as a magnetic resonance imaging protocol including structural and DTI sequences. All participants completed the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) and Visual Analog Scales (VAS) related with tinnitus. The fractional anisotropy (FA) and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values were obtained for the auditory cortex (AC), inferior colliculus (IC), lateral lemniscus (LL), medial geniculate body (MGB), thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN), amygdala (AMG), hippocampus (HIP), parahippocampus (PHIP) and prefrontal cortex (PFC). In tinnitus patients the FA values of IC, MGB, TRN, AMG, HIP decreased and the ADC values of IC, MGB, TRN, AMG, PHIP increased significantly. The contralateral IC-LL and bilateral MGB FA values correlated negatively with hearing loss. A negative relation was found between the AMG-HIP FA values and THI and VAS scores. Bilateral ADC values of PHIP and PFC significantly correlated with the attention deficiency-VAS scores. In conclusion, this is the first DTI study to investigate the grey matter structures related to tinnitus perception and the significant correlation of FA and ADC with clinical parameters suggests that DTI can provide helpful information for tinnitus. Magnifying the microstructures in DTI can help evaluate the three faces of tinnitus nature: hearing, emotion and attention.

  3. The role of visual spatial attention in audiovisual speech perception

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Andersen, Tobias; Tiippana, K.; Laarni, J.

    2009-01-01

    Auditory and visual information is integrated when perceiving speech, as evidenced by the McGurk effect in which viewing an incongruent talking face categorically alters auditory speech perception. Audiovisual integration in speech perception has long been considered automatic and pre-attentive b......Auditory and visual information is integrated when perceiving speech, as evidenced by the McGurk effect in which viewing an incongruent talking face categorically alters auditory speech perception. Audiovisual integration in speech perception has long been considered automatic and pre...... from each of the faces and from the voice on the auditory speech percept. We found that directing visual spatial attention towards a face increased the influence of that face on auditory perception. However, the influence of the voice on auditory perception did not change suggesting that audiovisual...... integration did not change. Visual spatial attention was also able to select between the faces when lip reading. This suggests that visual spatial attention acts at the level of visual speech perception prior to audiovisual integration and that the effect propagates through audiovisual integration...

  4. Absence of auditory 'global interference' in autism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Foxton, Jessica M; Stewart, Mary E; Barnard, Louise; Rodgers, Jacqui; Young, Allan H; O'Brien, Gregory; Griffiths, Timothy D

    2003-12-01

    There has been considerable recent interest in the cognitive style of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). One theory, that of weak central coherence, concerns an inability to combine stimulus details into a coherent whole. Here we test this theory in the case of sound patterns, using a new definition of the details (local structure) and the coherent whole (global structure). Thirteen individuals with a diagnosis of autism or Asperger's syndrome and 15 control participants were administered auditory tests, where they were required to match local pitch direction changes between two auditory sequences. When the other local features of the sequence pairs were altered (the actual pitches and relative time points of pitch direction change), the control participants obtained lower scores compared with when these details were left unchanged. This can be attributed to interference from the global structure, defined as the combination of the local auditory details. In contrast, the participants with ASD did not obtain lower scores in the presence of such mismatches. This was attributed to the absence of interference from an auditory coherent whole. The results are consistent with the presence of abnormal interactions between local and global auditory perception in ASD.

  5. A Detection-Theoretic Analysis of Auditory Streaming and Its Relation to Auditory Masking

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    An-Chieh Chang

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available Research on hearing has long been challenged with understanding our exceptional ability to hear out individual sounds in a mixture (the so-called cocktail party problem. Two general approaches to the problem have been taken using sequences of tones as stimuli. The first has focused on our tendency to hear sequences, sufficiently separated in frequency, split into separate cohesive streams (auditory streaming. The second has focused on our ability to detect a change in one sequence, ignoring all others (auditory masking. The two phenomena are clearly related, but that relation has never been evaluated analytically. This article offers a detection-theoretic analysis of the relation between multitone streaming and masking that underscores the expected similarities and differences between these phenomena and the predicted outcome of experiments in each case. The key to establishing this relation is the function linking performance to the information divergence of the tone sequences, DKL (a measure of the statistical separation of their parameters. A strong prediction is that streaming and masking of tones will be a common function of DKL provided that the statistical properties of sequences are symmetric. Results of experiments are reported supporting this prediction.

  6. Noise perception in the workplace and auditory and extra-auditory symptoms referred by university professors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Servilha, Emilse Aparecida Merlin; Delatti, Marina de Almeida

    2012-01-01

    To investigate the correlation between noise in the work environment and auditory and extra-auditory symptoms referred by university professors. Eighty five professors answered a questionnaire about identification, functional status, and health. The relationship between occupational noise and auditory and extra-auditory symptoms was investigated. Statistical analysis considered the significance level of 5%. None of the professors indicated absence of noise. Responses were grouped in Always (A) (n=21) and Not Always (NA) (n=63). Significant sources of noise were both the yard and another class, which were classified as high intensity; poor acoustic and echo. There was no association between referred noise and health complaints, such as digestive, hormonal, osteoarticular, dental, circulatory, respiratory and emotional complaints. There was also no association between referred noise and hearing complaints, and the group A showed higher occurrence of responses regarding noise nuisance, hearing difficulty and dizziness/vertigo, tinnitus, and earache. There was association between referred noise and voice alterations, and the group NA presented higher percentage of cases with voice alterations than the group A. The university environment was considered noisy; however, there was no association with auditory and extra-auditory symptoms. The hearing complaints were more evident among professors in the group A. Professors' health is a multi-dimensional product and, therefore, noise cannot be considered the only aggravation factor.

  7. Only low frequency event-related EEG activity is compromised in multiple sclerosis: insights from an independent component clustering analysis.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hanni Kiiski

    Full Text Available Cognitive impairment (CI, often examined with neuropsychological tests such as the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT, affects approximately 65% of multiple sclerosis (MS patients. The P3b event-related potential (ERP, evoked when an infrequent target stimulus is presented, indexes cognitive function and is typically compared across subjects' scalp electroencephalography (EEG data. However, the clustering of independent components (ICs is superior to scalp-based EEG methods because it can accommodate the spatiotemporal overlap inherent in scalp EEG data. Event-related spectral perturbations (ERSPs; event-related mean power spectral changes and inter-trial coherence (ITCs; event-related consistency of spectral phase reveal a more comprehensive overview of EEG activity. Ninety-five subjects (56 MS patients, 39 controls completed visual and auditory two-stimulus P3b event-related potential tasks and the PASAT. MS patients were also divided into CI and non-CI groups (n = 18 in each based on PASAT scores. Data were recorded from 128-scalp EEG channels and 4 IC clusters in the visual, and 5 IC clusters in the auditory, modality were identified. In general, MS patients had significantly reduced ERSP theta power versus controls, and a similar pattern was observed for CI vs. non-CI MS patients. The ITC measures were also significantly different in the theta band for some clusters. The finding that MS patients had reduced P3b task-related theta power in both modalities is a reflection of compromised connectivity, likely due to demyelination, that may have disrupted early processes essential to P3b generation, such as orientating and signal detection. However, for posterior sources, MS patients had a greater decrease in alpha power, normally associated with enhanced cognitive function, which may reflect a compensatory mechanism in response to the compromised early cognitive processing.

  8. Effects of white noise on event-related potentials in somatosensory Go/No-go paradigms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ohbayashi, Wakana; Kakigi, Ryusuke; Nakata, Hiroki

    2017-09-06

    Exposure to auditory white noise has been shown to facilitate human cognitive function. This phenomenon is termed stochastic resonance, and a moderate amount of auditory noise has been suggested to benefit individuals in hypodopaminergic states. The present study investigated the effects of white noise on the N140 and P300 components of event-related potentials in somatosensory Go/No-go paradigms. A Go or No-go stimulus was presented to the second or fifth digit of the left hand, respectively, at the same probability. Participants performed somatosensory Go/No-go paradigms while hearing three different white noise levels (45, 55, and 65 dB conditions). The peak amplitudes of Go-P300 and No-go-P300 in ERP waveforms were significantly larger under 55 dB than 45 and 65 dB conditions. White noise did not affect the peak latency of N140 or P300, or the peak amplitude of N140. Behavioral data for the reaction time, SD of reaction time, and error rates showed the absence of an effect by white noise. This is the first event-related potential study to show that exposure to auditory white noise at 55 dB enhanced the amplitude of P300 during Go/No-go paradigms, reflecting changes in the neural activation of response execution and inhibition processing.

  9. From perception to metacognition: Auditory and olfactory functions in early blind, late blind, and sighted individuals

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stina Cornell Kärnekull

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available Although evidence is mixed, studies have shown that blind individuals perform better than sighted at specific auditory, tactile, and chemosensory tasks. However, few studies have assessed blind and sighted individuals across different sensory modalities in the same study. We tested early blind (n = 15, late blind (n = 15, and sighted (n = 30 participants with analogous olfactory and auditory tests in absolute threshold, discrimination, identification, episodic recognition, and metacognitive ability. Although the multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA showed no overall effect of blindness and no interaction with modality, follow-up between-group contrasts indicated a blind-over-sighted advantage in auditory episodic recognition, that was most pronounced in early blind individuals. In contrast to the auditory modality, there was no empirical support for compensatory effects in any of the olfactory tasks. There was no conclusive evidence for group differences in metacognitive ability to predict episodic recognition performance. Taken together, the results showed no evidence of an overall superior performance in blind relative sighted individuals across olfactory and auditory functions, although early blind individuals exceled in episodic auditory recognition memory. This observation may be related to an experience-induced increase in auditory attentional capacity.

  10. [Differential effects of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder subtypes in event-related potentials].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tamayo-Orrego, Lukas; Osorio Forero, Alejandro; Quintero Giraldo, Lina Paola; Parra Sánchez, José Hernán; Varela, Vilma; Restrepo, Francia

    2015-01-01

    To better understand the neurophysiological substrates in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a study was performed on of event-related potentials (ERPs) in Colombian patients with inattentive and combined ADHD. A case-control, cross-sectional study was designed. The sample was composed of 180 subjects between 5 and 15 years of age (mean, 9.25±2.6), from local schools in Manizales. The sample was divided equally in ADHD or control groups and the subjects were paired by age and gender. The diagnosis was made using the DSM-IV-TR criteria, the Conners and WISC-III test, a psychiatric interview (MINIKID), and a medical evaluation. ERPs were recorded in a visual and auditory passive oddball paradigm. Latency and amplitude of N100, N200 and P300 components for common and rare stimuli were used for statistical comparisons. ADHD subjects show differences in the N200 amplitude and P300 latency in the auditory task. The N200 amplitude was reduced in response to visual stimuli. ADHD subjects with combined symptoms show a delayed P300 in response to auditory stimuli, whereas inattentive subjects exhibited differences in the amplitude of N100 and N200. Combined ADHD patients showed longer N100 latency and smaller N200-P300 amplitude compared to inattentive ADHD subjects. The results show differences in the event-related potentials between combined and inattentive ADHD subjects. Copyright © 2014 Asociación Colombiana de Psiquiatría. Publicado por Elsevier España. All rights reserved.

  11. Auditory capture of visual motion: effects on perception and discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McCourt, Mark E; Leone, Lynnette M

    2016-09-28

    We asked whether the perceived direction of visual motion and contrast thresholds for motion discrimination are influenced by the concurrent motion of an auditory sound source. Visual motion stimuli were counterphasing Gabor patches, whose net motion energy was manipulated by adjusting the contrast of the leftward-moving and rightward-moving components. The presentation of these visual stimuli was paired with the simultaneous presentation of auditory stimuli, whose apparent motion in 3D auditory space (rightward, leftward, static, no sound) was manipulated using interaural time and intensity differences, and Doppler cues. In experiment 1, observers judged whether the Gabor visual stimulus appeared to move rightward or leftward. In experiment 2, contrast discrimination thresholds for detecting the interval containing unequal (rightward or leftward) visual motion energy were obtained under the same auditory conditions. Experiment 1 showed that the perceived direction of ambiguous visual motion is powerfully influenced by concurrent auditory motion, such that auditory motion 'captured' ambiguous visual motion. Experiment 2 showed that this interaction occurs at a sensory stage of processing as visual contrast discrimination thresholds (a criterion-free measure of sensitivity) were significantly elevated when paired with congruent auditory motion. These results suggest that auditory and visual motion signals are integrated and combined into a supramodal (audiovisual) representation of motion.

  12. Differential activity in left inferior frontal gyrus for pseudo and real words: an event-related functional MRI study on auditory lexical decision

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Xiao Zhuangwei; Xu Weixiong; Zhang Xuexin; Wang Xiaoyi; Weng Xuchu; Wu Renhua; Wu Xiaoping

    2006-01-01

    Objective: To study lexical processing of pseudo words and real words by using a fast event-related functional MRI (ER-fMRI) design. Methods: Participants did an auditory lexical decision task on a list of pseudo-randomly intermixed real and pseudo Chinese two-character (or two-syllable) words. Pseudo words were constructed by recombining constituent characters of the real words to control for sublexical codes properties. Results: The behavioral performance of fourteen participants indicated that response to pseudowords was significantly slower and less accurate than to real words (mean error rate: 9.9% versus 3.9%, mean reaction time: 1618 ms versus 1143 ms). Processing of pseudo words and real words activated a highly comparable network of brain regions, including bilateral inferior frontal gyrus, superior, middle temporal gyrus, calcarine and lingual gyrus, and left supramarginal gyrus. Mirroring a behavioral lexical effect, left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) was significantly more activated for pseudo words than for real words. Conclusion: The results indicate that the processing of left inferior frontal gyrus in judging pseudo words and real words is not related to grapheme-to-phoneme conversion, but rather to making positive versus negative responses in decision making. (authors)

  13. Pure word deafness with auditory object agnosia after bilateral lesion of the superior temporal sulcus.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gutschalk, Alexander; Uppenkamp, Stefan; Riedel, Bernhard; Bartsch, Andreas; Brandt, Tobias; Vogt-Schaden, Marlies

    2015-12-01

    Based on results from functional imaging, cortex along the superior temporal sulcus (STS) has been suggested to subserve phoneme and pre-lexical speech perception. For vowel classification, both superior temporal plane (STP) and STS areas have been suggested relevant. Lesion of bilateral STS may conversely be expected to cause pure word deafness and possibly also impaired vowel classification. Here we studied a patient with bilateral STS lesions caused by ischemic strokes and relatively intact medial STPs to characterize the behavioral consequences of STS loss. The patient showed severe deficits in auditory speech perception, whereas his speech production was fluent and communication by written speech was grossly intact. Auditory-evoked fields in the STP were within normal limits on both sides, suggesting that major parts of the auditory cortex were functionally intact. Further studies showed that the patient had normal hearing thresholds and only mild disability in tests for telencephalic hearing disorder. Prominent deficits were discovered in an auditory-object classification task, where the patient performed four standard deviations below the control group. In marked contrast, performance in a vowel-classification task was intact. Auditory evoked fields showed enhanced responses for vowels compared to matched non-vowels within normal limits. Our results are consistent with the notion that cortex along STS is important for auditory speech perception, although it does not appear to be entirely speech specific. Formant analysis and single vowel classification, however, appear to be already implemented in auditory cortex on the STP. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  14. Attention-related modulation of auditory brainstem responses during contralateral noise exposure.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ikeda, Kazunari; Sekiguchi, Takahiro; Hayashi, Akiko

    2008-10-29

    As determinants facilitating attention-related modulation of the auditory brainstem response (ABR), two experimental factors were examined: (i) auditory discrimination; and (ii) contralateral masking intensity. Tone pips at 80 dB sound pressure level were presented to the left ear via either single-tone exposures or oddball exposures, whereas white noise was delivered continuously to the right ear at variable intensities (none--80 dB sound pressure level). Participants each conducted two tasks during stimulation, either reading a book (ignoring task) or detecting target tones (attentive task). Task-related modulation within the ABR range was found only during oddball exposures at contralateral masking intensities greater than or equal to 60 dB. Attention-related modulation of ABR can thus be detected reliably during auditory discrimination under contralateral masking of sufficient intensity.

  15. Spatiotemporal Relationships among Audiovisual Stimuli Modulate Auditory Facilitation of Visual Target Discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Qi; Yang, Huamin; Sun, Fang; Wu, Jinglong

    2015-03-01

    Sensory information is multimodal; through audiovisual interaction, task-irrelevant auditory stimuli tend to speed response times and increase visual perception accuracy. However, mechanisms underlying these performance enhancements have remained unclear. We hypothesize that task-irrelevant auditory stimuli might provide reliable temporal and spatial cues for visual target discrimination and behavioral response enhancement. Using signal detection theory, the present study investigated the effects of spatiotemporal relationships on auditory facilitation of visual target discrimination. Three experiments were conducted where an auditory stimulus maintained reliable temporal and/or spatial relationships with visual target stimuli. Results showed that perception sensitivity (d') to visual target stimuli was enhanced only when a task-irrelevant auditory stimulus maintained reliable spatiotemporal relationships with a visual target stimulus. When only reliable spatial or temporal information was contained, perception sensitivity was not enhanced. These results suggest that reliable spatiotemporal relationships between visual and auditory signals are required for audiovisual integration during a visual discrimination task, most likely due to a spread of attention. These results also indicate that auditory facilitation of visual target discrimination follows from late-stage cognitive processes rather than early stage sensory processes. © 2015 SAGE Publications.

  16. Towards an understanding of the mechanisms of weak central coherence effects: experiments in visual configural learning and auditory perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Plaisted, Kate; Saksida, Lisa; Alcántara, José; Weisblatt, Emma

    2003-01-01

    The weak central coherence hypothesis of Frith is one of the most prominent theories concerning the abnormal performance of individuals with autism on tasks that involve local and global processing. Individuals with autism often outperform matched nonautistic individuals on tasks in which success depends upon processing of local features, and underperform on tasks that require global processing. We review those studies that have been unable to identify the locus of the mechanisms that may be responsible for weak central coherence effects and those that show that local processing is enhanced in autism but not at the expense of global processing. In the light of these studies, we propose that the mechanisms which can give rise to 'weak central coherence' effects may be perceptual. More specifically, we propose that perception operates to enhance the representation of individual perceptual features but that this does not impact adversely on representations that involve integration of features. This proposal was supported in the two experiments we report on configural and feature discrimination learning in high-functioning children with autism. We also examined processes of perception directly, in an auditory filtering task which measured the width of auditory filters in individuals with autism and found that the width of auditory filters in autism were abnormally broad. We consider the implications of these findings for perceptual theories of the mechanisms underpinning weak central coherence effects. PMID:12639334

  17. Abnormal Auditory Gain in Hyperacusis: Investigation with a Computational Model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Peter U. Diehl

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available Hyperacusis is a frequent auditory disorder that is characterized by abnormal loudness perception where sounds of relatively normal volume are perceived as too loud or even painfully loud. As Hyperacusis patients show decreased loudness discomfort levels (LDLs and steeper loudness growth functions, it has been hypothesized that hyperacusis might be caused by an increase in neuronal response gain in the auditory system. Moreover, since about 85% of hyperacusis patients also experience tinnitus, the conditions might be caused by a common mechanism. However, the mechanisms that give rise to hyperacusis have remained unclear.Here we have used a computational model of the auditory system to investigate candidate mechanisms for hyperacusis. Assuming that perceived loudness is proportional to the summed activity of all auditory nerve fibers, the model was tuned to reproduce normal loudness perception. We then evaluated a variety of potential hyperacusis gain mechanisms by determining their effects on model equal-loudness contours and comparing the results to the LDLs of hyperacusis patients with normal hearing thresholds. Hyperacusis was best accounted for by an increase in nonlinear gain in the central auditory system. Good fits to the average patient LDLs were obtained for a general increase in gain that affected all frequency channels to the same degree, and also for a frequency-specific gain increase in the high-frequency range. Moreover, the gain needed to be applied after subtraction of spontaneous activity of the auditory nerve, which is in contrast to current theories of tinnitus generation based on amplification of spontaneous activity. Hyperacusis and tinnitus might therefore be caused by different changes in neuronal processing in the central auditory system.

  18. Sound Spectrum Influences Auditory Distance Perception of Sound Sources Located in a Room Environment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ignacio Spiousas

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available Previous studies on the effect of spectral content on auditory distance perception (ADP focused on the physically measurable cues occurring either in the near field (low-pass filtering due to head diffraction or when the sound travels distances >15 m (high-frequency energy losses due to air absorption. Here, we study how the spectrum of a sound arriving from a source located in a reverberant room at intermediate distances (1–6 m influences the perception of the distance to the source. First, we conducted an ADP experiment using pure tones (the simplest possible spectrum of frequencies 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 kHz. Then, we performed a second ADP experiment with stimuli consisting of continuous broadband and bandpass-filtered (with center frequencies of 0.5, 1.5, and 4 kHz and bandwidths of 1/12, 1/3, and 1.5 octave pink-noise clips. Our results showed an effect of the stimulus frequency on the perceived distance both for pure tones and filtered noise bands: ADP was less accurate for stimuli containing energy only in the low-frequency range. Analysis of the frequency response of the room showed that the low accuracy observed for low-frequency stimuli can be explained by the presence of sparse modal resonances in the low-frequency region of the spectrum, which induced a non-monotonic relationship between binaural intensity and source distance. The results obtained in the second experiment suggest that ADP can also be affected by stimulus bandwidth but in a less straightforward way (i.e., depending on the center frequency, increasing stimulus bandwidth could have different effects. Finally, the analysis of the acoustical cues suggests that listeners judged source distance using mainly changes in the overall intensity of the auditory stimulus with distance rather than the direct-to-reverberant energy ratio, even for low-frequency noise bands (which typically induce high amount of reverberation. The results obtained in this study show that, depending on

  19. Persistent neural activity in auditory cortex is related to auditory working memory in humans and nonhuman primates.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huang, Ying; Matysiak, Artur; Heil, Peter; König, Reinhard; Brosch, Michael

    2016-07-20

    Working memory is the cognitive capacity of short-term storage of information for goal-directed behaviors. Where and how this capacity is implemented in the brain are unresolved questions. We show that auditory cortex stores information by persistent changes of neural activity. We separated activity related to working memory from activity related to other mental processes by having humans and monkeys perform different tasks with varying working memory demands on the same sound sequences. Working memory was reflected in the spiking activity of individual neurons in auditory cortex and in the activity of neuronal populations, that is, in local field potentials and magnetic fields. Our results provide direct support for the idea that temporary storage of information recruits the same brain areas that also process the information. Because similar activity was observed in the two species, the cellular bases of some auditory working memory processes in humans can be studied in monkeys.

  20. Contribution of auditory working memory to speech understanding in mandarin-speaking cochlear implant users.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tao, Duoduo; Deng, Rui; Jiang, Ye; Galvin, John J; Fu, Qian-Jie; Chen, Bing

    2014-01-01

    To investigate how auditory working memory relates to speech perception performance by Mandarin-speaking cochlear implant (CI) users. Auditory working memory and speech perception was measured in Mandarin-speaking CI and normal-hearing (NH) participants. Working memory capacity was measured using forward digit span and backward digit span; working memory efficiency was measured using articulation rate. Speech perception was assessed with: (a) word-in-sentence recognition in quiet, (b) word-in-sentence recognition in speech-shaped steady noise at +5 dB signal-to-noise ratio, (c) Chinese disyllable recognition in quiet, (d) Chinese lexical tone recognition in quiet. Self-reported school rank was also collected regarding performance in schoolwork. There was large inter-subject variability in auditory working memory and speech performance for CI participants. Working memory and speech performance were significantly poorer for CI than for NH participants. All three working memory measures were strongly correlated with each other for both CI and NH participants. Partial correlation analyses were performed on the CI data while controlling for demographic variables. Working memory efficiency was significantly correlated only with sentence recognition in quiet when working memory capacity was partialled out. Working memory capacity was correlated with disyllable recognition and school rank when efficiency was partialled out. There was no correlation between working memory and lexical tone recognition in the present CI participants. Mandarin-speaking CI users experience significant deficits in auditory working memory and speech performance compared with NH listeners. The present data suggest that auditory working memory may contribute to CI users' difficulties in speech understanding. The present pattern of results with Mandarin-speaking CI users is consistent with previous auditory working memory studies with English-speaking CI users, suggesting that the lexical importance

  1. Event-related potentials dissociate perceptual from response-related age effects in visual search

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wiegand, Iris; Müller, Hermann J.; Finke, Kathrin

    2013-01-01

    measures with lateralized event-related potentials of younger and older adults performing a compound-search task, in which the target-defining dimension of a pop-out target (color/shape) and the response-critical target feature (vertical/horizontal stripes) varied independently across trials. Slower...... responses in older participants were associated with age differences in all analyzed event-related potentials from perception to response, indicating that behavioral slowing originates from multiple stages within the information-processing stream. Furthermore, analyses of carry-over effects from one trial...

  2. Auditory processing in autism spectrum disorder

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Vlaskamp, Chantal; Oranje, Bob; Madsen, Gitte Falcher

    2017-01-01

    Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often show changes in (automatic) auditory processing. Electrophysiology provides a method to study auditory processing, by investigating event-related potentials such as mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3a-amplitude. However, findings on MMN in autism...... a hyper-responsivity at the attentional level. In addition, as similar MMN deficits are found in schizophrenia, these MMN results may explain some of the frequently reported increased risk of children with ASD to develop schizophrenia later in life. Autism Res 2017, 10: 1857–1865....

  3. Positron Emission Tomography Imaging Reveals Auditory and Frontal Cortical Regions Involved with Speech Perception and Loudness Adaptation.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Georg Berding

    Full Text Available Considerable progress has been made in the treatment of hearing loss with auditory implants. However, there are still many implanted patients that experience hearing deficiencies, such as limited speech understanding or vanishing perception with continuous stimulation (i.e., abnormal loudness adaptation. The present study aims to identify specific patterns of cerebral cortex activity involved with such deficiencies. We performed O-15-water positron emission tomography (PET in patients implanted with electrodes within the cochlea, brainstem, or midbrain to investigate the pattern of cortical activation in response to speech or continuous multi-tone stimuli directly inputted into the implant processor that then delivered electrical patterns through those electrodes. Statistical parametric mapping was performed on a single subject basis. Better speech understanding was correlated with a larger extent of bilateral auditory cortex activation. In contrast to speech, the continuous multi-tone stimulus elicited mainly unilateral auditory cortical activity in which greater loudness adaptation corresponded to weaker activation and even deactivation. Interestingly, greater loudness adaptation was correlated with stronger activity within the ventral prefrontal cortex, which could be up-regulated to suppress the irrelevant or aberrant signals into the auditory cortex. The ability to detect these specific cortical patterns and differences across patients and stimuli demonstrates the potential for using PET to diagnose auditory function or dysfunction in implant patients, which in turn could guide the development of appropriate stimulation strategies for improving hearing rehabilitation. Beyond hearing restoration, our study also reveals a potential role of the frontal cortex in suppressing irrelevant or aberrant activity within the auditory cortex, and thus may be relevant for understanding and treating tinnitus.

  4. Positron Emission Tomography Imaging Reveals Auditory and Frontal Cortical Regions Involved with Speech Perception and Loudness Adaptation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berding, Georg; Wilke, Florian; Rode, Thilo; Haense, Cathleen; Joseph, Gert; Meyer, Geerd J; Mamach, Martin; Lenarz, Minoo; Geworski, Lilli; Bengel, Frank M; Lenarz, Thomas; Lim, Hubert H

    2015-01-01

    Considerable progress has been made in the treatment of hearing loss with auditory implants. However, there are still many implanted patients that experience hearing deficiencies, such as limited speech understanding or vanishing perception with continuous stimulation (i.e., abnormal loudness adaptation). The present study aims to identify specific patterns of cerebral cortex activity involved with such deficiencies. We performed O-15-water positron emission tomography (PET) in patients implanted with electrodes within the cochlea, brainstem, or midbrain to investigate the pattern of cortical activation in response to speech or continuous multi-tone stimuli directly inputted into the implant processor that then delivered electrical patterns through those electrodes. Statistical parametric mapping was performed on a single subject basis. Better speech understanding was correlated with a larger extent of bilateral auditory cortex activation. In contrast to speech, the continuous multi-tone stimulus elicited mainly unilateral auditory cortical activity in which greater loudness adaptation corresponded to weaker activation and even deactivation. Interestingly, greater loudness adaptation was correlated with stronger activity within the ventral prefrontal cortex, which could be up-regulated to suppress the irrelevant or aberrant signals into the auditory cortex. The ability to detect these specific cortical patterns and differences across patients and stimuli demonstrates the potential for using PET to diagnose auditory function or dysfunction in implant patients, which in turn could guide the development of appropriate stimulation strategies for improving hearing rehabilitation. Beyond hearing restoration, our study also reveals a potential role of the frontal cortex in suppressing irrelevant or aberrant activity within the auditory cortex, and thus may be relevant for understanding and treating tinnitus.

  5. Auditory short-term memory in the primate auditory cortex.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scott, Brian H; Mishkin, Mortimer

    2016-06-01

    Sounds are fleeting, and assembling the sequence of inputs at the ear into a coherent percept requires auditory memory across various time scales. Auditory short-term memory comprises at least two components: an active ׳working memory' bolstered by rehearsal, and a sensory trace that may be passively retained. Working memory relies on representations recalled from long-term memory, and their rehearsal may require phonological mechanisms unique to humans. The sensory component, passive short-term memory (pSTM), is tractable to study in nonhuman primates, whose brain architecture and behavioral repertoire are comparable to our own. This review discusses recent advances in the behavioral and neurophysiological study of auditory memory with a focus on single-unit recordings from macaque monkeys performing delayed-match-to-sample (DMS) tasks. Monkeys appear to employ pSTM to solve these tasks, as evidenced by the impact of interfering stimuli on memory performance. In several regards, pSTM in monkeys resembles pitch memory in humans, and may engage similar neural mechanisms. Neural correlates of DMS performance have been observed throughout the auditory and prefrontal cortex, defining a network of areas supporting auditory STM with parallels to that supporting visual STM. These correlates include persistent neural firing, or a suppression of firing, during the delay period of the memory task, as well as suppression or (less commonly) enhancement of sensory responses when a sound is repeated as a ׳match' stimulus. Auditory STM is supported by a distributed temporo-frontal network in which sensitivity to stimulus history is an intrinsic feature of auditory processing. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled SI: Auditory working memory. Published by Elsevier B.V.

  6. Multisensory stimuli improve relative localisation judgments compared to unisensory auditory or visual stimuli

    OpenAIRE

    Bizley, Jennifer; Wood, Katherine; Freeman, Laura

    2018-01-01

    Observers performed a relative localisation task in which they reported whether the second of two sequentially presented signals occurred to the left or right of the first. Stimuli were detectability-matched auditory, visual, or auditory-visual signals and the goal was to compare changes in performance with eccentricity across modalities. Visual performance was superior to auditory at the midline, but inferior in the periphery, while auditory-visual performance exceeded both at all locations....

  7. No meditation-related changes in the auditory N1 during first-time meditation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barnes, L J; McArthur, G M; Biedermann, B A; de Lissa, P; Polito, V; Badcock, N A

    2018-05-01

    Recent studies link meditation expertise with enhanced low-level attention, measured through auditory event-related potentials (ERPs). In this study, we tested the reliability and validity of a recent finding that the N1 ERP in first-time meditators is smaller during meditation than non-meditation - an effect not present in long-term meditators. In the first experiment, we replicated the finding in first-time meditators. In two subsequent experiments, we discovered that this finding was not due to stimulus-related instructions, but was explained by an effect of the order of conditions. Extended exposure to the same tones has been linked with N1 decrement in other studies, and may explain N1 decrement across our two conditions. We give examples of existing meditation and ERP studies that may include similar condition order effects. The role of condition order among first-time meditators in this study indicates the importance of counterbalancing meditation and non-mediation conditions in meditation studies that use event-related potentials. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  8. Discovering Event Structure in Continuous Narrative Perception and Memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baldassano, Christopher; Chen, Janice; Zadbood, Asieh; Pillow, Jonathan W; Hasson, Uri; Norman, Kenneth A

    2017-08-02

    During realistic, continuous perception, humans automatically segment experiences into discrete events. Using a novel model of cortical event dynamics, we investigate how cortical structures generate event representations during narrative perception and how these events are stored to and retrieved from memory. Our data-driven approach allows us to detect event boundaries as shifts between stable patterns of brain activity without relying on stimulus annotations and reveals a nested hierarchy from short events in sensory regions to long events in high-order areas (including angular gyrus and posterior medial cortex), which represent abstract, multimodal situation models. High-order event boundaries are coupled to increases in hippocampal activity, which predict pattern reinstatement during later free recall. These areas also show evidence of anticipatory reinstatement as subjects listen to a familiar narrative. Based on these results, we propose that brain activity is naturally structured into nested events, which form the basis of long-term memory representations. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  9. Functional studies of the human auditory cortex, auditory memory and musical hallucinations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Goycoolea, Marcos; Mena, Ismael; Neubauer, Sonia

    2004-01-01

    Objectives. 1. To determine which areas of the cerebral cortex are activated stimulating the left ear with pure tones, and what type of stimulation occurs (eg. excitatory or inhibitory) in these different areas. 2. To use this information as an initial step to develop a normal functional data base for future studies. 3. To try to determine if there is a biological substrate to the process of recalling previous auditory perceptions and if possible, suggest a locus for auditory memory. Method. Brain perfusion single photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT) evaluation was conducted: 1-2) Using auditory stimulation with pure tones in 4 volunteers with normal hearing. 3) In a patient with bilateral profound hearing loss who had auditory perception of previous musical experiences; while injected with Tc99m HMPAO while she was having the sensation of hearing a well known melody. Results. Both in the patient with auditory hallucinations and the normal controls -stimulated with pure tones- there was a statistically significant increase in perfusion in Brodmann's area 39, more intense on the right side (right to left p < 0.05). With a lesser intensity there was activation in the adjacent area 40 and there was intense activation also in the executive frontal cortex areas 6, 8, 9, and 10 of Brodmann. There was also activation of area 7 of Brodmann; an audio-visual association area; more marked on the right side in the patient and the normal stimulated controls. In the subcortical structures there was also marked activation in the patient with hallucinations in both lentiform nuclei, thalamus and caudate nuclei also more intense in the right hemisphere, 5, 4.7 and 4.2 S.D. above the mean respectively and 5, 3.3, and 3 S.D. above the normal mean in the left hemisphere respectively. Similar findings were observed in normal controls. Conclusions. After auditory stimulation with pure tones in the left ear of normal female volunteers, there is bilateral activation of area 39

  10. Speaking Two Languages Enhances an Auditory but Not a Visual Neural Marker of Cognitive Inhibition

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mercedes Fernandez

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available The purpose of the present study was to replicate and extend our original findings of enhanced neural inhibitory control in bilinguals. We compared English monolinguals to Spanish/English bilinguals on a non-linguistic, auditory Go/NoGo task while recording event-related brain potentials. New to this study was the visual Go/NoGo task, which we included to investigate whether enhanced neural inhibition in bilinguals extends from the auditory to the visual modality. Results confirmed our original findings and revealed greater inhibition in bilinguals compared to monolinguals. As predicted, compared to monolinguals, bilinguals showed increased N2 amplitude during the auditory NoGo trials, which required inhibitory control, but no differences during the Go trials, which required a behavioral response and no inhibition. Interestingly, during the visual Go/NoGo task, event related brain potentials did not distinguish the two groups, and behavioral responses were similar between the groups regardless of task modality. Thus, only auditory trials that required inhibitory control revealed between-group differences indicative of greater neural inhibition in bilinguals. These results show that experience-dependent neural changes associated with bilingualism are specific to the auditory modality and that the N2 event-related brain potential is a sensitive marker of this plasticity.

