Spectro-temporal analysis of complex tones: two cortical processes dependent on retention of sounds in the long auditory store.

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, S J; Vaz Pato, M; Sprague, L

2000-09-01

To examine whether two cortical processes concerned with spectro-temporal analysis of complex tones, a 'C-process' generating CN1 and CP2 potentials at cf. 100 and 180 ms after sudden change of pitch or timbre, and an 'M-process' generating MN1 and MP2 potentials of similar latency at the sudden cessation of repeated changes, are dependent on accumulation of a sound image in the long auditory store. The durations of steady (440 Hz) and rapidly oscillating (440-494 Hz, 16 changes/s) pitch of a synthesized 'clarinet' tone were reciprocally varied between 0.5 and 4.5 s within a duty cycle of 5 s. Potentials were recorded at the beginning and end of the period of oscillation in 10 non-attending normal subjects. The CN1 at the beginning of pitch oscillation and the MN1 at the end were both strongly influenced by the duration of the immediately preceding stimulus pattern, mean amplitudes being 3-4 times larger after 4.5 s as compared with 0.5 s. The processes responsible for both CN1 and MN1 are influenced by the duration of the preceding sound pattern over a period comparable to that of the 'echoic memory' or long auditory store. The store therefore appears to occupy a key position in spectro-temporal sound analysis. The C-process is concerned with the spectral structure of complex sounds, and may therefore reflect the 'grouping' of frequency components underlying auditory stream segregation. The M-process (mismatch negativity) is concerned with the temporal sound structure, and may play an important role in the extraction of information from sequential sounds.

Repetition Suppression in the Left Inferior Frontal Gyrus Predicts Tone Learning Performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Asaridou, Salomi S; Takashima, Atsuko; Dediu, Dan; Hagoort, Peter; McQueen, James M

2016-06-01

Do individuals differ in how efficiently they process non-native sounds? To what extent do these differences relate to individual variability in sound-learning aptitude? We addressed these questions by assessing the sound-learning abilities of Dutch native speakers as they were trained on non-native tone contrasts. We used fMRI repetition suppression to the non-native tones to measure participants' neuronal processing efficiency before and after training. Although all participants improved in tone identification with training, there was large individual variability in learning performance. A repetition suppression effect to tone was found in the bilateral inferior frontal gyri (IFGs) before training. No whole-brain effect was found after training; a region-of-interest analysis, however, showed that, after training, repetition suppression to tone in the left IFG correlated positively with learning. That is, individuals who were better in learning the non-native tones showed larger repetition suppression in this area. Crucially, this was true even before training. These findings add to existing evidence that the left IFG plays an important role in sound learning and indicate that individual differences in learning aptitude stem from differences in the neuronal efficiency with which non-native sounds are processed. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Students and Instructors Opinions about Piano Instruction

Science.gov (United States)

Kilic, Deniz Beste Çevik

2016-01-01

This study examined the opinions of the students and piano instructors in the Turkish Education Faculties' Fine Arts Instruction Departments' music instruction programs about piano instruction. The study data were collected using a questionnaire administered to the piano instructors and the students who took lessons from them. The study results…

The Benefits of Adult Piano Study as Self-Reported by Selected Adult Piano Students

Science.gov (United States)

Jutras, Peter J.

2006-01-01

Adult piano students (N = 711) from 24 states across the U.S. rated the existence and importance of 31 potential benefits of adult piano study. Benefits selected from existing adult music and leisure-benefit research were organized into three categories: Personal, Skill, and Social/Cultural. The category of Skill Benefits was the most-agreed-upon…

Clarisse Leite: perfil biográfico e listagem temática das obras para piano * Clarisse Leite: biographical profile and listing of piano works

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

PRISCILA FOLLMANN BARBAN

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Resumo: O objetivo deste artigo é construir um perfil biográfico da compositora, pianista e professora de piano Clarisse Leite (1917-2003 e elaborar uma listagem de sua obra para piano, de forma a redigir um registro formal e sistematizado de seu legado, já que sua atuação foi de notada relevância no cenário musical da época e região em que viveu. Como compositora, escreveu para diversos instrumentos e formações, com destaque para o piano. Como pianista, se apresentou em diferentes cidades e estados brasileiros, além de concertos internacionais na Áustria e Hungria. Como professora de piano, criou o método da ginástica anatômica. Os concursos de piano Clarisse Leite, realizados anualmente, e por ela organizados, revelaram diversos talentos da música do nosso país.Palavras-chave: Clarisse Leite – Música Brasileira – Piano. Abstract: The aim of this article is to write a short biography of the Brazilian composer, pianist and piano teacher Clarisse Leite (1917-2003, as well as to make a list of her piano works and writing a formal register of her work, since her professional work was of relevance to the time and area she lived. As a composer, she wrote to various instruments and formations, but especially for the piano. As a pianist, she performed in many different cities and states of Brazil and also in Austria and Hungary. As a piano teacher, she developed her own technique, which she called “ginástica anatômica” (anatomic gym. The Clarisse Leite piano contests she organized happened every year and revealed many talents of Brazilian piano music.Keywords: Clarisse Leite – Brazilian Music – Piano.

Two-Tone Interference Caused by Active Amplification

Science.gov (United States)

Duke, T. A. J.; Andor, D.; Jülicher, F.

2003-02-01

To capture faint sounds, the ear uses an active system of amplification. We and our colleagues have put forward the idea that the amplifier comprises a set of "self-tuned critical oscillators": each hair cell contains a force-generating dynamical system which is maintained at the threshold of an oscillatory instability, or Hopf bifurcation. Our analysis shows that the active response to a pure tone is perfectly suited to the ear's needs, since it provides frequency selectivity, exquisite sensitivity and wide dynamic range. However, the intrinsic nonlinearity of the mechanism causes tones of different frequency to interfere with one another in the cochlea. In order to provide a framework for understanding how the ear processes the more complex sounds of speech and music, we have examined the response of a critical Hopf oscillator to two tones. Our calculations indicate how the response to one tone is suppressed by the presence of a second tone of similar frequency. They also show how a characteristic spectrum of distortion products is generated. Based on this analysis, we discuss to what extent psychophysical phenomena such as the sensation of dissonance and auditory illusions can be attributed to the physical nature of the peripheral detection apparatus.

Vibroacoustics of the piano soundboard: Reduced models, mobility synthesis, and acoustical radiation regime

Science.gov (United States)

Boutillon, Xavier; Ege, Kerem

2013-09-01

In string musical instruments, the sound is radiated by the soundboard, subject to the strings excitation. This vibration of this rather complex structure is described here with models which need only a small number of parameters. Predictions of the models are compared with the results of experiments that have been presented in Ege et al. [Vibroacoustics of the piano soundboard: (non)linearity and modal properties in the low- and mid-frequency ranges, Journal of Sound and Vibration 332 (5) (2013) 1288-1305]. The apparent modal density of the soundboard of an upright piano in playing condition, as seen from various points of the structure, exhibits two well-separated regimes, below and above a frequency flim that is determined by the wood characteristics and by the distance between ribs. Above flim, most modes appear to be localised, presumably due to the irregularity of the spacing and height of the ribs. The low-frequency regime is predicted by a model which consists of coupled sub-structures: the two ribbed areas split by the main bridge and, in most cases, one or two so-called cut-off corners. In order to assess the dynamical properties of each of the subplates (considered here as homogeneous plates), we propose a derivation of the (low-frequency) modal density of an orthotropic homogeneous plate which accounts for the boundary conditions on an arbitrary geometry. Above flim, the soundboard, as seen from a given excitation point, is modelled as a set of three structural wave-guides, namely the three inter-rib spacings surrounding the excitation point. Based on these low- and high-frequency models, computations of the point-mobility and of the apparent modal densities seen at several excitation points match published measurements. The dispersion curve of the wave-guide model displays an acoustical radiation scheme which differs significantly from that of a thin homogeneous plate. It appears that piano dimensioning is such that the subsonic regime of acoustical

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

Science.gov (United States)

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

2000-08-18

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

Metamorphoses : the Art of the Virtuoso Piano Transcription

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Waal, Rian

2013-01-01

Rian de Waal (1958-2011) has written a book about the piano, and how the development of piano playing has been very much dependent upon musicians who were able to cross borders. In Metamorphoses, the Art of the Virtuoso Piano Transcription, De Waal takes us on a journey through the capricious

Mapping perception to action in piano practice: a longitudinal DC-EEG study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bangert Marc

2003-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Performing music requires fast auditory and motor processing. Regarding professional musicians, recent brain imaging studies have demonstrated that auditory stimulation produces a co-activation of motor areas, whereas silent tapping of musical phrases evokes a co-activation in auditory regions. Whether this is obtained via a specific cerebral relay station is unclear. Furthermore, the time course of plasticity has not yet been addressed. Results Changes in cortical activation patterns (DC-EEG potentials induced by short (20 minute and long term (5 week piano learning were investigated during auditory and motoric tasks. Two beginner groups were trained. The 'map' group was allowed to learn the standard piano key-to-pitch map. For the 'no-map' group, random assignment of keys to tones prevented such a map. Auditory-sensorimotor EEG co-activity occurred within only 20 minutes. The effect was enhanced after 5-week training, contributing elements of both perception and action to the mental representation of the instrument. The 'map' group demonstrated significant additional activity of right anterior regions. Conclusion We conclude that musical training triggers instant plasticity in the cortex, and that right-hemispheric anterior areas provide an audio-motor interface for the mental representation of the keyboard.