  11. Visual and auditory socio-cognitive perception in unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy in children and adolescents: a prospective controlled study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laurent, Agathe; Arzimanoglou, Alexis; Panagiotakaki, Eleni; Sfaello, Ignacio; Kahane, Philippe; Ryvlin, Philippe; Hirsch, Edouard; de Schonen, Scania

    2014-12-01

    A high rate of abnormal social behavioural traits or perceptual deficits is observed in children with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy. In the present study, perception of auditory and visual social signals, carried by faces and voices, was evaluated in children or adolescents with temporal lobe epilepsy. We prospectively investigated a sample of 62 children with focal non-idiopathic epilepsy early in the course of the disorder. The present analysis included 39 children with a confirmed diagnosis of temporal lobe epilepsy. Control participants (72), distributed across 10 age groups, served as a control group. Our socio-perceptual evaluation protocol comprised three socio-visual tasks (face identity, facial emotion and gaze direction recognition), two socio-auditory tasks (voice identity and emotional prosody recognition), and three control tasks (lip reading, geometrical pattern and linguistic intonation recognition). All 39 patients also benefited from a neuropsychological examination. As a group, children with temporal lobe epilepsy performed at a significantly lower level compared to the control group with regards to recognition of facial identity, direction of eye gaze, and emotional facial expressions. We found no relationship between the type of visual deficit and age at first seizure, duration of epilepsy, or the epilepsy-affected cerebral hemisphere. Deficits in socio-perceptual tasks could be found independently of the presence of deficits in visual or auditory episodic memory, visual non-facial pattern processing (control tasks), or speech perception. A normal FSIQ did not exempt some of the patients from an underlying deficit in some of the socio-perceptual tasks. Temporal lobe epilepsy not only impairs development of emotion recognition, but can also impair development of perception of other socio-perceptual signals in children with or without intellectual deficiency. Prospective studies need to be designed to evaluate the results of appropriate re

  12. No auditory experience, no tinnitus: Lessons from subjects with congenital- and acquired single-sided deafness.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Sang-Yeon; Nam, Dong Woo; Koo, Ja-Won; De Ridder, Dirk; Vanneste, Sven; Song, Jae-Jin

    2017-10-01

    Recent studies have adopted the Bayesian brain model to explain the generation of tinnitus in subjects with auditory deafferentation. That is, as the human brain works in a Bayesian manner to reduce environmental uncertainty, missing auditory information due to hearing loss may cause auditory phantom percepts, i.e., tinnitus. This type of deafferentation-induced auditory phantom percept should be preceded by auditory experience because the fill-in phenomenon, namely tinnitus, is based upon auditory prediction and the resultant prediction error. For example, a recent animal study observed the absence of tinnitus in cats with congenital single-sided deafness (SSD; Eggermont and Kral, Hear Res 2016). However, no human studies have investigated the presence and characteristics of tinnitus in subjects with congenital SSD. Thus, the present study sought to reveal differences in the generation of tinnitus between subjects with congenital SSD and those with acquired SSD to evaluate the replicability of previous animal studies. This study enrolled 20 subjects with congenital SSD and 44 subjects with acquired SSD and examined the presence and characteristics of tinnitus in the groups. None of the 20 subjects with congenital SSD perceived tinnitus on the affected side, whereas 30 of 44 subjects with acquired SSD experienced tinnitus on the affected side. Additionally, there were significant positive correlations between tinnitus characteristics and the audiometric characteristics of the SSD. In accordance with the findings of the recent animal study, tinnitus was absent in subjects with congenital SSD, but relatively frequent in subjects with acquired SSD, which suggests that the development of tinnitus should be preceded by auditory experience. In other words, subjects with profound congenital peripheral deafferentation do not develop auditory phantom percepts because no auditory predictions are available from the Bayesian brain. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights

  13. Auditory reafferences: The influence of real-time feedback on movement control

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christian eKennel

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Auditory reafferences are real-time auditory products created by a person’s own movements. Whereas the interdependency of action and perception is generally well studied, the auditory feedback channel and the influence of perceptual processes during movement execution remain largely unconsidered. We argue that movements have a rhythmic character that is closely connected to sound, making it possible to manipulate auditory reafferences online to understand their role in motor control. We examined if step sounds, occurring as a by-product of running, have an influence on the performance of a complex movement task. Twenty participants completed a hurdling task in three auditory feedback conditions: a control condition with normal auditory feedback, a white noise condition in which sound was masked, and a delayed auditory feedback condition. Overall time and kinematic data were collected. Results show that delayed auditory feedback led to a significantly slower overall time and changed kinematic parameters. Our findings complement previous investigations in a natural movement situation with nonartificial auditory cues. Our results support the existing theoretical understanding of action–perception coupling and hold potential for applied work, where naturally occurring movement sounds can be implemented in the motor learning processes.

  14. Auditory reafferences: the influence of real-time feedback on movement control.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kennel, Christian; Streese, Lukas; Pizzera, Alexandra; Justen, Christoph; Hohmann, Tanja; Raab, Markus

    2015-01-01

    Auditory reafferences are real-time auditory products created by a person's own movements. Whereas the interdependency of action and perception is generally well studied, the auditory feedback channel and the influence of perceptual processes during movement execution remain largely unconsidered. We argue that movements have a rhythmic character that is closely connected to sound, making it possible to manipulate auditory reafferences online to understand their role in motor control. We examined if step sounds, occurring as a by-product of running, have an influence on the performance of a complex movement task. Twenty participants completed a hurdling task in three auditory feedback conditions: a control condition with normal auditory feedback, a white noise condition in which sound was masked, and a delayed auditory feedback condition. Overall time and kinematic data were collected. Results show that delayed auditory feedback led to a significantly slower overall time and changed kinematic parameters. Our findings complement previous investigations in a natural movement situation with non-artificial auditory cues. Our results support the existing theoretical understanding of action-perception coupling and hold potential for applied work, where naturally occurring movement sounds can be implemented in the motor learning processes.

  15. Selective and divided attention modulates auditory-vocal integration in the processing of pitch feedback errors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Ying; Hu, Huijing; Jones, Jeffery A; Guo, Zhiqiang; Li, Weifeng; Chen, Xi; Liu, Peng; Liu, Hanjun

    2015-08-01

    Speakers rapidly adjust their ongoing vocal productions to compensate for errors they hear in their auditory feedback. It is currently unclear what role attention plays in these vocal compensations. This event-related potential (ERP) study examined the influence of selective and divided attention on the vocal and cortical responses to pitch errors heard in auditory feedback regarding ongoing vocalisations. During the production of a sustained vowel, participants briefly heard their vocal pitch shifted up two semitones while they actively attended to auditory or visual events (selective attention), or both auditory and visual events (divided attention), or were not told to attend to either modality (control condition). The behavioral results showed that attending to the pitch perturbations elicited larger vocal compensations than attending to the visual stimuli. Moreover, ERPs were likewise sensitive to the attentional manipulations: P2 responses to pitch perturbations were larger when participants attended to the auditory stimuli compared to when they attended to the visual stimuli, and compared to when they were not explicitly told to attend to either the visual or auditory stimuli. By contrast, dividing attention between the auditory and visual modalities caused suppressed P2 responses relative to all the other conditions and caused enhanced N1 responses relative to the control condition. These findings provide strong evidence for the influence of attention on the mechanisms underlying the auditory-vocal integration in the processing of pitch feedback errors. In addition, selective attention and divided attention appear to modulate the neurobehavioral processing of pitch feedback errors in different ways. © 2015 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  16. Neural Correlates of Automatic and Controlled Auditory Processing in Schizophrenia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morey, Rajendra A.; Mitchell, Teresa V.; Inan, Seniha; Lieberman, Jeffrey A.; Belger, Aysenil

    2009-01-01

    Individuals with schizophrenia demonstrate impairments in selective attention and sensory processing. The authors assessed differences in brain function between 26 participants with schizophrenia and 17 comparison subjects engaged in automatic (unattended) and controlled (attended) auditory information processing using event-related functional MRI. Lower regional neural activation during automatic auditory processing in the schizophrenia group was not confined to just the temporal lobe, but also extended to prefrontal regions. Controlled auditory processing was associated with a distributed frontotemporal and subcortical dysfunction. Differences in activation between these two modes of auditory information processing were more pronounced in the comparison group than in the patient group. PMID:19196926

  17. Automatic detection of lexical change: an auditory event-related potential study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Muller-Gass, Alexandra; Roye, Anja; Kirmse, Ursula; Saupe, Katja; Jacobsen, Thomas; Schröger, Erich

    2007-10-29

    We investigated the detection of rare task-irrelevant changes in the lexical status of speech stimuli. Participants performed a nonlinguistic task on word and pseudoword stimuli that occurred, in separate conditions, rarely or frequently. Task performance for pseudowords was deteriorated relative to words, suggesting unintentional lexical analysis. Furthermore, rare word and pseudoword changes had a similar effect on the event-related potentials, starting as early as 165 ms. This is the first demonstration of the automatic detection of change in lexical status that is not based on a co-occurring acoustic change. We propose that, following lexical analysis of the incoming stimuli, a mental representation of the lexical regularity is formed and used as a template against which lexical change can be detected.

  18. Behavioral and EEG evidence for auditory memory suppression

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maya Elizabeth Cano

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available The neural basis of motivated forgetting using the Think/No-Think (TNT paradigm is receiving increased attention with a particular focus on the mechanisms that enable memory suppression. However, most TNT studies have been limited to the visual domain. To assess whether and to what extent direct memory suppression extends across sensory modalities, we examined behavioral and electroencephalographic (EEG effects of auditory Think/No-Think in healthy young adults by adapting the TNT paradigm to the auditory modality. Behaviorally, suppression of memory strength was indexed by prolonged response times during the retrieval of subsequently remembered No-Think words. We examined task-related EEG activity of both attempted memory retrieval and inhibition of a previously learned target word during the presentation of its paired associate. Event-related EEG responses revealed two main findings: 1 a centralized Think > No-Think positivity during auditory word presentation (from approximately 0-500ms, and 2 a sustained Think positivity over parietal electrodes beginning at approximately 600ms reflecting the memory retrieval effect which was significantly reduced for No-Think words. In addition, word-locked theta (4-8 Hz power was initially greater for No-Think compared to Think during auditory word presentation over fronto-central electrodes. This was followed by a posterior theta increase indexing successful memory retrieval in the Think condition.The observed event-related potential pattern and theta power analysis are similar to that reported in visual Think/No-Think studies and support a modality non-specific mechanism for memory inhibition. The EEG data also provide evidence supporting differing roles and time courses of frontal and parietal regions in the flexible control of auditory memory.

  19. Behavioral and EEG Evidence for Auditory Memory Suppression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cano, Maya E; Knight, Robert T

    2016-01-01

    The neural basis of motivated forgetting using the Think/No-Think (TNT) paradigm is receiving increased attention with a particular focus on the mechanisms that enable memory suppression. However, most TNT studies have been limited to the visual domain. To assess whether and to what extent direct memory suppression extends across sensory modalities, we examined behavioral and electroencephalographic (EEG) effects of auditory TNT in healthy young adults by adapting the TNT paradigm to the auditory modality. Behaviorally, suppression of memory strength was indexed by prolonged response time (RTs) during the retrieval of subsequently remembered No-Think words. We examined task-related EEG activity of both attempted memory retrieval and inhibition of a previously learned target word during the presentation of its paired associate. Event-related EEG responses revealed two main findings: (1) a centralized Think > No-Think positivity during auditory word presentation (from approximately 0-500 ms); and (2) a sustained Think positivity over parietal electrodes beginning at approximately 600 ms reflecting the memory retrieval effect which was significantly reduced for No-Think words. In addition, word-locked theta (4-8 Hz) power was initially greater for No-Think compared to Think during auditory word presentation over fronto-central electrodes. This was followed by a posterior theta increase indexing successful memory retrieval in the Think condition. The observed event-related potential pattern and theta power analysis are similar to that reported in visual TNT studies and support a modality non-specific mechanism for memory inhibition. The EEG data also provide evidence supporting differing roles and time courses of frontal and parietal regions in the flexible control of auditory memory.

  20. Touching lips and hearing fingers: effector-specific congruency between tactile and auditory stimulation modulates N1 amplitude and alpha desynchronization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shen, Guannan; Meltzoff, Andrew N; Marshall, Peter J

    2018-01-01

    Understanding the interactions between audition and sensorimotor processes is of theoretical importance, particularly in relation to speech processing. Although one current focus in this area is on interactions between auditory perception and the motor system, there has been less research on connections between the auditory and somatosensory modalities. The current study takes a novel approach to this omission by examining specific auditory-tactile interactions in the context of speech and non-speech sound production. Electroencephalography was used to examine brain responses when participants were presented with speech syllables (a bilabial sound /pa/ and a non-labial sound /ka/) or finger-snapping sounds that were simultaneously paired with tactile stimulation of either the lower lip or the right middle finger. Analyses focused on the sensory-evoked N1 in the event-related potential and the extent of alpha band desynchronization elicited by the stimuli. N1 amplitude over fronto-central sites was significantly enhanced when the bilabial /pa/ sound was paired with tactile lip stimulation and when the finger-snapping sound was paired with tactile stimulation of the finger. Post-stimulus alpha desynchronization at central sites was also enhanced when the /pa/ sound was accompanied by tactile stimulation of the lip. These novel findings indicate that neural aspects of somatosensory-auditory interactions are influenced by the congruency between the location of the bodily touch and the bodily origin of a perceived sound.

  1. Longitudinal Study of Speech Perception, Speech, and Language for Children with Hearing Loss in an Auditory-Verbal Therapy Program

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dornan, Dimity; Hickson, Louise; Murdoch, Bruce; Houston, Todd

    2009-01-01

    This study examined the speech perception, speech, and language developmental progress of 25 children with hearing loss (mean Pure-Tone Average [PTA] 79.37 dB HL) in an auditory verbal therapy program. Children were tested initially and then 21 months later on a battery of assessments. The speech and language results over time were compared with…

  2. Music Training and Education Slow the Deterioration of Music Perception Produced by Presbycusis in the Elderly

    OpenAIRE

    Moreno-Gómez, Felipe N.; Véliz, Guillermo; Rojas, Marcos; Martínez, Cristián; Olmedo, Rubén; Panussis, Felipe; Dagnino-Subiabre, Alexies; Delgado, Carolina; Delano, Paul H.

    2017-01-01

    The perception of music depends on the normal function of the peripheral and central auditory system. Aged subjects without hearing loss have altered music perception, including pitch and temporal features. Presbycusis or age-related hearing loss is a frequent condition in elderly people, produced by neurodegenerative processes that affect the cochlear receptor cells and brain circuits involved in auditory perception. Clinically, presbycusis patients have bilateral high-frequency hearing loss...

  3. The Role of Temporal Envelope and Fine Structure in Mandarin Lexical Tone Perception in Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shuo Wang

    Full Text Available Temporal information in a signal can be partitioned into temporal envelope (E and fine structure (FS. Fine structure is important for lexical tone perception for normal-hearing (NH listeners, and listeners with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL have an impaired ability to use FS in lexical tone perception due to the reduced frequency resolution. The present study was aimed to assess which of the acoustic aspects (E or FS played a more important role in lexical tone perception in subjects with auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder (ANSD and to determine whether it was the deficit in temporal resolution or frequency resolution that might lead to more detrimental effects on FS processing in pitch perception. Fifty-eight native Mandarin Chinese-speaking subjects (27 with ANSD, 16 with SNHL, and 15 with NH were assessed for (1 their ability to recognize lexical tones using acoustic E or FS cues with the "auditory chimera" technique, (2 temporal resolution as measured with temporal gap detection (TGD threshold, and (3 frequency resolution as measured with the Q(10dB values of the psychophysical tuning curves. Overall, 26.5%, 60.2%, and 92.1% of lexical tone responses were consistent with FS cues for tone perception for listeners with ANSD, SNHL, and NH, respectively. The mean TGD threshold was significantly higher for listeners with ANSD (11.9 ms than for SNHL (4.0 ms; p < 0.001 and NH (3.9 ms; p < 0.001 listeners, with no significant difference between SNHL and NH listeners. In contrast, the mean Q(10dB for listeners with SNHL (1.8 ± 0.4 was significantly lower than that for ANSD (3.5 ± 1.0; p < 0.001 and NH (3.4 ± 0.9; p < 0.001 listeners, with no significant difference between ANSD and NH listeners. These results suggest that reduced temporal resolution, as opposed to reduced frequency selectivity, in ANSD subjects leads to greater degradation of FS processing for pitch perception.

  4. Feature conjunctions and auditory sensory memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sussman, E; Gomes, H; Nousak, J M; Ritter, W; Vaughan, H G

    1998-05-18

    This study sought to obtain additional evidence that transient auditory memory stores information about conjunctions of features on an automatic basis. The mismatch negativity of event-related potentials was employed because its operations are based on information that is stored in transient auditory memory. The mismatch negativity was found to be elicited by a tone that differed from standard tones in a combination of its perceived location and frequency. The result lends further support to the hypothesis that the system upon which the mismatch negativity relies processes stimuli in an holistic manner. Copyright 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.

  5. The influence of tactile cognitive maps on auditory space perception in sighted persons.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alessia Tonelli

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available We have recently shown that vision is important to improve spatial auditory cognition. In this study we investigate whether touch is as effective as vision to create a cognitive map of a soundscape. In particular we tested whether the creation of a mental representation of a room, obtained through tactile exploration of a 3D model, can influence the perception of a complex auditory task in sighted people. We tested two groups of blindfolded sighted people – one experimental and one control group – in an auditory space bisection task. In the first group the bisection task was performed three times: specifically, the participants explored with their hands the 3D tactile model of the room and were led along the perimeter of the room between the first and the second execution of the space bisection. Then, they were allowed to remove the blindfold for a few minutes and look at the room between the second and third execution of the space bisection. Instead, the control group repeated for two consecutive times the space bisection task without performing any environmental exploration in between. Considering the first execution as a baseline, we found an improvement in the precision after the tactile exploration of the 3D model. Interestingly, no additional gain was obtained when room observation followed the tactile exploration, suggesting that no additional gain was obtained by vision cues after spatial tactile cues were internalized. No improvement was found between the first and the second execution of the space bisection without environmental exploration in the control group, suggesting that the improvement was not due to task learning. Our results show that tactile information modulates the precision of an ongoing space auditory task as well as visual information. This suggests that cognitive maps elicited by touch may participate in cross-modal calibration and supra-modal representations of space that increase implicit knowledge about sound

  6. Effect of age at cochlear implantation on auditory and speech development of children with auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Yuying; Dong, Ruijuan; Li, Yuling; Xu, Tianqiu; Li, Yongxin; Chen, Xueqing; Gong, Shusheng

    2014-12-01

    To evaluate the auditory and speech abilities in children with auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder (ANSD) after cochlear implantation (CI) and determine the role of age at implantation. Ten children participated in this retrospective case series study. All children had evidence of ANSD. All subjects had no cochlear nerve deficiency on magnetic resonance imaging and had used the cochlear implants for a period of 12-84 months. We divided our children into two groups: children who underwent implantation before 24 months of age and children who underwent implantation after 24 months of age. Their auditory and speech abilities were evaluated using the following: behavioral audiometry, the Categories of Auditory Performance (CAP), the Meaningful Auditory Integration Scale (MAIS), the Infant-Toddler Meaningful Auditory Integration Scale (IT-MAIS), the Standard-Chinese version of the Monosyllabic Lexical Neighborhood Test (LNT), the Multisyllabic Lexical Neighborhood Test (MLNT), the Speech Intelligibility Rating (SIR) and the Meaningful Use of Speech Scale (MUSS). All children showed progress in their auditory and language abilities. The 4-frequency average hearing level (HL) (500Hz, 1000Hz, 2000Hz and 4000Hz) of aided hearing thresholds ranged from 17.5 to 57.5dB HL. All children developed time-related auditory perception and speech skills. Scores of children with ANSD who received cochlear implants before 24 months tended to be better than those of children who received cochlear implants after 24 months. Seven children completed the Mandarin Lexical Neighborhood Test. Approximately half of the children showed improved open-set speech recognition. Cochlear implantation is helpful for children with ANSD and may be a good optional treatment for many ANSD children. In addition, children with ANSD fitted with cochlear implants before 24 months tended to acquire auditory and speech skills better than children fitted with cochlear implants after 24 months. Copyright © 2014

  7. Age-related decline of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit expression in the auditory cortex of the mimetic aging rat model associated with the common deletion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhong, Yi; Hu, Yujuan; Peng, Wei; Sun, Yu; Yang, Yang; Zhao, Xueyan; Huang, Xiang; Zhang, Honglian; Kong, Weijia

    2012-12-01

    The age-related deterioration in the central auditory system is well known to impair the abilities of sound localization and speech perception. However, the mechanisms involved in the age-related central auditory deficiency remain unclear. Previous studies have demonstrated that mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) deletions accumulated with age in the auditory system. Also, a cytochrome c oxidase (CcO) deficiency has been proposed to be a causal factor in the age-related decline in mitochondrial respiratory activity. This study was designed to explore the changes of CcO activity and to investigate the possible relationship between the mtDNA common deletion (CD) and CcO activity as well as the mRNA expression of CcO subunits in the auditory cortex of D-galactose (D-gal)-induced mimetic aging rats at different ages. Moreover, we explored whether peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ coactivator 1α (PGC-1α), nuclear respiratory factor 1 (NRF-1) and mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM) were involved in the changes of nuclear- and mitochondrial-encoded CcO subunits in the auditory cortex during aging. Our data demonstrated that d-gal-induced mimetic aging rats exhibited an accelerated accumulation of the CD and a gradual decline in the CcO activity in the auditory cortex during the aging process. The reduction in the CcO activity was correlated with the level of CD load in the auditory cortex. The mRNA expression of CcO subunit III was reduced significantly with age in the d-gal-induced mimetic aging rats. In contrast, the decline in the mRNA expression of subunits I and IV was relatively minor. Additionally, significant increases in the mRNA and protein levels of PGC-1α, NRF-1 and TFAM were observed in the auditory cortex of D-gal-induced mimetic aging rats with aging. These findings suggested that the accelerated accumulation of the CD in the auditory cortex may induce a substantial decline in CcO subunit III and lead to a significant decline in the Cc

  8. Tuned with a tune: Talker normalization via general auditory processes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Erika J C Laing

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available Voices have unique acoustic signatures, contributing to the acoustic variability listeners must contend with in perceiving speech, and it has long been proposed that listeners normalize speech perception to information extracted from a talker’s speech. Initial attempts to explain talker normalization relied on extraction of articulatory referents, but recent studies of context-dependent auditory perception suggest that general auditory referents such as the long-term average spectrum (LTAS of a talker’s speech similarly affect speech perception. The present study aimed to differentiate the contributions of articulatory/linguistic versus auditory referents for context-driven talker normalization effects and, more specifically, to identify the specific constraints under which such contexts impact speech perception. Synthesized sentences manipulated to sound like different talkers influenced categorization of a subsequent speech target only when differences in the sentences’ LTAS were in the frequency range of the acoustic cues relevant for the target phonemic contrast. This effect was true both for speech targets preceded by spoken sentence contexts and for targets preceded by nonspeech tone sequences that were LTAS-matched to the spoken sentence contexts. Specific LTAS characteristics, rather than perceived talker, predicted the results suggesting that general auditory mechanisms play an important role in effects considered to be instances of perceptual talker normalization.

  9. Relating binaural pitch perception to the individual listener's auditory profile

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Santurette, Sébastien; Dau, Torsten

    2012-01-01

    pitch perception showed deficits in temporal fine structure processing. Whether the observed deficits stemmed from peripheral or central mechanisms could not be resolved here, but the present findings may be useful for hearing loss characterization. (C) 2012 Acoustical Society of America. [http...

  10. The selective processing of emotional visual stimuli while detecting auditory targets: an ERP analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schupp, Harald T; Stockburger, Jessica; Bublatzky, Florian; Junghöfer, Markus; Weike, Almut I; Hamm, Alfons O

    2008-09-16

    Event-related potential studies revealed an early posterior negativity (EPN) for emotional compared to neutral pictures. Exploring the emotion-attention relationship, a previous study observed that a primary visual discrimination task interfered with the emotional modulation of the EPN component. To specify the locus of interference, the present study assessed the fate of selective visual emotion processing while attention is directed towards the auditory modality. While simply viewing a rapid and continuous stream of pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant pictures in one experimental condition, processing demands of a concurrent auditory target discrimination task were systematically varied in three further experimental conditions. Participants successfully performed the auditory task as revealed by behavioral performance and selected event-related potential components. Replicating previous results, emotional pictures were associated with a larger posterior negativity compared to neutral pictures. Of main interest, increasing demands of the auditory task did not modulate the selective processing of emotional visual stimuli. With regard to the locus of interference, selective emotion processing as indexed by the EPN does not seem to reflect shared processing resources of visual and auditory modality.

  11. Effect of 24 Hours of Sleep Deprivation on Auditory and Linguistic Perception: A Comparison among Young Controls, Sleep-Deprived Participants, Dyslexic Readers, and Aging Adults

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fostick, Leah; Babkoff, Harvey; Zukerman, Gil

    2014-01-01

    Purpose: To test the effects of 24 hr of sleep deprivation on auditory and linguistic perception and to assess the magnitude of this effect by comparing such performance with that of aging adults on speech perception and with that of dyslexic readers on phonological awareness. Method: Fifty-five sleep-deprived young adults were compared with 29…

  12. Human event-related brain potentials to auditory periodic noise stimuli.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kaernbach, C; Schröger, E; Gunter, T C

    1998-02-06

    Periodic noise is perceived as different from ordinary non-repeating noise due to the involvement of echoic memory. Since this stimulus does not contain simple physical cues (such as onsets or spectral shape) that might obscure sensory memory interpretations, it is a valuable tool to study sensory memory functions. We demonstrated for the first time that the processing of periodic noise can be tapped by event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Human subjects received repeating segments of noise embedded in non-repeating noise. They were instructed to detect the periodicity inherent to the stimulation. We observed a central negativity time-locked on the periodic segment that correlated to the subjects behavioral performance in periodicity detection. It is argued that the ERP result indicates an enhancement of sensory-specific processing.

  13. Neural network approach in multichannel auditory event-related potential analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, F Y; Slater, J D; Ramsay, R E

    1994-04-01

    Even though there are presently no clearly defined criteria for the assessment of P300 event-related potential (ERP) abnormality, it is strongly indicated through statistical analysis that such criteria exist for classifying control subjects and patients with diseases resulting in neuropsychological impairment such as multiple sclerosis (MS). We have demonstrated the feasibility of artificial neural network (ANN) methods in classifying ERP waveforms measured at a single channel (Cz) from control subjects and MS patients. In this paper, we report the results of multichannel ERP analysis and a modified network analysis methodology to enhance automation of the classification rule extraction process. The proposed methodology significantly reduces the work of statistical analysis. It also helps to standardize the criteria of P300 ERP assessment and facilitate the computer-aided analysis on neuropsychological functions.

  14. Quadri-stability of a spatially ambiguous auditory illusion

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Constance May Bainbridge

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available In addition to vision, audition plays an important role in sound localization in our world. One way we estimate the motion of an auditory object moving towards or away from us is from changes in volume intensity. However, the human auditory system has unequally distributed spatial resolution, including difficulty distinguishing sounds in front versus behind the listener. Here, we introduce a novel quadri-stable illusion, the Transverse-and-Bounce Auditory Illusion, which combines front-back confusion with changes in volume levels of a nonspatial sound to create ambiguous percepts of an object approaching and withdrawing from the listener. The sound can be perceived as traveling transversely from front to back or back to front, or bouncing to remain exclusively in front of or behind the observer. Here we demonstrate how human listeners experience this illusory phenomenon by comparing ambiguous and unambiguous stimuli for each of the four possible motion percepts. When asked to rate their confidence in perceiving each sound’s motion, participants reported equal confidence for the illusory and unambiguous stimuli. Participants perceived all four illusory motion percepts, and could not distinguish the illusion from the unambiguous stimuli. These results show that this illusion is effectively quadri-stable. In a second experiment, the illusory stimulus was looped continuously in headphones while participants identified its perceived path of motion to test properties of perceptual switching, locking, and biases. Participants were biased towards perceiving transverse compared to bouncing paths, and they became perceptually locked into alternating between front-to-back and back-to-front percepts, perhaps reflecting how auditory objects commonly move in the real world. This multi-stable auditory illusion opens opportunities for studying the perceptual, cognitive, and neural representation of objects in motion, as well as exploring multimodal perceptual

  15. The Mismatch Negativity: An Indicator of Perception of Regularities in Music

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xide Yu

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper reviews music research using Mismatch Negativity (MMN. MMN is a deviation-specific component of auditory event-related potential (EPR, which detects a deviation between a sound and an internal representation (e.g., memory trace. Recent studies have expanded the notion and the paradigms of MMN to higher-order music processing such as those involving short melodies, harmony chord, and music syntax. In this vein, we firstly reviewed the evolution of MMN from sound to music and then mainly compared the differences of MMN features between musicians and nonmusicians, followed by the discussion of the potential roles of the training effect and the natural exposure in MMN. Since MMN can serve as an index of neural plasticity, it thus can be widely used in clinical and other applied areas, such as detecting music preference in newborns or assessing wholeness of central auditory system of hearing illness. Finally, we pointed out some open questions and further directions. Current music perception research using MMN has mainly focused on relatively low hierarchical structure of music perception. To fully understand the neural substrates underlying processing of regularities in music, it is important and beneficial to combine MMN with other experimental paradigms such as early right-anterior negativity (ERAN.

  16. The Mismatch Negativity: An Indicator of Perception of Regularities in Music.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yu, Xide; Liu, Tao; Gao, Dingguo

    2015-01-01

    This paper reviews music research using Mismatch Negativity (MMN). MMN is a deviation-specific component of auditory event-related potential (EPR), which detects a deviation between a sound and an internal representation (e.g., memory trace). Recent studies have expanded the notion and the paradigms of MMN to higher-order music processing such as those involving short melodies, harmony chord, and music syntax. In this vein, we firstly reviewed the evolution of MMN from sound to music and then mainly compared the differences of MMN features between musicians and nonmusicians, followed by the discussion of the potential roles of the training effect and the natural exposure in MMN. Since MMN can serve as an index of neural plasticity, it thus can be widely used in clinical and other applied areas, such as detecting music preference in newborns or assessing wholeness of central auditory system of hearing illness. Finally, we pointed out some open questions and further directions. Current music perception research using MMN has mainly focused on relatively low hierarchical structure of music perception. To fully understand the neural substrates underlying processing of regularities in music, it is important and beneficial to combine MMN with other experimental paradigms such as early right-anterior negativity (ERAN).

  17. Examining age-related differences in auditory attention control using a task-switching procedure.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lawo, Vera; Koch, Iring

    2014-03-01

    Using a novel task-switching variant of dichotic selective listening, we examined age-related differences in the ability to intentionally switch auditory attention between 2 speakers defined by their sex. In our task, young (M age = 23.2 years) and older adults (M age = 66.6 years) performed a numerical size categorization on spoken number words. The task-relevant speaker was indicated by a cue prior to auditory stimulus onset. The cuing interval was either short or long and varied randomly trial by trial. We found clear performance costs with instructed attention switches. These auditory attention switch costs decreased with prolonged cue-stimulus interval. Older adults were generally much slower (but not more error prone) than young adults, but switching-related effects did not differ across age groups. These data suggest that the ability to intentionally switch auditory attention in a selective listening task is not compromised in healthy aging. We discuss the role of modality-specific factors in age-related differences.

  18. Interhemispheric coupling between the posterior sylvian regions impacts successful auditory temporal order judgment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bernasconi, Fosco; Grivel, Jeremy; Murray, Micah M; Spierer, Lucas

    2010-07-01

    Accurate perception of the temporal order of sensory events is a prerequisite in numerous functions ranging from language comprehension to motor coordination. We investigated the spatio-temporal brain dynamics of auditory temporal order judgment (aTOJ) using electrical neuroimaging analyses of auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) recorded while participants completed a near-threshold task requiring spatial discrimination of left-right and right-left sound sequences. AEPs to sound pairs modulated topographically as a function of aTOJ accuracy over the 39-77ms post-stimulus period, indicating the engagement of distinct configurations of brain networks during early auditory processing stages. Source estimations revealed that accurate and inaccurate performance were linked to bilateral posterior sylvian regions activity (PSR). However, activity within left, but not right, PSR predicted behavioral performance suggesting that left PSR activity during early encoding phases of pairs of auditory spatial stimuli appears critical for the perception of their order of occurrence. Correlation analyses of source estimations further revealed that activity between left and right PSR was significantly correlated in the inaccurate but not accurate condition, indicating that aTOJ accuracy depends on the functional decoupling between homotopic PSR areas. These results support a model of temporal order processing wherein behaviorally relevant temporal information--i.e. a temporal 'stamp'--is extracted within the early stages of cortical processes within left PSR but critically modulated by inputs from right PSR. We discuss our results with regard to current models of temporal of temporal order processing, namely gating and latency mechanisms. Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  19. Effect of task-related continuous auditory feedback during learning of tracking motion exercises

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rosati Giulio

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background This paper presents the results of a set of experiments in which we used continuous auditory feedback to augment motor training exercises. This feedback modality is mostly underexploited in current robotic rehabilitation systems, which usually implement only very basic auditory interfaces. Our hypothesis is that properly designed continuous auditory feedback could be used to represent temporal and spatial information that could in turn, improve performance and motor learning. Methods We implemented three different experiments on healthy subjects, who were asked to track a target on a screen by moving an input device (controller with their hand. Different visual and auditory feedback modalities were envisaged. The first experiment investigated whether continuous task-related auditory feedback can help improve performance to a greater extent than error-related audio feedback, or visual feedback alone. In the second experiment we used sensory substitution to compare different types of auditory feedback with equivalent visual feedback, in order to find out whether mapping the same information on a different sensory channel (the visual channel yielded comparable effects with those gained in the first experiment. The final experiment applied a continuously changing visuomotor transformation between the controller and the screen and mapped kinematic information, computed in either coordinate system (controller or video, to the audio channel, in order to investigate which information was more relevant to the user. Results Task-related audio feedback significantly improved performance with respect to visual feedback alone, whilst error-related feedback did not. Secondly, performance in audio tasks was significantly better with respect to the equivalent sensory-substituted visual tasks. Finally, with respect to visual feedback alone, video-task-related sound feedback decreased the tracking error during the learning of a novel

  20. Toward a model of phoneme perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ardila, A

    1993-05-01

    Hemisphere asymmetry in phoneme perception was analyzed. Three basic mechanisms underlying phoneme perception are proposed. Left temporal lobe would be specialized in: (1) ultrashort auditory (echoic) memory; (2) higher resolution power for some language frequencies; and (3) recognition of rapidly changing and time-dependent auditory signals. An attempt was made to apply some neurophysiological mechanisms described for the visual system to phoneme recognition in the auditory system.