Design of Piano -playing Robotic Hand

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Lin Jen-Chang

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Unlike the market slowdown of industrial robots, service & entertainment robots have been highly regarded by most robotics reseach and market research agencies. In this study we developed a music playing robot (which can also work as a service robot for public performance. The research is mainly focused on the mechanical and electrical control of piano-playing robot, the exploration of correlations among music theory, rhythm and piano keys, and eventually the research on playing skill of keyboard instrument. The piano-playing robot is capable of control linear motor, servo-motor and pneumatic devices in accordance with the notes and rhythm in order to drive the mechanical structure to proper positions for pressing the keys and generating music. The devices used for this robot are mainly crucial components produced by HIWIN Technology Corp. The design of robotic hand is based on the direction of anthropomorphic hand such that five fingers will be used for playing piano. The finger actuations include actions of finger rotation, finger pressing, and finger lifting; time required for these 3 stages must meet the requirement of rhythm. The purpose of entertainment robot can be achieved by playing electric piano with robotic hand, and we hope this research can contribute to the development of domestic entertainment music playing robots.

Nonlinear effects contributing to hand-stopping tones in a horn.

Science.gov (United States)

Ebihara, Takayasu; Yoshikawa, Shigeru

2013-05-01

Hand stopping is a technique for playing the French horn while closing the bell relatively tightly using the right hand. The resulting timbre is called "penetrating" and "metallic." The effect of hand stopping on the horn input impedance has been studied, but the tone quality has hardly ever been considered. In the present paper, the dominant physical cause of the stopped-tone quality is discussed in detail. Numerical calculations of the transmission function of the stopped-horn model and the measurements of both sound pressure and wall vibration in hand stopping are carried out. They strongly suggest that the metallicness of the stopped tone is characterized by the generation of higher harmonics extending over 10 kHz due to the rapidly corrugating waveform and that the associated wall vibration on the bell may be responsible for this higher harmonic generation. However, excitation experiments and immobilization experiments performed to elucidate the relationship between sound radiation and wall vibration deny their correlation. Instead, the measurement result of the mouthpiece pressure in hand stopping suggests that minute wave corrugations peculiar to the metallic stopped tones are probably formed by nonlinear sound propagation along the bore.

Medtner. Piano concertos. Geoffrey Tozer (pf) / Bryce Morrison

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Morrison, Bryce

1992-01-01

Uuest heliplaadist "Medtner. Piano concertos. Geoffrey Tozer (pf) London Philarmonic Orchestra, Neeme Järvi. Chandos CHAN 9038/9 (two discs, oas 73 and 54 minutes). Also available as a two-disc set CD CHAN 9040. CHAN 9038: Piano concertos - N2 Op. 50; N 3 Op. 60 "Ballade" CHAN 9039 Piano concerto N 1 in C minor. Sonata-Ballade in Fsharp major Op. 27"

Experiments in Area of Musical Sound in the Chamber and Instrumental Works by Rodion Shchedrin

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Zaytseva Marina

2016-10-01

Full Text Available The article scientifically proves the peculiarities of Rodion Shchedrin’s musical thinking. Having analysed such piano works by Rodion Shchedrin as "Imitating Albéniz", "Humoresque", arranged for violin and piano by D. M. Tsyganov, "Balalaika" for solo violin without a bow, there have been identified composer’s innovations in the field of violin sound. It has been proved that the search for new expressive violin-coloristic resources was due to the desire of the composer to discover the new worlds of sound, create an original work, which would masterfully implement the most complex creative tasks.

Hindemith, Paul: "Complete sonatas for Solo Instrument and Piano" / Michel Roubinet

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Roubinet, Michel

1997-01-01

Uuest heliplaadist "Hindemith, Paul: "Complete sonatas for Solo Instrument and Piano", vol. 6. Sonate pour trompette et piano. Sonates pour orgue nos 1 a 3. Sonate pour cor et piano. Ensemble Villa Musica: Kalle Randalu (piano)" MDG "Gold" 304 0696-2, distr. Media 7 (CD:160F)

Jazz Chants Born in a Piano Bar

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Caroline Graham

2010-01-01

Full Text Available When I first arrived in New York in the late sixties, I began teaching ESL at New York University. I didn`t really think of teaching as a profession for me. I just thought it would pay the rent so I could do what I really wanted to do which was to sing and play ragtime piano in the piano bars. When I got my first piano job in an Irish Bar it was uptown, far away from NYU so I didn`t feel it was necessary to mention this night job to my boss.

Invention Zaman Barok dan Pengembangan Permainan Piano

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RIANTI MARDALENA PASARIBU

2013-11-01

Full Text Available Invention in Barok Era and The Development of Piano Lesson. In piano lesson, one material of parts towhich had been given is polyphony, which is an Invention from J.S. Invention is a basic fi nger-skill for pianist.Invention develops in the Baroque period. The baroque ideology is not only called as the reaction of Renaissance,but also as the continuing development from Renaissance. Invention is known in two forms. First is as a pianocomposition and second is as a piano play which can push a pianist to understand more about an arrangement thathe played and expressed.

Frequency-Zooming ARMA Modeling for Analysis of Noisy String Instrument Tones

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Paulo A. A. Esquef

2003-09-01

Full Text Available This paper addresses model-based analysis of string instrument sounds. In particular, it reviews the application of autoregressive (AR modeling to sound analysis/synthesis purposes. Moreover, a frequency-zooming autoregressive moving average (FZ-ARMA modeling scheme is described. The performance of the FZ-ARMA method on modeling the modal behavior of isolated groups of resonance frequencies is evaluated for both synthetic and real string instrument tones immersed in background noise. We demonstrate that the FZ-ARMA modeling is a robust tool to estimate the decay time and frequency of partials of noisy tones. Finally, we discuss the use of the method in synthesis of string instrument sounds.

Temporal coherence for pure tones in budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) and humans (Homo sapiens).

Science.gov (United States)

Neilans, Erikson G; Dent, Micheal L

2015-02-01

Auditory scene analysis has been suggested as a universal process that exists across all animals. Relative to humans, however, little work has been devoted to how animals perceptually isolate different sound sources. Frequency separation of sounds is arguably the most common parameter studied in auditory streaming, but it is not the only factor contributing to how the auditory scene is perceived. Researchers have found that in humans, even at large frequency separations, synchronous tones are heard as a single auditory stream, whereas asynchronous tones with the same frequency separations are perceived as 2 distinct sounds. These findings demonstrate how both the timing and frequency separation of sounds are important for auditory scene analysis. It is unclear how animals, such as budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus), perceive synchronous and asynchronous sounds. In this study, budgerigars and humans (Homo sapiens) were tested on their perception of synchronous, asynchronous, and partially overlapping pure tones using the same psychophysical procedures. Species differences were found between budgerigars and humans in how partially overlapping sounds were perceived, with budgerigars more likely to segregate overlapping sounds and humans more apt to fuse the 2 sounds together. The results also illustrated that temporal cues are particularly important for stream segregation of overlapping sounds. Lastly, budgerigars were found to segregate partially overlapping sounds in a manner predicted by computational models of streaming, whereas humans were not. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved.

Implementation and preliminary evaluation of 'C-tone': A novel algorithm to improve lexical tone recognition in Mandarin-speaking cochlear implant users.

Science.gov (United States)

Ping, Lichuan; Wang, Ningyuan; Tang, Guofang; Lu, Thomas; Yin, Li; Tu, Wenhe; Fu, Qian-Jie

2017-09-01

Because of limited spectral resolution, Mandarin-speaking cochlear implant (CI) users have difficulty perceiving fundamental frequency (F0) cues that are important to lexical tone recognition. To improve Mandarin tone recognition in CI users, we implemented and evaluated a novel real-time algorithm (C-tone) to enhance the amplitude contour, which is strongly correlated with the F0 contour. The C-tone algorithm was implemented in clinical processors and evaluated in eight users of the Nurotron NSP-60 CI system. Subjects were given 2 weeks of experience with C-tone. Recognition of Chinese tones, monosyllables, and disyllables in quiet was measured with and without the C-tone algorithm. Subjective quality ratings were also obtained for C-tone. After 2 weeks of experience with C-tone, there were small but significant improvements in recognition of lexical tones, monosyllables, and disyllables (P C-tone were greater for disyllables than for monosyllables. Subjective quality ratings showed no strong preference for or against C-tone, except for perception of own voice, where C-tone was preferred. The real-time C-tone algorithm provided small but significant improvements for speech performance in quiet with no change in sound quality. Pre-processing algorithms to reduce noise and better real-time F0 extraction would improve the benefits of C-tone in complex listening environments. Chinese CI users' speech recognition in quiet can be significantly improved by modifying the amplitude contour to better resemble the F0 contour.