  1. Hallucination- and speech-specific hypercoupling in frontotemporal auditory and language networks in schizophrenia using combined task-based fMRI data: An fBIRN study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lavigne, Katie M; Woodward, Todd S

    2018-04-01

    Hypercoupling of activity in speech-perception-specific brain networks has been proposed to play a role in the generation of auditory-verbal hallucinations (AVHs) in schizophrenia; however, it is unclear whether this hypercoupling extends to nonverbal auditory perception. We investigated this by comparing schizophrenia patients with and without AVHs, and healthy controls, on task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data combining verbal speech perception (SP), inner verbal thought generation (VTG), and nonverbal auditory oddball detection (AO). Data from two previously published fMRI studies were simultaneously analyzed using group constrained principal component analysis for fMRI (group fMRI-CPCA), which allowed for comparison of task-related functional brain networks across groups and tasks while holding the brain networks under study constant, leading to determination of the degree to which networks are common to verbal and nonverbal perception conditions, and which show coordinated hyperactivity in hallucinations. Three functional brain networks emerged: (a) auditory-motor, (b) language processing, and (c) default-mode (DMN) networks. Combining the AO and sentence tasks allowed the auditory-motor and language networks to separately emerge, whereas they were aggregated when individual tasks were analyzed. AVH patients showed greater coordinated activity (deactivity for DMN regions) than non-AVH patients during SP in all networks, but this did not extend to VTG or AO. This suggests that the hypercoupling in AVH patients in speech-perception-related brain networks is specific to perceived speech, and does not extend to perceived nonspeech or inner verbal thought generation. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  2. Tinnitus alters resting state functional connectivity (RSFC) in human auditory and non-auditory brain regions as measured by functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).

    Science.gov (United States)

    San Juan, Juan; Hu, Xiao-Su; Issa, Mohamad; Bisconti, Silvia; Kovelman, Ioulia; Kileny, Paul; Basura, Gregory

    2017-01-01

    Tinnitus, or phantom sound perception, leads to increased spontaneous neural firing rates and enhanced synchrony in central auditory circuits in animal models. These putative physiologic correlates of tinnitus to date have not been well translated in the brain of the human tinnitus sufferer. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) we recently showed that tinnitus in humans leads to maintained hemodynamic activity in auditory and adjacent, non-auditory cortices. Here we used fNIRS technology to investigate changes in resting state functional connectivity between human auditory and non-auditory brain regions in normal-hearing, bilateral subjective tinnitus and controls before and after auditory stimulation. Hemodynamic activity was monitored over the region of interest (primary auditory cortex) and non-region of interest (adjacent non-auditory cortices) and functional brain connectivity was measured during a 60-second baseline/period of silence before and after a passive auditory challenge consisting of alternating pure tones (750 and 8000Hz), broadband noise and silence. Functional connectivity was measured between all channel-pairs. Prior to stimulation, connectivity of the region of interest to the temporal and fronto-temporal region was decreased in tinnitus participants compared to controls. Overall, connectivity in tinnitus was differentially altered as compared to controls following sound stimulation. Enhanced connectivity was seen in both auditory and non-auditory regions in the tinnitus brain, while controls showed a decrease in connectivity following sound stimulation. In tinnitus, the strength of connectivity was increased between auditory cortex and fronto-temporal, fronto-parietal, temporal, occipito-temporal and occipital cortices. Together these data suggest that central auditory and non-auditory brain regions are modified in tinnitus and that resting functional connectivity measured by fNIRS technology may contribute to conscious phantom

  3. Tinnitus alters resting state functional connectivity (RSFC in human auditory and non-auditory brain regions as measured by functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Juan San Juan

    Full Text Available Tinnitus, or phantom sound perception, leads to increased spontaneous neural firing rates and enhanced synchrony in central auditory circuits in animal models. These putative physiologic correlates of tinnitus to date have not been well translated in the brain of the human tinnitus sufferer. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS we recently showed that tinnitus in humans leads to maintained hemodynamic activity in auditory and adjacent, non-auditory cortices. Here we used fNIRS technology to investigate changes in resting state functional connectivity between human auditory and non-auditory brain regions in normal-hearing, bilateral subjective tinnitus and controls before and after auditory stimulation. Hemodynamic activity was monitored over the region of interest (primary auditory cortex and non-region of interest (adjacent non-auditory cortices and functional brain connectivity was measured during a 60-second baseline/period of silence before and after a passive auditory challenge consisting of alternating pure tones (750 and 8000Hz, broadband noise and silence. Functional connectivity was measured between all channel-pairs. Prior to stimulation, connectivity of the region of interest to the temporal and fronto-temporal region was decreased in tinnitus participants compared to controls. Overall, connectivity in tinnitus was differentially altered as compared to controls following sound stimulation. Enhanced connectivity was seen in both auditory and non-auditory regions in the tinnitus brain, while controls showed a decrease in connectivity following sound stimulation. In tinnitus, the strength of connectivity was increased between auditory cortex and fronto-temporal, fronto-parietal, temporal, occipito-temporal and occipital cortices. Together these data suggest that central auditory and non-auditory brain regions are modified in tinnitus and that resting functional connectivity measured by fNIRS technology may contribute to

  4. Environment for Auditory Research Facility (EAR)

    Data.gov (United States)

    Federal Laboratory Consortium — EAR is an auditory perception and communication research center enabling state-of-the-art simulation of various indoor and outdoor acoustic environments. The heart...

  5. Modification of sudden onset auditory ERP by involuntary attention to visual stimuli.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oray, Serkan; Lu, Zhong-Lin; Dawson, Michael E

    2002-03-01

    To investigate the cross-modal nature of the exogenous attention system, we studied how involuntary attention in the visual modality affects ERPs elicited by sudden onset of events in the auditory modality. Relatively loud auditory white noise bursts were presented to subjects with random and long inter-trial intervals. The noise bursts were either presented alone, or paired with a visual stimulus with a visual to auditory onset asynchrony of 120 ms. In a third condition, the visual stimuli were shown alone. All three conditions, auditory alone, visual alone, and paired visual/auditory, were randomly inter-mixed and presented with equal probabilities. Subjects were instructed to fixate on a point in front of them without task instructions concerning either the auditory or visual stimuli. ERPs were recorded from 28 scalp sites throughout every experimental session. Compared to ERPs in the auditory alone condition, pairing the auditory noise bursts with the visual stimulus reduced the amplitude of the auditory N100 component at Cz by 40% and the auditory P200/P300 component at Cz by 25%. No significant topographical change was observed in the scalp distributions of the N100 and P200/P300. Our results suggest that involuntary attention to visual stimuli suppresses early sensory (N100) as well as late cognitive (P200/P300) processing of sudden auditory events. The activation of the exogenous attention system by sudden auditory onset can be modified by involuntary visual attention in a cross-model, passive prepulse inhibition paradigm.

  6. Crossmodal effects of Guqin and piano music on selective attention: an event-related potential study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhu, Weina; Zhang, Junjun; Ding, Xiaojun; Zhou, Changle; Ma, Yuanye; Xu, Dan

    2009-11-27

    To compare the effects of music from different cultural environments (Guqin: Chinese music; piano: Western music) on crossmodal selective attention, behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) data in a standard two-stimulus visual oddball task were recorded from Chinese subjects in three conditions: silence, Guqin music or piano music background. Visual task data were then compared with auditory task data collected previously. In contrast with the results of the auditory task, the early (N1) and late (P300) stages exhibited no differences between Guqin and piano backgrounds during the visual task. Taking our previous study and this study together, we can conclude that: although the cultural-familiar music influenced selective attention both in the early and late stages, these effects appeared only within a sensory modality (auditory) but not in cross-sensory modalities (visual). Thus, the musical cultural factor is more obvious in intramodal than in crossmodal selective attention.

  7. Cortical oscillations in auditory perception and speech: evidence for two temporal windows in human auditory cortex

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Huan eLuo

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available Natural sounds, including vocal communication sounds, contain critical information at multiple time scales. Two essential temporal modulation rates in speech have been argued to be in the low gamma band (~20-80 ms duration information and the theta band (~150-300 ms, corresponding to segmental and syllabic modulation rates, respectively. On one hypothesis, auditory cortex implements temporal integration using time constants closely related to these values. The neural correlates of a proposed dual temporal window mechanism in human auditory cortex remain poorly understood. We recorded MEG responses from participants listening to non-speech auditory stimuli with different temporal structures, created by concatenating frequency-modulated segments of varied segment durations. We show that these non-speech stimuli with temporal structure matching speech-relevant scales (~25 ms and ~200 ms elicit reliable phase tracking in the corresponding associated oscillatory frequencies (low gamma and theta bands. In contrast, stimuli with non-matching temporal structure do not. Furthermore, the topography of theta band phase tracking shows rightward lateralization while gamma band phase tracking occurs bilaterally. The results support the hypothesis that there exists multi-time resolution processing in cortex on discontinuous scales and provide evidence for an asymmetric organization of temporal analysis (asymmetrical sampling in time, AST. The data argue for a macroscopic-level neural mechanism underlying multi-time resolution processing: the sliding and resetting of intrinsic temporal windows on privileged time scales.

  8. Sex-specific asymmetries in communication sound perception are not related to hand preference in an early primate

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    Scheumann Marina

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Left hemispheric dominance of language processing and handedness, previously thought to be unique to humans, is currently under debate. To gain an insight into the origin of lateralization in primates, we have studied gray mouse lemurs, suggested to represent the most ancestral primate condition. We explored potential functional asymmetries on the behavioral level by applying a combined handedness and auditory perception task. For testing handedness, we used a forced food-grasping task. For testing auditory perception, we adapted the head turn paradigm, originally established for exploring hemispheric specializations in conspecific sound processing in Old World monkeys, and exposed 38 subjects to control sounds and conspecific communication sounds of positive and negative emotional valence. Results The tested mouse lemur population did not show an asymmetry in hand preference or in orientation towards conspecific communication sounds. However, males, but not females, exhibited a significant right ear-left hemisphere bias when exposed to conspecific communication sounds of negative emotional valence. Orientation asymmetries were not related to hand preference. Conclusion Our results provide the first evidence for sex-specific asymmetries for conspecific communication sound perception in non-human primates. Furthermore, they suggest that hemispheric dominance for communication sound processing evolved before handedness and independently from each other.

  9. Extensive Tonotopic Mapping across Auditory Cortex Is Recapitulated by Spectrally Directed Attention and Systematically Related to Cortical Myeloarchitecture.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dick, Frederic K; Lehet, Matt I; Callaghan, Martina F; Keller, Tim A; Sereno, Martin I; Holt, Lori L

    2017-12-13

    Auditory selective attention is vital in natural soundscapes. But it is unclear how attentional focus on the primary dimension of auditory representation-acoustic frequency-might modulate basic auditory functional topography during active listening. In contrast to visual selective attention, which is supported by motor-mediated optimization of input across saccades and pupil dilation, the primate auditory system has fewer means of differentially sampling the world. This makes spectrally-directed endogenous attention a particularly crucial aspect of auditory attention. Using a novel functional paradigm combined with quantitative MRI, we establish in male and female listeners that human frequency-band-selective attention drives activation in both myeloarchitectonically estimated auditory core, and across the majority of tonotopically mapped nonprimary auditory cortex. The attentionally driven best-frequency maps show strong concordance with sensory-driven maps in the same subjects across much of the temporal plane, with poor concordance in areas outside traditional auditory cortex. There is significantly greater activation across most of auditory cortex when best frequency is attended, versus ignored; the same regions do not show this enhancement when attending to the least-preferred frequency band. Finally, the results demonstrate that there is spatial correspondence between the degree of myelination and the strength of the tonotopic signal across a number of regions in auditory cortex. Strong frequency preferences across tonotopically mapped auditory cortex spatially correlate with R 1 -estimated myeloarchitecture, indicating shared functional and anatomical organization that may underlie intrinsic auditory regionalization. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Perception is an active process, especially sensitive to attentional state. Listeners direct auditory attention to track a violin's melody within an ensemble performance, or to follow a voice in a crowded cafe. Although

  10. Visual form predictions facilitate auditory processing at the N1.

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    Paris, Tim; Kim, Jeesun; Davis, Chris

    2017-02-20

    Auditory-visual (AV) events often involve a leading visual cue (e.g. auditory-visual speech) that allows the perceiver to generate predictions about the upcoming auditory event. Electrophysiological evidence suggests that when an auditory event is predicted, processing is sped up, i.e., the N1 component of the ERP occurs earlier (N1 facilitation). However, it is not clear (1) whether N1 facilitation is based specifically on predictive rather than multisensory integration and (2) which particular properties of the visual cue it is based on. The current experiment used artificial AV stimuli in which visual cues predicted but did not co-occur with auditory cues. Visual form cues (high and low salience) and the auditory-visual pairing were manipulated so that auditory predictions could be based on form and timing or on timing only. The results showed that N1 facilitation occurred only for combined form and temporal predictions. These results suggest that faster auditory processing (as indicated by N1 facilitation) is based on predictive processing generated by a visual cue that clearly predicts both what and when the auditory stimulus will occur. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  11. Event-related potentials reveal linguistic suppression effect but not enhancement effect on categorical perception of color.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lu, Aitao; Yang, Ling; Yu, Yanping; Zhang, Meichao; Shao, Yulan; Zhang, Honghong

    2014-08-01

    The present study used the event-related potential technique to investigate the nature of linguistic effect on color perception. Four types of stimuli based on hue differences between a target color and a preceding color were used: zero hue step within-category color (0-WC); one hue step within-category color (1-WC); one hue step between-category color (1-BC); and two hue step between-category color (2-BC). The ERP results showed no significant effect of stimulus type in the 100-200 ms time window. However, in the 200-350 ms time window, ERP responses to 1-WC target color overlapped with that to 0-WC target color for right visual field (RVF) but not left visual field (LVF) presentation. For the 1-BC condition, ERP amplitudes were comparable in the two visual fields, both being significantly different from the 0-WC condition. The 2-BC condition showed the same pattern as the 1-BC condition. These results suggest that the categorical perception of color in RVF is due to linguistic suppression on within-category color discrimination but not between-category color enhancement, and that the effect is independent of early perceptual processes. © 2014 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  12. The Encoding of Sound Source Elevation in the Human Auditory Cortex.

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    Trapeau, Régis; Schönwiesner, Marc

    2018-03-28

    Spatial hearing is a crucial capacity of the auditory system. While the encoding of horizontal sound direction has been extensively studied, very little is known about the representation of vertical sound direction in the auditory cortex. Using high-resolution fMRI, we measured voxelwise sound elevation tuning curves in human auditory cortex and show that sound elevation is represented by broad tuning functions preferring lower elevations as well as secondary narrow tuning functions preferring individual elevation directions. We changed the ear shape of participants (male and female) with silicone molds for several days. This manipulation reduced or abolished the ability to discriminate sound elevation and flattened cortical tuning curves. Tuning curves recovered their original shape as participants adapted to the modified ears and regained elevation perception over time. These findings suggest that the elevation tuning observed in low-level auditory cortex did not arise from the physical features of the stimuli but is contingent on experience with spectral cues and covaries with the change in perception. One explanation for this observation may be that the tuning in low-level auditory cortex underlies the subjective perception of sound elevation. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT This study addresses two fundamental questions about the brain representation of sensory stimuli: how the vertical spatial axis of auditory space is represented in the auditory cortex and whether low-level sensory cortex represents physical stimulus features or subjective perceptual attributes. Using high-resolution fMRI, we show that vertical sound direction is represented by broad tuning functions preferring lower elevations as well as secondary narrow tuning functions preferring individual elevation directions. In addition, we demonstrate that the shape of these tuning functions is contingent on experience with spectral cues and covaries with the change in perception, which may indicate that the

  13. Predictive uncertainty in auditory sequence processing

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    Niels Chr. eHansen

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available Previous studies of auditory expectation have focused on the expectedness perceived by listeners retrospectively in response to events. In contrast, this research examines predictive uncertainty - a property of listeners’ prospective state of expectation prior to the onset of an event. We examine the information-theoretic concept of Shannon entropy as a model of predictive uncertainty in music cognition. This is motivated by the Statistical Learning Hypothesis, which proposes that schematic expectations reflect probabilistic relationships between sensory events learned implicitly through exposure.Using probability estimates from an unsupervised, variable-order Markov model, 12 melodic contexts high in entropy and 12 melodic contexts low in entropy were selected from two musical repertoires differing in structural complexity (simple and complex. Musicians and non-musicians listened to the stimuli and provided explicit judgments of perceived uncertainty (explicit uncertainty. We also examined an indirect measure of uncertainty computed as the entropy of expectedness distributions obtained using a classical probe-tone paradigm where listeners rated the perceived expectedness of the final note in a melodic sequence (inferred uncertainty. Finally, we simulate listeners’ perception of expectedness and uncertainty using computational models of auditory expectation. A detailed model comparison indicates which model parameters maximize fit to the data and how they compare to existing models in the literature.The results show that listeners experience greater uncertainty in high-entropy musical contexts than low-entropy contexts. This effect is particularly apparent for inferred uncertainty and is stronger in musicians than non-musicians. Consistent with the Statistical Learning Hypothesis, the results suggest that increased domain-relevant training is associated with an increasingly accurate cognitive model of probabilistic structure in music.

  14. Predictive uncertainty in auditory sequence processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hansen, Niels Chr; Pearce, Marcus T

    2014-01-01

    Previous studies of auditory expectation have focused on the expectedness perceived by listeners retrospectively in response to events. In contrast, this research examines predictive uncertainty-a property of listeners' prospective state of expectation prior to the onset of an event. We examine the information-theoretic concept of Shannon entropy as a model of predictive uncertainty in music cognition. This is motivated by the Statistical Learning Hypothesis, which proposes that schematic expectations reflect probabilistic relationships between sensory events learned implicitly through exposure. Using probability estimates from an unsupervised, variable-order Markov model, 12 melodic contexts high in entropy and 12 melodic contexts low in entropy were selected from two musical repertoires differing in structural complexity (simple and complex). Musicians and non-musicians listened to the stimuli and provided explicit judgments of perceived uncertainty (explicit uncertainty). We also examined an indirect measure of uncertainty computed as the entropy of expectedness distributions obtained using a classical probe-tone paradigm where listeners rated the perceived expectedness of the final note in a melodic sequence (inferred uncertainty). Finally, we simulate listeners' perception of expectedness and uncertainty using computational models of auditory expectation. A detailed model comparison indicates which model parameters maximize fit to the data and how they compare to existing models in the literature. The results show that listeners experience greater uncertainty in high-entropy musical contexts than low-entropy contexts. This effect is particularly apparent for inferred uncertainty and is stronger in musicians than non-musicians. Consistent with the Statistical Learning Hypothesis, the results suggest that increased domain-relevant training is associated with an increasingly accurate cognitive model of probabilistic structure in music.

  15. Functional magnetic resonance imaging measure of automatic and controlled auditory processing

    OpenAIRE

    Mitchell, Teresa V.; Morey, Rajendra A.; Inan, Seniha; Belger, Aysenil

    2005-01-01

    Activity within fronto-striato-temporal regions during processing of unattended auditory deviant tones and an auditory target detection task was investigated using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging. Activation within the middle frontal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, anterior cingulate gyrus, superior temporal gyrus, thalamus, and basal ganglia were analyzed for differences in activity patterns between the two stimulus conditions. Unattended deviant tones elicited robust acti...

  16. Loneliness, Daily Pain, and Perceptions of Interpersonal Events in Adults with Fibromyalgia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wolf, Laurie Dempsey; Davis, Mary C.

    2014-01-01

    Objective This study examined whether individual differences in loneliness and/or daily exacerbations in loneliness relate to daily pain and frequency and perception of interpersonal events among individuals with fibromyalgia (FM). Methods 118 participants with FM completed electronic diaries each evening for 21 days to assess the occurrence of positive and negative interpersonal events, event appraisals, and pain. Multilevel modeling was used to examine relations of chronic and transitory loneliness to daily life outcomes, controlling for daily depressive symptoms. Results Chronic and transitory loneliness were associated with more frequent reports of negative and less frequent reports of positive interpersonal daily events, higher daily stress ratings and lower daily enjoyment ratings, and higher daily pain levels. Neither chronic nor transitory loneliness moderated the relations between daily negative events and either stress appraisals or pain. However, both chronic and transitory loneliness moderated the relation between daily positive events and enjoyment appraisals. Specifically, on days of greater numbers of positive events than usual, lonely people had larger boosts in enjoyment than did nonlonely people. Similarly, days with greater than usual numbers of positive events were related to larger boosts in enjoyment if an individual was also experiencing higher than usual loneliness levels. Conclusions Chronic and transient episodes of loneliness are associated with more negative daily social relations and pain. However, boosts in positive events yield greater boosts in day-to-day enjoyment of social relations for lonely versus nonlonely individuals, and during loneliness episodes, a finding that can inform future interventions for individuals with chronic pain. PMID:25180546

  17. A virtual auditory environment for investigating the auditory signal processing of realistic sounds

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Favrot, Sylvain Emmanuel; Buchholz, Jörg

    2008-01-01

    In the present study, a novel multichannel loudspeaker-based virtual auditory environment (VAE) is introduced. The VAE aims at providing a versatile research environment for investigating the auditory signal processing in real environments, i.e., considering multiple sound sources and room...... reverberation. The environment is based on the ODEON room acoustic simulation software to render the acoustical scene. ODEON outputs are processed using a combination of different order Ambisonic techniques to calculate multichannel room impulse responses (mRIR). Auralization is then obtained by the convolution...... the VAE development, special care was taken in order to achieve a realistic auditory percept and to avoid “artifacts” such as unnatural coloration. The performance of the VAE has been evaluated and optimized on a 29 loudspeaker setup using both objective and subjective measurement techniques....

  18. Missing a trick: Auditory load modulates conscious awareness in audition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fairnie, Jake; Moore, Brian C J; Remington, Anna

    2016-07-01

    In the visual domain there is considerable evidence supporting the Load Theory of Attention and Cognitive Control, which holds that conscious perception of background stimuli depends on the level of perceptual load involved in a primary task. However, literature on the applicability of this theory to the auditory domain is limited and, in many cases, inconsistent. Here we present a novel "auditory search task" that allows systematic investigation of the impact of auditory load on auditory conscious perception. An array of simultaneous, spatially separated sounds was presented to participants. On half the trials, a critical stimulus was presented concurrently with the array. Participants were asked to detect which of 2 possible targets was present in the array (primary task), and whether the critical stimulus was present or absent (secondary task). Increasing the auditory load of the primary task (raising the number of sounds in the array) consistently reduced the ability to detect the critical stimulus. This indicates that, at least in certain situations, load theory applies in the auditory domain. The implications of this finding are discussed both with respect to our understanding of typical audition and for populations with altered auditory processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

  19. Concentrated pitch discrimination modulates auditory brainstem responses during contralateral noise exposure.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ikeda, Kazunari; Sekiguchi, Takahiro; Hayashi, Akiko

    2010-03-31

    This study examined a notion that auditory discrimination is a requisite for attention-related modulation of the auditory brainstem response (ABR) during contralateral noise exposure. Given that the right ear was exposed continuously with white noise at an intensity of 60-80 dB sound pressure level, tone pips at 80 dB sound pressure level were delivered to the left ear through either single-stimulus or oddball procedures. Participants conducted reading (ignoring task) and counting target tones (attentive task) during stimulation. The oddball but not the single-stimulus procedures elicited task-related modulations in both early (ABR) and late (processing negativity) event-related potentials simultaneously. The elicitation of the attention-related ABR modulation during contralateral noise exposure is thus considered to require auditory discrimination and have the corticofugal nature evidently.

  20. Common coding of auditory and visual spatial information in working memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lehnert, Günther; Zimmer, Hubert D

    2008-09-16

    We compared spatial short-term memory for visual and auditory stimuli in an event-related slow potentials study. Subjects encoded object locations of either four or six sequentially presented auditory or visual stimuli and maintained them during a retention period of 6 s. Slow potentials recorded during encoding were modulated by the modality of the stimuli. Stimulus related activity was stronger for auditory items at frontal and for visual items at posterior sites. At frontal electrodes, negative potentials incrementally increased with the sequential presentation of visual items, whereas a strong transient component occurred during encoding of each auditory item without the cumulative increment. During maintenance, frontal slow potentials were affected by modality and memory load according to task difficulty. In contrast, at posterior recording sites, slow potential activity was only modulated by memory load independent of modality. We interpret the frontal effects as correlates of different encoding strategies and the posterior effects as a correlate of common coding of visual and auditory object locations.

  1. Developmental programming of auditory learning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Melania Puddu

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available The basic structures involved in the development of auditory function and consequently in language acquisition are directed by genetic code, but the expression of individual genes may be altered by exposure to environmental factors, which if favorable, orient it in the proper direction, leading its development towards normality, if unfavorable, they deviate it from its physiological course. Early sensorial experience during the foetal period (i.e. intrauterine noise floor, sounds coming from the outside and attenuated by the uterine filter, particularly mother’s voice and modifications induced by it at the cochlear level represent the first example of programming in one of the earliest critical periods in development of the auditory system. This review will examine the factors that influence the developmental programming of auditory learning from the womb to the infancy. In particular it focuses on the following points: the prenatal auditory experience and the plastic phenomena presumably induced by it in the auditory system from the basilar membrane to the cortex;the involvement of these phenomena on language acquisition and on the perception of language communicative intention after birth;the consequences of auditory deprivation in critical periods of auditory development (i.e. premature interruption of foetal life.

  2. Auditory Emotional Cues Enhance Visual Perception

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zeelenberg, Rene; Bocanegra, Bruno R.

    2010-01-01

    Recent studies show that emotional stimuli impair performance to subsequently presented neutral stimuli. Here we show a cross-modal perceptual enhancement caused by emotional cues. Auditory cue words were followed by a visually presented neutral target word. Two-alternative forced-choice identification of the visual target was improved by…

  3. Neural mechanisms underlying sound-induced visual motion perception: An fMRI study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hidaka, Souta; Higuchi, Satomi; Teramoto, Wataru; Sugita, Yoichi

    2017-07-01

    Studies of crossmodal interactions in motion perception have reported activation in several brain areas, including those related to motion processing and/or sensory association, in response to multimodal (e.g., visual and auditory) stimuli that were both in motion. Recent studies have demonstrated that sounds can trigger illusory visual apparent motion to static visual stimuli (sound-induced visual motion: SIVM): A visual stimulus blinking at a fixed location is perceived to be moving laterally when an alternating left-right sound is also present. Here, we investigated brain activity related to the perception of SIVM using a 7T functional magnetic resonance imaging technique. Specifically, we focused on the patterns of neural activities in SIVM and visually induced visual apparent motion (VIVM). We observed shared activations in the middle occipital area (V5/hMT), which is thought to be involved in visual motion processing, for SIVM and VIVM. Moreover, as compared to VIVM, SIVM resulted in greater activation in the superior temporal area and dominant functional connectivity between the V5/hMT area and the areas related to auditory and crossmodal motion processing. These findings indicate that similar but partially different neural mechanisms could be involved in auditory-induced and visually-induced motion perception, and neural signals in auditory, visual, and, crossmodal motion processing areas closely and directly interact in the perception of SIVM. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  4. Proprioceptive event related potentials: gating and task effects

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Arnfred, Sidse M

    2005-01-01

    The integration of proprioception with vision, touch or audition is considered basic to the developmental formation of perceptions, conceptual objects and the creation of cognitive schemes. Thus, mapping of proprioceptive information processing is important in cognitive research. A stimulus...... of a brisk change of weight on a hand held load elicit a proprioceptive evoked potential (PEP). Here this is used to examine early and late information processing related to weight discrimination by event related potentials (ERP)....

  5. Temporal Integration of Auditory Stimulation and Binocular Disparity Signals

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marina Zannoli

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available Several studies using visual objects defined by luminance have reported that the auditory event must be presented 30 to 40 ms after the visual stimulus to perceive audiovisual synchrony. In the present study, we used visual objects defined only by their binocular disparity. We measured the optimal latency between visual and auditory stimuli for the perception of synchrony using a method introduced by Moutoussis & Zeki (1997. Visual stimuli were defined either by luminance and disparity or by disparity only. They moved either back and forth between 6 and 12 arcmin or from left to right at a constant disparity of 9 arcmin. This visual modulation was presented together with an amplitude-modulated 500 Hz tone. Both modulations were sinusoidal (frequency: 0.7 Hz. We found no difference between 2D and 3D motion for luminance stimuli: a 40 ms auditory lag was necessary for perceived synchrony. Surprisingly, even though stereopsis is often thought to be slow, we found a similar optimal latency in the disparity 3D motion condition (55 ms. However, when participants had to judge simultaneity for disparity 2D motion stimuli, it led to larger latencies (170 ms, suggesting that stereo motion detectors are poorly suited to track 2D motion.

  6. Time perception, attention, and memory: a selective review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Block, Richard A; Gruber, Ronald P

    2014-06-01

    This article provides a selective review of time perception research, mainly focusing on the authors' research. Aspects of psychological time include simultaneity, successiveness, temporal order, and duration judgments. In contrast to findings at interstimulus intervals or durations less than 3.0-5.0 s, there is little evidence for an "across-senses" effect of perceptual modality (visual vs. auditory) at longer intervals or durations. In addition, the flow of time (events) is a pervasive perceptual illusion, and we review evidence on that. Some temporal information is encoded All rights reserved. relatively automatically into memory: People can judge time-related attributes such as recency, frequency, temporal order, and duration of events. Duration judgments in prospective and retrospective paradigms reveal differences between them, as well as variables that moderate the processes involved. An attentional-gate model is needed to account for prospective judgments, and a contextual-change model is needed to account for retrospective judgments. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  7. Early Top-Down Influences on Bistable Perception Revealed by Event-Related Potentials

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pitts, Michael A.; Gavin, William J.; Nerger, Janice L.

    2008-01-01

    A longstanding debate exists in the literature concerning bottom-up vs. top-down influences on bistable perception. Recently, a technique has been developed to measure early changes in brain activity (via ERPs) related to perceptual reversals (Kornmeier & Bach, 2004). An ERP component, the reversal negativity (RN) has been identified, and is…

  8. Adaptation in the auditory system: an overview

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David ePérez-González

    2014-02-01

    Full Text Available The early stages of the auditory system need to preserve the timing information of sounds in order to extract the basic features of acoustic stimuli. At the same time, different processes of neuronal adaptation occur at several levels to further process the auditory information. For instance, auditory nerve fiber responses already experience adaptation of their firing rates, a type of response that can be found in many other auditory nuclei and may be useful for emphasizing the onset of the stimuli. However, it is at higher levels in the auditory hierarchy where more sophisticated types of neuronal processing take place. For example, stimulus-specific adaptation, where neurons show adaptation to frequent, repetitive stimuli, but maintain their responsiveness to stimuli with different physical characteristics, thus representing a distinct kind of processing that may play a role in change and deviance detection. In the auditory cortex, adaptation takes more elaborate forms, and contributes to the processing of complex sequences, auditory scene analysis and attention. Here we review the multiple types of adaptation that occur in the auditory system, which are part of the pool of resources that the neurons employ to process the auditory scene, and are critical to a proper understanding of the neuronal mechanisms that govern auditory perception.

  9. rTMS Induced Tinnitus Relief Is Related to an Increase in Auditory Cortical Alpha Activity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Müller, Nadia; Lorenz, Isabel; Langguth, Berthold; Weisz, Nathan

    2013-01-01

    Chronic tinnitus, the continuous perception of a phantom sound, is a highly prevalent audiological symptom. A promising approach for the treatment of tinnitus is repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) as this directly affects tinnitus-related brain activity. Several studies indeed show tinnitus relief after rTMS, however effects are moderate and vary strongly across patients. This may be due to a lack of knowledge regarding how rTMS affects oscillatory activity in tinnitus sufferers and which modulations are associated with tinnitus relief. In the present study we examined the effects of five different stimulation protocols (including sham) by measuring tinnitus loudness and tinnitus-related brain activity with Magnetoencephalography before and after rTMS. Changes in oscillatory activity were analysed for the stimulated auditory cortex as well as for the entire brain regarding certain frequency bands of interest (delta, theta, alpha, gamma). In line with the literature the effects of rTMS on tinnitus loudness varied strongly across patients. This variability was also reflected in the rTMS effects on oscillatory activity. Importantly, strong reductions in tinnitus loudness were associated with increases in alpha power in the stimulated auditory cortex, while an unspecific decrease in gamma and alpha power, particularly in left frontal regions, was linked to an increase in tinnitus loudness. The identification of alpha power increase as main correlate for tinnitus reduction sheds further light on the pathophysiology of tinnitus. This will hopefully stimulate the development of more effective therapy approaches. PMID:23390539

  10. Sonic morphology: Aesthetic dimensional auditory spatial awareness

    Science.gov (United States)

    Whitehouse, Martha M.

    The sound and ceramic sculpture installation, " Skirting the Edge: Experiences in Sound & Form," is an integration of art and science demonstrating the concept of sonic morphology. "Sonic morphology" is herein defined as aesthetic three-dimensional auditory spatial awareness. The exhibition explicates my empirical phenomenal observations that sound has a three-dimensional form. Composed of ceramic sculptures that allude to different social and physical situations, coupled with sound compositions that enhance and create a three-dimensional auditory and visual aesthetic experience (see accompanying DVD), the exhibition supports the research question, "What is the relationship between sound and form?" Precisely how people aurally experience three-dimensional space involves an integration of spatial properties, auditory perception, individual history, and cultural mores. People also utilize environmental sound events as a guide in social situations and in remembering their personal history, as well as a guide in moving through space. Aesthetically, sound affects the fascination, meaning, and attention one has within a particular space. Sonic morphology brings art forms such as a movie, video, sound composition, and musical performance into the cognitive scope by generating meaning from the link between the visual and auditory senses. This research examined sonic morphology as an extension of musique concrete, sound as object, originating in Pierre Schaeffer's work in the 1940s. Pointing, as John Cage did, to the corporeal three-dimensional experience of "all sound," I composed works that took their total form only through the perceiver-participant's participation in the exhibition. While contemporary artist Alvin Lucier creates artworks that draw attention to making sound visible, "Skirting the Edge" engages the perceiver-participant visually and aurally, leading to recognition of sonic morphology.