Differential Diagnosis of Speech Sound Disorder (Phonological Disorder): Audiological Assessment beyond the Pure-tone Audiogram.

Science.gov (United States)

Iliadou, Vasiliki Vivian; Chermak, Gail D; Bamiou, Doris-Eva

2015-04-01

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, diagnosis of speech sound disorder (SSD) requires a determination that it is not the result of other congenital or acquired conditions, including hearing loss or neurological conditions that may present with similar symptomatology. To examine peripheral and central auditory function for the purpose of determining whether a peripheral or central auditory disorder was an underlying factor or contributed to the child's SSD. Central auditory processing disorder clinic pediatric case reports. Three clinical cases are reviewed of children with diagnosed SSD who were referred for audiological evaluation by their speech-language pathologists as a result of slower than expected progress in therapy. Audiological testing revealed auditory deficits involving peripheral auditory function or the central auditory nervous system. These cases demonstrate the importance of increasing awareness among professionals of the need to fully evaluate the auditory system to identify auditory deficits that could contribute to a patient's speech sound (phonological) disorder. Audiological assessment in cases of suspected SSD should not be limited to pure-tone audiometry given its limitations in revealing the full range of peripheral and central auditory deficits, deficits which can compromise treatment of SSD. American Academy of Audiology.

Design of Piano -playing Robotic Hand

OpenAIRE

Lin Jen-Chang; Hsin-Cheng Li; Kuo-Cheng Huang; Shu-Wei Lin

2013-01-01

Unlike the market slowdown of industrial robots, service & entertainment robots have been highly regarded by most robotics reseach and market research agencies. In this study we developed a music playing robot (which can also work as a service robot) for public performance. The research is mainly focused on the mechanical and electrical control of piano-playing robot, the exploration of correlations among music theory, rhythm and piano keys, and eventually the research on playing skill of...

Piano instruction for nursery school trainees

OpenAIRE

新海, 節; Makoto, SHINKAI; 藤女子大学人間生活学部保育学科

2012-01-01

It is important piano instruction in childcare training schools be viewed primarily as "music for childcare". To this end,it is also important that the view of piano instruction for nursery school trainees be switched from one mainly focused on the technical aspects of performance using many etudes to a form of instruction based on developing the musicality of the trainees and their ability to display emotion through music. Further, through this instruction, the trainees need to develop the a...

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

Science.gov (United States)

Newton, Michael J; Smith, Leslie S

2012-06-01

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

Development of a piano learning tool

OpenAIRE

Baloh, Matevž

2012-01-01

This thesis analyzes the appropriateness of the formula defined by the game 'Guitar Hero' in an application, which aims to help it's users learn how to play the piano. The appropriateness is determined through the development of an application. The thesis describes an attempt at the development of a game, the primary intention of which is to be fun, with the secondary purpose of teaching how to play the piano. After this, it describes an attempt at the development of an application, the p...

Lemba, Artur: Concerto for piano no. 1 in G / Guy S. Rickards

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Rickards, Guy S.

1998-01-01

Uuest heliplaadist "Lemba, Artur: Concerto for piano no. 1 in G; Tubin, Eduard: Concertino forpiano and orchestra; Sumera, Lepo: Concerto for piano and orchestra. Lauri Väinmaa, piano, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Arvo Volmer". Finlandia 3984-20684-2

11. Basic Practice Methods in University General Piano Classes

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Raducanu Cristina Andra

2018-03-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this article was to present and analyse some practicing piano methods which are used during secondary piano lessons at the university. The final goal was to show the benefits of these practice strategies in the process of learning a new piano piece. Experience demonstrated that in order to keep students motivated, there is a need for them to know how to approach and study a new repertoire and to be sure that implementing these practice methods will help them gain the necessary skills which will enable them to fluently perform a musical piece.

Attention-dependent sound offset-related brain potentials.

Science.gov (United States)

Horváth, János

2016-05-01

When performing sensory tasks, knowing the potentially occurring goal-relevant and irrelevant stimulus events allows the establishment of selective attention sets, which result in enhanced sensory processing of goal-relevant events. In the auditory modality, such enhancements are reflected in the increased amplitude of the N1 ERP elicited by the onsets of task-relevant sounds. It has been recently suggested that ERPs to task-relevant sound offsets are similarly enhanced in a tone-focused state in comparison to a distracted one. The goal of the present study was to explore the influence of attention on ERPs elicited by sound offsets. ERPs elicited by tones in a duration-discrimination task were compared to ERPs elicited by the same tones in not-tone-focused attentional setting. Tone offsets elicited a consistent, attention-dependent biphasic (positive-negative--P1-N1) ERP waveform for tone durations ranging from 150 to 450 ms. The evidence, however, did not support the notion that the offset-related ERPs reflected an offset-specific attention set: The offset-related ERPs elicited in a duration-discrimination condition (in which offsets were task relevant) did not significantly differ from those elicited in a pitch-discrimination condition (in which the offsets were task irrelevant). Although an N2 reflecting the processing of offsets in task-related terms contributed to the observed waveform, this contribution was separable from the offset-related P1 and N1. The results demonstrate that when tones are attended, offset-related ERPs may substantially overlap endogenous ERP activity in the postoffset interval irrespective of tone duration, and attention differences may cause ERP differences in such postoffset intervals. © 2016 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Plaatsafhankelijkheid van timbre bij nagalm (Place dependence of timbre in reverberant sound fields)

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Plomp, R.; Steeneken, H.J.M.

1973-01-01

The sound-pressure level of a simple tone in a diffuse sound field varies from point to point with a theoretical standard deviation of 5.57 dB. This variability affects the timbre of complex tones in reverberant sound fields, Experiments have shown that the timbre dissimilarity at any two positions

Loudness of brief tones in listeners with normal hearing and sensorineural hearing loss

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Buus, Søren; Florentine, Mary; Poulsen, Torben

1997-01-01

To investigate how hearing loss affects the loudness of brief tones, loudness matches between 5- and 200-ms tones were obtained as a function of level. Loudness functions derived from these data indicated that the gain required to restore loudness usually is the same for short and long sounds....

SPECIFIC FEATURES OF THE THEMATIC MATERIAL AND TEXTURE IN THE FANTASY FOR TWO PIANOS BRYUL LUI AMIHALACHIOAIE (AMIHALACHIOAIE’S GIRDLE BY VLAD BURLEA

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MAMALÂGA MARINA

2016-06-01

Full Text Available The article analyzes the fantasy „Bryul lui M. Amihalachioaie” (Amihalachioaie’s Girdle for two pianos composed by Vlad Burlea as the only example of this genre in his creative activity. This work is analyzed from the perspective of genre specificity, determined by the synthesis of the fantasy genre and the monumental miniature, revealing the interaction of variation and improvisation. The author comes to the conclusion that V. Burlea’s creation is characterized by a truthful realization of the language elements of national music, and namely that of the Moldovan dance. The article also considers the form and content of the present work, its intonation-thematic processes and the treatment of the two-piano ensemble that imitates the sound of the dulcimer.

Sounds in context

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Weed, Ethan

A sound is never just a sound. It is becoming increasingly clear that auditory processing is best thought of not as a one-way afferent stream, but rather as an ongoing interaction between interior processes and the environment. Even the earliest stages of auditory processing in the nervous system...... time-course of contextual influence on auditory processing in three different paradigms: a simple mismatch negativity paradigm with tones of differing pitch, a multi-feature mismatch negativity paradigm in which tones were embedded in a complex musical context, and a cross-modal paradigm, in which...... auditory processing of emotional speech was modulated by an accompanying visual context. I then discuss these results in terms of their implication for how we conceive of the auditory processing stream....

Context effects on processing widely deviant sounds in newborn infants

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Gábor Péter Háden

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Detecting and orienting towards sounds carrying new information is a crucial feature of the human brain that supports adaptation to the environment. Rare, acoustically widely deviant sounds presented amongst frequent tones elicit large event related brain potentials (ERPs in neonates. Here we tested whether these discriminative ERP responses reflect only the activation of fresh afferent neuronal populations (i.e., neuronal circuits not affected by the tones or they also index the processing of contextual mismatch between the rare and the frequent sounds.In two separate experiments, we presented sleeping newborns with 150 different environmental sounds and the same number of white noise bursts. Both sounds served either as deviants in an oddball paradigm with the frequent standard stimulus a tone (Novel/Noise deviant, or as the standard stimulus with the tone as deviant (Novel/Noise standard, or they were delivered alone with the same timing as the deviants in the oddball condition (Novel/Noise alone.Whereas the ERP responses to noise–deviants elicited similar responses as the same sound presented alone, the responses elicited by environmental sounds in the corresponding conditions morphologically differed from each other. Thus whereas the ERP response to the noise sounds can be explained by the different refractory state of stimulus specific neuronal populations, the ERP response to environmental sounds indicated context sensitive processing. These results provide evidence for an innate tendency of context dependent auditory processing as well as a basis for the different developmental trajectories of processing acoustical deviance and contextual novelty.

The use of fractal tones in tinnitus patient management

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Robert W Sweetow

2013-01-01

Full Text Available A variety of noises have been employed for decades in an effort to facilitate habituation, mask, or suppress tinnitus. Many of these sounds have reportedly provided benefit, but success has not been universal. More recently, musical stimuli have been added as a sound therapy component. The potential advantages of using such stimuli, in particular fractal tones, in combination with amplification are discussed in this paper.

Initial uncertainty impacts statistical learning in sound sequence processing.

Science.gov (United States)

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

2016-11-01

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

Pemanfaatan Augmented Reality untuk Pembelajaran Pengenalan Alat Musik Piano

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Iwan Setya Nugraha

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Dalam bidang musik banyak cara yang dapat dijadikan jalan pembelajaran mengenai teori tentang musik. Cara yang paling mudah yaitu dengan belajar sekaligus bermain alat musik itu sendiri. Dalam hal ini terfokus pada teori musik keyboard atau piano. Dengan cara tersebut dapat dipastikan ilmu akan mudah diserap. Yang menjadi masalah disini yaitu bagaimana menjadikan metode pembelajaran itu menyenangkan dan tidak membosankan atau membingungkan. Dengan menggunakan metode pembelajaran berbasis augmented reality yang dibuat dengan menggunakan Unity sebagai komponen yang utama dan dengan menggunakan 3DS Max sebagai software untuk menghasilkan gambar yang menarik. Proses perancangan dan pembuatan metode pembelajaran ini menggunakan prototyping. Dengan prototyping, desain menjadi cepat dibuat dan dapat dicoba. Semakin cepat dibuat dan semakin banyak percobaan yang dilakukan, dapat dengan cepat juga memperbaiki bug yang ada sehingga menghasilkan hasil yang lebih baik. Hasil dari perancangan aplikasi ini adalah terealisasinya suatu aplikasi metode pembelajaran teori pada piano yang dapat mempermudah user belajar tentang chord piano. Dengan adanya aplikasi diharapkan user dapat belajar dengan lebih menyenangkan dengan cara yang mudah untuk mendapatkan ilmu tentang chord piano.

Wood for sound.

Science.gov (United States)

Wegst, Ulrike G K

2006-10-01

The unique mechanical and acoustical properties of wood and its aesthetic appeal still make it the material of choice for musical instruments and the interior of concert halls. Worldwide, several hundred wood species are available for making wind, string, or percussion instruments. Over generations, first by trial and error and more recently by scientific approach, the most appropriate species were found for each instrument and application. Using material property charts on which acoustic properties such as the speed of sound, the characteristic impedance, the sound radiation coefficient, and the loss coefficient are plotted against one another for woods. We analyze and explain why spruce is the preferred choice for soundboards, why tropical species are favored for xylophone bars and woodwind instruments, why violinists still prefer pernambuco over other species as a bow material, and why hornbeam and birch are used in piano actions.

Predicting the Inflow Distortion Tone Noise of the NASA Glenn Advanced Noise Control Fan with a Combined Quadrupole-Dipole Model

Science.gov (United States)

Koch, L. Danielle

2012-01-01

A combined quadrupole-dipole model of fan inflow distortion tone noise has been extended to calculate tone sound power levels generated by obstructions arranged in circumferentially asymmetric locations upstream of a rotor. Trends in calculated sound power level agreed well with measurements from tests conducted in 2007 in the NASA Glenn Advanced Noise Control Fan. Calculated values of sound power levels radiated upstream were demonstrated to be sensitive to the accuracy of the modeled wakes from the cylindrical rods that were placed upstream of the fan to distort the inflow. Results indicate a continued need to obtain accurate aerodynamic predictions and measurements at the fan inlet plane as engineers work towards developing fan inflow distortion tone noise prediction tools.

Hearing Tests Based on Biologically Calibrated Mobile Devices: Comparison With Pure-Tone Audiometry.

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Masalski, Marcin; Grysiński, Tomasz; Kręcicki, Tomasz

2018-01-10

Hearing screening tests based on pure-tone audiometry may be conducted on mobile devices, provided that the devices are specially calibrated for the purpose. Calibration consists of determining the reference sound level and can be performed in relation to the hearing threshold of normal-hearing persons. In the case of devices provided by the manufacturer, together with bundled headphones, the reference sound level can be calculated once for all devices of the same model. This study aimed to compare the hearing threshold measured by a mobile device that was calibrated using a model-specific, biologically determined reference sound level with the hearing threshold obtained in pure-tone audiometry. Trial participants were recruited offline using face-to-face prompting from among Otolaryngology Clinic patients, who own Android-based mobile devices with bundled headphones. The hearing threshold was obtained on a mobile device by means of an open access app, Hearing Test, with incorporated model-specific reference sound levels. These reference sound levels were previously determined in uncontrolled conditions in relation to the hearing threshold of normal-hearing persons. An audiologist-assisted self-measurement was conducted by the participants in a sound booth, and it involved determining the lowest audible sound generated by the device within the frequency range of 250 Hz to 8 kHz. The results were compared with pure-tone audiometry. A total of 70 subjects, 34 men and 36 women, aged 18-71 years (mean 36, standard deviation [SD] 11) participated in the trial. The hearing threshold obtained on mobile devices was significantly different from the one determined by pure-tone audiometry with a mean difference of 2.6 dB (95% CI 2.0-3.1) and SD of 8.3 dB (95% CI 7.9-8.7). The number of differences not greater than 10 dB reached 89% (95% CI 88-91), whereas the mean absolute difference was obtained at 6.5 dB (95% CI 6.2-6.9). Sensitivity and specificity for a mobile

EMG biofeedback of the abductor pollicis brevis in piano performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Montes, R; Bedmar, M; Sol Martin, M

1993-06-01

The aim of the present study was to apply EMG biofeedback as an auxiliary to piano teaching techniques. We studied the changes in integrated electromyographic activity, using the abductor pollicis brevis functioning as an agonist during the teaching of identical selective movements of piano playing in two groups, one with EMG biofeedback and the other following traditional method of instruction. The analysis of variance revealed an increase in the peak amplitude and the relaxation rate values for the biofeedback group. These results have implications for the application of piano playing techniques and reveal EMG biofeedback as an aid in the teaching of thumb attack with the abductor pollicis brevis as agonist.

Improving Students' Intrinsic Motivation in Piano Learning: Expert Teacher Voices

Science.gov (United States)

Cheng, Zijia; Southcott, Jane

2016-01-01

Many students learn to play the piano but some lack the motivation to continue learning. Many students learn for extrinsic reasons. This research will explore understandings about student motivation held by expert piano teachers who have developed strategies to improve their students' intrinsic motivation to begin and continue learning. This small…

THE PIANO CYCLE OUTLINE BY VLAD BURLEA: INTERPRETATIVE REMARKS

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HATIPOVA INNA

2015-03-01

Full Text Available The cycle „Outline”, consisting of four preludes for piano written by the autochthonous composer Vlad Burlea in 2013 has been analyzed in the present article. The article considers the characteristic particularities of the form, musical language, terms of composition and dramaturgy, as well as the features of style of these piano pieces. This article also contains numerous performing and teaching (methodical-didactic recommendations.

The processing of music notation: some implications for piano sight ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Most piano pupils and many professional pianists find it difficult to sight-read music fluently. A major reason for this phenomenon is the complexity of the piano sight-reading process. Cognitive research reveals an intricate system of neural networks spread over all four cortical lobes of the brain, which are involved in ...