  11. Age-related decrease in the mitochondrial sirtuin deacetylase Sirt3 expression associated with ROS accumulation in the auditory cortex of the mimetic aging rat model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zeng, Lingling; Yang, Yang; Hu, Yujuan; Sun, Yu; Du, Zhengde; Xie, Zhen; Zhou, Tao; Kong, Weijia

    2014-01-01

    Age-related dysfunction of the central auditory system, also known as central presbycusis, can affect speech perception and sound localization. Understanding the pathogenesis of central presbycusis will help to develop novel approaches to prevent or treat this disease. In this study, the mechanisms of central presbycusis were investigated using a mimetic aging rat model induced by chronic injection of D-galactose (D-Gal). We showed that malondialdehyde (MDA) levels were increased and manganese superoxide dismutase (SOD2) activity was reduced in the auditory cortex in natural aging and D-Gal-induced mimetic aging rats. Furthermore, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) 4834 bp deletion, abnormal ultrastructure and cell apoptosis in the auditory cortex were also found in natural aging and D-Gal mimetic aging rats. Sirt3, a mitochondrial NAD+-dependent deacetylase, has been shown to play a crucial role in controlling cellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) homeostasis. However, the role of Sirt3 in the pathogenesis of age-related central auditory cortex deterioration is still unclear. Here, we showed that decreased Sirt3 expression might be associated with increased SOD2 acetylation, which negatively regulates SOD2 activity. Oxidative stress accumulation was likely the result of low SOD2 activity and a decline in ROS clearance. Our findings indicate that Sirt3 might play an essential role, via the mediation of SOD2, in central presbycusis and that manipulation of Sirt3 expression might provide a new approach to combat aging and oxidative stress-related diseases.

  12. Patterns of language and auditory dysfunction in 6-year-old children with epilepsy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Selassie, Gunilla Rejnö-Habte; Olsson, Ingrid; Jennische, Margareta

    2009-01-01

    In a previous study we reported difficulty with expressive language and visuoperceptual ability in preschool children with epilepsy and otherwise normal development. The present study analysed speech and language dysfunction for each individual in relation to epilepsy variables, ear preference, and intelligence in these children and described their auditory function. Twenty 6-year-old children with epilepsy (14 females, 6 males; mean age 6:5 y, range 6 y-6 y 11 mo) and 30 reference children without epilepsy (18 females, 12 males; mean age 6:5 y, range 6 y-6 y 11 mo) were assessed for language and auditory ability. Low scores for the children with epilepsy were analysed with respect to speech-language domains, type of epilepsy, site of epileptiform activity, intelligence, and language laterality. Auditory attention, perception, discrimination, and ear preference were measured with a dichotic listening test, and group comparisons were performed. Children with left-sided partial epilepsy had extensive language dysfunction. Most children with partial epilepsy had phonological dysfunction. Language dysfunction was also found in children with generalized and unclassified epilepsies. The children with epilepsy performed significantly worse than the reference children in auditory attention, perception of vowels and discrimination of consonants for the right ear and had more left ear advantage for vowels, indicating undeveloped language laterality.

  13. Relative risk perception for terrorism: implications for preparedness and risk communication.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Caponecchia, Carlo

    2012-09-01

    Terrorism presents a significant risk that is often approached at public policy, infrastructure, or emergency management level. Public perceptions of the likelihood of terrorist events, and how this may relate to individual preparedness, are not always extensively examined. The tendency to think that negative events are less likely to happen to oneself than to the average person is known as optimism bias. Optimism bias is relevant to perceptions of terrorism, because it is thought to be related to a reduction in precaution use. Using an online survey of 164 participants, this study aimed to determine whether Sydney residents thought they had a lower likelihood of experiencing terrorist events than other Australians. Significant optimism bias was observed for witnessing terrorist events, but not for personally experiencing terrorist events. In addition, Sydney residents tended to think that terrorist attacks were more likely to occur in Sydney than another major Australian city in the next five years. At the same time, household and workplace preparedness for terrorism was quite low, as was awareness of emergency strategies in the central business district. Perceptions of high likelihood of terrorism happening in one's own city, yet low preparedness present a challenge for risk communication and emergency management strategies. The diversity of possible terrorist targets, and the simple plans that can moderate the effects of a disaster may need to be emphasized in future anti-terrorism initiatives. © 2012 Society for Risk Analysis.

  14. Gray matter density of auditory association cortex relates to knowledge of sound concepts in primary progressive aphasia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bonner, Michael F; Grossman, Murray

    2012-06-06

    Long-term memory integrates the multimodal information acquired through perception into unified concepts, supporting object recognition, thought, and language. While some theories of human cognition have considered concepts to be abstract symbols, recent functional neuroimaging evidence has supported an alternative theory: that concepts are multimodal representations associated with the sensory and motor systems through which they are acquired. However, few studies have examined the effects of cortical lesions on the sensory and motor associations of concepts. We tested the hypothesis that individuals with disease in auditory association cortex would have difficulty processing concepts with strong sound associations (e.g., thunder). Human participants with the logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia (lvPPA) performed a recognition task on words with strong associations in three modalities: Sound, Sight, and Manipulation. LvPPA participants had selective difficulty on Sound words relative to other modalities. Structural MRI analysis in lvPPA revealed gray matter atrophy in auditory association cortex, as defined functionally in a separate BOLD fMRI study of healthy adults. Moreover, lvPPA showed reduced gray matter density in the region of auditory association cortex that healthy participants activated when processing the same Sound words in a separate BOLD fMRI experiment. Finally, reduced gray matter density in this region in lvPPA directly correlated with impaired performance on Sound words. These findings support the hypothesis that conceptual memories are represented in the sensory and motor association cortices through which they are acquired.

  15. Auditory comprehension: from the voice up to the single word level

    OpenAIRE

    Jones, Anna Barbara

    2016-01-01

    Auditory comprehension, the ability to understand spoken language, consists of a number of different auditory processing skills. In the five studies presented in this thesis I investigated both intact and impaired auditory comprehension at different levels: voice versus phoneme perception, as well as single word auditory comprehension in terms of phonemic and semantic content. In the first study, using sounds from different continua of ‘male’-/pæ/ to ‘female’-/tæ/ and ‘male’...

  16. Visual and Auditory Input in Second-Language Speech Processing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hardison, Debra M.

    2010-01-01

    The majority of studies in second-language (L2) speech processing have involved unimodal (i.e., auditory) input; however, in many instances, speech communication involves both visual and auditory sources of information. Some researchers have argued that multimodal speech is the primary mode of speech perception (e.g., Rosenblum 2005). Research on…

  17. Auditory and verbal memory predictors of spoken language skills in children with cochlear implants.

    Science.gov (United States)

    de Hoog, Brigitte E; Langereis, Margreet C; van Weerdenburg, Marjolijn; Keuning, Jos; Knoors, Harry; Verhoeven, Ludo

    2016-10-01

    Large variability in individual spoken language outcomes remains a persistent finding in the group of children with cochlear implants (CIs), particularly in their grammatical development. In the present study, we examined the extent of delay in lexical and morphosyntactic spoken language levels of children with CIs as compared to those of a normative sample of age-matched children with normal hearing. Furthermore, the predictive value of auditory and verbal memory factors in the spoken language performance of implanted children was analyzed. Thirty-nine profoundly deaf children with CIs were assessed using a test battery including measures of lexical, grammatical, auditory and verbal memory tests. Furthermore, child-related demographic characteristics were taken into account. The majority of the children with CIs did not reach age-equivalent lexical and morphosyntactic language skills. Multiple linear regression analyses revealed that lexical spoken language performance in children with CIs was best predicted by age at testing, phoneme perception, and auditory word closure. The morphosyntactic language outcomes of the CI group were best predicted by lexicon, auditory word closure, and auditory memory for words. Qualitatively good speech perception skills appear to be crucial for lexical and grammatical development in children with CIs. Furthermore, strongly developed vocabulary skills and verbal memory abilities predict morphosyntactic language skills. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  18. Auditory color constancy: calibration to reliable spectral properties across nonspeech context and targets.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stilp, Christian E; Alexander, Joshua M; Kiefte, Michael; Kluender, Keith R

    2010-02-01

    Brief experience with reliable spectral characteristics of a listening context can markedly alter perception of subsequent speech sounds, and parallels have been drawn between auditory compensation for listening context and visual color constancy. In order to better evaluate such an analogy, the generality of acoustic context effects for sounds with spectral-temporal compositions distinct from speech was investigated. Listeners identified nonspeech sounds-extensively edited samples produced by a French horn and a tenor saxophone-following either resynthesized speech or a short passage of music. Preceding contexts were "colored" by spectral envelope difference filters, which were created to emphasize differences between French horn and saxophone spectra. Listeners were more likely to report hearing a saxophone when the stimulus followed a context filtered to emphasize spectral characteristics of the French horn, and vice versa. Despite clear changes in apparent acoustic source, the auditory system calibrated to relatively predictable spectral characteristics of filtered context, differentially affecting perception of subsequent target nonspeech sounds. This calibration to listening context and relative indifference to acoustic sources operates much like visual color constancy, for which reliable properties of the spectrum of illumination are factored out of perception of color.

  19. Maps of the Auditory Cortex.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brewer, Alyssa A; Barton, Brian

    2016-07-08

    One of the fundamental properties of the mammalian brain is that sensory regions of cortex are formed of multiple, functionally specialized cortical field maps (CFMs). Each CFM comprises two orthogonal topographical representations, reflecting two essential aspects of sensory space. In auditory cortex, auditory field maps (AFMs) are defined by the combination of tonotopic gradients, representing the spectral aspects of sound (i.e., tones), with orthogonal periodotopic gradients, representing the temporal aspects of sound (i.e., period or temporal envelope). Converging evidence from cytoarchitectural and neuroimaging measurements underlies the definition of 11 AFMs across core and belt regions of human auditory cortex, with likely homology to those of macaque. On a macrostructural level, AFMs are grouped into cloverleaf clusters, an organizational structure also seen in visual cortex. Future research can now use these AFMs to investigate specific stages of auditory processing, key for understanding behaviors such as speech perception and multimodal sensory integration.

  20. Musical Experience and the Aging Auditory System: Implications for Cognitive Abilities and Hearing Speech in Noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parbery-Clark, Alexandra; Strait, Dana L.; Anderson, Samira; Hittner, Emily; Kraus, Nina

    2011-01-01

    Much of our daily communication occurs in the presence of background noise, compromising our ability to hear. While understanding speech in noise is a challenge for everyone, it becomes increasingly difficult as we age. Although aging is generally accompanied by hearing loss, this perceptual decline cannot fully account for the difficulties experienced by older adults for hearing in noise. Decreased cognitive skills concurrent with reduced perceptual acuity are thought to contribute to the difficulty older adults experience understanding speech in noise. Given that musical experience positively impacts speech perception in noise in young adults (ages 18–30), we asked whether musical experience benefits an older cohort of musicians (ages 45–65), potentially offsetting the age-related decline in speech-in-noise perceptual abilities and associated cognitive function (i.e., working memory). Consistent with performance in young adults, older musicians demonstrated enhanced speech-in-noise perception relative to nonmusicians along with greater auditory, but not visual, working memory capacity. By demonstrating that speech-in-noise perception and related cognitive function are enhanced in older musicians, our results imply that musical training may reduce the impact of age-related auditory decline. PMID:21589653

  1. Musical experience and the aging auditory system: implications for cognitive abilities and hearing speech in noise.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parbery-Clark, Alexandra; Strait, Dana L; Anderson, Samira; Hittner, Emily; Kraus, Nina

    2011-05-11

    Much of our daily communication occurs in the presence of background noise, compromising our ability to hear. While understanding speech in noise is a challenge for everyone, it becomes increasingly difficult as we age. Although aging is generally accompanied by hearing loss, this perceptual decline cannot fully account for the difficulties experienced by older adults for hearing in noise. Decreased cognitive skills concurrent with reduced perceptual acuity are thought to contribute to the difficulty older adults experience understanding speech in noise. Given that musical experience positively impacts speech perception in noise in young adults (ages 18-30), we asked whether musical experience benefits an older cohort of musicians (ages 45-65), potentially offsetting the age-related decline in speech-in-noise perceptual abilities and associated cognitive function (i.e., working memory). Consistent with performance in young adults, older musicians demonstrated enhanced speech-in-noise perception relative to nonmusicians along with greater auditory, but not visual, working memory capacity. By demonstrating that speech-in-noise perception and related cognitive function are enhanced in older musicians, our results imply that musical training may reduce the impact of age-related auditory decline.

  2. Musical experience and the aging auditory system: implications for cognitive abilities and hearing speech in noise.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alexandra Parbery-Clark

    Full Text Available Much of our daily communication occurs in the presence of background noise, compromising our ability to hear. While understanding speech in noise is a challenge for everyone, it becomes increasingly difficult as we age. Although aging is generally accompanied by hearing loss, this perceptual decline cannot fully account for the difficulties experienced by older adults for hearing in noise. Decreased cognitive skills concurrent with reduced perceptual acuity are thought to contribute to the difficulty older adults experience understanding speech in noise. Given that musical experience positively impacts speech perception in noise in young adults (ages 18-30, we asked whether musical experience benefits an older cohort of musicians (ages 45-65, potentially offsetting the age-related decline in speech-in-noise perceptual abilities and associated cognitive function (i.e., working memory. Consistent with performance in young adults, older musicians demonstrated enhanced speech-in-noise perception relative to nonmusicians along with greater auditory, but not visual, working memory capacity. By demonstrating that speech-in-noise perception and related cognitive function are enhanced in older musicians, our results imply that musical training may reduce the impact of age-related auditory decline.

  3. Changes in the Adult Vertebrate Auditory Sensory Epithelium After Trauma

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oesterle, Elizabeth C.

    2012-01-01

    Auditory hair cells transduce sound vibrations into membrane potential changes, ultimately leading to changes in neuronal firing and sound perception. This review provides an overview of the characteristics and repair capabilities of traumatized auditory sensory epithelium in the adult vertebrate ear. Injured mammalian auditory epithelium repairs itself by forming permanent scars but is unable to regenerate replacement hair cells. In contrast, injured non-mammalian vertebrate ear generates replacement hair cells to restore hearing functions. Non-sensory support cells within the auditory epithelium play key roles in the repair processes. PMID:23178236

  4. The human brain maintains contradictory and redundant auditory sensory predictions.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marika Pieszek

    Full Text Available Computational and experimental research has revealed that auditory sensory predictions are derived from regularities of the current environment by using internal generative models. However, so far, what has not been addressed is how the auditory system handles situations giving rise to redundant or even contradictory predictions derived from different sources of information. To this end, we measured error signals in the event-related brain potentials (ERPs in response to violations of auditory predictions. Sounds could be predicted on the basis of overall probability, i.e., one sound was presented frequently and another sound rarely. Furthermore, each sound was predicted by an informative visual cue. Participants' task was to use the cue and to discriminate the two sounds as fast as possible. Violations of the probability based prediction (i.e., a rare sound as well as violations of the visual-auditory prediction (i.e., an incongruent sound elicited error signals in the ERPs (Mismatch Negativity [MMN] and Incongruency Response [IR]. Particular error signals were observed even in case the overall probability and the visual symbol predicted different sounds. That is, the auditory system concurrently maintains and tests contradictory predictions. Moreover, if the same sound was predicted, we observed an additive error signal (scalp potential and primary current density equaling the sum of the specific error signals. Thus, the auditory system maintains and tolerates functionally independently represented redundant and contradictory predictions. We argue that the auditory system exploits all currently active regularities in order to optimally prepare for future events.

  5. Awake craniotomy for assisting placement of auditory brainstem implant in NF2 patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Qiangyi; Yang, Zhijun; Wang, Zhenmin; Wang, Bo; Wang, Xingchao; Zhao, Chi; Zhang, Shun; Wu, Tao; Li, Peng; Li, Shiwei; Zhao, Fu; Liu, Pinan

    2018-06-01

    Auditory brainstem implants (ABIs) may be the only opportunity for patients with NF2 to regain some sense of hearing sensation. However, only a very small number of individuals achieved open-set speech understanding and high sentence scores. Suboptimal placement of the ABI electrode array over the cochlear nucleus may be one of main factors for poor auditory performance. In the current study, we present a method of awake craniotomy to assist with ABI placement. Awake surgery and hearing test via the retrosigmoid approach were performed for vestibular schwannoma resections and auditory brainstem implantations in four patients with NF2. Auditory outcomes and complications were assessed postoperatively. Three of 4 patients who underwent awake craniotomy during ABI surgery received reproducible auditory sensations intraoperatively. Satisfactory numbers of effective electrodes, threshold levels and distinct pitches were achieved in the wake-up hearing test. In addition, relatively few electrodes produced non-auditory percepts. There was no serious complication attributable to the ABI or awake craniotomy. It is safe and well tolerated for neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2) patients using awake craniotomy during auditory brainstem implantation. This method can potentially improve the localization accuracy of the cochlear nucleus during surgery.

  6. Defining Auditory-Visual Objects: Behavioral Tests and Physiological Mechanisms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bizley, Jennifer K; Maddox, Ross K; Lee, Adrian K C

    2016-02-01

    Crossmodal integration is a term applicable to many phenomena in which one sensory modality influences task performance or perception in another sensory modality. We distinguish the term binding as one that should be reserved specifically for the process that underpins perceptual object formation. To unambiguously differentiate binding form other types of integration, behavioral and neural studies must investigate perception of a feature orthogonal to the features that link the auditory and visual stimuli. We argue that supporting true perceptual binding (as opposed to other processes such as decision-making) is one role for cross-sensory influences in early sensory cortex. These early multisensory interactions may therefore form a physiological substrate for the bottom-up grouping of auditory and visual stimuli into auditory-visual (AV) objects. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  7. The role of auditory cortices in the retrieval of single-trial auditory-visual object memories.

    OpenAIRE

    Matusz, P.J.; Thelen, A.; Amrein, S.; Geiser, E.; Anken, J.; Murray, M.M.

    2015-01-01

    Single-trial encounters with multisensory stimuli affect both memory performance and early-latency brain responses to visual stimuli. Whether and how auditory cortices support memory processes based on single-trial multisensory learning is unknown and may differ qualitatively and quantitatively from comparable processes within visual cortices due to purported differences in memory capacities across the senses. We recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) as healthy adults (n = 18) performed a ...

  8. Cognitive event-related potentials in comatose and post-comatose states.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vanhaudenhuyse, Audrey; Laureys, Steven; Perrin, Fabien

    2008-01-01

    We review the interest of cognitive event-related potentials (ERPs) in comatose, vegetative, or minimally conscious patients. Auditory cognitive ERPs are useful to investigate residual cognitive functions, such as echoic memory (MMN), acoustical and semantic discrimination (P300), and incongruent language detection (N400). While early ERPs (such as the absence of cortical responses on somatosensory-evoked potentials) predict bad outcome, cognitive ERPs (MMN and P300) are indicative of recovery of consciousness. In coma-survivors, cognitive potentials are more frequently obtained when using stimuli that are more ecologic or have an emotional content (such as the patient's own name) than when using classical sine tones.

  9. Effects of auditory vection speed and directional congruence on perceptions of visual vection

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gagliano, Isabella Alexis

    Spatial disorientation is a major contributor to aircraft mishaps. One potential contributing factor is vection, an illusion of self-motion. Although vection is commonly thought of as a visual illusion, it can also be produced through audition. The purpose of the current experiment was to explore interactions between conflicting visual and auditory vection cues, specifically with regard to the speed and direction of rotation. The ultimate goal was to explore the extent to which aural vection could diminish or enhance the perception of visual vection. The study used a 3 x 2 within-groups factorial design. Participants were exposed to three levels of aural rotation velocity (slower, matched, and faster, relative to visual rotation speed) and two levels of aural rotational congruence (congruent or incongruent rotation) including two control conditions (visual and aural-only). Dependent measures included vection onset time, vection direction judgements, subjective vection strength ratings, vection speed ratings, and horizontal nystagmus frequency. Subjective responses to motion were assessed pre and post treatment, and oculomotor responses were assessed before, during, and following exposure to circular vection. The results revealed a significant effect of stimulus condition on vection strength. Specifically, directionally-congruent aural-visual vection resulted in significantly stronger vection than visual and aural vection alone. Perceptions of directionally-congruent aural-visual vection were slightly stronger vection than directionally-incongruent aural-visual vection, but not significantly so. No significant effects of aural rotation velocity on vection strength were observed. The results suggest directionally-incongruent aural vection could be used as a countermeasure for visual vection and directionally-congruent aural vection could be used to improve vection in virtual environments, provided further research is done.

  10. Timing in audiovisual speech perception: A mini review and new psychophysical data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Venezia, Jonathan H; Thurman, Steven M; Matchin, William; George, Sahara E; Hickok, Gregory

    2016-02-01

    Recent influential models of audiovisual speech perception suggest that visual speech aids perception by generating predictions about the identity of upcoming speech sounds. These models place stock in the assumption that visual speech leads auditory speech in time. However, it is unclear whether and to what extent temporally-leading visual speech information contributes to perception. Previous studies exploring audiovisual-speech timing have relied upon psychophysical procedures that require artificial manipulation of cross-modal alignment or stimulus duration. We introduce a classification procedure that tracks perceptually relevant visual speech information in time without requiring such manipulations. Participants were shown videos of a McGurk syllable (auditory /apa/ + visual /aka/ = perceptual /ata/) and asked to perform phoneme identification (/apa/ yes-no). The mouth region of the visual stimulus was overlaid with a dynamic transparency mask that obscured visual speech in some frames but not others randomly across trials. Variability in participants' responses (~35 % identification of /apa/ compared to ~5 % in the absence of the masker) served as the basis for classification analysis. The outcome was a high resolution spatiotemporal map of perceptually relevant visual features. We produced these maps for McGurk stimuli at different audiovisual temporal offsets (natural timing, 50-ms visual lead, and 100-ms visual lead). Briefly, temporally-leading (~130 ms) visual information did influence auditory perception. Moreover, several visual features influenced perception of a single speech sound, with the relative influence of each feature depending on both its temporal relation to the auditory signal and its informational content.

  11. Timing in Audiovisual Speech Perception: A Mini Review and New Psychophysical Data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Venezia, Jonathan H.; Thurman, Steven M.; Matchin, William; George, Sahara E.; Hickok, Gregory

    2015-01-01

    Recent influential models of audiovisual speech perception suggest that visual speech aids perception by generating predictions about the identity of upcoming speech sounds. These models place stock in the assumption that visual speech leads auditory speech in time. However, it is unclear whether and to what extent temporally-leading visual speech information contributes to perception. Previous studies exploring audiovisual-speech timing have relied upon psychophysical procedures that require artificial manipulation of cross-modal alignment or stimulus duration. We introduce a classification procedure that tracks perceptually-relevant visual speech information in time without requiring such manipulations. Participants were shown videos of a McGurk syllable (auditory /apa/ + visual /aka/ = perceptual /ata/) and asked to perform phoneme identification (/apa/ yes-no). The mouth region of the visual stimulus was overlaid with a dynamic transparency mask that obscured visual speech in some frames but not others randomly across trials. Variability in participants' responses (∼35% identification of /apa/ compared to ∼5% in the absence of the masker) served as the basis for classification analysis. The outcome was a high resolution spatiotemporal map of perceptually-relevant visual features. We produced these maps for McGurk stimuli at different audiovisual temporal offsets (natural timing, 50-ms visual lead, and 100-ms visual lead). Briefly, temporally-leading (∼130 ms) visual information did influence auditory perception. Moreover, several visual features influenced perception of a single speech sound, with the relative influence of each feature depending on both its temporal relation to the auditory signal and its informational content. PMID:26669309

  12. P300 component of event-related potentials in persons with asperger disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Iwanami, Akira; Okajima, Yuka; Ota, Haruhisa; Tani, Masayuki; Yamada, Takashi; Yamagata, Bun; Hashimoto, Ryuichiro; Kanai, Chieko; Takashio, Osamu; Inamoto, Atsuko; Ono, Taisei; Takayama, Yukiko; Kato, Nobumasa

    2014-10-01

    In the present study, we investigated auditory event-related potentials in adults with Asperger disorder and normal controls using an auditory oddball task and a novelty oddball task. Task performance and the latencies of P300 evoked by both target and novel stimuli in the two tasks did not differ between the two groups. Analysis of variance revealed that there was a significant interaction effect between group and electrode site on the mean amplitude of the P300 evoked by novel stimuli, which indicated that there was an altered distribution of the P300 in persons with Asperger disorder. In contrast, there was no significant interaction effect on the mean P300 amplitude elicited by target stimuli. Considering that P300 comprises two main subcomponents, frontal-central-dominant P3a and parietal-dominant P3b, our results suggested that persons with Asperger disorder have enhanced amplitude of P3a, which indicated activated prefrontal function in this task.

  13. The Auditory-Visual Speech Benefit on Working Memory in Older Adults with Hearing Impairment

    OpenAIRE

    Frtusova, Jana B.; Phillips, Natalie A.

    2016-01-01

    This study examined the effect of auditory-visual (AV) speech stimuli on working memory in older adults with poorer-hearing (PH) in comparison to age- and education-matched older adults with better hearing (BH). Participants completed a working memory n-back task (0- to 2-back) in which sequences of digits were presented in visual-only (i.e., speech-reading), auditory-only (A-only), and AV conditions. Auditory event-related potentials (ERP) were collected to assess the relationship between pe...

  14. Auditory analysis for speech recognition based on physiological models

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jeon, Woojay; Juang, Biing-Hwang

    2004-05-01

    To address the limitations of traditional cepstrum or LPC based front-end processing methods for automatic speech recognition, more elaborate methods based on physiological models of the human auditory system may be used to achieve more robust speech recognition in adverse environments. For this purpose, a modified version of a model of the primary auditory cortex featuring a three dimensional mapping of auditory spectra [Wang and Shamma, IEEE Trans. Speech Audio Process. 3, 382-395 (1995)] is adopted and investigated for its use as an improved front-end processing method. The study is conducted in two ways: first, by relating the model's redundant representation to traditional spectral representations and showing that the former not only encompasses information provided by the latter, but also reveals more relevant information that makes it superior in describing the identifying features of speech signals; and second, by observing the statistical features of the representation for various classes of sound to show how different identifying features manifest themselves as specific patterns on the cortical map, thereby becoming a place-coded data set on which detection theory could be applied to simulate auditory perception and cognition.

  15. Auditory motion capturing ambiguous visual motion

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Arjen eAlink

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available In this study, it is demonstrated that moving sounds have an effect on the direction in which one sees visual stimuli move. During the main experiment sounds were presented consecutively at four speaker locations inducing left- or rightwards auditory apparent motion. On the path of auditory apparent motion, visual apparent motion stimuli were presented with a high degree of directional ambiguity. The main outcome of this experiment is that our participants perceived visual apparent motion stimuli that were ambiguous (equally likely to be perceived as moving left- or rightwards more often as moving in the same direction than in the opposite direction of auditory apparent motion. During the control experiment we replicated this finding and found no effect of sound motion direction on eye movements. This indicates that auditory motion can capture our visual motion percept when visual motion direction is insufficiently determinate without affecting eye movements.

  16. Using neuroplasticity-based auditory training to improve verbal memory in schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fisher, Melissa; Holland, Christine; Merzenich, Michael M; Vinogradov, Sophia

    2009-07-01

    Impaired verbal memory in schizophrenia is a key rate-limiting factor for functional outcome, does not respond to currently available medications, and shows only modest improvement after conventional behavioral remediation. The authors investigated an innovative approach to the remediation of verbal memory in schizophrenia, based on principles derived from the basic neuroscience of learning-induced neuroplasticity. The authors report interim findings in this ongoing study. Fifty-five clinically stable schizophrenia subjects were randomly assigned to either 50 hours of computerized auditory training or a control condition using computer games. Those receiving auditory training engaged in daily computerized exercises that placed implicit, increasing demands on auditory perception through progressively more difficult auditory-verbal working memory and verbal learning tasks. Relative to the control group, subjects who received active training showed significant gains in global cognition, verbal working memory, and verbal learning and memory. They also showed reliable and significant improvement in auditory psychophysical performance; this improvement was significantly correlated with gains in verbal working memory and global cognition. Intensive training in early auditory processes and auditory-verbal learning results in substantial gains in verbal cognitive processes relevant to psychosocial functioning in schizophrenia. These gains may be due to a training method that addresses the early perceptual impairments in the illness, that exploits intact mechanisms of repetitive practice in schizophrenia, and that uses an intensive, adaptive training approach.

  17. Relation between Working Memory Capacity and Auditory Stream Segregation in Children with Auditory Processing Disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lotfi, Yones; Mehrkian, Saiedeh; Moossavi, Abdollah; Zadeh, Soghrat Faghih; Sadjedi, Hamed

    2016-03-01

    This study assessed the relationship between working memory capacity and auditory stream segregation by using the concurrent minimum audible angle in children with a diagnosed auditory processing disorder (APD). The participants in this cross-sectional, comparative study were 20 typically developing children and 15 children with a diagnosed APD (age, 9-11 years) according to the subtests of multiple-processing auditory assessment. Auditory stream segregation was investigated using the concurrent minimum audible angle. Working memory capacity was evaluated using the non-word repetition and forward and backward digit span tasks. Nonparametric statistics were utilized to compare the between-group differences. The Pearson correlation was employed to measure the degree of association between working memory capacity and the localization tests between the 2 groups. The group with APD had significantly lower scores than did the typically developing subjects in auditory stream segregation and working memory capacity. There were significant negative correlations between working memory capacity and the concurrent minimum audible angle in the most frontal reference location (0° azimuth) and lower negative correlations in the most lateral reference location (60° azimuth) in the children with APD. The study revealed a relationship between working memory capacity and auditory stream segregation in children with APD. The research suggests that lower working memory capacity in children with APD may be the possible cause of the inability to segregate and group incoming information.

  18. Toward a sustainable faucet design: effects of sound and vision on perception of running water

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Golan, Aidai; Fenko, Anna

    2015-01-01

    People form their judgments of everyday phenomena based on multisensory information. This study investigates the relative impact of visual and auditory information on the perception of running tap water. Two visual and two auditory stimuli were combined to create four different combinations of high

  19. Transfer Effect of Speech-sound Learning on Auditory-motor Processing of Perceived Vocal Pitch Errors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Zhaocong; Wong, Francis C K; Jones, Jeffery A; Li, Weifeng; Liu, Peng; Chen, Xi; Liu, Hanjun

    2015-08-17

    Speech perception and production are intimately linked. There is evidence that speech motor learning results in changes to auditory processing of speech. Whether speech motor control benefits from perceptual learning in speech, however, remains unclear. This event-related potential study investigated whether speech-sound learning can modulate the processing of feedback errors during vocal pitch regulation. Mandarin speakers were trained to perceive five Thai lexical tones while learning to associate pictures with spoken words over 5 days. Before and after training, participants produced sustained vowel sounds while they heard their vocal pitch feedback unexpectedly perturbed. As compared to the pre-training session, the magnitude of vocal compensation significantly decreased for the control group, but remained consistent for the trained group at the post-training session. However, the trained group had smaller and faster N1 responses to pitch perturbations and exhibited enhanced P2 responses that correlated significantly with their learning performance. These findings indicate that the cortical processing of vocal pitch regulation can be shaped by learning new speech-sound associations, suggesting that perceptual learning in speech can produce transfer effects to facilitating the neural mechanisms underlying the online monitoring of auditory feedback regarding vocal production.

  20. Age-related decrease in the mitochondrial sirtuin deacetylase Sirt3 expression associated with ROS accumulation in the auditory cortex of the mimetic aging rat model.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lingling Zeng

    Full Text Available Age-related dysfunction of the central auditory system, also known as central presbycusis, can affect speech perception and sound localization. Understanding the pathogenesis of central presbycusis will help to develop novel approaches to prevent or treat this disease. In this study, the mechanisms of central presbycusis were investigated using a mimetic aging rat model induced by chronic injection of D-galactose (D-Gal. We showed that malondialdehyde (MDA levels were increased and manganese superoxide dismutase (SOD2 activity was reduced in the auditory cortex in natural aging and D-Gal-induced mimetic aging rats. Furthermore, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA 4834 bp deletion, abnormal ultrastructure and cell apoptosis in the auditory cortex were also found in natural aging and D-Gal mimetic aging rats. Sirt3, a mitochondrial NAD+-dependent deacetylase, has been shown to play a crucial role in controlling cellular reactive oxygen species (ROS homeostasis. However, the role of Sirt3 in the pathogenesis of age-related central auditory cortex deterioration is still unclear. Here, we showed that decreased Sirt3 expression might be associated with increased SOD2 acetylation, which negatively regulates SOD2 activity. Oxidative stress accumulation was likely the result of low SOD2 activity and a decline in ROS clearance. Our findings indicate that Sirt3 might play an essential role, via the mediation of SOD2, in central presbycusis and that manipulation of Sirt3 expression might provide a new approach to combat aging and oxidative stress-related diseases.