Tubin, Eduard. Sonate pour violon et piano dans le mode phrygien / Pierre Gervasoni

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Gervasoni, Pierre

1995-01-01

Uuest heliplaadist "Tubin, Eduard. Sonate pour violon et piano dans le mode phrygien. Ballade pour piano en forme de Chaconne sur un theme de Mart Saar. Sonate pour saxophone alto et piano. Le Chant des soldats enrepli. Ave Maria. Societe Chorale Estudiantine de Lund, Neeme Järvi. BIS-CD 269, distribution Harmonia Mundi (CD: 161 F), 1984/85.TT: 1h 03'46"

Autonomous Evolution of Complete Piano Pieces and Performances

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dahlstedt, Palle

2007-01-01

Evolutionary algorithms are used to evolve musical score material and corresponding performance data, in an autonomous process. In this way complete piano compositions are created and subsequently performed on a computer-controlled grand piano. The efficiency of the creative evolution depends...... gestures. This is combined with a set of automated formalized selection criteria based on experiences from human selection processes in a previous, interactive version of the same system, leading to surprisingly musical output and convincing performances. The system is also capable of rudimentary learning...

Computer Pure-Tone and Operator Stress: Report III.

Science.gov (United States)

Dow, Caroline; Covert, Douglas C.

Pure-tone sound at 15,750 Herz generated by flyback transformers in many computer and video display terminal (VDT) monitors has stress-related productivity effects in some operators, especially women. College-age women in a controlled experiment simulating half a normal work day showed responses within the first half hour of exposure to a tone…

Left auditory cortex is involved in pairwise comparisons of the direction of frequency modulated tones

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Nicole eAngenstein

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Evaluating series of complex sounds like those in speech and music requires sequential comparisons to extract task-relevant relations between subsequent sounds. With the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI study, we investigated whether sequential comparison of a specific acoustic feature within pairs of tones leads to a change in lateralized processing in the auditory cortex of humans. For this we used the active categorization of the direction (up versus down of slow frequency modulated (FM tones. Several studies suggest that this task is mainly processed in the right auditory cortex. These studies, however, tested only the categorization of the FM direction of each individual tone. In the present study we ask the question whether the right lateralized processing changes when, in addition, the FM direction is compared within pairs of successive tones. For this we use an experimental approach involving contralateral noise presentation in order to explore the contributions made by the left and right auditory cortex in the completion of the auditory task. This method has already been applied to confirm the right-lateralized processing of the FM direction of individual tones. In the present study, the subjects were required to perform, in addition, a sequential comparison of the FM-direction in pairs of tones. The results suggest a division of labor between the two hemispheres such that the FM direction of each individual tone is mainly processed in the right auditory cortex whereas the sequential comparison of this feature between tones in a pair is probably performed in the left auditory cortex.

PIC Detector for Piano Chords

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Barbancho AnaM

2010-01-01

Full Text Available In this paper, a piano chords detector based on parallel interference cancellation (PIC is presented. The proposed system makes use of the novel idea of modeling a segment of music as a third generation mobile communications signal, specifically, as a CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access signal. The proposed model considers each piano note as a CDMA user in which the spreading code is replaced by a representative note pattern. The lack of orthogonality between the note patterns will make necessary to design a specific thresholding matrix to decide whether the PIC outputs correspond to the actual notes composing the chord or not. An additional stage that performs an octave test and a fifth test has been included that improves the error rate in the detection of these intervals that are specially difficult to detect. The proposed system attains very good results in both the detection of the notes that compose a chord and the estimation of the polyphony number.

Sound of a cup with and without instant coffee

Science.gov (United States)

Morrison, Andrew; Rossing, Thomas D.

2002-05-01

An empty coffee cup, like an ancient Chinese two-tone bell, emits two distinctly different tones, depending upon where it is tapped. When it is filled with hot water, and some instant coffee is added, however, a whole new set of sounds is heard when the cup is tapped. The pitch rises an octave or more as the foam clears due to the dramatic change in the speed of sound in the bubble-filled liquid. A similar, but smaller, effect was noted in beer by Bragg [The World of Sound (1968)] and in hot chocolate by Crawford [Am. J. Phys. (1982)]. We describe the modes of vibration in a coffee cup and the sound emitted by a coffee cup as filled with instant coffee as the bubble density changes.

Relating Pitch Awareness to Phonemic Awareness in Children: Implications for Tone-Deafness and Dyslexia

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Psyche eLoui

2011-05-01

Full Text Available Language and music are complex cognitive and neural functions that rely on awareness of one’s own sound productions. Information on the awareness of vocal pitch, and its relation to phonemic awareness which is crucial for learning to read, will be important for understanding the relationship between tone-deafness and developmental language disorders such as dyslexia. Here we show that phonemic awareness skills are positively correlated with pitch perception-production skills in children. Children between the ages of 7 and 9 were tested on pitch perception and production, phonemic awareness, and IQ. Results showed a significant positive correlation between pitch perception-production and phonemic awareness, suggesting that the relationship between musical and linguistic sound processing is intimately linked to awareness at the level of pitch and phonemes. Since tone-deafness is a pitch-related impairment and dyslexia is a deficit of phonemic awareness, we suggest that dyslexia and tone-deafness may have a shared and/or common neural basis.

Perceptions of Challenge: The Role of Catastrophe Theory in Piano Learning

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Bugos, Jennifer; Lee, William

2015-01-01

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the perceptions of private piano instructors on the role of challenge in teaching and learning the piano and to examine the potential application of catastrophe theory in understanding the role and outcomes of such challenges. A 23-item electronic questionnaire was administered to collect quantitative and…

Spectral composition of concurrent noise affects neuronal sensitivity to interaural time differences of tones in the dorsal nucleus of the lateral lemniscus.

Science.gov (United States)

Siveke, Ida; Leibold, Christian; Grothe, Benedikt

2007-11-01

We are regularly exposed to several concurrent sounds, producing a mixture of binaural cues. The neuronal mechanisms underlying the localization of concurrent sounds are not well understood. The major binaural cues for localizing low-frequency sounds in the horizontal plane are interaural time differences (ITDs). Auditory brain stem neurons encode ITDs by firing maximally in response to "favorable" ITDs and weakly or not at all in response to "unfavorable" ITDs. We recorded from ITD-sensitive neurons in the dorsal nucleus of the lateral lemniscus (DNLL) while presenting pure tones at different ITDs embedded in noise. We found that increasing levels of concurrent white noise suppressed the maximal response rate to tones with favorable ITDs and slightly enhanced the response rate to tones with unfavorable ITDs. Nevertheless, most of the neurons maintained ITD sensitivity to tones even for noise intensities equal to that of the tone. Using concurrent noise with a spectral composition in which the neuron's excitatory frequencies are omitted reduced the maximal response similar to that obtained with concurrent white noise. This finding indicates that the decrease of the maximal rate is mediated by suppressive cross-frequency interactions, which we also observed during monaural stimulation with additional white noise. In contrast, the enhancement of the firing rate to tones at unfavorable ITD might be due to early binaural interactions (e.g., at the level of the superior olive). A simple simulation corroborates this interpretation. Taken together, these findings suggest that the spectral composition of a concurrent sound strongly influences the spatial processing of ITD-sensitive DNLL neurons.

The bias of "music-infected consciousness": the aesthetics of listening in the laboratory and on the city streets of Fin-de-Siècle Berlin and Vienna.

Science.gov (United States)

Hui, Alexandra E

2012-01-01

Shifts in the psychophysical study of sound sensation reinforced the changing status of musical expertise in the nineteenth century. The Carl Stumpf-Wilhelm Wundt debate about tone-differentiation experimentation narrowed the conception of hearing. For Stumpf, "music consciousness" (Musikbewusstsein) granted the experimental subjects exceptional insight into sound sensation. This belief reflected a cultural reevaluation of listening, exemplified in music critic Eduard Hanslick decrying the scourge of the city: the piano playing of the neighbors. Stumpf and Hanslick's defenses of subjective musical expertise both inside the laboratory and on the city streets reveal the increasingly divergent conceptions of hearing and listening. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Chopin: Concerto for piano and orchestra No. 2 in F minor / Christopher Headington

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Headington, Christopher

1992-01-01

Uuest heliplaadist "Chopin: Concerto for piano and orchestra No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21; Schumann: Concerto for piano and orchestra in A minor Op. 54. Philharmonia Orchestra, Neeme Järvi". Chandos CHAN9061 (62 minutes:DDD)

Political Tunings of the Piano

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Højlund, Marie Koldkjær; Riis, Morten S.

According to Timothy Morton the creation of ambient art posses an inherent critical potential similar to the ambiguity of the dialectical image found in the writings of Walter Benjamin. Subscribing to an object-oriented ontological understanding of how objects are riven between essence and appear......) as unfolding the ambiguity of various political tunings of the piano....

Detecting the temporal structure of sound sequences in newborn infants

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Háden, G.P.; Honing, H.; Török, M.; Winkler, I.