  1. Assessing cross-modal target transition effects with a visual-auditory oddball.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kiat, John E

    2018-04-30

    Prior research has shown contextual manipulations involving temporal and sequence related factors significantly moderate attention-related responses, as indexed by the P3b event-related-potential, towards infrequent (i.e., deviant) target oddball stimuli. However, significantly less research has looked at the influence of cross-modal switching on P3b responding, with the impact of target-to-target cross-modal transitions being virtually unstudied. To address this gap, this study recorded high-density (256 electrodes) EEG data from twenty-five participants as they completed a cross-modal visual-auditory oddball task. This task was comprised of unimodal visual (70% Nontargets: 30% Deviant-targets) and auditory (70% Nontargets: 30% Deviant-targets) oddballs presented in fixed alternating order (i.e., visual-auditory-visual-auditory, etc.) with participants being tasked with detecting deviant-targets in both modalities. Differences in the P3b response towards deviant-targets as a function of preceding deviant-target's presentation modality was analyzed using temporal-spatial PCA decomposition. In line with predictions, the results indicate that the ERP response to auditory deviant-targets preceded by visual deviant-targets exhibits an elevated P3b, relative to the processing of auditory deviant-targets preceded by auditory deviant-targets. However, the processing of visual deviant-targets preceded by auditory deviant-targets exhibited a reduced P3b response, relative to the P3b response towards visual deviant-targets preceded by visual deviant-targets. These findings provide the first demonstration of temporally and perceptually decoupled target-to-target cross-modal transitions moderating P3b responses on the oddball paradigm, generally providing support for the context-updating interpretation of the P3b response. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

  2. Neural Substrates of Auditory Emotion Recognition Deficits in Schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kantrowitz, Joshua T; Hoptman, Matthew J; Leitman, David I; Moreno-Ortega, Marta; Lehrfeld, Jonathan M; Dias, Elisa; Sehatpour, Pejman; Laukka, Petri; Silipo, Gail; Javitt, Daniel C

    2015-11-04

    Deficits in auditory emotion recognition (AER) are a core feature of schizophrenia and a key component of social cognitive impairment. AER deficits are tied behaviorally to impaired ability to interpret tonal ("prosodic") features of speech that normally convey emotion, such as modulations in base pitch (F0M) and pitch variability (F0SD). These modulations can be recreated using synthetic frequency modulated (FM) tones that mimic the prosodic contours of specific emotional stimuli. The present study investigates neural mechanisms underlying impaired AER using a combined event-related potential/resting-state functional connectivity (rsfMRI) approach in 84 schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder patients and 66 healthy comparison subjects. Mismatch negativity (MMN) to FM tones was assessed in 43 patients/36 controls. rsfMRI between auditory cortex and medial temporal (insula) regions was assessed in 55 patients/51 controls. The relationship between AER, MMN to FM tones, and rsfMRI was assessed in the subset who performed all assessments (14 patients, 21 controls). As predicted, patients showed robust reductions in MMN across FM stimulus type (p = 0.005), particularly to modulations in F0M, along with impairments in AER and FM tone discrimination. MMN source analysis indicated dipoles in both auditory cortex and anterior insula, whereas rsfMRI analyses showed reduced auditory-insula connectivity. MMN to FM tones and functional connectivity together accounted for ∼50% of the variance in AER performance across individuals. These findings demonstrate that impaired preattentive processing of tonal information and reduced auditory-insula connectivity are critical determinants of social cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia, and thus represent key targets for future research and clinical intervention. Schizophrenia patients show deficits in the ability to infer emotion based upon tone of voice [auditory emotion recognition (AER)] that drive impairments in social cognition

  3. Functional-structural reorganisation of the neuronal network for auditory perception in subjects with unilateral hearing loss: Review of neuroimaging studies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heggdal, Peder O Laugen; Brännström, Jonas; Aarstad, Hans Jørgen; Vassbotn, Flemming S; Specht, Karsten

    2016-02-01

    This paper aims to provide a review of studies using neuroimaging to measure functional-structural reorganisation of the neuronal network for auditory perception after unilateral hearing loss. A literature search was performed in PubMed. Search criterions were peer reviewed original research papers in English completed by the 11th of March 2015. Twelve studies were found to use neuroimaging in subjects with unilateral hearing loss. An additional five papers not identified by the literature search were provided by a reviewer. Thus, a total of 17 studies were included in the review. Four different neuroimaging methods were used in these studies: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) (n = 11), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) (n = 4), T1/T2 volumetric images (n = 2), magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) (n = 1). One study utilized two imaging methods (fMRI and T1 volumetric images). Neuroimaging techniques could provide valuable information regarding the effects of unilateral hearing loss on both auditory and non-auditory performance. fMRI-studies showing a bilateral BOLD-response in patients with unilateral hearing loss have not yet been followed by DTI studies confirming their microstructural correlates. In addition, the review shows that an auditory modality-specific deficit could affect multi-modal brain regions and their connections. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  4. Predictive uncertainty in auditory sequence processing

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hansen, Niels Chr.; Pearce, Marcus T

    2014-01-01

    in a melodic sequence (inferred uncertainty). Finally, we simulate listeners' perception of expectedness and uncertainty using computational models of auditory expectation. A detailed model comparison indicates which model parameters maximize fit to the data and how they compare to existing models...

  5. Auditory processing during deep propofol sedation and recovery from unconsciousness.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koelsch, Stefan; Heinke, Wolfgang; Sammler, Daniela; Olthoff, Derk

    2006-08-01

    Using evoked potentials, this study investigated effects of deep propofol sedation, and effects of recovery from unconsciousness, on the processing of auditory information with stimuli suited to elicit a physical MMN, and a (music-syntactic) ERAN. Levels of sedation were assessed using the Bispectral Index (BIS) and the Modified Observer's Assessment of Alertness and Sedation Scale (MOAAS). EEG-measurements were performed during wakefulness, deep propofol sedation (MOAAS 2-3, mean BIS=68), and a recovery period. Between deep sedation and recovery period, the infusion rate of propofol was increased to achieve unconsciousness (MOAAS 0-1, mean BIS=35); EEG measurements of recovery period were performed after subjects regained consciousness. During deep sedation, the physical MMN was markedly reduced, but still significant. No ERAN was observed in this level. A clear P3a was elicited during deep sedation by those deviants, which were task-relevant during the awake state. As soon as subjects regained consciousness during the recovery period, a normal MMN was elicited. By contrast, the P3a was absent in the recovery period, and the P3b was markedly reduced. Results indicate that the auditory sensory memory (as indexed by the physical MMN) is still active, although strongly reduced, during deep sedation (MOAAS 2-3). The presence of the P3a indicates that attention-related processes are still operating during this level. Processes of syntactic analysis appear to be abolished during deep sedation. After propofol-induced anesthesia, the auditory sensory memory appears to operate normal as soon as subjects regain consciousness, whereas the attention-related processes indexed by P3a and P3b are markedly impaired. Results inform about effects of sedative drugs on auditory and attention-related mechanisms. The findings are important because these mechanisms are prerequisites for auditory awareness, auditory learning and memory, as well as language perception during anesthesia.

  6. Attention-dependent allocation of auditory processing resources as measured by mismatch negativity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dittmann-Balcar, A; Thienel, R; Schall, U

    1999-12-16

    Mismatch negativity (MMN) is a pre-attentive event-related potential measure of echoic memory. However, recent studies suggest attention-related modulation of MMN. This study investigates duration-elicited MMN in healthy subjects (n = 12) who were performing a visual discrimination task and, subsequently, an auditory discrimination task in a series of increasing task difficulty. MMN amplitude was found to be maximal at centro-frontal electrode sites without hemispheric differences. Comparison of both attend conditions (visual vs. auditory), revealed larger MMN amplitudes at Fz in the visual task without differences across task difficulty. However, significantly smaller MMN in the most demanding auditory condition supports the notion of limited processing capacity whose resources are modulated by attention in response to task requirements.

  7. Basic Auditory Processing Deficits in Dyslexia: Systematic Review of the Behavioral and Event-Related Potential/Field Evidence

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hämäläinen, Jarmo A.; Salminen, Hanne K.; Leppänen, Paavo H. T.

    2013-01-01

    A review of research that uses behavioral, electroencephalographic, and/or magnetoencephalographic methods to investigate auditory processing deficits in individuals with dyslexia is presented. Findings show that measures of frequency, rise time, and duration discrimination as well as amplitude modulation and frequency modulation detection were…

  8. Neuromechanistic Model of Auditory Bistability.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    James Rankin

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available Sequences of higher frequency A and lower frequency B tones repeating in an ABA- triplet pattern are widely used to study auditory streaming. One may experience either an integrated percept, a single ABA-ABA- stream, or a segregated percept, separate but simultaneous streams A-A-A-A- and -B---B--. During minutes-long presentations, subjects may report irregular alternations between these interpretations. We combine neuromechanistic modeling and psychoacoustic experiments to study these persistent alternations and to characterize the effects of manipulating stimulus parameters. Unlike many phenomenological models with abstract, percept-specific competition and fixed inputs, our network model comprises neuronal units with sensory feature dependent inputs that mimic the pulsatile-like A1 responses to tones in the ABA- triplets. It embodies a neuronal computation for percept competition thought to occur beyond primary auditory cortex (A1. Mutual inhibition, adaptation and noise are implemented. We include slow NDMA recurrent excitation for local temporal memory that enables linkage across sound gaps from one triplet to the next. Percepts in our model are identified in the firing patterns of the neuronal units. We predict with the model that manipulations of the frequency difference between tones A and B should affect the dominance durations of the stronger percept, the one dominant a larger fraction of time, more than those of the weaker percept-a property that has been previously established and generalized across several visual bistable paradigms. We confirm the qualitative prediction with our psychoacoustic experiments and use the behavioral data to further constrain and improve the model, achieving quantitative agreement between experimental and modeling results. Our work and model provide a platform that can be extended to consider other stimulus conditions, including the effects of context and volition.

  9. Event-related potentials and secondary task performance during simulated driving.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wester, A E; Böcker, K B E; Volkerts, E R; Verster, J C; Kenemans, J L

    2008-01-01

    Inattention and distraction account for a substantial number of traffic accidents. Therefore, we examined the impact of secondary task performance (an auditory oddball task) on a primary driving task (lane keeping). Twenty healthy participants performed two 20-min tests in the Divided Attention Steering Simulator (DASS). The visual secondary task of the DASS was replaced by an auditory oddball task to allow recording of brain activity. The driving task and the secondary (distracting) oddball task were presented in isolation and simultaneously, to assess their mutual interference. In addition to performance measures (lane keeping in the primary driving task and reaction speed in the secondary oddball task), brain activity, i.e. event-related potentials (ERPs), was recorded. Performance parameters on the driving test and the secondary oddball task did not differ between performance in isolation and simultaneous performance. However, when both tasks were performed simultaneously, reaction time variability increased in the secondary oddball task. Analysis of brain activity indicated that ERP amplitude (P3a amplitude) related to the secondary task, was significantly reduced when the task was performed simultaneously with the driving test. This study shows that when performing a simple secondary task during driving, performance of the driving task and this secondary task are both unaffected. However, analysis of brain activity shows reduced cortical processing of irrelevant, potentially distracting stimuli from the secondary task during driving.

  10. Early access to lexical-level phonological representations of Mandarin word-forms : evidence from auditory N1 habituation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Yue, Jinxing; Alter, Kai; Howard, David; Bastiaanse, Roelien

    2017-01-01

    An auditory habituation design was used to investigate whether lexical-level phonological representations in the brain can be rapidly accessed after the onset of a spoken word. We studied the N1 component of the auditory event-related electrical potential, and measured the amplitude decrements of N1

  11. The role of auditory cortices in the retrieval of single-trial auditory-visual object memories.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Matusz, Pawel J; Thelen, Antonia; Amrein, Sarah; Geiser, Eveline; Anken, Jacques; Murray, Micah M

    2015-03-01

    Single-trial encounters with multisensory stimuli affect both memory performance and early-latency brain responses to visual stimuli. Whether and how auditory cortices support memory processes based on single-trial multisensory learning is unknown and may differ qualitatively and quantitatively from comparable processes within visual cortices due to purported differences in memory capacities across the senses. We recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) as healthy adults (n = 18) performed a continuous recognition task in the auditory modality, discriminating initial (new) from repeated (old) sounds of environmental objects. Initial presentations were either unisensory or multisensory; the latter entailed synchronous presentation of a semantically congruent or a meaningless image. Repeated presentations were exclusively auditory, thus differing only according to the context in which the sound was initially encountered. Discrimination abilities (indexed by d') were increased for repeated sounds that were initially encountered with a semantically congruent image versus sounds initially encountered with either a meaningless or no image. Analyses of ERPs within an electrical neuroimaging framework revealed that early stages of auditory processing of repeated sounds were affected by prior single-trial multisensory contexts. These effects followed from significantly reduced activity within a distributed network, including the right superior temporal cortex, suggesting an inverse relationship between brain activity and behavioural outcome on this task. The present findings demonstrate how auditory cortices contribute to long-term effects of multisensory experiences on auditory object discrimination. We propose a new framework for the efficacy of multisensory processes to impact both current multisensory stimulus processing and unisensory discrimination abilities later in time. © 2015 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  12. Relation between Working Memory Capacity and Auditory Stream Segregation in Children with Auditory Processing Disorder

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yones Lotfi

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Background: This study assessed the relationship between working memory capacity and auditory stream segregation by using the concurrent minimum audible angle in children with a diagnosed auditory processing disorder (APD. Methods: The participants in this cross-sectional, comparative study were 20 typically developing children and 15 children with a diagnosed APD (age, 9–11 years according to the subtests of multiple-processing auditory assessment. Auditory stream segregation was investigated using the concurrent minimum audible angle. Working memory capacity was evaluated using the non-word repetition and forward and backward digit span tasks. Nonparametric statistics were utilized to compare the between-group differences. The Pearson correlation was employed to measure the degree of association between working memory capacity and the localization tests between the 2 groups. Results: The group with APD had significantly lower scores than did the typically developing subjects in auditory stream segregation and working memory capacity. There were significant negative correlations between working memory capacity and the concurrent minimum audible angle in the most frontal reference location (0° azimuth and lower negative correlations in the most lateral reference location (60° azimuth in the children with APD. Conclusion: The study revealed a relationship between working memory capacity and auditory stream segregation in children with APD. The research suggests that lower working memory capacity in children with APD may be the possible cause of the inability to segregate and group incoming information.

  13. The Influence of Auditory Information on Visual Size Adaptation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tonelli, Alessia; Cuturi, Luigi F; Gori, Monica

    2017-01-01

    Size perception can be influenced by several visual cues, such as spatial (e.g., depth or vergence) and temporal contextual cues (e.g., adaptation to steady visual stimulation). Nevertheless, perception is generally multisensory and other sensory modalities, such as auditory, can contribute to the functional estimation of the size of objects. In this study, we investigate whether auditory stimuli at different sound pitches can influence visual size perception after visual adaptation. To this aim, we used an adaptation paradigm (Pooresmaeili et al., 2013) in three experimental conditions: visual-only, visual-sound at 100 Hz and visual-sound at 9,000 Hz. We asked participants to judge the size of a test stimulus in a size discrimination task. First, we obtained a baseline for all conditions. In the visual-sound conditions, the auditory stimulus was concurrent to the test stimulus. Secondly, we repeated the task by presenting an adapter (twice as big as the reference stimulus) before the test stimulus. We replicated the size aftereffect in the visual-only condition: the test stimulus was perceived smaller than its physical size. The new finding is that we found the auditory stimuli have an effect on the perceived size of the test stimulus after visual adaptation: low frequency sound decreased the effect of visual adaptation, making the stimulus perceived bigger compared to the visual-only condition, and contrarily, the high frequency sound had the opposite effect, making the test size perceived even smaller.

  14. Weak responses to auditory feedback perturbation during articulation in persons who stutter: evidence for abnormal auditory-motor transformation.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shanqing Cai

    Full Text Available Previous empirical observations have led researchers to propose that auditory feedback (the auditory perception of self-produced sounds when speaking functions abnormally in the speech motor systems of persons who stutter (PWS. Researchers have theorized that an important neural basis of stuttering is the aberrant integration of auditory information into incipient speech motor commands. Because of the circumstantial support for these hypotheses and the differences and contradictions between them, there is a need for carefully designed experiments that directly examine auditory-motor integration during speech production in PWS. In the current study, we used real-time manipulation of auditory feedback to directly investigate whether the speech motor system of PWS utilizes auditory feedback abnormally during articulation and to characterize potential deficits of this auditory-motor integration. Twenty-one PWS and 18 fluent control participants were recruited. Using a short-latency formant-perturbation system, we examined participants' compensatory responses to unanticipated perturbation of auditory feedback of the first formant frequency during the production of the monophthong [ε]. The PWS showed compensatory responses that were qualitatively similar to the controls' and had close-to-normal latencies (∼150 ms, but the magnitudes of their responses were substantially and significantly smaller than those of the control participants (by 47% on average, p<0.05. Measurements of auditory acuity indicate that the weaker-than-normal compensatory responses in PWS were not attributable to a deficit in low-level auditory processing. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that stuttering is associated with functional defects in the inverse models responsible for the transformation from the domain of auditory targets and auditory error information into the domain of speech motor commands.

  15. The music of your emotions: neural substrates involved in detection of emotional correspondence between auditory and visual music actions.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Karin Petrini

    Full Text Available In humans, emotions from music serve important communicative roles. Despite a growing interest in the neural basis of music perception, action and emotion, the majority of previous studies in this area have focused on the auditory aspects of music performances. Here we investigate how the brain processes the emotions elicited by audiovisual music performances. We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging, and in Experiment 1 we defined the areas responding to audiovisual (musician's movements with music, visual (musician's movements only, and auditory emotional (music only displays. Subsequently a region of interest analysis was performed to examine if any of the areas detected in Experiment 1 showed greater activation for emotionally mismatching performances (combining the musician's movements with mismatching emotional sound than for emotionally matching music performances (combining the musician's movements with matching emotional sound as presented in Experiment 2 to the same participants. The insula and the left thalamus were found to respond consistently to visual, auditory and audiovisual emotional information and to have increased activation for emotionally mismatching displays in comparison with emotionally matching displays. In contrast, the right thalamus was found to respond to audiovisual emotional displays and to have similar activation for emotionally matching and mismatching displays. These results suggest that the insula and left thalamus have an active role in detecting emotional correspondence between auditory and visual information during music performances, whereas the right thalamus has a different role.

  16. Meaning in meaninglessness: The propensity to perceive meaningful patterns in coincident events and randomly arranged stimuli is linked to enhanced attention in early sensory processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rominger, Christian; Schulter, Günter; Fink, Andreas; Weiss, Elisabeth M; Papousek, Ilona

    2018-05-01

    Perception of objectively independent events or stimuli as being significantly connected and the associated proneness to perceive meaningful patterns constitute part of the positive symptoms of schizophrenia, which are associated with altered attentional processes in lateralized speech perception. Since perceiving meaningful patterns is to some extent already prevalent in the general population, the aim of the study was to investigate whether the propensity to experience meaningful patterns in co-occurring events and random stimuli may be associated with similar altered attentional processes in lateralized speech perception. Self-reported and behavioral indicators of the perception of meaningful patterns were assessed in non-clinical individuals, along with EEG auditory evoked potentials during the performance of an attention related lateralized speech perception task (Dichotic Listening Test). A greater propensity to perceive meaningful patterns was associated with higher N1 amplitudes of the evoked potentials to the onset of the dichotically presented consonant-vowel syllables, indicating enhanced automatic attention in early sensory processing. The study suggests that more basic mechanisms in how people associate events may play a greater role in the cognitive biases that are manifest in personality expressions such as positive schizotypy, rather than that positive schizotypy moderates these cognitive biases directly. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  17. Deficient multisensory integration in schizophrenia: an event-related potential study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stekelenburg, Jeroen J; Maes, Jan Pieter; Van Gool, Arthur R; Sitskoorn, Margriet; Vroomen, Jean

    2013-07-01

    In many natural audiovisual events (e.g., the sight of a face articulating the syllable /ba/), the visual signal precedes the sound and thus allows observers to predict the onset and the content of the sound. In healthy adults, the N1 component of the event-related brain potential (ERP), reflecting neural activity associated with basic sound processing, is suppressed if a sound is accompanied by a video that reliably predicts sound onset. If the sound does not match the content of the video (e.g., hearing /ba/ while lipreading /fu/), the later occurring P2 component is affected. Here, we examined whether these visual information sources affect auditory processing in patients with schizophrenia. The electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded in 18 patients with schizophrenia and compared with that of 18 healthy volunteers. As stimuli we used video recordings of natural actions in which visual information preceded and predicted the onset of the sound that was either congruent or incongruent with the video. For the healthy control group, visual information reduced the auditory-evoked N1 if compared to a sound-only condition, and stimulus-congruency affected the P2. This reduction in N1 was absent in patients with schizophrenia, and the congruency effect on the P2 was diminished. Distributed source estimations revealed deficits in the network subserving audiovisual integration in patients with schizophrenia. The results show a deficit in multisensory processing in patients with schizophrenia and suggest that multisensory integration dysfunction may be an important and, to date, under-researched aspect of schizophrenia. Copyright © 2013. Published by Elsevier B.V.

  18. Speech perception enhancement in elderly hearing aid users using an auditory training program for mobile devices.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yu, Jyaehyoung; Jeon, Hanjae; Song, Changgeun; Han, Woojae

    2017-01-01

    The goal of the present study was to develop an auditory training program using a mobile device and to test its efficacy by applying it to older adults suffering from moderate-to-severe sensorineural hearing loss. Among the 20 elderly hearing-impaired listeners who participated, 10 were randomly assigned to a training group (TG) and 10 were assigned to a non-training group (NTG) as a control. As a baseline, all participants were measured by vowel, consonant and sentence tests. In the experiment, the TG had been trained for 4 weeks using a mobile program, which had four levels and consisted of 10 Korean nonsense syllables, with each level completed in 1 week. In contrast, traditional auditory training had been provided for the NTG during the same period. To evaluate whether a training effect was achieved, the two groups also carried out the same tests as the baseline after completing the experiment. The results showed that performance on the consonant and sentence tests in the TG was significantly increased compared with that of the NTG. Also, improved scores of speech perception were retained at 2 weeks after the training was completed. However, vowel scores were not changed after the 4-week training in both the TG and the NTG. This result pattern suggests that a moderate amount of auditory training using the mobile device with cost-effective and minimal supervision is useful when it is used to improve the speech understanding of older adults with hearing loss. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2017; 17: 61-68. © 2015 Japan Geriatrics Society.

  19. Integration and segregation in auditory scene analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sussman, Elyse S.

    2005-03-01

    Assessment of the neural correlates of auditory scene analysis, using an index of sound change detection that does not require the listener to attend to the sounds [a component of event-related brain potentials called the mismatch negativity (MMN)], has previously demonstrated that segregation processes can occur without attention focused on the sounds and that within-stream contextual factors influence how sound elements are integrated and represented in auditory memory. The current study investigated the relationship between the segregation and integration processes when they were called upon to function together. The pattern of MMN results showed that the integration of sound elements within a sound stream occurred after the segregation of sounds into independent streams and, further, that the individual streams were subject to contextual effects. These results are consistent with a view of auditory processing that suggests that the auditory scene is rapidly organized into distinct streams and the integration of sequential elements to perceptual units takes place on the already formed streams. This would allow for the flexibility required to identify changing within-stream sound patterns, needed to appreciate music or comprehend speech..

  20. Neurofeedback-Based Enhancement of Single Trial Auditory Evoked Potentials: Feasibility in Healthy Subjects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rieger, Kathryn; Rarra, Marie-Helene; Moor, Nicolas; Diaz Hernandez, Laura; Baenninger, Anja; Razavi, Nadja; Dierks, Thomas; Hubl, Daniela; Koenig, Thomas

    2018-03-01

    Previous studies showed a global reduction of the event-related potential component N100 in patients with schizophrenia, a phenomenon that is even more pronounced during auditory verbal hallucinations. This reduction assumingly results from dysfunctional activation of the primary auditory cortex by inner speech, which reduces its responsiveness to external stimuli. With this study, we tested the feasibility of enhancing the responsiveness of the primary auditory cortex to external stimuli with an upregulation of the event-related potential component N100 in healthy control subjects. A total of 15 healthy subjects performed 8 double-sessions of EEG-neurofeedback training over 2 weeks. The results of the used linear mixed effect model showed a significant active learning effect within sessions ( t = 5.99, P < .001) against an unspecific habituation effect that lowered the N100 amplitude over time. Across sessions, a significant increase in the passive condition ( t = 2.42, P = .03), named as carry-over effect, was observed. Given that the carry-over effect is one of the ultimate aims of neurofeedback, it seems reasonable to apply this neurofeedback training protocol to influence the N100 amplitude in patients with schizophrenia. This intervention could provide an alternative treatment option for auditory verbal hallucinations in these patients.

  1. Individual Differences in Auditory Sentence Comprehension in Children: An Exploratory Event-Related Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yeatman, Jason D.; Ben-Shachar, Michal; Glover, Gary H.; Feldman, Heidi M.

    2010-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to explore changes in activation of the cortical network that serves auditory sentence comprehension in children in response to increasing demands of complex sentences. A further goal is to study how individual differences in children's receptive language abilities are associated with such changes in cortical…

  2. Separating acoustic deviance from novelty during the first year of life: a review of event-related potential evidence

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kushnerenko, Elena V.; Van den Bergh, Bea R. H.; Winkler, István

    2013-01-01

    Orienting to salient events in the environment is a first step in the development of attention in young infants. Electrophysiological studies have indicated that in newborns and young infants, sounds with widely distributed spectral energy, such as noise and various environmental sounds, as well as sounds widely deviating from their context elicit an event-related potential (ERP) similar to the adult P3a response. We discuss how the maturation of event-related potentials parallels the process of the development of passive auditory attention during the first year of life. Behavioral studies have indicated that the neonatal orientation to high-energy stimuli gradually changes to attending to genuine novelty and other significant events by approximately 9 months of age. In accordance with these changes, in newborns, the ERP response to large acoustic deviance is dramatically larger than that to small and moderate deviations. This ERP difference, however, rapidly decreases within first months of life and the differentiation of the ERP response to genuine novelty from that to spectrally rich but repeatedly presented sounds commences during the same period. The relative decrease of the response amplitudes elicited by high-energy stimuli may reflect development of an inhibitory brain network suppressing the processing of uninformative stimuli. Based on data obtained from healthy full-term and pre-term infants as well as from infants at risk for various developmental problems, we suggest that the electrophysiological indices of the processing of acoustic and contextual deviance may be indicative of the functioning of auditory attention, a crucial prerequisite of learning and language development. PMID:24046757

  3. Olfactory short-term memory encoding and maintenance - an event-related potential study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lenk, Steffen; Bluschke, Annet; Beste, Christian; Iannilli, Emilia; Rößner, Veit; Hummel, Thomas; Bender, Stephan

    2014-09-01

    This study examined whether the memory encoding and short term maintenance of olfactory stimuli is associated with neurophysiological activation patterns which parallel those described for sensory modalities such as vision and auditory. We examined olfactory event-related potentials in an olfactory change detection task in twenty-four healthy adults and compared the measured activation to that found during passive olfactory stimulation. During the early olfactory post-processing phase, we found a sustained negativity over bilateral frontotemporal areas in the passive perception condition which was enhanced in the active memory task. There was no significant lateralization in either experimental condition. During the maintenance interval at the end of the delay period, we still found sustained activation over bilateral frontotemporal areas which was more negative in trials with correct - as compared to incorrect - behavioural responses. This was complemented by a general significantly stronger frontocentral activation. Summarizing, we were able to show that olfactory short term memory involves a parallel sequence of activation as found in other sensory modalities. In addition to olfactory-specific frontotemporal activations in the memory encoding phase, we found slow cortical potentials over frontocentral areas during the memory maintenance phase indicating the activation of a supramodal memory maintenance system. These findings could represent the neurophysiological underpinning of the 'olfactory flacon', the olfactory counter-part to the visual sketchpad and phonological loop embedded in Baddeley's working memory model. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  4. Neural entrainment to rhythmically-presented auditory, visual and audio-visual speech in children

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alan James Power

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available Auditory cortical oscillations have been proposed to play an important role in speech perception. It is suggested that the brain may take temporal ‘samples’ of information from the speech stream at different rates, phase-resetting ongoing oscillations so that they are aligned with similar frequency bands in the input (‘phase locking’. Information from these frequency bands is then bound together for speech perception. To date, there are no explorations of neural phase-locking and entrainment to speech input in children. However, it is clear from studies of language acquisition that infants use both visual speech information and auditory speech information in learning. In order to study neural entrainment to speech in typically-developing children, we use a rhythmic entrainment paradigm (underlying 2 Hz or delta rate based on repetition of the syllable ba, presented in either the auditory modality alone, the visual modality alone, or as auditory-visual speech (via a talking head. To ensure attention to the task, children aged 13 years were asked to press a button as fast as possible when the ba stimulus violated the rhythm for each stream type. Rhythmic violation depended on delaying the occurrence of a ba in the isochronous stream. Neural entrainment was demonstrated for all stream types, and individual differences in standardized measures of language processing were related to auditory entrainment at the theta rate. Further, there was significant modulation of the preferred phase of auditory entrainment in the theta band when visual speech cues were present, indicating cross-modal phase resetting. The rhythmic entrainment paradigm developed here offers a method for exploring individual differences in oscillatory phase locking during development. In particular, a method for assessing neural entrainment and cross-modal phase resetting would be useful for exploring developmental learning difficulties thought to involve temporal sampling

  5. Functional Mapping of the Human Auditory Cortex: fMRI Investigation of a Patient with Auditory Agnosia from Trauma to the Inferior Colliculus.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Poliva, Oren; Bestelmeyer, Patricia E G; Hall, Michelle; Bultitude, Janet H; Koller, Kristin; Rafal, Robert D

    2015-09-01

    To use functional magnetic resonance imaging to map the auditory cortical fields that are activated, or nonreactive, to sounds in patient M.L., who has auditory agnosia caused by trauma to the inferior colliculi. The patient cannot recognize speech or environmental sounds. Her discrimination is greatly facilitated by context and visibility of the speaker's facial movements, and under forced-choice testing. Her auditory temporal resolution is severely compromised. Her discrimination is more impaired for words differing in voice onset time than place of articulation. Words presented to her right ear are extinguished with dichotic presentation; auditory stimuli in the right hemifield are mislocalized to the left. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine cortical activations to different categories of meaningful sounds embedded in a block design. Sounds activated the caudal sub-area of M.L.'s primary auditory cortex (hA1) bilaterally and her right posterior superior temporal gyrus (auditory dorsal stream), but not the rostral sub-area (hR) of her primary auditory cortex or the anterior superior temporal gyrus in either hemisphere (auditory ventral stream). Auditory agnosia reflects dysfunction of the auditory ventral stream. The ventral and dorsal auditory streams are already segregated as early as the primary auditory cortex, with the ventral stream projecting from hR and the dorsal stream from hA1. M.L.'s leftward localization bias, preserved audiovisual integration, and phoneme perception are explained by preserved processing in her right auditory dorsal stream.

  6. Automatic phoneme category selectivity in the dorsal auditory stream.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chevillet, Mark A; Jiang, Xiong; Rauschecker, Josef P; Riesenhuber, Maximilian

    2013-03-20

    Debates about motor theories of speech perception have recently been reignited by a burst of reports implicating premotor cortex (PMC) in speech perception. Often, however, these debates conflate perceptual and decision processes. Evidence that PMC activity correlates with task difficulty and subject performance suggests that PMC might be recruited, in certain cases, to facilitate category judgments about speech sounds (rather than speech perception, which involves decoding of sounds). However, it remains unclear whether PMC does, indeed, exhibit neural selectivity that is relevant for speech decisions. Further, it is unknown whether PMC activity in such cases reflects input via the dorsal or ventral auditory pathway, and whether PMC processing of speech is automatic or task-dependent. In a novel modified categorization paradigm, we presented human subjects with paired speech sounds from a phonetic continuum but diverted their attention from phoneme category using a challenging dichotic listening task. Using fMRI rapid adaptation to probe neural selectivity, we observed acoustic-phonetic selectivity in left anterior and left posterior auditory cortical regions. Conversely, we observed phoneme-category selectivity in left PMC that correlated with explicit phoneme-categorization performance measured after scanning, suggesting that PMC recruitment can account for performance on phoneme-categorization tasks. Structural equation modeling revealed connectivity from posterior, but not anterior, auditory cortex to PMC, suggesting a dorsal route for auditory input to PMC. Our results provide evidence for an account of speech processing in which the dorsal stream mediates automatic sensorimotor integration of speech and may be recruited to support speech decision tasks.

  7. A template-free approach for determining the latency of single events of auditory evoked M100

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Burghoff, M [Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Berlin (Germany); Link, A [Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Berlin (Germany); Salajegheh, A [Cognitive Neuroscience of Language Laboratory, University of Maryland College Park, MD (United States); Elster, C [Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Berlin (Germany); Poeppel, D [Cognitive Neuroscience of Language Laboratory, University of Maryland College Park, MD (United States); Trahms, L [Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Berlin (Germany)

    2005-02-07

    The phase of the complex output of a narrow band Gaussian filter is taken to define the latency of the auditory evoked response M100 recorded by magnetoencephalography. It is demonstrated that this definition is consistent with the conventional peak latency. Moreover, it provides a tool for reducing the number of averages needed for a reliable estimation of the latency. Single-event latencies obtained by this procedure can be used to improve the signal quality of the conventional average by latency adjusted averaging. (note)

  8. The effects of interstimulus interval on sensory gating and on preattentive auditory memory in the oddball paradigm. Can magnitude of the sensory gating affect preattentive auditory comparison process?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ermutlu, M Numan; Demiralp, Tamer; Karamürsel, Sacit

    2007-01-22

    P50, and mismatch negativity (MMN) are components of event-related potentials (ERP) reflecting sensory gating and preattentive auditory memory, respectively. Interstimulus interval (ISI) is an important determinant of the amplitudes of these components and N1. In the present study the interrelation between stimulus gating and preattentive auditory sensory memory were investigated as a function of ISI in 1.5, 2.5 and 3.5s in 15 healthy volunteered participants. ISI factor affected the N1 peak amplitude significantly. MMN amplitude in 2.5s ISI was significantly smaller compared to 1.5 and 3.5s ISI. ISI X stimuli interaction on P50 amplitude was statistically significant. P50 amplitudes to deviant stimuli in 2.5s ISI were larger than the P50 amplitudes in other ISIs. P50 difference (P50d) waveform amplitude correlated significantly with MMN amplitude. The results suggest that: (i) auditory sensory gating could affect preattentive auditory sensory memory by supplying input to the comparator mechanism; (ii) 2.5s ISI is important in displaying the sensory gating and preattentive auditory sensory memory relation.

  9. Violent Events: School Social Workers' Perception and Response

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cawood, Natalie Diane

    2013-01-01

    This article reports findings from a national web-based survey of 250 members of the School Social Work Association of America (SSWAA). This study examines the types of violent events reported by school social workers and the practitioner's perception of the problem of interpersonal violence in the school context. It identifies interventions being…

  10. Membrane potential dynamics of populations of cortical neurons during auditory streaming

    Science.gov (United States)

    Farley, Brandon J.

    2015-01-01

    How a mixture of acoustic sources is perceptually organized into discrete auditory objects remains unclear. One current hypothesis postulates that perceptual segregation of different sources is related to the spatiotemporal separation of cortical responses induced by each acoustic source or stream. In the present study, the dynamics of subthreshold membrane potential activity were measured across the entire tonotopic axis of the rodent primary auditory cortex during the auditory streaming paradigm using voltage-sensitive dye imaging. Consistent with the proposed hypothesis, we observed enhanced spatiotemporal segregation of cortical responses to alternating tone sequences as their frequency separation or presentation rate was increased, both manipulations known to promote stream segregation. However, across most streaming paradigm conditions tested, a substantial cortical region maintaining a response to both tones coexisted with more peripheral cortical regions responding more selectively to one of them. We propose that these coexisting subthreshold representation types could provide neural substrates to support the flexible switching between the integrated and segregated streaming percepts. PMID:26269558

  11. Auditory and audio-visual processing in patients with cochlear, auditory brainstem, and auditory midbrain implants: An EEG study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schierholz, Irina; Finke, Mareike; Kral, Andrej; Büchner, Andreas; Rach, Stefan; Lenarz, Thomas; Dengler, Reinhard; Sandmann, Pascale

    2017-04-01

    There is substantial variability in speech recognition ability across patients with cochlear implants (CIs), auditory brainstem implants (ABIs), and auditory midbrain implants (AMIs). To better understand how this variability is related to central processing differences, the current electroencephalography (EEG) study compared hearing abilities and auditory-cortex activation in patients with electrical stimulation at different sites of the auditory pathway. Three different groups of patients with auditory implants (Hannover Medical School; ABI: n = 6, CI: n = 6; AMI: n = 2) performed a speeded response task and a speech recognition test with auditory, visual, and audio-visual stimuli. Behavioral performance and cortical processing of auditory and audio-visual stimuli were compared between groups. ABI and AMI patients showed prolonged response times on auditory and audio-visual stimuli compared with NH listeners and CI patients. This was confirmed by prolonged N1 latencies and reduced N1 amplitudes in ABI and AMI patients. However, patients with central auditory implants showed a remarkable gain in performance when visual and auditory input was combined, in both speech and non-speech conditions, which was reflected by a strong visual modulation of auditory-cortex activation in these individuals. In sum, the results suggest that the behavioral improvement for audio-visual conditions in central auditory implant patients is based on enhanced audio-visual interactions in the auditory cortex. Their findings may provide important implications for the optimization of electrical stimulation and rehabilitation strategies in patients with central auditory prostheses. Hum Brain Mapp 38:2206-2225, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  12. Direct recordings from the auditory cortex in a cochlear implant user.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nourski, Kirill V; Etler, Christine P; Brugge, John F; Oya, Hiroyuki; Kawasaki, Hiroto; Reale, Richard A; Abbas, Paul J; Brown, Carolyn J; Howard, Matthew A

    2013-06-01

    Electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve with a cochlear implant (CI) is the method of choice for treatment of severe-to-profound hearing loss. Understanding how the human auditory cortex responds to CI stimulation is important for advances in stimulation paradigms and rehabilitation strategies. In this study, auditory cortical responses to CI stimulation were recorded intracranially in a neurosurgical patient to examine directly the functional organization of the auditory cortex and compare the findings with those obtained in normal-hearing subjects. The subject was a bilateral CI user with a 20-year history of deafness and refractory epilepsy. As part of the epilepsy treatment, a subdural grid electrode was implanted over the left temporal lobe. Pure tones, click trains, sinusoidal amplitude-modulated noise, and speech were presented via the auxiliary input of the right CI speech processor. Additional experiments were conducted with bilateral CI stimulation. Auditory event-related changes in cortical activity, characterized by the averaged evoked potential and event-related band power, were localized to posterolateral superior temporal gyrus. Responses were stable across recording sessions and were abolished under general anesthesia. Response latency decreased and magnitude increased with increasing stimulus level. More apical intracochlear stimulation yielded the largest responses. Cortical evoked potentials were phase-locked to the temporal modulations of periodic stimuli and speech utterances. Bilateral electrical stimulation resulted in minimal artifact contamination. This study demonstrates the feasibility of intracranial electrophysiological recordings of responses to CI stimulation in a human subject, shows that cortical response properties may be similar to those obtained in normal-hearing individuals, and provides a basis for future comparisons with extracranial recordings.

  13. Speech Perception as a Multimodal Phenomenon

    OpenAIRE

    Rosenblum, Lawrence D.

    2008-01-01

    Speech perception is inherently multimodal. Visual speech (lip-reading) information is used by all perceivers and readily integrates with auditory speech. Imaging research suggests that the brain treats auditory and visual speech similarly. These findings have led some researchers to consider that speech perception works by extracting amodal information that takes the same form across modalities. From this perspective, speech integration is a property of the input information itself. Amodal s...

  14. Plasticity in the Human Speech Motor System Drives Changes in Speech Perception

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lametti, Daniel R.; Rochet-Capellan, Amélie; Neufeld, Emily; Shiller, Douglas M.

    2014-01-01

    Recent studies of human speech motor learning suggest that learning is accompanied by changes in auditory perception. But what drives the perceptual change? Is it a consequence of changes in the motor system? Or is it a result of sensory inflow during learning? Here, subjects participated in a speech motor-learning task involving adaptation to altered auditory feedback and they were subsequently tested for perceptual change. In two separate experiments, involving two different auditory perceptual continua, we show that changes in the speech motor system that accompany learning drive changes in auditory speech perception. Specifically, we obtained changes in speech perception when adaptation to altered auditory feedback led to speech production that fell into the phonetic range of the speech perceptual tests. However, a similar change in perception was not observed when the auditory feedback that subjects' received during learning fell into the phonetic range of the perceptual tests. This indicates that the central motor outflow associated with vocal sensorimotor adaptation drives changes to the perceptual classification of speech sounds. PMID:25080594

  15. Neural Correlates of Auditory Processing, Learning and Memory Formation in Songbirds

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pinaud, R.; Terleph, T. A.; Wynne, R. D.; Tremere, L. A.

    Songbirds have emerged as powerful experimental models for the study of auditory processing of complex natural communication signals. Intact hearing is necessary for several behaviors in developing and adult animals including vocal learning, territorial defense, mate selection and individual recognition. These behaviors are thought to require the processing, discrimination and memorization of songs. Although much is known about the brain circuits that participate in sensorimotor (auditory-vocal) integration, especially the ``song-control" system, less is known about the anatomical and functional organization of central auditory pathways. Here we discuss findings associated with a telencephalic auditory area known as the caudomedial nidopallium (NCM). NCM has attracted significant interest as it exhibits functional properties that may support higher order auditory functions such as stimulus discrimination and the formation of auditory memories. NCM neurons are vigorously dr iven by auditory stimuli. Interestingly, these responses are selective to conspecific, relative to heterospecific songs and artificial stimuli. In addition, forms of experience-dependent plasticity occur in NCM and are song-specific. Finally, recent experiments employing high-throughput quantitative proteomics suggest that complex protein regulatory pathways are engaged in NCM as a result of auditory experience. These molecular cascades are likely central to experience-associated plasticity of NCM circuitry and may be part of a network of calcium-driven molecular events that support the formation of auditory memory traces.

  16. Audiovisual speech perception development at varying levels of perceptual processing

    OpenAIRE

    Lalonde, Kaylah; Holt, Rachael Frush

    2016-01-01

    This study used the auditory evaluation framework [Erber (1982). Auditory Training (Alexander Graham Bell Association, Washington, DC)] to characterize the influence of visual speech on audiovisual (AV) speech perception in adults and children at multiple levels of perceptual processing. Six- to eight-year-old children and adults completed auditory and AV speech perception tasks at three levels of perceptual processing (detection, discrimination, and recognition). The tasks differed in the le...

  17. A Case of Generalized Auditory Agnosia with Unilateral Subcortical Brain Lesion

    Science.gov (United States)

    Suh, Hyee; Kim, Soo Yeon; Kim, Sook Hee; Chang, Jae Hyeok; Shin, Yong Beom; Ko, Hyun-Yoon

    2012-01-01

    The mechanisms and functional anatomy underlying the early stages of speech perception are still not well understood. Auditory agnosia is a deficit of auditory object processing defined as a disability to recognize spoken languages and/or nonverbal environmental sounds and music despite adequate hearing while spontaneous speech, reading and writing are preserved. Usually, either the bilateral or unilateral temporal lobe, especially the transverse gyral lesions, are responsible for auditory agnosia. Subcortical lesions without cortical damage rarely causes auditory agnosia. We present a 73-year-old right-handed male with generalized auditory agnosia caused by a unilateral subcortical lesion. He was not able to repeat or dictate but to perform fluent and comprehensible speech. He could understand and read written words and phrases. His auditory brainstem evoked potential and audiometry were intact. This case suggested that the subcortical lesion involving unilateral acoustic radiation could cause generalized auditory agnosia. PMID:23342322

  18. A loudspeaker-based room auralisation (LoRA) system for auditory perception research

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Buchholz, Jörg; Favrot, Sylvain Emmanuel

    Most research on understanding the signal processing of the auditory system has been realized in anechoic or almost anechoic environments. The knowledge derived from these experiments cannot be directly transferred to reverberant environments. In order to investigate the auditory signal processing...... are utilized to realise highly authentic room reverberation. This system aims at providing a flexible research platform for conducting auditory experiments with normal-hearing, hearing-impaired, and aided hearing-impaired listeners in a fully controlled and realistic environment. An overall description...

  19. Auditory hallucinations: A review of the ERC "VOICE" project.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hugdahl, Kenneth

    2015-06-22

    In this invited review I provide a selective overview of recent research on brain mechanisms and cognitive processes involved in auditory hallucinations. The review is focused on research carried out in the "VOICE" ERC Advanced Grant Project, funded by the European Research Council, but I also review and discuss the literature in general. Auditory hallucinations are suggested to be perceptual phenomena, with a neuronal origin in the speech perception areas in the temporal lobe. The phenomenology of auditory hallucinations is conceptualized along three domains, or dimensions; a perceptual dimension, experienced as someone speaking to the patient; a cognitive dimension, experienced as an inability to inhibit, or ignore the voices, and an emotional dimension, experienced as the "voices" having primarily a negative, or sinister, emotional tone. I will review cognitive, imaging, and neurochemistry data related to these dimensions, primarily the first two. The reviewed data are summarized in a model that sees auditory hallucinations as initiated from temporal lobe neuronal hyper-activation that draws attentional focus inward, and which is not inhibited due to frontal lobe hypo-activation. It is further suggested that this is maintained through abnormal glutamate and possibly gamma-amino-butyric-acid transmitter mediation, which could point towards new pathways for pharmacological treatment. A final section discusses new methods of acquiring quantitative data on the phenomenology and subjective experience of auditory hallucination that goes beyond standard interview questionnaires, by suggesting an iPhone/iPod app.

  20. Auditory, visual and auditory-visual memory and sequencing performance in typically developing children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pillai, Roshni; Yathiraj, Asha

    2017-09-01

    The study evaluated whether there exists a difference/relation in the way four different memory skills (memory score, sequencing score, memory span, & sequencing span) are processed through the auditory modality, visual modality and combined modalities. Four memory skills were evaluated on 30 typically developing children aged 7 years and 8 years across three modality conditions (auditory, visual, & auditory-visual). Analogous auditory and visual stimuli were presented to evaluate the three modality conditions across the two age groups. The children obtained significantly higher memory scores through the auditory modality compared to the visual modality. Likewise, their memory scores were significantly higher through the auditory-visual modality condition than through the visual modality. However, no effect of modality was observed on the sequencing scores as well as for the memory and the sequencing span. A good agreement was seen between the different modality conditions that were studied (auditory, visual, & auditory-visual) for the different memory skills measures (memory scores, sequencing scores, memory span, & sequencing span). A relatively lower agreement was noted only between the auditory and visual modalities as well as between the visual and auditory-visual modality conditions for the memory scores, measured using Bland-Altman plots. The study highlights the efficacy of using analogous stimuli to assess the auditory, visual as well as combined modalities. The study supports the view that the performance of children on different memory skills was better through the auditory modality compared to the visual modality. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  1. An Adaptive Neural Mechanism for Acoustic Motion Perception with Varying Sparsity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shaikh, Danish; Manoonpong, Poramate

    2017-01-01

    Biological motion-sensitive neural circuits are quite adept in perceiving the relative motion of a relevant stimulus. Motion perception is a fundamental ability in neural sensory processing and crucial in target tracking tasks. Tracking a stimulus entails the ability to perceive its motion, i.e., extracting information about its direction and velocity. Here we focus on auditory motion perception of sound stimuli, which is poorly understood as compared to its visual counterpart. In earlier work we have developed a bio-inspired neural learning mechanism for acoustic motion perception. The mechanism extracts directional information via a model of the peripheral auditory system of lizards. The mechanism uses only this directional information obtained via specific motor behaviour to learn the angular velocity of unoccluded sound stimuli in motion. In nature however the stimulus being tracked may be occluded by artefacts in the environment, such as an escaping prey momentarily disappearing behind a cover of trees. This article extends the earlier work by presenting a comparative investigation of auditory motion perception for unoccluded and occluded tonal sound stimuli with a frequency of 2.2 kHz in both simulation and practice. Three instances of each stimulus are employed, differing in their movement velocities-0.5°/time step, 1.0°/time step and 1.5°/time step. To validate the approach in practice, we implement the proposed neural mechanism on a wheeled mobile robot and evaluate its performance in auditory tracking.

  2. Procedures for central auditory processing screening in schoolchildren.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carvalho, Nádia Giulian de; Ubiali, Thalita; Amaral, Maria Isabel Ramos do; Santos, Maria Francisca Colella

    2018-03-22

    Central auditory processing screening in schoolchildren has led to debates in literature, both regarding the protocol to be used and the importance of actions aimed at prevention and promotion of auditory health. Defining effective screening procedures for central auditory processing is a challenge in Audiology. This study aimed to analyze the scientific research on central auditory processing screening and discuss the effectiveness of the procedures utilized. A search was performed in the SciELO and PUBMed databases by two researchers. The descriptors used in Portuguese and English were: auditory processing, screening, hearing, auditory perception, children, auditory tests and their respective terms in Portuguese. original articles involving schoolchildren, auditory screening of central auditory skills and articles in Portuguese or English. studies with adult and/or neonatal populations, peripheral auditory screening only, and duplicate articles. After applying the described criteria, 11 articles were included. At the international level, central auditory processing screening methods used were: screening test for auditory processing disorder and its revised version, screening test for auditory processing, scale of auditory behaviors, children's auditory performance scale and Feather Squadron. In the Brazilian scenario, the procedures used were the simplified auditory processing assessment and Zaidan's battery of tests. At the international level, the screening test for auditory processing and Feather Squadron batteries stand out as the most comprehensive evaluation of hearing skills. At the national level, there is a paucity of studies that use methods evaluating more than four skills, and are normalized by age group. The use of simplified auditory processing assessment and questionnaires can be complementary in the search for an easy access and low-cost alternative in the auditory screening of Brazilian schoolchildren. Interactive tools should be proposed, that

  3. Influences of selective adaptation on perception of audiovisual speech

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dias, James W.; Cook, Theresa C.; Rosenblum, Lawrence D.

    2016-01-01

    Research suggests that selective adaptation in speech is a low-level process dependent on sensory-specific information shared between the adaptor and test-stimuli. However, previous research has only examined how adaptors shift perception of unimodal test stimuli, either auditory or visual. In the current series of experiments, we investigated whether adaptation to cross-sensory phonetic information can influence perception of integrated audio-visual phonetic information. We examined how selective adaptation to audio and visual adaptors shift perception of speech along an audiovisual test continuum. This test-continuum consisted of nine audio-/ba/-visual-/va/ stimuli, ranging in visual clarity of the mouth. When the mouth was clearly visible, perceivers “heard” the audio-visual stimulus as an integrated “va” percept 93.7% of the time (e.g., McGurk & MacDonald, 1976). As visibility of the mouth became less clear across the nine-item continuum, the audio-visual “va” percept weakened, resulting in a continuum ranging in audio-visual percepts from /va/ to /ba/. Perception of the test-stimuli was tested before and after adaptation. Changes in audiovisual speech perception were observed following adaptation to visual-/va/ and audiovisual-/va/, but not following adaptation to auditory-/va/, auditory-/ba/, or visual-/ba/. Adaptation modulates perception of integrated audio-visual speech by modulating the processing of sensory-specific information. The results suggest that auditory and visual speech information are not completely integrated at the level of selective adaptation. PMID:27041781

  4. Complex-tone pitch representations in the human auditory system

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bianchi, Federica

    in listeners with SNHL, it is likely that HI listeners rely on the enhanced envelope cues to retrieve the pitch of unresolved harmonics. Hence, the relative importance of pitch cues may be altered in HI listeners, whereby envelope cues may be used instead of TFS cues to obtain a similar performance in pitch......Understanding how the human auditory system processes the physical properties of an acoustical stimulus to give rise to a pitch percept is a fascinating aspect of hearing research. Since most natural sounds are harmonic complex tones, this work focused on the nature of pitch-relevant cues...... that are necessary for the auditory system to retrieve the pitch of complex sounds. The existence of different pitch-coding mechanisms for low-numbered (spectrally resolved) and high-numbered (unresolved) harmonics was investigated by comparing pitch-discrimination performance across different cohorts of listeners...

  5. No disillusions in auditory extinction: perceiving a melody comprised of unperceived notes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Leon Y Deouell

    2008-03-01

    Full Text Available The formation of coherent percepts requires grouping together spatio-temporally disparate sensory inputs. Two major questions arise: (1 is awareness necessary for this process; and (2 can non-conscious elements of the sensory input be grouped into a conscious perceptµ To address this question, we tested two patients suffering from severe left auditory extinction following right hemisphere damage. In extinction, patients are unaware of the presence of left side stimuli when they are presented simultaneously with right side stimuli. We used the ‘scale illusion’ to test whether extinguished tones on the left can be incorporated into the content of conscious awareness. In the scale illusion, healthy listeners obtain the illusion of distinct melodies, which are the result of grouping of information from both ears into illusory auditory streams. We show that the two patients were susceptible to the scale illusion while being consciously unaware of the stimuli presented on their left. This suggests that awareness is not necessary for auditory grouping and non-conscious elements can be incorporated into a conscious percept.

  6. Spiking in auditory cortex following thalamic stimulation is dominated by cortical network activity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krause, Bryan M.; Raz, Aeyal; Uhlrich, Daniel J.; Smith, Philip H.; Banks, Matthew I.

    2014-01-01

    The state of the sensory cortical network can have a profound impact on neural responses and perception. In rodent auditory cortex, sensory responses are reported to occur in the context of network events, similar to brief UP states, that produce “packets” of spikes and are associated with synchronized synaptic input (Bathellier et al., 2012; Hromadka et al., 2013; Luczak et al., 2013). However, traditional models based on data from visual and somatosensory cortex predict that ascending sensory thalamocortical (TC) pathways sequentially activate cells in layers 4 (L4), L2/3, and L5. The relationship between these two spatio-temporal activity patterns is unclear. Here, we used calcium imaging and electrophysiological recordings in murine auditory TC brain slices to investigate the laminar response pattern to stimulation of TC afferents. We show that although monosynaptically driven spiking in response to TC afferents occurs, the vast majority of spikes fired following TC stimulation occurs during brief UP states and outside the context of the L4>L2/3>L5 activation sequence. Specifically, monosynaptic subthreshold TC responses with similar latencies were observed throughout layers 2–6, presumably via synapses onto dendritic processes located in L3 and L4. However, monosynaptic spiking was rare, and occurred primarily in L4 and L5 non-pyramidal cells. By contrast, during brief, TC-induced UP states, spiking was dense and occurred primarily in pyramidal cells. These network events always involved infragranular layers, whereas involvement of supragranular layers was variable. During UP states, spike latencies were comparable between infragranular and supragranular cells. These data are consistent with a model in which activation of auditory cortex, especially supragranular layers, depends on internally generated network events that represent a non-linear amplification process, are initiated by infragranular cells and tightly regulated by feed-forward inhibitory

  7. Reduced neuronal activity in language-related regions after transcranial magnetic stimulation therapy for auditory verbal hallucinations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kindler, Jochen; Homan, Philipp; Jann, Kay; Federspiel, Andrea; Flury, Richard; Hauf, Martinus; Strik, Werner; Dierks, Thomas; Hubl, Daniela

    2013-03-15

    Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a novel therapeutic approach, used in patients with pharmacoresistant auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH). To investigate the neurobiological effects of TMS on AVH, we measured cerebral blood flow with pseudo-continuous magnetic resonance-arterial spin labeling 20 ± 6 hours before and after TMS treatment. Thirty patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder were investigated. Fifteen patients received a 10-day TMS treatment to the left temporoparietal cortex, and 15 received the standard treatment. The stimulation location was chosen according to an individually determined language region determined by a functional magnetic resonance imaging language paradigm, which identified the sensorimotor language area, area Spt (sylvian parietotemporal), as the target region. TMS-treated patients showed positive clinical effects, which were indicated by a reduction in AVH scores (p ≤ .001). Cerebral blood flow was significantly decreased in the primary auditory cortex (p ≤ .001), left Broca's area (p ≤ .001), and cingulate gyrus (p ≤ .001). In control subjects, neither positive clinical effects nor cerebral blood flow decreases were detected. The decrease in cerebral blood flow in the primary auditory cortex correlated with the decrease in AVH scores (p ≤ .001). TMS reverses hyperactivity of language regions involved in the emergence of AVH. Area Spt acts as a gateway to the hallucination-generating cerebral network. Successful therapy corresponded to decreased cerebral blood flow in the primary auditory cortex, supporting its crucial role in triggering AVH and contributing to the physical quality of the false perceptions. Copyright © 2013 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  8. Auditory and communicative abilities in the auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder and mutation in the Otoferlin gene: clinical cases study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Costa, Nayara Thais de Oliveira; Martinho-Carvalho, Ana Claudia; Cunha, Maria Claudia; Lewis, Doris Ruthi

    2012-01-01

    This study had the aim to investigate the auditory and communicative abilities of children diagnosed with Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder due to mutation in the Otoferlin gene. It is a descriptive and qualitative study in which two siblings with this diagnosis were assessed. The procedures conducted were: speech perception tests for children with profound hearing loss, and assessment of communication abilities using the Behavioral Observation Protocol. Because they were siblings, the subjects in the study shared family and communicative context. However, they developed different communication abilities, especially regarding the use of oral language. The study showed that the Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder is a heterogeneous condition in all its aspects, and it is not possible to make generalizations or assume that cases with similar clinical features will develop similar auditory and communicative abilities, even when they are siblings. It is concluded that the acquisition of communicative abilities involves subjective factors, which should be investigated based on the uniqueness of each case.

  9. Multiple benefits of personal FM system use by children with auditory processing disorder (APD).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Johnston, Kristin N; John, Andrew B; Kreisman, Nicole V; Hall, James W; Crandell, Carl C

    2009-01-01

    Children with auditory processing disorders (APD) were fitted with Phonak EduLink FM devices for home and classroom use. Baseline measures of the children with APD, prior to FM use, documented significantly lower speech-perception scores, evidence of decreased academic performance, and psychosocial problems in comparison to an age- and gender-matched control group. Repeated measures during the school year demonstrated speech-perception improvement in noisy classroom environments as well as significant academic and psychosocial benefits. Compared with the control group, the children with APD showed greater speech-perception advantage with FM technology. Notably, after prolonged FM use, even unaided (no FM device) speech-perception performance was improved in the children with APD, suggesting the possibility of fundamentally enhanced auditory system function.

  10. Auditory/visual distance estimation: accuracy and variability

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Paul Wallace Anderson

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available Past research has shown that auditory distance estimation improves when listeners are given the opportunity to see all possible sound sources when compared to no visual input. It has also been established that distance estimation is more accurate in vision than in audition. The present study investigates the degree to which auditory distance estimation is improved when matched with a congruent visual stimulus. Virtual sound sources based on binaural room impulse response (BRIR measurements made from distances ranging from approximately 0.3 to 9.8 m in a concert hall were used as auditory stimuli. Visual stimuli were photographs taken from the listener’s perspective at each distance in the impulse response measurement setup presented on a large HDTV monitor. Listeners were asked to estimate egocentric distance to the sound source in each of three conditions: auditory only (A, visual only (V, and congruent auditory/visual stimuli (A+V. Each condition was presented within its own block. Sixty-two listeners were tested in order to quantify the response variability inherent in auditory distance perception. Distance estimates from both the V and A+V conditions were found to be considerably more accurate and less variable than estimates from the A condition.

  11. Investigating the Role of Auditory Feedback in a Multimodal Biking Experience

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bruun-Pedersen, Jon Ram; Grani, Francesco; Serafin, Stefania

    2017-01-01

    In this paper, we investigate the role of auditory feedback in affecting perception of effort while biking in a virtual environment. Subjects were biking on a stationary chair bike, while exposed to 3D renditions of a recumbent bike inside a virtual environment (VE). The VE simulated a park...... and was created in the Unity5 engine. While biking, subjects were exposed to 9 kinds of auditory feedback (3 amplitude levels with three different filters) which were continuously triggered corresponding to pedal speed, representing the sound of the wheels and bike/chain mechanics. Subjects were asked to rate...... the perception of exertion using the Borg RPE scale. Results of the experiment showed that most subjects perceived a difference in mechanical resistance from the bike between conditions, but did not consciously notice the variations of the auditory feedback, although these were significantly varied. This points...

  12. Auditory Neural Prostheses – A Window to the Future

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    Mohan Kameshwaran

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Hearing loss is one of the commonest congenital anomalies to affect children world-over. The incidence of congenital hearing loss is more pronounced in developing countries like the Indian sub-continent, especially with the problems of consanguinity. Hearing loss is a double tragedy, as it leads to not only deafness but also language deprivation. However, hearing loss is the only truly remediable handicap, due to remarkable advances in biomedical engineering and surgical techniques. Auditory neural prostheses help to augment or restore hearing by integration of an external circuitry with the peripheral hearing apparatus and the central circuitry of the brain. A cochlear implant (CI is a surgically implantable device that helps restore hearing in patients with severe-profound hearing loss, unresponsive to amplification by conventional hearing aids. CIs are electronic devices designed to detect mechanical sound energy and convert it into electrical signals that can be delivered to the coch­lear nerve, bypassing the damaged hair cells of the coch­lea. The only true prerequisite is an intact auditory nerve. The emphasis is on implantation as early as possible to maximize speech understanding and perception. Bilateral CI has significant benefits which include improved speech perception in noisy environments and improved sound localization. Presently, the indications for CI have widened and these expanded indications for implantation are related to age, additional handicaps, residual hearing, and special etiologies of deafness. Combined electric and acoustic stimulation (EAS / hybrid device is designed for individuals with binaural low-frequency hearing and severe-to-profound high-frequency hearing loss. Auditory brainstem implantation (ABI is a safe and effective means of hearing rehabilitation in patients with retrocochlear disorders, such as neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2 or congenital cochlear nerve aplasia, wherein the cochlear nerve is damaged

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

    Science.gov (United States)

    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.

  14. Spatial Hearing with Incongruent Visual or Auditory Room Cues

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Gil Carvajal, Juan Camilo; Cubick, Jens; Santurette, Sébastien

    2016-01-01

    In day-to-day life, humans usually perceive the location of sound sources as outside their heads. This externalized auditory spatial perception can be reproduced through headphones by recreating the sound pressure generated by the source at the listener’s eardrums. This requires the acoustical...... the recording and playback room did affect distance perception. Consequently, the external perception of virtual sounds depends on the degree of congruency between the acoustical features of the environment and the stimuli....

  15. Probing the lifetimes of auditory novelty detection processes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pegado, Felipe; Bekinschtein, Tristan; Chausson, Nicolas; Dehaene, Stanislas; Cohen, Laurent; Naccache, Lionel

    2010-08-01

    Auditory novelty detection can be fractionated into multiple cognitive processes associated with their respective neurophysiological signatures. In the present study we used high-density scalp event-related potentials (ERPs) during an active version of the auditory oddball paradigm to explore the lifetimes of these processes by varying the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). We observed that early MMN (90-160 ms) decreased when the SOA increased, confirming the evanescence of this echoic memory system. Subsequent neural events including late MMN (160-220 ms) and P3a/P3b components of the P3 complex (240-500 ms) did not decay with SOA, but showed a systematic delay effect supporting a two-stage model of accumulation of evidence. On the basis of these observations, we propose a distinction within the MMN complex of two distinct events: (1) an early, pre-attentive and fast-decaying MMN associated with generators located within superior temporal gyri (STG) and frontal cortex, and (2) a late MMN more resistant to SOA, corresponding to the activation of a distributed cortical network including fronto-parietal regions. Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. Relative Contributions of the Dorsal vs. Ventral Speech Streams to Speech Perception are Context Dependent: a lesion study

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    Corianne Rogalsky

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available The neural basis of speech perception has been debated for over a century. While it is generally agreed that the superior temporal lobes are critical for the perceptual analysis of speech, a major current topic is whether the motor system contributes to speech perception, with several conflicting findings attested. In a dorsal-ventral speech stream framework (Hickok & Poeppel 2007, this debate is essentially about the roles of the dorsal versus ventral speech processing streams. A major roadblock in characterizing the neuroanatomy of speech perception is task-specific effects. For example, much of the evidence for dorsal stream involvement comes from syllable discrimination type tasks, which have been found to behaviorally doubly dissociate from auditory comprehension tasks (Baker et al. 1981. Discrimination task deficits could be a result of difficulty perceiving the sounds themselves, which is the typical assumption, or it could be a result of failures in temporary maintenance of the sensory traces, or the comparison and/or the decision process. Similar complications arise in perceiving sentences: the extent of inferior frontal (i.e. dorsal stream activation during listening to sentences increases as a function of increased task demands (Love et al. 2006. Another complication is the stimulus: much evidence for dorsal stream involvement uses speech samples lacking semantic context (CVs, non-words. The present study addresses these issues in a large-scale lesion-symptom mapping study. 158 patients with focal cerebral lesions from the Mutli-site Aphasia Research Consortium underwent a structural MRI or CT scan, as well as an extensive psycholinguistic battery. Voxel-based lesion symptom mapping was used to compare the neuroanatomy involved in the following speech perception tasks with varying phonological, semantic, and task loads: (i two discrimination tasks of syllables (non-words and words, respectively, (ii two auditory comprehension tasks

  17. Using auditory steady state responses to outline the functional connectivity in the tinnitus brain.

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    Winfried Schlee

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Tinnitus is an auditory phantom perception that is most likely generated in the central nervous system. Most of the tinnitus research has concentrated on the auditory system. However, it was suggested recently that also non-auditory structures are involved in a global network that encodes subjective tinnitus. We tested this assumption using auditory steady state responses to entrain the tinnitus network and investigated long-range functional connectivity across various non-auditory brain regions. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Using whole-head magnetoencephalography we investigated cortical connectivity by means of phase synchronization in tinnitus subjects and healthy controls. We found evidence for a deviating pattern of long-range functional connectivity in tinnitus that was strongly correlated with individual ratings of the tinnitus percept. Phase couplings between the anterior cingulum and the right frontal lobe and phase couplings between the anterior cingulum and the right parietal lobe showed significant condition x group interactions and were correlated with the individual tinnitus distress ratings only in the tinnitus condition and not in the control conditions. CONCLUSIONS: To the best of our knowledge this is the first study that demonstrates existence of a global tinnitus network of long-range cortical connections outside the central auditory system. This result extends the current knowledge of how tinnitus is generated in the brain. We propose that this global extend of the tinnitus network is crucial for the continuos perception of the tinnitus tone and a therapeutical intervention that is able to change this network should result in relief of tinnitus.

  18. Perceptual processing of a complex auditory context

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Quiroga Martinez, David Ricardo; Hansen, Niels Christian; Højlund, Andreas

    The mismatch negativity (MMN) is a brain response elicited by deviants in a series of repetitive sounds. It reflects the perception of change in low-level sound features and reliably measures perceptual auditory memory. However, most MMN studies use simple tone patterns as stimuli, failing...

  19. Perception of parents about the auditory attention skills of his kid with cleft lip and palate: retrospective study

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    Mondelli, Maria Fernanda Capoani Garcia

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: To process and decode the acoustic stimulation are necessary cognitive and neurophysiological mechanisms. The hearing stimulation is influenced by cognitive factor from the highest levels, such as the memory, attention and learning. The sensory deprivation caused by hearing loss from the conductive type, frequently in population with cleft lip and palate, can affect many cognitive functions - among them the attention, besides harm the school performance, linguistic and interpersonal. Objective: Verify the perception of the parents of children with cleft lip and palate about the hearing attention of their kids. Method: Retrospective study of infants with any type of cleft lip and palate, without any genetic syndrome associate which parents answered a relevant questionnaire about the auditory attention skills. Results: 44 are from the male kind and 26 from the female kind, 35,71% of the answers were affirmative for the hearing loss and 71,43% to otologic infections. Conclusion: Most of the interviewed parents pointed at least one of the behaviors related to attention contained in the questionnaire, indicating that the presence of cleft lip and palate can be related to difficulties in hearing attention.

  20. Probing neural mechanisms underlying auditory stream segregation in humans by transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Deike, Susann; Deliano, Matthias; Brechmann, André

    2016-10-01

    One hypothesis concerning the neural underpinnings of auditory streaming states that frequency tuning of tonotopically organized neurons in primary auditory fields in combination with physiological forward suppression is necessary for the separation of representations of high-frequency A and low-frequency B tones. The extent of spatial overlap between the tonotopic activations of A and B tones is thought to underlie the perceptual organization of streaming sequences into one coherent or two separate streams. The present study attempts to interfere with these mechanisms by transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and to probe behavioral outcomes reflecting the perception of ABAB streaming sequences. We hypothesized that tDCS by modulating cortical excitability causes a change in the separateness of the representations of A and B tones, which leads to a change in the proportions of one-stream and two-stream percepts. To test this, 22 subjects were presented with ambiguous ABAB sequences of three different frequency separations (∆F) and had to decide on their current percept after receiving sham, anodal, or cathodal tDCS over the left auditory cortex. We could confirm our hypothesis at the most ambiguous ∆F condition of 6 semitones. For anodal compared with sham and cathodal stimulation, we found a significant decrease in the proportion of two-stream perception and an increase in the proportion of one-stream perception. The results demonstrate the feasibility of using tDCS to probe mechanisms underlying auditory streaming through the use of various behavioral measures. Moreover, this approach allows one to probe the functions of auditory regions and their interactions with other processing stages. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  1. Perception of non-verbal auditory stimuli in Italian dyslexic children.

    Science.gov (United States)

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

    2010-01-01

    Auditory temporal processing deficits have been proposed as the underlying cause of phonological difficulties in Developmental Dyslexia. The hypothesis was tested in a sample of 20 Italian dyslexic children aged 8-14, and 20 matched control children. Three tasks of auditory processing of non-verbal stimuli, involving discrimination and reproduction of sequences of rapidly presented short sounds were expressly created. Dyslexic subjects performed more poorly than control children, suggesting the presence of a deficit only partially influenced by the duration of the stimuli and of inter-stimulus intervals (ISIs).

  2. Functional connectivity between face-movement and speech-intelligibility areas during auditory-only speech perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schall, Sonja; von Kriegstein, Katharina

    2014-01-01

    It has been proposed that internal simulation of the talking face of visually-known speakers facilitates auditory speech recognition. One prediction of this view is that brain areas involved in auditory-only speech comprehension interact with visual face-movement sensitive areas, even under auditory-only listening conditions. Here, we test this hypothesis using connectivity analyses of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. Participants (17 normal participants, 17 developmental prosopagnosics) first learned six speakers via brief voice-face or voice-occupation training (comprehension. Overall, the present findings indicate that learned visual information is integrated into the analysis of auditory-only speech and that this integration results from the interaction of task-relevant face-movement and auditory speech-sensitive areas.