2015-01-01

Most high-level auditory functions require one to detect the onset and offset of sound sequences as well as registering the rate at which sounds are presented within the sound trains. By recording event-related brain potentials to onsets and offsets of tone trains as well as to changes in the

Prokofiev: Piano Concertos - N1 in Dflat major, Op. 10 / David J. Fanning

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Fanning, David J.

1990-01-01

Uuest heliplaadist "Prokofiev: Piano Concertos - N1 in Dflat major, Op. 10, N4 in Bflat major, Op.53 "for the left hand", N5 in Gmajor, Op.55. Boris Berman (piano) Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Neeme Järvi". Chandos ABTD 1424. CHAN 8791

Two Shared Rapid Turn Taking Sound Interfaces for Novices

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Anne-Marie; Andersen, Hans Jørgen; Raudaskoski, Pirkko Liisa

2012-01-01

in an interleaved fashion: Systems A and B used a fuzzy logic algorithm and pattern recognition to respond with modifications of a background rhythms. In an experiment with a pen tablet interface as the music instrument, users aged 10-13 were to tap tones and continue each other’s melody. The sound systems rewarded......This paper presents the results of user interaction with two explorative music environments (sound system A and B) that were inspired from the Banda Linda music tradition in two different ways. The sound systems adapted to how a team of two players improvised and made a melody together...... users sonically, if they managed to add tones to their mutual melody in a rapid turn taking manner with rhythmical patterns. Videos of experiment sessions show that user teams contributed to a melody in ways that resemble conversation. Interaction data show that each sound system made player teams play...

PREFACE: Aerodynamic sound Aerodynamic sound

Science.gov (United States)

Akishita, Sadao

2010-02-01

The modern theory of aerodynamic sound originates from Lighthill's two papers in 1952 and 1954, as is well known. I have heard that Lighthill was motivated in writing the papers by the jet-noise emitted by the newly commercialized jet-engined airplanes at that time. The technology of aerodynamic sound is destined for environmental problems. Therefore the theory should always be applied to newly emerged public nuisances. This issue of Fluid Dynamics Research (FDR) reflects problems of environmental sound in present Japanese technology. The Japanese community studying aerodynamic sound has held an annual symposium since 29 years ago when the late Professor S Kotake and Professor S Kaji of Teikyo University organized the symposium. Most of the Japanese authors in this issue are members of the annual symposium. I should note the contribution of the two professors cited above in establishing the Japanese community of aerodynamic sound research. It is my pleasure to present the publication in this issue of ten papers discussed at the annual symposium. I would like to express many thanks to the Editorial Board of FDR for giving us the chance to contribute these papers. We have a review paper by T Suzuki on the study of jet noise, which continues to be important nowadays, and is expected to reform the theoretical model of generating mechanisms. Professor M S Howe and R S McGowan contribute an analytical paper, a valuable study in today's fluid dynamics research. They apply hydrodynamics to solve the compressible flow generated in the vocal cords of the human body. Experimental study continues to be the main methodology in aerodynamic sound, and it is expected to explore new horizons. H Fujita's study on the Aeolian tone provides a new viewpoint on major, longstanding sound problems. The paper by M Nishimura and T Goto on textile fabrics describes new technology for the effective reduction of bluff-body noise. The paper by T Sueki et al also reports new technology for the

Ensemble statistics of active and reactive sound intensity in reverberation rooms

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jacobsen, Finn; Molares, Alfonso Rodrıguez

2011-01-01

This paper examines fundamental statistical properties of the active and reactive sound intensity in reverberant enclosures driven with pure tones. The existing theory for sound intensity in a diffuse sound field, which is based on Waterhouse’s random wave model and therefore limited to the region...

Auditory evoked potentials to abrupt pitch and timbre change of complex tones: electrophysiological evidence of 'streaming'?

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, S J; Longe, O; Vaz Pato, M

1998-03-01

Examination of the cortical auditory evoked potentials to complex tones changing in pitch and timbre suggests a useful new method for investigating higher auditory processes, in particular those concerned with 'streaming' and auditory object formation. The main conclusions were: (i) the N1 evoked by a sudden change in pitch or timbre was more posteriorly distributed than the N1 at the onset of the tone, indicating at least partial segregation of the neuronal populations responsive to sound onset and spectral change; (ii) the T-complex was consistently larger over the right hemisphere, consistent with clinical and PET evidence for particular involvement of the right temporal lobe in the processing of timbral and musical material; (iii) responses to timbral change were relatively unaffected by increasing the rate of interspersed changes in pitch, suggesting a mechanism for detecting the onset of a new voice in a constantly modulated sound stream; (iv) responses to onset, offset and pitch change of complex tones were relatively unaffected by interfering tones when the latter were of a different timbre, suggesting these responses must be generated subsequent to auditory stream segregation.

Reconstruction of piano hammer force from string velocity.

Science.gov (United States)

Chaigne, Antoine

2016-11-01

A method is presented for reconstructing piano hammer forces through appropriate filtering of the measured string velocity. The filter design is based on the analysis of the pulses generated by the hammer blow and propagating along the string. In the five lowest octaves, the hammer force is reconstructed by considering two waves only: the incoming wave from the hammer and its first reflection at the front end. For the higher notes, four- or eight-wave schemes must be considered. The theory is validated on simulated string velocities by comparing imposed and reconstructed forces. The simulations are based on a nonlinear damped stiff string model previously developed by Chabassier, Chaigne, and Joly [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 134(1), 648-665 (2013)]. The influence of absorption, dispersion, and amplitude of the string waves on the quality of the reconstruction is discussed. Finally, the method is applied to real piano strings. The measured string velocity is compared to the simulated velocity excited by the reconstructed force, showing a high degree of accuracy. A number of simulations are compared to simulated strings excited by a force derived from measurements of mass and acceleration of the hammer head. One application to an historic piano is also presented.

Piano training in youths with hand motor impairments after damage to the developing brain

Science.gov (United States)

Lampe, Renée; Thienel, Anna; Mitternacht, Jürgen; Blumenstein, Tobias; Turova, Varvara; Alves-Pinto, Ana

2015-01-01

Damage to the developing brain may lead to impairment of the hand motor function and negatively impact on patients’ quality of life. Development of manual dexterity and finger and hand motor function may be promoted by learning to play the piano. The latter brings together music with the intensive training of hand coordination and fine finger mobility. We investigated if learning to play the piano helped to improve hand motor skills in 18 youths with hand motor disorders resulting from damage during early brain development. Participants trained 35–40 minutes twice a week for 18 months with a professional piano teacher. With the use of a Musical Instrument Digital Interface piano, the uniformity of finger strokes could be objectively assessed from the timing of keystrokes. The analysis showed a significant improvement in the uniformity of keystrokes during the training. Furthermore, the youths showed strong motivation and engagement during the study. This is nevertheless an open study, and further studies remain needed to exclude effects of growth and concomitant therapies on the improvements observed and clarify which patients will more likely benefit from learning to play the piano. PMID:26345312

THE PROBLEMS OF HISTORICAL PERIODIZATION OF THE PIANO MUSIC FROM THE REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

HATIPOVA INNA

2015-06-01

Full Text Available In the present article the author analyzes the problems of historical periodization of the autochthonous works for piano from a modern perspective in order to appreciate the artistic value of the works for piano created by the composers of the Republic of Moldova and to determine the contribution of the authors to the historical development of pianistic art. The objective lawfulness of the historical development of the autochthonous composers’ works for piano and the main trends in the formation of these works are in the spotlight.

Cortical Motor Circuits after Piano Training in Adulthood: Neurophysiologic Evidence.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elise Houdayer

Full Text Available The neuronal mechanisms involved in brain plasticity after skilled motor learning are not completely understood. We aimed to study the short-term effects of keyboard training in music-naive subjects on the motor/premotor cortex activity and interhemispheric interactions, using electroencephalography and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS. Twelve subjects (experimental group underwent, before and after a two week-piano training: (1 hand-motor function tests: Jamar, grip and nine-hole peg tests; (2 electroencephalography, evaluating the mu rhythm task-related desynchronization (TRD during keyboard performance; and (3 TMS, targeting bilateral abductor pollicis brevis (APB and abductor digiti minimi (ADM, to obtain duration and area of ipsilateral silent period (ISP during simultaneous tonic contraction of APB and ADM. Data were compared with 13 controls who underwent twice these measurements, in a two-week interval, without undergoing piano training. Every subject in the experimental group improved keyboard performance and left-hand nine-hole peg test scores. Pre-training, ISP durations were asymmetrical, left being longer than right. Post-training, right ISPAPB increased, leading to symmetrical ISPAPB. Mu TRD during motor performance became more focal and had a lesser amplitude than in pre-training, due to decreased activity over ventral premotor cortices. No such changes were evidenced in controls. We demonstrated that a 10-day piano-training was associated with balanced interhemispheric interactions both at rest and during motor activation. Piano training, in a short timeframe, may reshape local and inter-hemispheric motor cortical circuits.