  3. Motor-related signals in the auditory system for listening and learning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schneider, David M; Mooney, Richard

    2015-08-01

    In the auditory system, corollary discharge signals are theorized to facilitate normal hearing and the learning of acoustic behaviors, including speech and music. Despite clear evidence of corollary discharge signals in the auditory cortex and their presumed importance for hearing and auditory-guided motor learning, the circuitry and function of corollary discharge signals in the auditory cortex are not well described. In this review, we focus on recent developments in the mouse and songbird that provide insights into the circuitry that transmits corollary discharge signals to the auditory system and the function of these signals in the context of hearing and vocal learning. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  4. Cognitive mechanisms associated with auditory sensory gating

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, L.A.; Hills, P.J.; Dick, K.M.; Jones, S.P.; Bright, P.

    2016-01-01

    Sensory gating is a neurophysiological measure of inhibition that is characterised by a reduction in the P50 event-related potential to a repeated identical stimulus. The objective of this work was to determine the cognitive mechanisms that relate to the neurological phenomenon of auditory sensory gating. Sixty participants underwent a battery of 10 cognitive tasks, including qualitatively different measures of attentional inhibition, working memory, and fluid intelligence. Participants additionally completed a paired-stimulus paradigm as a measure of auditory sensory gating. A correlational analysis revealed that several tasks correlated significantly with sensory gating. However once fluid intelligence and working memory were accounted for, only a measure of latent inhibition and accuracy scores on the continuous performance task showed significant sensitivity to sensory gating. We conclude that sensory gating reflects the identification of goal-irrelevant information at the encoding (input) stage and the subsequent ability to selectively attend to goal-relevant information based on that previous identification. PMID:26716891

  5. Perception of audio-visual speech synchrony in Spanish-speaking children with and without specific language impairment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pons, Ferran; Andreu, Llorenç; Sanz-Torrent, Monica; Buil-Legaz, Lucía; Lewkowicz, David J

    2013-06-01

    Speech perception involves the integration of auditory and visual articulatory information, and thus requires the perception of temporal synchrony between this information. There is evidence that children with specific language impairment (SLI) have difficulty with auditory speech perception but it is not known if this is also true for the integration of auditory and visual speech. Twenty Spanish-speaking children with SLI, twenty typically developing age-matched Spanish-speaking children, and twenty Spanish-speaking children matched for MLU-w participated in an eye-tracking study to investigate the perception of audiovisual speech synchrony. Results revealed that children with typical language development perceived an audiovisual asynchrony of 666 ms regardless of whether the auditory or visual speech attribute led the other one. Children with SLI only detected the 666 ms asynchrony when the auditory component preceded [corrected] the visual component. None of the groups perceived an audiovisual asynchrony of 366 ms. These results suggest that the difficulty of speech processing by children with SLI would also involve difficulties in integrating auditory and visual aspects of speech perception.

  6. The relationship of speech intelligibility with hearing sensitivity, cognition, and perceived hearing difficulties varies for different speech perception tests

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heinrich, Antje; Henshaw, Helen; Ferguson, Melanie A.

    2015-01-01

    Listeners vary in their ability to understand speech in noisy environments. Hearing sensitivity, as measured by pure-tone audiometry, can only partly explain these results, and cognition has emerged as another key concept. Although cognition relates to speech perception, the exact nature of the relationship remains to be fully understood. This study investigates how different aspects of cognition, particularly working memory and attention, relate to speech intelligibility for various tests. Perceptual accuracy of speech perception represents just one aspect of functioning in a listening environment. Activity and participation limits imposed by hearing loss, in addition to the demands of a listening environment, are also important and may be better captured by self-report questionnaires. Understanding how speech perception relates to self-reported aspects of listening forms the second focus of the study. Forty-four listeners aged between 50 and 74 years with mild sensorineural hearing loss were tested on speech perception tests differing in complexity from low (phoneme discrimination in quiet), to medium (digit triplet perception in speech-shaped noise) to high (sentence perception in modulated noise); cognitive tests of attention, memory, and non-verbal intelligence quotient; and self-report questionnaires of general health-related and hearing-specific quality of life. Hearing sensitivity and cognition related to intelligibility differently depending on the speech test: neither was important for phoneme discrimination, hearing sensitivity alone was important for digit triplet perception, and hearing and cognition together played a role in sentence perception. Self-reported aspects of auditory functioning were correlated with speech intelligibility to different degrees, with digit triplets in noise showing the richest pattern. The results suggest that intelligibility tests can vary in their auditory and cognitive demands and their sensitivity to the challenges that

  7. The relationship of speech intelligibility with hearing sensitivity, cognition, and perceived hearing difficulties varies for different speech perception tests

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Antje eHeinrich

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Listeners vary in their ability to understand speech in noisy environments. Hearing sensitivity, as measured by pure-tone audiometry, can only partly explain these results, and cognition has emerged as another key concept. Although cognition relates to speech perception, the exact nature of the relationship remains to be fully understood. This study investigates how different aspects of cognition, particularly working memory and attention, relate to speech intelligibility for various tests.Perceptual accuracy of speech perception represents just one aspect of functioning in a listening environment. Activity and participation limits imposed by hearing loss, in addition to the demands of a listening environment, are also important and may be better captured by self-report questionnaires. Understanding how speech perception relates to self-reported aspects of listening forms the second focus of the study.Forty-four listeners aged between 50-74 years with mild SNHL were tested on speech perception tests differing in complexity from low (phoneme discrimination in quiet, to medium (digit triplet perception in speech-shaped noise to high (sentence perception in modulated noise; cognitive tests of attention, memory, and nonverbal IQ; and self-report questionnaires of general health-related and hearing-specific quality of life.Hearing sensitivity and cognition related to intelligibility differently depending on the speech test: neither was important for phoneme discrimination, hearing sensitivity alone was important for digit triplet perception, and hearing and cognition together played a role in sentence perception. Self-reported aspects of auditory functioning were correlated with speech intelligibility to different degrees, with digit triplets in noise showing the richest pattern. The results suggest that intelligibility tests can vary in their auditory and cognitive demands and their sensitivity to the challenges that auditory environments pose on

  8. Anatomical Correlates of Non-Verbal Perception in Dementia Patients

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    Pin-Hsuan Lin

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available Purpose: Patients with dementia who have dissociations in verbal and non-verbal sound processing may offer insights into the anatomic basis for highly related auditory modes. Methods: To determine the neuronal networks on non-verbal perception, 16 patients with Alzheimer’s dementia (AD, 15 with behavior variant fronto-temporal dementia (bv-FTD, 14 with semantic dementia (SD were evaluated and compared with 15 age-matched controls. Neuropsychological and auditory perceptive tasks were included to test the ability to compare pitch changes, scale-violated melody and for naming and associating with environmental sound. The brain 3D T1 images were acquired and voxel-based morphometry (VBM was used to compare and correlated the volumetric measures with task scores. Results: The SD group scored the lowest among 3 groups in pitch or scale-violated melody tasks. In the environmental sound test, the SD group also showed impairment in naming and also in associating sound with pictures. The AD and bv-FTD groups, compared with the controls, showed no differences in all tests. VBM with task score correlation showed that atrophy in the right supra-marginal and superior temporal gyri was strongly related to deficits in detecting violated scales, while atrophy in the bilateral anterior temporal poles and left medial temporal structures was related to deficits in environmental sound recognition. Conclusions: Auditory perception of pitch, scale-violated melody or environmental sound reflects anatomical degeneration in dementia patients and the processing of non-verbal sounds is mediated by distinct neural circuits.

  9. Relative contributions of visual and auditory spatial representations to tactile localization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Noel, Jean-Paul; Wallace, Mark

    2016-02-01

    Spatial localization of touch is critically dependent upon coordinate transformation between different reference frames, which must ultimately allow for alignment between somatotopic and external representations of space. Although prior work has shown an important role for cues such as body posture in influencing the spatial localization of touch, the relative contributions of the different sensory systems to this process are unknown. In the current study, we had participants perform a tactile temporal order judgment (TOJ) under different body postures and conditions of sensory deprivation. Specifically, participants performed non-speeded judgments about the order of two tactile stimuli presented in rapid succession on their ankles during conditions in which their legs were either uncrossed or crossed (and thus bringing somatotopic and external reference frames into conflict). These judgments were made in the absence of 1) visual, 2) auditory, or 3) combined audio-visual spatial information by blindfolding and/or placing participants in an anechoic chamber. As expected, results revealed that tactile temporal acuity was poorer under crossed than uncrossed leg postures. Intriguingly, results also revealed that auditory and audio-visual deprivation exacerbated the difference in tactile temporal acuity between uncrossed to crossed leg postures, an effect not seen for visual-only deprivation. Furthermore, the effects under combined audio-visual deprivation were greater than those seen for auditory deprivation. Collectively, these results indicate that mechanisms governing the alignment between somatotopic and external reference frames extend beyond those imposed by body posture to include spatial features conveyed by the auditory and visual modalities - with a heavier weighting of auditory than visual spatial information. Thus, sensory modalities conveying exteroceptive spatial information contribute to judgments regarding the localization of touch. Copyright © 2016

  10. Sound-by-sound thalamic stimulation modulates midbrain auditory excitability and relative binaural sensitivity in frogs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ponnath, Abhilash; Farris, Hamilton E

    2014-01-01

    Descending circuitry can modulate auditory processing, biasing sensitivity to particular stimulus parameters and locations. Using awake in vivo single unit recordings, this study tested whether electrical stimulation of the thalamus modulates auditory excitability and relative binaural sensitivity in neurons of the amphibian midbrain. In addition, by using electrical stimuli that were either longer than the acoustic stimuli (i.e., seconds) or presented on a sound-by-sound basis (ms), experiments addressed whether the form of modulation depended on the temporal structure of the electrical stimulus. Following long duration electrical stimulation (3-10 s of 20 Hz square pulses), excitability (spikes/acoustic stimulus) to free-field noise stimuli decreased by 32%, but returned over 600 s. In contrast, sound-by-sound electrical stimulation using a single 2 ms duration electrical pulse 25 ms before each noise stimulus caused faster and varied forms of modulation: modulation lasted sound-by-sound electrical stimulation varied between different acoustic stimuli, including for different male calls, suggesting modulation is specific to certain stimulus attributes. For binaural units, modulation depended on the ear of input, as sound-by-sound electrical stimulation preceding dichotic acoustic stimulation caused asymmetric modulatory effects: sensitivity shifted for sounds at only one ear, or by different relative amounts for both ears. This caused a change in the relative difference in binaural sensitivity. Thus, sound-by-sound electrical stimulation revealed fast and ear-specific (i.e., lateralized) auditory modulation that is potentially suited to shifts in auditory attention during sound segregation in the auditory scene.

  11. Auditory Streaming as an Online Classification Process with Evidence Accumulation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barniv, Dana; Nelken, Israel

    2015-01-01

    When human subjects hear a sequence of two alternating pure tones, they often perceive it in one of two ways: as one integrated sequence (a single "stream" consisting of the two tones), or as two segregated sequences, one sequence of low tones perceived separately from another sequence of high tones (two "streams"). Perception of this stimulus is thus bistable. Moreover, subjects report on-going switching between the two percepts: unless the frequency separation is large, initial perception tends to be of integration, followed by toggling between integration and segregation phases. The process of stream formation is loosely named “auditory streaming”. Auditory streaming is believed to be a manifestation of human ability to analyze an auditory scene, i.e. to attribute portions of the incoming sound sequence to distinct sound generating entities. Previous studies suggested that the durations of the successive integration and segregation phases are statistically independent. This independence plays an important role in current models of bistability. Contrary to this, we show here, by analyzing a large set of data, that subsequent phase durations are positively correlated. To account together for bistability and positive correlation between subsequent durations, we suggest that streaming is a consequence of an evidence accumulation process. Evidence for segregation is accumulated during the integration phase and vice versa; a switch to the opposite percept occurs stochastically based on this evidence. During a long phase, a large amount of evidence for the opposite percept is accumulated, resulting in a long subsequent phase. In contrast, a short phase is followed by another short phase. We implement these concepts using a probabilistic model that shows both bistability and correlations similar to those observed experimentally. PMID:26671774

  12. Intracerebral evidence of rhythm transform in the human auditory cortex.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nozaradan, Sylvie; Mouraux, André; Jonas, Jacques; Colnat-Coulbois, Sophie; Rossion, Bruno; Maillard, Louis

    2017-07-01

    Musical entrainment is shared by all human cultures and the perception of a periodic beat is a cornerstone of this entrainment behavior. Here, we investigated whether beat perception might have its roots in the earliest stages of auditory cortical processing. Local field potentials were recorded from 8 patients implanted with depth-electrodes in Heschl's gyrus and the planum temporale (55 recording sites in total), usually considered as human primary and secondary auditory cortices. Using a frequency-tagging approach, we show that both low-frequency (30 Hz) neural activities in these structures faithfully track auditory rhythms through frequency-locking to the rhythm envelope. A selective gain in amplitude of the response frequency-locked to the beat frequency was observed for the low-frequency activities but not for the high-frequency activities, and was sharper in the planum temporale, especially for the more challenging syncopated rhythm. Hence, this gain process is not systematic in all activities produced in these areas and depends on the complexity of the rhythmic input. Moreover, this gain was disrupted when the rhythm was presented at fast speed, revealing low-pass response properties which could account for the propensity to perceive a beat only within the musical tempo range. Together, these observations show that, even though part of these neural transforms of rhythms could already take place in subcortical auditory processes, the earliest auditory cortical processes shape the neural representation of rhythmic inputs in favor of the emergence of a periodic beat.

  13. Music training relates to the development of neural mechanisms of selective auditory attention.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Strait, Dana L; Slater, Jessica; O'Connell, Samantha; Kraus, Nina

    2015-04-01

    Selective attention decreases trial-to-trial variability in cortical auditory-evoked activity. This effect increases over the course of maturation, potentially reflecting the gradual development of selective attention and inhibitory control. Work in adults indicates that music training may alter the development of this neural response characteristic, especially over brain regions associated with executive control: in adult musicians, attention decreases variability in auditory-evoked responses recorded over prefrontal cortex to a greater extent than in nonmusicians. We aimed to determine whether this musician-associated effect emerges during childhood, when selective attention and inhibitory control are under development. We compared cortical auditory-evoked variability to attended and ignored speech streams in musicians and nonmusicians across three age groups: preschoolers, school-aged children and young adults. Results reveal that childhood music training is associated with reduced auditory-evoked response variability recorded over prefrontal cortex during selective auditory attention in school-aged child and adult musicians. Preschoolers, on the other hand, demonstrate no impact of selective attention on cortical response variability and no musician distinctions. This finding is consistent with the gradual emergence of attention during this period and may suggest no pre-existing differences in this attention-related cortical metric between children who undergo music training and those who do not. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  14. The importance of laughing in your face: influences of visual laughter on auditory laughter perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jordan, Timothy R; Abedipour, Lily

    2010-01-01

    Hearing the sound of laughter is important for social communication, but processes contributing to the audibility of laughter remain to be determined. Production of laughter resembles production of speech in that both involve visible facial movements accompanying socially significant auditory signals. However, while it is known that speech is more audible when the facial movements producing the speech sound can be seen, similar visual enhancement of the audibility of laughter remains unknown. To address this issue, spontaneously occurring laughter was edited to produce stimuli comprising visual laughter, auditory laughter, visual and auditory laughter combined, and no laughter at all (either visual or auditory), all presented in four levels of background noise. Visual laughter and no-laughter stimuli produced very few reports of auditory laughter. However, visual laughter consistently made auditory laughter more audible, compared to the same auditory signal presented without visual laughter, resembling findings reported previously for speech.

  15. Intracranial auditory detection and discrimination potentials as substrates of echoic memory in children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liasis, A; Towell, A; Boyd, S

    1999-03-01

    In children, intracranial responses to auditory detection and discrimination processes have not been reported. We, therefore, recorded intracranial event-related potentials (ERPs) to both standard and deviant tones and/or syllables in 4 children undergoing pre-surgical evaluation for epilepsy. ERPs to detection (mean latency = 63 ms) and discrimination (mean latency = 334 ms) were highly localized to areas surrounding the Sylvian fissure (SF). These potentials reflect activation of different neuronal populations and are suggested to contribute to the scalp recorded auditory N1 and mismatch negativity (MMN).

  16. Neural correlates of auditory recognition memory in primate lateral prefrontal cortex.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Plakke, B; Ng, C-W; Poremba, A

    2013-08-06

    The neural underpinnings of working and recognition memory have traditionally been studied in the visual domain and these studies pinpoint the lateral prefrontal cortex (lPFC) as a primary region for visual memory processing (Miller et al., 1996; Ranganath et al., 2004; Kennerley and Wallis, 2009). Herein, we utilize single-unit recordings for the same region in monkeys (Macaca mulatta) but investigate a second modality examining auditory working and recognition memory during delayed matching-to-sample (DMS) performance. A large portion of neurons in the dorsal and ventral banks of the principal sulcus (area 46, 46/9) show DMS event-related activity to one or more of the following task events: auditory cues, memory delay, decision wait time, response, and/or reward portions. Approximately 50% of the neurons show evidence of auditory-evoked activity during the task and population activity demonstrated encoding of recognition memory in the form of match enhancement. However, neither robust nor sustained delay activity was observed. The neuronal responses during the auditory DMS task are similar in many respects to those found within the visual working memory domain, which supports the hypothesis that the lPFC, particularly area 46, functionally represents key pieces of information for recognition memory inclusive of decision-making, but regardless of modality. Copyright © 2013 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  17. Single-Sided Deafness: Impact of Cochlear Implantation on Speech Perception in Complex Noise and on Auditory Localization Accuracy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Döge, Julia; Baumann, Uwe; Weissgerber, Tobias; Rader, Tobias

    2017-12-01

    To assess auditory localization accuracy and speech reception threshold (SRT) in complex noise conditions in adult patients with acquired single-sided deafness, after intervention with a cochlear implant (CI) in the deaf ear. Nonrandomized, open, prospective patient series. Tertiary referral university hospital. Eleven patients with late-onset single-sided deafness (SSD) and normal hearing in the unaffected ear, who received a CI. All patients were experienced CI users. Unilateral cochlear implantation. Speech perception was tested in a complex multitalker equivalent noise field consisting of multiple sound sources. Speech reception thresholds in noise were determined in aided (with CI) and unaided conditions. Localization accuracy was assessed in complete darkness. Acoustic stimuli were radiated by multiple loudspeakers distributed in the frontal horizontal plane between -60 and +60 degrees. In the aided condition, results show slightly improved speech reception scores compared with the unaided condition in most of the patients. For 8 of the 11 subjects, SRT was improved between 0.37 and 1.70 dB. Three of the 11 subjects showed deteriorations between 1.22 and 3.24 dB SRT. Median localization error decreased significantly by 12.9 degrees compared with the unaided condition. CI in single-sided deafness is an effective treatment to improve the auditory localization accuracy. Speech reception in complex noise conditions is improved to a lesser extent in 73% of the participating CI SSD patients. However, the absence of true binaural interaction effects (summation, squelch) impedes further improvements. The development of speech processing strategies that respect binaural interaction seems to be mandatory to advance speech perception in demanding listening situations in SSD patients.

  18. Binding and unbinding the auditory and visual streams in the McGurk effect.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nahorna, Olha; Berthommier, Frédéric; Schwartz, Jean-Luc

    2012-08-01

    Subjects presented with coherent auditory and visual streams generally fuse them into a single percept. This results in enhanced intelligibility in noise, or in visual modification of the auditory percept in the McGurk effect. It is classically considered that processing is done independently in the auditory and visual systems before interaction occurs at a certain representational stage, resulting in an integrated percept. However, some behavioral and neurophysiological data suggest the existence of a two-stage process. A first stage would involve binding together the appropriate pieces of audio and video information before fusion per se in a second stage. Then it should be possible to design experiments leading to unbinding. It is shown here that if a given McGurk stimulus is preceded by an incoherent audiovisual context, the amount of McGurk effect is largely reduced. Various kinds of incoherent contexts (acoustic syllables dubbed on video sentences or phonetic or temporal modifications of the acoustic content of a regular sequence of audiovisual syllables) can significantly reduce the McGurk effect even when they are short (less than 4 s). The data are interpreted in the framework of a two-stage "binding and fusion" model for audiovisual speech perception.

  19. EEG signatures accompanying auditory figure-ground segregation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tóth, Brigitta; Kocsis, Zsuzsanna; Háden, Gábor P; Szerafin, Ágnes; Shinn-Cunningham, Barbara G; Winkler, István

    2016-11-01

    In everyday acoustic scenes, figure-ground segregation typically requires one to group together sound elements over both time and frequency. Electroencephalogram was recorded while listeners detected repeating tonal complexes composed of a random set of pure tones within stimuli consisting of randomly varying tonal elements. The repeating pattern was perceived as a figure over the randomly changing background. It was found that detection performance improved both as the number of pure tones making up each repeated complex (figure coherence) increased, and as the number of repeated complexes (duration) increased - i.e., detection was easier when either the spectral or temporal structure of the figure was enhanced. Figure detection was accompanied by the elicitation of the object related negativity (ORN) and the P400 event-related potentials (ERPs), which have been previously shown to be evoked by the presence of two concurrent sounds. Both ERP components had generators within and outside of auditory cortex. The amplitudes of the ORN and the P400 increased with both figure coherence and figure duration. However, only the P400 amplitude correlated with detection performance. These results suggest that 1) the ORN and P400 reflect processes involved in detecting the emergence of a new auditory object in the presence of other concurrent auditory objects; 2) the ORN corresponds to the likelihood of the presence of two or more concurrent sound objects, whereas the P400 reflects the perceptual recognition of the presence of multiple auditory objects and/or preparation for reporting the detection of a target object. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Inc.

  20. EEG signatures accompanying auditory figure-ground segregation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tóth, Brigitta; Kocsis, Zsuzsanna; Háden, Gábor P.; Szerafin, Ágnes; Shinn-Cunningham, Barbara; Winkler, István

    2017-01-01

    In everyday acoustic scenes, figure-ground segregation typically requires one to group together sound elements over both time and frequency. Electroencephalogram was recorded while listeners detected repeating tonal complexes composed of a random set of pure tones within stimuli consisting of randomly varying tonal elements. The repeating pattern was perceived as a figure over the randomly changing background. It was found that detection performance improved both as the number of pure tones making up each repeated complex (figure coherence) increased, and as the number of repeated complexes (duration) increased – i.e., detection was easier when either the spectral or temporal structure of the figure was enhanced. Figure detection was accompanied by the elicitation of the object related negativity (ORN) and the P400 event-related potentials (ERPs), which have been previously shown to be evoked by the presence of two concurrent sounds. Both ERP components had generators within and outside of auditory cortex. The amplitudes of the ORN and the P400 increased with both figure coherence and figure duration. However, only the P400 amplitude correlated with detection performance. These results suggest that 1) the ORN and P400 reflect processes involved in detecting the emergence of a new auditory object in the presence of other concurrent auditory objects; 2) the ORN corresponds to the likelihood of the presence of two or more concurrent sound objects, whereas the P400 reflects the perceptual recognition of the presence of multiple auditory objects and/or preparation for reporting the detection of a target object. PMID:27421185

  1. Auditory Perceptual Abilities Are Associated with Specific Auditory Experience

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yael Zaltz

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available The extent to which auditory experience can shape general auditory perceptual abilities is still under constant debate. Some studies show that specific auditory expertise may have a general effect on auditory perceptual abilities, while others show a more limited influence, exhibited only in a relatively narrow range associated with the area of expertise. The current study addresses this issue by examining experience-dependent enhancement in perceptual abilities in the auditory domain. Three experiments were performed. In the first experiment, 12 pop and rock musicians and 15 non-musicians were tested in frequency discrimination (DLF, intensity discrimination, spectrum discrimination (DLS, and time discrimination (DLT. Results showed significant superiority of the musician group only for the DLF and DLT tasks, illuminating enhanced perceptual skills in the key features of pop music, in which miniscule changes in amplitude and spectrum are not critical to performance. The next two experiments attempted to differentiate between generalization and specificity in the influence of auditory experience, by comparing subgroups of specialists. First, seven guitar players and eight percussionists were tested in the DLF and DLT tasks that were found superior for musicians. Results showed superior abilities on the DLF task for guitar players, though no difference between the groups in DLT, demonstrating some dependency of auditory learning on the specific area of expertise. Subsequently, a third experiment was conducted, testing a possible influence of vowel density in native language on auditory perceptual abilities. Ten native speakers of German (a language characterized by a dense vowel system of 14 vowels, and 10 native speakers of Hebrew (characterized by a sparse vowel system of five vowels, were tested in a formant discrimination task. This is the linguistic equivalent of a DLS task. Results showed that German speakers had superior formant

  2. Comparison of auditory and visual oddball fMRI in schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Collier, Azurii K; Wolf, Daniel H; Valdez, Jeffrey N; Turetsky, Bruce I; Elliott, Mark A; Gur, Raquel E; Gur, Ruben C

    2014-09-01

    Individuals with schizophrenia often suffer from attentional deficits, both in focusing on task-relevant targets and in inhibiting responses to distractors. Schizophrenia also has a differential impact on attention depending on modality: auditory or visual. However, it remains unclear how abnormal activation of attentional circuitry differs between auditory and visual modalities, as these two modalities have not been directly compared in the same individuals with schizophrenia. We utilized event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare patterns of brain activation during an auditory and visual oddball task in order to identify modality-specific attentional impairment. Healthy controls (n=22) and patients with schizophrenia (n=20) completed auditory and visual oddball tasks in separate sessions. For responses to targets, the auditory modality yielded greater activation than the visual modality (A-V) in auditory cortex, insula, and parietal operculum, but visual activation was greater than auditory (V-A) in visual cortex. For responses to novels, A-V differences were found in auditory cortex, insula, and supramarginal gyrus; and V-A differences in the visual cortex, inferior temporal gyrus, and superior parietal lobule. Group differences in modality-specific activation were found only for novel stimuli; controls showed larger A-V differences than patients in prefrontal cortex and the putamen. Furthermore, for patients, greater severity of negative symptoms was associated with greater divergence of A-V novel activation in the visual cortex. Our results demonstrate that patients have more pronounced activation abnormalities in auditory compared to visual attention, and link modality specific abnormalities to negative symptom severity. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  3. Cerebral Responses to Vocal Attractiveness and Auditory Hallucinations in Schizophrenia: A Functional MRI Study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michihiko eKoeda

    2013-05-01

    Full Text Available Impaired self-monitoring and abnormalities of cognitive bias have been implicated as cognitive mechanisms of hallucination; regions fundamental to these processes including inferior frontal gyrus (IFG and superior temporal gyrus (STG are abnormally activated in individuals that hallucinate. A recent study showed activation in IFG-STG to be modulated by auditory attractiveness, but no study has investigated whether these IFG-STG activations are impaired in schizophrenia. We aimed to clarify the cerebral function underlying the perception of auditory attractiveness in schizophrenia patients. Cerebral activation was examined in 18 schizophrenia patients and 18 controls when performing Favourability Judgment Task (FJT and Gender Differentiation Task (GDT for pairs of greetings using event-related functional MRI. A full-factorial analysis revealed that the main effect of task was associated with activation of left IFG and STG. The main effect of Group revealed less activation of left STG in schizophrenia compared with controls, whereas significantly greater activation in schizophrenia than in controls was revealed at the left middle frontal gyrus (MFG, right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ, right occipital lobe, and right amygdala (p<0.05, FDR-corrected. A significant positive correlation was observed at the right TPJ and right MFG between cerebral activation under FJT minus GDT contrast and the score of hallucinatory behaviour on the Positive and Negative Symptom Scale. Findings of hypo-activation in the left STG could designate brain dysfunction in accessing vocal attractiveness in schizophrenia, whereas hyper-activation in the right TPJ and MFG may reflect the process of mentalizing other person’s behaviour by auditory hallucination by abnormality of cognitive bias.

  4. Development of a Comprehensive Blast-Related Auditory Injury Database (BRAID)

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-05-01

    servicemembers included in the Blast-Related Auditory Injury Database. * Training injuries, accidents, and other noncombat injuries. †3,452 injuries...medications, exposures to ototoxic chemicals, recreational noise exposure, and other forms of temporary and persistent threshold shift. Combat marines...AC, Vecchiotti M, Kujawa SG, Lee DJ, Quesnel AM. Otologic outcomes after blast injury: The Boston Marathon experience. Otol Neurotol. 2014; 35(10

  5. Biomimetic Sonar for Electrical Activation of the Auditory Pathway

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    D. Menniti

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Relying on the mechanism of bat’s echolocation system, a bioinspired electronic device has been developed to investigate the cortical activity of mammals in response to auditory sensorial stimuli. By means of implanted electrodes, acoustical information about the external environment generated by a biomimetic system and converted in electrical signals was delivered to anatomically selected structures of the auditory pathway. Electrocorticographic recordings showed that cerebral activity response is highly dependent on the information carried out by ultrasounds and is frequency-locked with the signal repetition rate. Frequency analysis reveals that delta and beta rhythm content increases, suggesting that sensorial information is successfully transferred and integrated. In addition, principal component analysis highlights how all the stimuli generate patterns of neural activity which can be clearly classified. The results show that brain response is modulated by echo signal features suggesting that spatial information sent by biomimetic sonar is efficiently interpreted and encoded by the auditory system. Consequently, these results give new perspective in artificial environmental perception, which could be used for developing new techniques useful in treating pathological conditions or influencing our perception of the surroundings.

  6. Towards an auditory account of speech rhythm: application of a model of the auditory 'primal sketch' to two multi-language corpora.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Christopher S; Todd, Neil P McAngus

    2004-10-01

    The world's languages display important differences in their rhythmic organization; most particularly, different languages seem to privilege different phonological units (mora, syllable, or stress foot) as their basic rhythmic unit. There is now considerable evidence that such differences have important consequences for crucial aspects of language acquisition and processing. Several questions remain, however, as to what exactly characterizes the rhythmic differences, how they are manifested at an auditory/acoustic level and how listeners, whether adult native speakers or young infants, process rhythmic information. In this paper it is proposed that the crucial determinant of rhythmic organization is the variability in the auditory prominence of phonetic events. In order to test this auditory prominence hypothesis, an auditory model is run on two multi-language data-sets, the first consisting of matched pairs of English and French sentences, and the second consisting of French, Italian, English and Dutch sentences. The model is based on a theory of the auditory primal sketch, and generates a primitive representation of an acoustic signal (the rhythmogram) which yields a crude segmentation of the speech signal and assigns prominence values to the obtained sequence of events. Its performance is compared with that of several recently proposed phonetic measures of vocalic and consonantal variability.

  7. Event-related brain potentials reflect traces of echoic memory in humans.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Winkler, I; Reinikainen, K; Näätänen, R

    1993-04-01

    In sequences of identical auditory stimuli, infrequent deviant stimuli elicit an event-related brain potential component called mismatch negativity (MMN). MMN is presumed to reflect the existence of a memory trace of the frequent stimulus at the moment of presentation of the infrequent stimulus. This hypothesis was tested by applying the recognition-masking paradigm of cognitive psychology. In this paradigm, a masking sound presented shortly before or after a test stimulus diminishes the recognition memory of this stimulus, the more so the shorter the interval between the test and masking stimuli. This interval was varied in the present study. It was found that the MMN amplitude strongly correlated with the subject's ability to discriminate between frequent and infrequent stimuli. This result strongly suggests that MMN provides a measure for a trace of sensory memory, and further, that with MMN, this memory can be studied without performance-related distortions.

  8. Hierarchical Organization of Auditory and Motor Representations in Speech Perception: Evidence from Searchlight Similarity Analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Evans, Samuel; Davis, Matthew H

    2015-12-01

    How humans extract the identity of speech sounds from highly variable acoustic signals remains unclear. Here, we use searchlight representational similarity analysis (RSA) to localize and characterize neural representations of syllables at different levels of the hierarchically organized temporo-frontal pathways for speech perception. We asked participants to listen to spoken syllables that differed considerably in their surface acoustic form by changing speaker and degrading surface acoustics using noise-vocoding and sine wave synthesis while we recorded neural responses with functional magnetic resonance imaging. We found evidence for a graded hierarchy of abstraction across the brain. At the peak of the hierarchy, neural representations in somatomotor cortex encoded syllable identity but not surface acoustic form, at the base of the hierarchy, primary auditory cortex showed the reverse. In contrast, bilateral temporal cortex exhibited an intermediate response, encoding both syllable identity and the surface acoustic form of speech. Regions of somatomotor cortex associated with encoding syllable identity in perception were also engaged when producing the same syllables in a separate session. These findings are consistent with a hierarchical account of how variable acoustic signals are transformed into abstract representations of the identity of speech sounds. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press.

  9. Speech perception as an active cognitive process

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shannon eHeald

    2014-03-01

    Full Text Available One view of speech perception is that acoustic signals are transformed into representations for pattern matching to determine linguistic structure. This process can be taken as a statistical pattern-matching problem, assuming realtively stable linguistic categories are characterized by neural representations related to auditory properties of speech that can be compared to speech input. This kind of pattern matching can be termed a passive process which implies rigidity of processingd with few demands on cognitive processing. An alternative view is that speech recognition, even in early stages, is an active process in which speech analysis is attentionally guided. Note that this does not mean consciously guided but that information-contingent changes in early auditory encoding can occur as a function of context and experience. Active processing assumes that attention, plasticity, and listening goals are important in considering how listeners cope with adverse circumstances that impair hearing by masking noise in the environment or hearing loss. Although theories of speech perception have begun to incorporate some active processing, they seldom treat early speech encoding as plastic and attentionally guided. Recent research has suggested that speech perception is the product of both feedforward and feedback interactions between a number of brain regions that include descending projections perhaps as far downstream as the cochlea. It is important to understand how the ambiguity of the speech signal and constraints of context dynamically determine cognitive resources recruited during perception including focused attention, learning, and working memory. Theories of speech perception need to go beyond the current corticocentric approach in order to account for the intrinsic dynamics of the auditory encoding of speech. In doing so, this may provide new insights into ways in which hearing disorders and loss may be treated either through augementation or

  10. Trait aspects of auditory mismatch negativity predict response to auditory training in individuals with early illness schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Biagianti, Bruno; Roach, Brian J; Fisher, Melissa; Loewy, Rachel; Ford, Judith M; Vinogradov, Sophia; Mathalon, Daniel H

    2017-01-01

    Individuals with schizophrenia have heterogeneous impairments of the auditory processing system that likely mediate differences in the cognitive gains induced by auditory training (AT). Mismatch negativity (MMN) is an event-related potential component reflecting auditory echoic memory, and its amplitude reduction in schizophrenia has been linked to cognitive deficits. Therefore, MMN may predict response to AT and identify individuals with schizophrenia who have the most to gain from AT. Furthermore, to the extent that AT strengthens auditory deviance processing, MMN may also serve as a readout of the underlying changes in the auditory system induced by AT. Fifty-six individuals early in the course of a schizophrenia-spectrum illness (ESZ) were randomly assigned to 40 h of AT or Computer Games (CG). Cognitive assessments and EEG recordings during a multi-deviant MMN paradigm were obtained before and after AT and CG. Changes in these measures were compared between the treatment groups. Baseline and trait-like MMN data were evaluated as predictors of treatment response. MMN data collected with the same paradigm from a sample of Healthy Controls (HC; n = 105) were compared to baseline MMN data from the ESZ group. Compared to HC, ESZ individuals showed significant MMN reductions at baseline ( p = .003). Reduced Double-Deviant MMN was associated with greater general cognitive impairment in ESZ individuals ( p = .020). Neither ESZ intervention group showed significant change in MMN. We found high correlations in all MMN deviant types (rs = .59-.68, all ps < .001) between baseline and post-intervention amplitudes irrespective of treatment group, suggesting trait-like stability of the MMN signal. Greater deficits in trait-like Double-Deviant MMN predicted greater cognitive improvements in the AT group ( p = .02), but not in the CG group. In this sample of ESZ individuals, AT had no effect on auditory deviance processing as assessed by MMN. In ESZ individuals, baseline MMN

  11. The Effect of Working Memory Training on Auditory Stream Segregation in Auditory Processing Disorders Children

    OpenAIRE

    Abdollah Moossavi; Saeideh Mehrkian; Yones Lotfi; Soghrat Faghih zadeh; Hamed Adjedi

    2015-01-01

    Objectives: This study investigated the efficacy of working memory training for improving working memory capacity and related auditory stream segregation in auditory processing disorders children. Methods: Fifteen subjects (9-11 years), clinically diagnosed with auditory processing disorder participated in this non-randomized case-controlled trial. Working memory abilities and auditory stream segregation were evaluated prior to beginning and six weeks after completing the training program...

  12. Language/Culture Modulates Brain and Gaze Processes in Audiovisual Speech Perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hisanaga, Satoko; Sekiyama, Kaoru; Igasaki, Tomohiko; Murayama, Nobuki

    2016-10-13

    Several behavioural studies have shown that the interplay between voice and face information in audiovisual speech perception is not universal. Native English speakers (ESs) are influenced by visual mouth movement to a greater degree than native Japanese speakers (JSs) when listening to speech. However, the biological basis of these group differences is unknown. Here, we demonstrate the time-varying processes of group differences in terms of event-related brain potentials (ERP) and eye gaze for audiovisual and audio-only speech perception. On a behavioural level, while congruent mouth movement shortened the ESs' response time for speech perception, the opposite effect was observed in JSs. Eye-tracking data revealed a gaze bias to the mouth for the ESs but not the JSs, especially before the audio onset. Additionally, the ERP P2 amplitude indicated that ESs processed multisensory speech more efficiently than auditory-only speech; however, the JSs exhibited the opposite pattern. Taken together, the ESs' early visual attention to the mouth was likely to promote phonetic anticipation, which was not the case for the JSs. These results clearly indicate the impact of language and/or culture on multisensory speech processing, suggesting that linguistic/cultural experiences lead to the development of unique neural systems for audiovisual speech perception.

  13. Auditory verbal memory and psychosocial symptoms are related in children with idiopathic epilepsy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schaffer, Yael; Ben Zeev, Bruria; Cohen, Roni; Shuper, Avinoam; Geva, Ronny

    2015-07-01

    Idiopathic epilepsies are considered to have relatively good prognoses and normal or near normal developmental outcomes. Nevertheless, accumulating studies demonstrate memory and psychosocial deficits in this population, and the prevalence, severity and relationships between these domains are still not well defined. We aimed to assess memory, psychosocial function, and the relationships between these two domains among children with idiopathic epilepsy syndromes using an extended neuropsychological battery and psychosocial questionnaires. Cognitive abilities, neuropsychological performance, and socioemotional behavior of 33 early adolescent children, diagnosed with idiopathic epilepsy, ages 9-14years, were assessed and compared with 27 age- and education-matched healthy controls. Compared to controls, patients with stabilized idiopathic epilepsy exhibited higher risks for short-term memory deficits (auditory verbal and visual) (pmemory deficits (plong-term memory deficits (pmemory deficits was related to severity of psychosocial symptoms among the children with epilepsy but not in the healthy controls. Results suggest that deficient auditory verbal memory may be compromising psychosocial functioning in children with idiopathic epilepsy, possibly underscoring that cognitive variables, such as auditory verbal memory, should be assessed and treated in this population to prevent secondary symptoms. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  14. Exploration of auditory P50 gating in schizophrenia by way of difference waves

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Arnfred, Sidse M

    2006-01-01

    potentials but here this method along with low frequency filtering is applied exploratory on auditory P50 gating data, previously analyzed in the standard format (reported in Am J Psychiatry 2003, 160:2236-8). The exploration was motivated by the observation during visual peak detection that the AEP waveform......Electroencephalographic measures of information processing encompass both mid-latency evoked potentials like the pre-attentive auditory P50 potential and a host of later more cognitive components like P300 and N400.Difference waves have mostly been employed in studies of later event related...

  15. Evaluation of the preliminary auditory profile test battery in an international multi-centre study

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Esch, T.E.M.; Kollmeier, B.; Vormann, M.; Lijzenga, J.; Houtgast, T.; Hallgren, M.; Larsby, B.; Athalye, S.P.; Lutman, M.E.; Dreschler, W.A.

    2013-01-01

    Objective: This paper describes the composition and international multi-centre evaluation of a battery of tests termed the preliminary auditory profile. It includes measures of loudness perception, listening effort, speech perception, spectral and temporal resolution, spatial hearing, self-reported

  16. Examining Age-Related Differences in Auditory Attention Control Using a Task-Switching Procedure

    OpenAIRE

    Vera Lawo; Iring Koch

    2014-01-01

    Objectives. Using a novel task-switching variant of dichotic selective listening, we examined age-related differences in the ability to intentionally switch auditory attention between 2 speakers defined by their sex.

  17. Auditory Verbal Cues Alter the Perceived Flavor of Beverages and Ease of Swallowing: A Psychometric and Electrophysiological Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Aya Nakamura

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available We investigated the possible effects of auditory verbal cues on flavor perception and swallow physiology for younger and elder participants. Apple juice, aojiru (grass juice, and water were ingested with or without auditory verbal cues. Flavor perception and ease of swallowing were measured using a visual analog scale and swallow physiology by surface electromyography and cervical auscultation. The auditory verbal cues had significant positive effects on flavor and ease of swallowing as well as on swallow physiology. The taste score and the ease of swallowing score significantly increased when the participant’s anticipation was primed by accurate auditory verbal cues. There was no significant effect of auditory verbal cues on distaste score. Regardless of age, the maximum suprahyoid muscle activity significantly decreased when a beverage was ingested without auditory verbal cues. The interval between the onset of swallowing sounds and the peak timing point of the infrahyoid muscle activity significantly shortened when the anticipation induced by the cue was contradicted in the elderly participant group. These results suggest that auditory verbal cues can improve the perceived flavor of beverages and swallow physiology.

  18. Auditory Spatial Layout

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wightman, Frederic L.; Jenison, Rick

    1995-01-01

    All auditory sensory information is packaged in a pair of acoustical pressure waveforms, one at each ear. While there is obvious structure in these waveforms, that structure (temporal and spectral patterns) bears no simple relationship to the structure of the environmental objects that produced them. The properties of auditory objects and their layout in space must be derived completely from higher level processing of the peripheral input. This chapter begins with a discussion of the peculiarities of acoustical stimuli and how they are received by the human auditory system. A distinction is made between the ambient sound field and the effective stimulus to differentiate the perceptual distinctions among various simple classes of sound sources (ambient field) from the known perceptual consequences of the linear transformations of the sound wave from source to receiver (effective stimulus). Next, the definition of an auditory object is dealt with, specifically the question of how the various components of a sound stream become segregated into distinct auditory objects. The remainder of the chapter focuses on issues related to the spatial layout of auditory objects, both stationary and moving.

  19. Increased Early Processing of Task-Irrelevant Auditory Stimuli in Older Adults.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Erich S Tusch

    Full Text Available The inhibitory deficit hypothesis of cognitive aging posits that older adults' inability to adequately suppress processing of irrelevant information is a major source of cognitive decline. Prior research has demonstrated that in response to task-irrelevant auditory stimuli there is an age-associated increase in the amplitude of the N1 wave, an ERP marker of early perceptual processing. Here, we tested predictions derived from the inhibitory deficit hypothesis that the age-related increase in N1 would be 1 observed under an auditory-ignore, but not auditory-attend condition, 2 attenuated in individuals with high executive capacity (EC, and 3 augmented by increasing cognitive load of the primary visual task. ERPs were measured in 114 well-matched young, middle-aged, young-old, and old-old adults, designated as having high or average EC based on neuropsychological testing. Under the auditory-ignore (visual-attend task, participants ignored auditory stimuli and responded to rare target letters under low and high load. Under the auditory-attend task, participants ignored visual stimuli and responded to rare target tones. Results confirmed an age-associated increase in N1 amplitude to auditory stimuli under the auditory-ignore but not auditory-attend task. Contrary to predictions, EC did not modulate the N1 response. The load effect was the opposite of expectation: the N1 to task-irrelevant auditory events was smaller under high load. Finally, older adults did not simply fail to suppress the N1 to auditory stimuli in the task-irrelevant modality; they generated a larger response than to identical stimuli in the task-relevant modality. In summary, several of the study's findings do not fit the inhibitory-deficit hypothesis of cognitive aging, which may need to be refined or supplemented by alternative accounts.

  20. Auditory-motor learning influences auditory memory for music.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brown, Rachel M; Palmer, Caroline

    2012-05-01

    In two experiments, we investigated how auditory-motor learning influences performers' memory for music. Skilled pianists learned novel melodies in four conditions: auditory only (listening), motor only (performing without sound), strongly coupled auditory-motor (normal performance), and weakly coupled auditory-motor (performing along with auditory recordings). Pianists' recognition of the learned melodies was better following auditory-only or auditory-motor (weakly coupled and strongly coupled) learning than following motor-only learning, and better following strongly coupled auditory-motor learning than following auditory-only learning. Auditory and motor imagery abilities modulated the learning effects: Pianists with high auditory imagery scores had better recognition following motor-only learning, suggesting that auditory imagery compensated for missing auditory feedback at the learning stage. Experiment 2 replicated the findings of Experiment 1 with melodies that contained greater variation in acoustic features. Melodies that were slower and less variable in tempo and intensity were remembered better following weakly coupled auditory-motor learning. These findings suggest that motor learning can aid performers' auditory recognition of music beyond auditory learning alone, and that motor learning is influenced by individual abilities in mental imagery and by variation in acoustic features.

  1. Evidence for a neurophysiologic auditory deficit in children with benign epilepsy with centro-temporal spikes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liasis, A; Bamiou, D E; Boyd, S; Towell, A

    2006-07-01

    Benign focal epilepsy in childhood with centro-temporal spikes (BECTS) is one of the most common forms of epilepsy. Recent studies have questioned the benign nature of BECTS, as they have revealed neuropsychological deficits in many domains including language. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the epileptic discharges during the night have long-term effects on auditory processing, as reflected on electrophysiological measures, during the day, which could underline the language deficits. In order to address these questions we recorded base line electroencephalograms (EEG), sleep EEG and auditory event related potentials in 12 children with BECTS and in age- and gender-matched controls. In the children with BECTS, 5 had unilateral and 3 had bilateral spikes. In the 5 patients with unilateral spikes present during sleep, an asymmetry of the auditory event related component (P85-120) was observed contralateral to the side of epileptiform activity compared to the normal symmetrical vertex distribution that was noted in all controls and in 3 the children with bilateral spikes. In all patients the peak to peak amplitude of this event related potential component was statistically greater compared to the controls. Analysis of subtraction waveforms (deviant - standard) revealed no evidence of a mismatch negativity component in any of the children with BECTS. We propose that the abnormality of P85-120 and the absence of mismatch negativity during wake recordings in this group may arise in response to the long-term effects of spikes occurring during sleep, resulting in disruption of the evolution and maintenance of echoic memory traces. These results may indicate that patients with BECTS have abnormal processing of auditory information at a sensory level ipsilateral to the hemisphere evoking spikes during sleep.

  2. Listening to another sense: somatosensory integration in the auditory system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Calvin; Stefanescu, Roxana A; Martel, David T; Shore, Susan E

    2015-07-01

    Conventionally, sensory systems are viewed as separate entities, each with its own physiological process serving a different purpose. However, many functions require integrative inputs from multiple sensory systems and sensory intersection and convergence occur throughout the central nervous system. The neural processes for hearing perception undergo significant modulation by the two other major sensory systems, vision and somatosensation. This synthesis occurs at every level of the ascending auditory pathway: the cochlear nucleus, inferior colliculus, medial geniculate body and the auditory cortex. In this review, we explore the process of multisensory integration from (1) anatomical (inputs and connections), (2) physiological (cellular responses), (3) functional and (4) pathological aspects. We focus on the convergence between auditory and somatosensory inputs in each ascending auditory station. This review highlights the intricacy of sensory processing and offers a multisensory perspective regarding the understanding of sensory disorders.

  3. Visual face-movement sensitive cortex is relevant for auditory-only speech recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Riedel, Philipp; Ragert, Patrick; Schelinski, Stefanie; Kiebel, Stefan J; von Kriegstein, Katharina

    2015-07-01

    It is commonly assumed that the recruitment of visual areas during audition is not relevant for performing auditory tasks ('auditory-only view'). According to an alternative view, however, the recruitment of visual cortices is thought to optimize auditory-only task performance ('auditory-visual view'). This alternative view is based on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies. These studies have shown, for example, that even if there is only auditory input available, face-movement sensitive areas within the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) are involved in understanding what is said (auditory-only speech recognition). This is particularly the case when speakers are known audio-visually, that is, after brief voice-face learning. Here we tested whether the left pSTS involvement is causally related to performance in auditory-only speech recognition when speakers are known by face. To test this hypothesis, we applied cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to the pSTS during (i) visual-only speech recognition of a speaker known only visually to participants and (ii) auditory-only speech recognition of speakers they learned by voice and face. We defined the cathode as active electrode to down-regulate cortical excitability by hyperpolarization of neurons. tDCS to the pSTS interfered with visual-only speech recognition performance compared to a control group without pSTS stimulation (tDCS to BA6/44 or sham). Critically, compared to controls, pSTS stimulation additionally decreased auditory-only speech recognition performance selectively for voice-face learned speakers. These results are important in two ways. First, they provide direct evidence that the pSTS is causally involved in visual-only speech recognition; this confirms a long-standing prediction of current face-processing models. Secondly, they show that visual face-sensitive pSTS is causally involved in optimizing auditory-only speech recognition. These results are in line

  4. Bilateral theta-burst magnetic stimulation influence on event-related brain potentials.

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    Pinto, Nuno; Duarte, Marta; Gonçalves, Helena; Silva, Ricardo; Gama, Jorge; Pato, Maria Vaz

    2018-01-01

    Theta-burst stimulation (TBS) can be a non-invasive technique to modulate cognitive functions, with promising therapeutic potential, but with some contradictory results. Event related potentials are used as a marker of brain deterioration and can be used to evaluate TBS-related cognitive performance, but its use remains scant. This study aimed to study bilateral inhibitory and excitatory TBS effects upon neurocognitive performance of young healthy volunteers, using the auditory P300' results. Using a double-blind sham-controlled study, 51 healthy volunteers were randomly assigned to five different groups, two submitted to either excitatory (iTBS) or inhibitory (cTBS) stimulation over the left dorsolateral pre-frontal cortex (DLPFC), two other actively stimulated the right DLPFC and finally a sham stimulation group. An oddball based auditory P300 was performed just before a single session of iTBS, cTBS or sham stimulation and repeated immediately after. P300 mean latency comparison between the pre- and post-TBS stimulation stages revealed significantly faster post stimulation latencies only when iTBS was performed on the left hemisphere (p = 0.003). Right and left hemisphere cTBS significantly delayed P300 latency (right p = 0.026; left p = 0.000). Multiple comparisons for N200 showed slower latencies after iTBS over the right hemisphere. No significant difference was found in amplitude variation. TBS appears to effectively influence neural networking involved in P300 formation, but effects seem distinct for iTBS vs cTBS and for the right or the left hemisphere. P300 evoked potentials can be an effective and practical tool to evaluate transcranial magnetic stimulation related outcomes.

  5. Temporal expectation weights visual signals over auditory signals.

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    Menceloglu, Melisa; Grabowecky, Marcia; Suzuki, Satoru

    2017-04-01

    Temporal expectation is a process by which people use temporally structured sensory information to explicitly or implicitly predict the onset and/or the duration of future events. Because timing plays a critical role in crossmodal interactions, we investigated how temporal expectation influenced auditory-visual interaction, using an auditory-visual crossmodal congruity effect as a measure of crossmodal interaction. For auditory identification, an incongruent visual stimulus produced stronger interference when the crossmodal stimulus was presented with an expected rather than an unexpected timing. In contrast, for visual identification, an incongruent auditory stimulus produced weaker interference when the crossmodal stimulus was presented with an expected rather than an unexpected timing. The fact that temporal expectation made visual distractors more potent and visual targets less susceptible to auditory interference suggests that temporal expectation increases the perceptual weight of visual signals.

  6. The critical events for motor-sensory temporal recalibration

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    Derek Henry Arnold

    2012-08-01

    Full Text Available Determining if we, or another agent, were responsible for a sensory event can require an accurate sense of timing. Our sense of appropriate timing relationships must, however, be malleable as there is a variable delay between the physical timing of an event and when sensory signals concerning that event are encoded in the brain. One dramatic demonstration of such malleability involves having people repeatedly press a button thereby causing a beep. If a delay is inserted between button presses and beeps, when it is subsequently taken away beeps can seem to precede the button presses that caused them. For this to occur it is important that people feel they were responsible for instigating the beeps. In terms of their timing, as yet it is not clear what combination of events is important for motor-sensory temporal recalibration. Here, by introducing ballistic reaches of short or longer extent before a button press, we varied the delay between the intention to act and the sensory consequence of that action. This manipulation failed to modulate recalibration magnitude. By contrast, introducing a similarly lengthened delay between button presses and consequent beeps eliminated recalibration. Thus it would seem that the critical timing relationship for motor-sensory temporal recalibration is between tactile signals relating to the completion of an action and the subsequent auditory percept.

  7. Usage of drip drops as stimuli in an auditory P300 BCI paradigm.

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    Huang, Minqiang; Jin, Jing; Zhang, Yu; Hu, Dewen; Wang, Xingyu

    2018-02-01

    Recently, many auditory BCIs are using beeps as auditory stimuli, while beeps sound unnatural and unpleasant for some people. It is proved that natural sounds make people feel comfortable, decrease fatigue, and improve the performance of auditory BCI systems. Drip drop is a kind of natural sounds that makes humans feel relaxed and comfortable. In this work, three kinds of drip drops were used as stimuli in an auditory-based BCI system to improve the user-friendness of the system. This study explored whether drip drops could be used as stimuli in the auditory BCI system. The auditory BCI paradigm with drip-drop stimuli, which was called the drip-drop paradigm (DP), was compared with the auditory paradigm with beep stimuli, also known as the beep paradigm (BP), in items of event-related potential amplitudes, online accuracies and scores on the likability and difficulty to demonstrate the advantages of DP. DP obtained significantly higher online accuracy and information transfer rate than the BP ( p  < 0.05, Wilcoxon signed test; p  < 0.05, Wilcoxon signed test). Besides, DP obtained higher scores on the likability with no significant difference on the difficulty ( p  < 0.05, Wilcoxon signed test). The results showed that the drip drops were reliable acoustic materials as stimuli in an auditory BCI system.

  8. Hemispheric Differences in the Effects of Context on Vowel Perception

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    Sjerps, Matthias J.; Mitterer, Holger; McQueen, James M.

    2012-01-01

    Listeners perceive speech sounds relative to context. Contextual influences might differ over hemispheres if different types of auditory processing are lateralized. Hemispheric differences in contextual influences on vowel perception were investigated by presenting speech targets and both speech and non-speech contexts to listeners' right or left…

  9. Localized brain activation related to the strength of auditory learning in a parrot.

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    Hiroko Eda-Fujiwara

    Full Text Available Parrots and songbirds learn their vocalizations from a conspecific tutor, much like human infants acquire spoken language. Parrots can learn human words and it has been suggested that they can use them to communicate with humans. The caudomedial pallium in the parrot brain is homologous with that of songbirds, and analogous to the human auditory association cortex, involved in speech processing. Here we investigated neuronal activation, measured as expression of the protein product of the immediate early gene ZENK, in relation to auditory learning in the budgerigar (Melopsittacus undulatus, a parrot. Budgerigar males successfully learned to discriminate two Japanese words spoken by another male conspecific. Re-exposure to the two discriminanda led to increased neuronal activation in the caudomedial pallium, but not in the hippocampus, compared to untrained birds that were exposed to the same words, or were not exposed to words. Neuronal activation in the caudomedial pallium of the experimental birds was correlated significantly and positively with the percentage of correct responses in the discrimination task. These results suggest that in a parrot, the caudomedial pallium is involved in auditory learning. Thus, in parrots, songbirds and humans, analogous brain regions may contain the neural substrate for auditory learning and memory.

  10. Music perception in dementia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nicholas, Jennifer M; Cohen, Miriam H; Slattery, Catherine F; Paterson, Ross W; Foulkes, Alexander J M; Schott, Jonathan M; Mummery, Catherine J; Crutch, Sebastian J; Warren, Jason D

    2017-01-01

    Despite much recent interest in music and dementia, music perception has not been widely studied across dementia syndromes using an information processing approach. Here we addressed this issue in a cohort of 30 patients representing major dementia syndromes of typical Alzheimer’s disease (AD, n=16), logopenic aphasia (LPA, an Alzheimer variant syndrome; n=5) and progressive nonfluent aphasia (PNFA; n=9) in relation to 19 healthy age-matched individuals. We designed a novel neuropsychological battery to assess perception of musical patterns in the dimensions of pitch and temporal information (requiring detection of notes that deviated from the established pattern based on local or global sequence features) and musical scene analysis (requiring detection of a familiar tune within polyphonic harmony). Performance on these tests was referenced to generic auditory (timbral) deviance detection and recognition of familiar tunes and adjusted for general auditory working memory performance. Relative to healthy controls, patients with AD and LPA had group-level deficits of global pitch (melody contour) processing while patients with PNFA as a group had deficits of local (interval) as well as global pitch processing. There was substantial individual variation within syndromic groups. No specific deficits of musical temporal processing, timbre processing, musical scene analysis or tune recognition were identified. The findings suggest that particular aspects of music perception such as pitch pattern analysis may open a window on the processing of information streams in major dementia syndromes. The potential selectivity of musical deficits for particular dementia syndromes and particular dimensions of processing warrants further systematic investigation. PMID:27802226

  11. Music Perception in Dementia.

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    Golden, Hannah L; Clark, Camilla N; Nicholas, Jennifer M; Cohen, Miriam H; Slattery, Catherine F; Paterson, Ross W; Foulkes, Alexander J M; Schott, Jonathan M; Mummery, Catherine J; Crutch, Sebastian J; Warren, Jason D

    2017-01-01

    Despite much recent interest in music and dementia, music perception has not been widely studied across dementia syndromes using an information processing approach. Here we addressed this issue in a cohort of 30 patients representing major dementia syndromes of typical Alzheimer's disease (AD, n = 16), logopenic aphasia (LPA, an Alzheimer variant syndrome; n = 5), and progressive nonfluent aphasia (PNFA; n = 9) in relation to 19 healthy age-matched individuals. We designed a novel neuropsychological battery to assess perception of musical patterns in the dimensions of pitch and temporal information (requiring detection of notes that deviated from the established pattern based on local or global sequence features) and musical scene analysis (requiring detection of a familiar tune within polyphonic harmony). Performance on these tests was referenced to generic auditory (timbral) deviance detection and recognition of familiar tunes and adjusted for general auditory working memory performance. Relative to healthy controls, patients with AD and LPA had group-level deficits of global pitch (melody contour) processing while patients with PNFA as a group had deficits of local (interval) as well as global pitch processing. There was substantial individual variation within syndromic groups. Taking working memory performance into account, no specific deficits of musical temporal processing, timbre processing, musical scene analysis, or tune recognition were identified. The findings suggest that particular aspects of music perception such as pitch pattern analysis may open a window on the processing of information streams in major dementia syndromes. The potential selectivity of musical deficits for particular dementia syndromes and particular dimensions of processing warrants further systematic investigation.

  12. Event-Related Potential Patterns Associated with Hyperarousal in Gulf War Illness Syndrome Groups

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    Tillman, Gail D.; Calley, Clifford S.; Green, Timothy A.; Buhl, Virginia I.; Biggs, Melanie M.; Spence, Jeffrey S.; Briggs, Richard W.; Haley, Robert W.; Hart, John; Kraut, Michael A.

    2012-01-01

    An exaggerated response to emotional stimuli is one of several symptoms widely reported by veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Many have attributed these symptoms to post-war stress; others have attributed the symptoms to deployment-related exposures and associated damage to cholinergic, dopaminergic, and white matter systems. We collected event-related potential (ERP) data from 20 veterans meeting Haley criteria for Gulf War Syndromes 1–3 and from 8 matched Gulf War veteran controls, who were deployed but not symptomatic, while they performed an auditory three-condition oddball task with gunshot and lion roar sounds as the distractor stimuli. Reports of hyperarousal from the ill veterans were significantly greater than those from the control veterans; different ERP profiles emerged to account for their hyperarousability. Syndromes 2 and 3, who have previously shown brainstem abnormalities, show significantly stronger auditory P1 amplitudes, purported to indicate compromised cholinergic inhibitory gating in the reticular activating system. Syndromes 1 and 2, who have previously shown basal ganglia dysfunction, show significantly weaker P3a response to distractor stimuli, purported to indicate dysfunction of the dopaminergic contribution to their ability to inhibit distraction by irrelevant stimuli. All three syndrome groups showed an attenuated P3b to target stimuli, which could be secondary to both cholinergic and dopaminergic contributions or disruption of white matter integrity. PMID:22691951

  13. Non-Monotonic Relation Between Noise Exposure Severity and Neuronal Hyperactivity in the Auditory Midbrain

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    Lara Li Hesse

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available The occurrence of tinnitus can be linked to hearing loss in the majority of cases, but there is nevertheless a large degree of unexplained heterogeneity in the relation between hearing loss and tinnitus. Part of the problem might be that hearing loss is usually quantified in terms of increased hearing thresholds, which only provides limited information about the underlying cochlear damage. Moreover, noise exposure that does not cause hearing threshold loss can still lead to hidden hearing loss (HHL, i.e. functional deafferentation of auditory nerve fibres (ANFs through loss of synaptic ribbons in inner hair cells. Whilst it is known that increased hearing thresholds can trigger increases in spontaneous neural activity in the central auditory system, i.e. a putative neural correlate of tinnitus, the central effects of HHL have not yet been investigated. Here, we exposed mice to octave-band noise at 100 and 105 dB SPL, to generate HHL and permanent increases of hearing thresholds, respectively. Deafferentation of ANFs was confirmed through measurement of auditory brainstem responses and cochlear immunohistochemistry. Acute extracellular recordings from the auditory midbrain (inferior colliculus demonstrated increases in spontaneous neuronal activity (a putative neural correlate of tinnitus in both groups. Surprisingly the increase in spontaneous activity was most pronounced in the mice with HHL, suggesting that the relation between hearing loss and neuronal hyperactivity might be more complex than currently understood. Our computational model indicated that these differences in neuronal hyperactivity could arise from different degrees of deafferentation of low-threshold ANFs in the two exposure groups.Our results demonstrate that HHL is sufficient to induce changes in central auditory processing, and they also indicate a non-monotonic relationship between cochlear damage and neuronal hyperactivity, suggesting an explanation for why tinnitus might

  14. Comparison of congruence judgment and auditory localization tasks for assessing the spatial limits of visual capture.

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    Bosen, Adam K; Fleming, Justin T; Brown, Sarah E; Allen, Paul D; O'Neill, William E; Paige, Gary D

    2016-12-01

    Vision typically has better spatial accuracy and precision than audition and as a result often captures auditory spatial perception when visual and auditory cues are presented together. One determinant of visual capture is the amount of spatial disparity between auditory and visual cues: when disparity is small, visual capture is likely to occur, and when disparity is large, visual capture is unlikely. Previous experiments have used two methods to probe how visual capture varies with spatial disparity. First, congruence judgment assesses perceived unity between cues by having subjects report whether or not auditory and visual targets came from the same location. Second, auditory localization assesses the graded influence of vision on auditory spatial perception by having subjects point to the remembered location of an auditory target presented with a visual target. Previous research has shown that when both tasks are performed concurrently they produce similar measures of visual capture, but this may not hold when tasks are performed independently. Here, subjects alternated between tasks independently across three sessions. A Bayesian inference model of visual capture was used to estimate perceptual parameters for each session, which were compared across tasks. Results demonstrated that the range of audiovisual disparities over which visual capture was likely to occur was narrower in auditory localization than in congruence judgment, which the model indicates was caused by subjects adjusting their prior expectation that targets originated from the same location in a task-dependent manner.

  15. Comparison of Congruence Judgment and Auditory Localization Tasks for Assessing the Spatial Limits of Visual Capture

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bosen, Adam K.; Fleming, Justin T.; Brown, Sarah E.; Allen, Paul D.; O'Neill, William E.; Paige, Gary D.

    2016-01-01

    Vision typically has better spatial accuracy and precision than audition, and as a result often captures auditory spatial perception when visual and auditory cues are presented together. One determinant of visual capture is the amount of spatial disparity between auditory and visual cues: when disparity is small visual capture is likely to occur, and when disparity is large visual capture is unlikely. Previous experiments have used two methods to probe how visual capture varies with spatial disparity. First, congruence judgment assesses perceived unity between cues by having subjects report whether or not auditory and visual targets came from the same location. Second, auditory localization assesses the graded influence of vision on auditory spatial perception by having subjects point to the remembered location of an auditory target presented with a visual target. Previous research has shown that when both tasks are performed concurrently they produce similar measures of visual capture, but this may not hold when tasks are performed independently. Here, subjects alternated between tasks independently across three sessions. A Bayesian inference model of visual capture was used to estimate perceptual parameters for each session, which were compared across tasks. Results demonstrated that the range of audio-visual disparities over which visual capture was likely to occur were narrower in auditory localization than in congruence judgment, which the model indicates was caused by subjects adjusting their prior expectation that targets originated from the same location in a task-dependent manner. PMID:27815630

  16. Pitch perception prior to cortical maturation

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    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.

  17. ERP evaluation of auditory sensory memory systems in adults with intellectual disability.

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    Ikeda, Kazunari; Hashimoto, Souichi; Hayashi, Akiko; Kanno, Atsushi

    2009-01-01

    Auditory sensory memory stage can be functionally divided into two subsystems; transient-detector system and permanent feature-detector system (Naatanen, 1992). We assessed these systems in persons with intellectual disability by measuring event-related potentials (ERPs) N1 and mismatch negativity (MMN), which reflect the two auditory subsystems, respectively. Added to these, P3a (an ERP reflecting stage after sensory memory) was evaluated. Either synthesized vowels or simple tones were delivered during a passive oddball paradigm to adults with and without intellectual disability. ERPs were recorded from midline scalp sites (Fz, Cz, and Pz). Relative to control group, participants with the disability exhibited greater N1 latency and less MMN amplitude. The results for N1 amplitude and MMN latency were basically comparable between both groups. IQ scores in participants with the disability revealed no significant relation with N1 and MMN measures, whereas the IQ scores tended to increase significantly as P3a latency reduced. These outcomes suggest that persons with intellectual disability might own discrete malfunctions for the two detector systems in auditory sensory-memory stage. Moreover, the processes following sensory memory might be partly related to a determinant of mental development.

  18. A frontal cortex event-related potential driven by the basal forebrain

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    Nguyen, David P; Lin, Shih-Chieh

    2014-01-01

    Event-related potentials (ERPs) are widely used in both healthy and neuropsychiatric conditions as physiological indices of cognitive functions. Contrary to the common belief that cognitive ERPs are generated by local activity within the cerebral cortex, here we show that an attention-related ERP in the frontal cortex is correlated with, and likely generated by, subcortical inputs from the basal forebrain (BF). In rats performing an auditory oddball task, both the amplitude and timing of the frontal ERP were coupled with BF neuronal activity in single trials. The local field potentials (LFPs) associated with the frontal ERP, concentrated in deep cortical layers corresponding to the zone of BF input, were similarly coupled with BF activity and consistently triggered by BF electrical stimulation within 5–10 msec. These results highlight the important and previously unrecognized role of long-range subcortical inputs from the BF in the generation of cognitive ERPs. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.02148.001 PMID:24714497

  19. Cochlear Damage Affects Neurotransmitter Chemistry in the Central Auditory System

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    Donald Albert Godfrey

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available Tinnitus, the perception of a monotonous sound not actually present in the environment, affects nearly 20% of the population of the United States. Although there has been great progress in tinnitus research over the past 25 years, the neurochemical basis of tinnitus is still poorly understood. We review current research about the effects of various types of cochlear damage on the neurotransmitter chemistry in the central auditory system and document evidence that different changes in this chemistry can underlie similar behaviorally measured tinnitus symptoms. Most available data have been obtained from rodents following cochlear damage produced by cochlear ablation, loud sound, or ototoxic drugs. Effects on neurotransmitter systems have been measured as changes in neurotransmitter level, synthesis, release, uptake, and receptors. In this review, magnitudes of changes are presented for neurotransmitter-related amino acids, acetylcholine, and serotonin. A variety of effects have been found in these studies that may be related to animal model, survival time, type of cochlear damage, or methodology. The overall impression from the evidence presented is that any imbalance of neurotransmitter-related chemistry could disrupt auditory processing in such a way as to produce tinnitus.

  20. [Event-related potentials P₃₀₀ with memory function and psychopathology in first-episode paranoid schizophrenia].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Wei-bo; Chen, Qiao-zhen; Yin, Hou-min; Zheng, Lei-lei; Yu, Shao-hua; Chen, Yi-ping; Li, Hui-chun

    2011-11-01

    To investigate the variability of event-related potentials P(300) and the relationship with memory function/psychopathology in patients with first-episode paranoid schizophrenia. Thirty patients with first-episode paranoid schizophrenia (patient group) and twenty health subjects (control group) were enrolled in the study. The auditory event-related potentials P₃₀₀ at the scalp electrodes Cz, Pz and Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS) were examined in both groups, Positive And Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) was evaluated in patient group. In comparison with control group, patients had longer latency of P₃₀₀ [(390.6 ± 47.6)ms at Cz and (393.3 ± 50.1)ms at Pz] (Pparanoid schizophrenia has memory deficit, which can be evaluated comprehensively by P₃₀₀ and WMS. The longer latency of P₃₀₀ might be associated with the increased severity of first-episode paranoid schizophrenia.