Sound frequency and aural selectivity in sound-contingent visual motion aftereffect.

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Maori Kobayashi

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: One possible strategy to evaluate whether signals in different modalities originate from a common external event or object is to form associations between inputs from different senses. This strategy would be quite effective because signals in different modalities from a common external event would then be aligned spatially and temporally. Indeed, it has been demonstrated that after adaptation to visual apparent motion paired with alternating auditory tones, the tones begin to trigger illusory motion perception to a static visual stimulus, where the perceived direction of visual lateral motion depends on the order in which the tones are replayed. The mechanisms underlying this phenomenon remain unclear. One important approach to understanding the mechanisms is to examine whether the effect has some selectivity in auditory processing. However, it has not yet been determined whether this aftereffect can be transferred across sound frequencies and between ears. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Two circles placed side by side were presented in alternation, producing apparent motion perception, and each onset was accompanied by a tone burst of a specific and unique frequency. After exposure to this visual apparent motion with tones for a few minutes, the tones became drivers for illusory motion perception. However, the aftereffect was observed only when the adapter and test tones were presented at the same frequency and to the same ear. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These findings suggest that the auditory processing underlying the establishment of novel audiovisual associations is selective, potentially but not necessarily indicating that this processing occurs at an early stage.

An Investigation of Music Teacher Candidates' Performance Anxiety Levels in Piano Examinations

Science.gov (United States)

Kiliç, Deniz Beste Çevik

2018-01-01

Examination anxiety in piano education, one of the important courses in music education, can negatively affect both success in examinations and the education of students. This study aimed to determine the anxiety levels of students in the music education departments of universities in western Turkey regarding their piano examinations and their…

J.F. Schouten revisited : pitch of complex tones having many high-order harmonics

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Smurzynski, J.; Houtsma, A.J.M.

1988-01-01

Four experiments are reported which deal with pitch perception of harmonic complex tones containing many high-order, aurally unresolvable partials. Melodic-interval identilication performance ill the case of sounds with increasing harmonic order remains significantly above chalice level, even if the

Binaural hearing in children using Gaussian enveloped and transposed tones.

Science.gov (United States)

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

2016-04-01

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

Measurement and reproduction accuracy of computer-controlled grand pianos

Science.gov (United States)

Goebl, Werner; Bresin, Roberto

2003-10-01

The recording and reproducing capabilities of a Yamaha Disklavier grand piano and a Bösendorfer SE290 computer-controlled grand piano were tested, with the goal of examining their reliability for performance research. An experimental setup consisting of accelerometers and a calibrated microphone was used to capture key and hammer movements, as well as the acoustic signal. Five selected keys were played by pianists with two types of touch (``staccato'' and ``legato''). Timing and dynamic differences between the original performance, the corresponding MIDI file recorded by the computer-controlled pianos, and its reproduction were analyzed. The two devices performed quite differently with respect to timing and dynamic accuracy. The Disklavier's onset capturing was slightly more precise (+/-10 ms) than its reproduction (-20 to +30 ms); the Bösendorfer performed generally better, but its timing accuracy was slightly less precise for recording (-10 to 3 ms) than for reproduction (+/-2 ms). Both devices exhibited a systematic (linear) error in recording over time. In the dynamic dimension, the Bösendorfer showed higher consistency over the whole dynamic range, while the Disklavier performed well only in a wide middle range. Neither device was able to capture or reproduce different types of touch.

Neuronal Correlates of Auditory Streaming in Monkey Auditory Cortex for Tone Sequences without Spectral Differences

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Stanislava Knyazeva

2018-01-01

Full Text Available This study finds a neuronal correlate of auditory perceptual streaming in the primary auditory cortex for sequences of tone complexes that have the same amplitude spectrum but a different phase spectrum. Our finding is based on microelectrode recordings of multiunit activity from 270 cortical sites in three awake macaque monkeys. The monkeys were presented with repeated sequences of a tone triplet that consisted of an A tone, a B tone, another A tone and then a pause. The A and B tones were composed of unresolved harmonics formed by adding the harmonics in cosine phase, in alternating phase, or in random phase. A previous psychophysical study on humans revealed that when the A and B tones are similar, humans integrate them into a single auditory stream; when the A and B tones are dissimilar, humans segregate them into separate auditory streams. We found that the similarity of neuronal rate responses to the triplets was highest when all A and B tones had cosine phase. Similarity was intermediate when the A tones had cosine phase and the B tones had alternating phase. Similarity was lowest when the A tones had cosine phase and the B tones had random phase. The present study corroborates and extends previous reports, showing similar correspondences between neuronal activity in the primary auditory cortex and auditory streaming of sound sequences. It also is consistent with Fishman’s population separation model of auditory streaming.

Neuronal Correlates of Auditory Streaming in Monkey Auditory Cortex for Tone Sequences without Spectral Differences.

Science.gov (United States)

Knyazeva, Stanislava; Selezneva, Elena; Gorkin, Alexander; Aggelopoulos, Nikolaos C; Brosch, Michael

2018-01-01

This study finds a neuronal correlate of auditory perceptual streaming in the primary auditory cortex for sequences of tone complexes that have the same amplitude spectrum but a different phase spectrum. Our finding is based on microelectrode recordings of multiunit activity from 270 cortical sites in three awake macaque monkeys. The monkeys were presented with repeated sequences of a tone triplet that consisted of an A tone, a B tone, another A tone and then a pause. The A and B tones were composed of unresolved harmonics formed by adding the harmonics in cosine phase, in alternating phase, or in random phase. A previous psychophysical study on humans revealed that when the A and B tones are similar, humans integrate them into a single auditory stream; when the A and B tones are dissimilar, humans segregate them into separate auditory streams. We found that the similarity of neuronal rate responses to the triplets was highest when all A and B tones had cosine phase. Similarity was intermediate when the A tones had cosine phase and the B tones had alternating phase. Similarity was lowest when the A tones had cosine phase and the B tones had random phase. The present study corroborates and extends previous reports, showing similar correspondences between neuronal activity in the primary auditory cortex and auditory streaming of sound sequences. It also is consistent with Fishman's population separation model of auditory streaming.

Tipos de memoria, aptitudes y estrategias en el proceso de memorización de estudiantes de piano

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Marta Cuartero

2010-12-01

Full Text Available This research analyzes different memory types -muscular, visual, auditive..- and the strategies followed by a group of 10 piano students from the first year of “Conservatorio Profesional” (5th year of studies when memorizing an unfamiliar score depending on three conditions: in the first one the students may use the piano (physical practice; in the second one they may not use the piano (mental practice with listening but have an audio recording of the score, and in the third one, they have no piano and no recording (mental practice without listening. The memorization phase (30’, the performance by heart of the score (1’-2’ and a short interview of the student are video-recorded to evaluate the performance and the memorizing processes. The outcome of the performance is analyzed as a function of the students preexisting skills (piano and musical language, of the behavior and attitude variables and of the memorization phase processes. The results show that the performance quality depends significantly on the access to the piano during the memorization (p<0.01 and, to a lesser extent, to the audio recording. This shows the importance of muscular and also auditory memory, corroborating the results in the literature. The preexisting skills of the participants, in particular note-reading skills (p<0.01 and piano technique (p<0.05 influence the performance quality, while the different memorizing strategies used have no significant correlation with the performance or the skills, contrarily to our expectations. Keywords: music memory types, music memory strategies, musical performance, piano.

Two Tones

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Palludan, Charlotte

2007-01-01

This article examines how kindergarten-children are differentiated and segregated through vocal practices and processes. The analysis is based on empirical data, which originate from a long ethnographic fieldwork in Denmark. The author presents two different language tones: "a teaching tone...... and an exchange tone" and shows a pattern in the ways the two tones are performed. While the teaching tone is heard in the interaction between the staff and the ethnic minority children, the ethnic majority children (the Danes) are addressed in the exchange tone. Pierre Bourdieu's concepts: "linguistic market......", "habitual inclinations" and "feeling for the game" are used as theoretical framework. When the author interprets and explains the language pattern as unequal distribution of recognition and as continuation of reproduction of a socio-cultural hierarchy among the children she relates to this framework...

Fuselage boundary-layer refraction of fan tones radiated from an installed turbofan aero-engine.

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Gaffney, James; McAlpine, Alan; Kingan, Michael J

2017-03-01

A distributed source model to predict fan tone noise levels of an installed turbofan aero-engine is extended to include the refraction effects caused by the fuselage boundary layer. The model is a simple representation of an installed turbofan, where fan tones are represented in terms of spinning modes radiated from a semi-infinite circular duct, and the aircraft's fuselage is represented by an infinitely long, rigid cylinder. The distributed source is a disk, formed by integrating infinitesimal volume sources located on the intake duct termination. The cylinder is located adjacent to the disk. There is uniform axial flow, aligned with the axis of the cylinder, everywhere except close to the cylinder where there is a constant thickness boundary layer. The aim is to predict the near-field acoustic pressure, and in particular, to predict the pressure on the cylindrical fuselage which is relevant to assess cabin noise. Thus no far-field approximations are included in the modelling. The effect of the boundary layer is quantified by calculating the area-averaged mean square pressure over the cylinder's surface with and without the boundary layer included in the prediction model. The sound propagation through the boundary layer is calculated by solving the Pridmore-Brown equation. Results from the theoretical method show that the boundary layer has a significant effect on the predicted sound pressure levels on the cylindrical fuselage, owing to sound radiation of fan tones from an installed turbofan aero-engine.

Piano Performance and Organized Study Through the Use of Rodízio: A Work System Based on the Distribution and Variability of Practice

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Maria Bernardete Castelan Póvoas

2017-04-01

Full Text Available This paper addresses the design and initial evaluation of a study system for piano practice called Rodízio, a system of rotation. It is based on topics relevant to the organization of practice such as performance practice, music psychology and motor skills, among others. It is an exploratory study based on statements made by students and former students through a brief questionnaire about the use of the system. The system guides the study of a piece in a way that varies the material interspersed by rest intervals between practice sessions. The piece is previously analyzed and segmented into work units (UTrs-unidades de trabalho according to the technical-musical material and then organized into a training worksheet (PTr-planilha de treinamento. The Rodízio aims to optimize and increase the efficiency of technical-musical training by means of distributing and varying practice, including study strategies, control of technique and sound. The study shows that using the Rodízio system has positively contributed to performance in various phases of piano training.

Piano - puust paviljon puupealinnas Lahtis / Agneta Land

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Land, Agneta

2008-01-01

Rahvusvahelisest preemiast Spirit of Nature, mis antakse üle Lahtis Sibeliustalos. Rootsi arhitekti Gert Wingõrdh'i projekteeritud Piano paviljonist Lahtis. Terrassmööbli valmistas puusepp Kari Virtanen, kohviku interjööri toolid ja lauad disainis Tapio Anttila. 7 fotot välis- ja sisevaadetega

The differences in brain activity between narrow band noise and pure tone tinnitus.

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Sven Vanneste

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Tinnitus is an auditory sensation characterized by the perception of sound or noise in the absence of any external sound source. Based on neurobiological research, it is generally accepted that most forms of tinnitus are attributable to maladaptive plasticity due to damage to auditory system. Changes have been observed in auditory structures such as the inferior colliculus, the thalamus and the auditory cortex as well as in non-auditory brain areas. However, the observed changes show great variability, hence lacking a conclusive picture. One of the reasons might be the selection of inhomogeneous groups in data analysis. METHODOLOGY: The aim of the present study was to delineate the differences between the neural networks involved in narrow band noise and pure tone tinnitus conducting LORETA based source analysis of resting state EEG. CONCLUSIONS: Results demonstrated that narrow band noise tinnitus patients differ from pure tone tinnitus patients in the lateral frontopolar (BA 10, PCC and the parahippocampal area for delta, beta and gamma frequency bands, respectively. The parahippocampal-PCC current density differences might be load dependent, as noise-like tinnitus constitutes multiple frequencies in contrast to pure tone tinnitus. The lateral frontopolar differences might be related to pitch specific memory retrieval.

Current Piano Education of Turkish Music Teacher Candidates: Comparisons of Instructors and Students Perceptions

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Jelen, Birsen

2015-01-01

In recent years almost every newly opened government funded university in Turkey has established a music department where future music teachers are educated and piano is compulsory for every single music teacher candidate in Turkey. The aim of this research is to compare piano teaching instructors' and their students' perceptions about the current…

[The role of temporal fine structure in tone recognition and music perception].

Science.gov (United States)

Zhou, Q; Gu, X; Liu, B

2017-11-07

The sound signal can be decomposed into temporal envelope and temporal fine structure information. The temporal envelope information is crucial for speech perception in quiet environment, and the temporal fine structure information plays an important role in speech perception in noise, Mandarin tone recognition and music perception, especially the pitch and melody perception.

Player Collaboration in the Explorative Sound Environment ToneInk

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Anne-Marie S.; Andersen, Hans Jørgen; Raudaskoski, Pirkko Liisa

2016-01-01

mutual awareness, and in general were more passive when they needed to monitor a screen interface that supported the sound environment. Player collaboration was strongest when players negotiated rhythm, while the negotiation of melody was temporally offset and consisted of long individual explorations....

The Theory of Adaptive Dispersion and Acoustic-phonetic Properties of Cross-language Lexical-tone Systems

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Alexander, Jennifer Alexandra

Lexical-tone languages use fundamental frequency (F0/pitch) to convey word meaning. About 41.8% of the world's languages use lexical tone (Maddieson, 2008), yet those systems are under-studied. I aim to increase our understanding of speech-sound inventory organization by extending to tone-systems a model of vowel-system organization, the Theory of Adaptive Dispersion (TAD) (Liljencrants and Lindblom, 1972). This is a cross-language investigation of whether and how the size of a tonal inventory affects (A) acoustic tone-space size and (B) dispersion of tone categories within the tone-space. I compared five languages with very different tone inventories: Cantonese (3 contour, 3 level tones); Mandarin (3 contour, 1 level tone); Thai (2 contour, 3 level tones); Yoruba (3 level tones only); and Igbo (2 level tones only). Six native speakers (3 female) of each language produced 18 CV syllables in isolation, with each of his/her language's tones, six times. I measured tonal F0 across the vowel at onset, midpoint, and offglide. Tone-space size was the F0 difference in semitones (ST) between each language's highest and lowest tones. Tone dispersion was the F0 distance (ST) between two tones shared by multiple languages. Following the TAD, I predicted that languages with larger tone inventories would have larger tone-spaces. Against expectations, tone-space size was fixed across level-tone languages at midpoint and offglide, and across contour-tone languages (except Thai) at offglide. However, within each language type (level-tone vs. contour-tone), languages with smaller tone inventories had larger tone spaces at onset. Tone-dispersion results were also unexpected. The Cantonese mid-level tone was further dispersed from a tonal baseline than the Yoruba mid-level tone; Cantonese mid-level tone dispersion was therefore greater than theoretically necessary. The Cantonese high-level tone was also further dispersed from baseline than the Mandarin high-level tone -- at midpoint

Amplitude modulation reduces loudness adaptation to high-frequency tones.

Science.gov (United States)

Wynne, Dwight P; George, Sahara E; Zeng, Fan-Gang

2015-07-01

Long-term loudness perception of a sound has been presumed to depend on the spatial distribution of activated auditory nerve fibers as well as their temporal firing pattern. The relative contributions of those two factors were investigated by measuring loudness adaptation to sinusoidally amplitude-modulated 12-kHz tones. The tones had a total duration of 180 s and were either unmodulated or 100%-modulated at one of three frequencies (4, 20, or 100 Hz), and additionally varied in modulation depth from 0% to 100% at the 4-Hz frequency only. Every 30 s, normal-hearing subjects estimated the loudness of one of the stimuli played at 15 dB above threshold in random order. Without any amplitude modulation, the loudness of the unmodulated tone after 180 s was only 20% of the loudness at the onset of the stimulus. Amplitude modulation systematically reduced the amount of loudness adaptation, with the 100%-modulated stimuli, regardless of modulation frequency, maintaining on average 55%-80% of the loudness at onset after 180 s. Because the present low-frequency amplitude modulation produced minimal changes in long-term spectral cues affecting the spatial distribution of excitation produced by a 12-kHz pure tone, the present result indicates that neural synchronization is critical to maintaining loudness perception over time.

Effects of Excerpt Tempo and Duration on Musicians' Ratings of High-Level Piano Performances

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Wapnick, Joel; Ryan, Charlene; Campbell, Louise; Deek, Patricia; Lemire, Renata; Darrow, Alice-Ann

2005-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine how judgments of solo performances recorded at an international piano competition might be affected by excerpt duration (20 versus 60 seconds) and tempo (slow versus fast). Musicians rated performances on six test items. Results indicated that piano majors rated slow excerpts higher than they rated fast…

Liszt. Concertos for Piano and Orchestra / Bryce Morrison

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Morrison, Bryce

1995-01-01

Uuest heliplaadist "Liszt. Concertos for Piano and Orchestra - Nr. 1 in E flat, S124, Nr. 2 in a, S125. Mazeppa S100. Les Preludes, S97. Suisse Romande Orchestra, Neeme Järvi." Chandos CD CHAN 9360 (72 minutes)

Active control of aircraft engine inlet noise using compact sound sources and distributed error sensors

Science.gov (United States)

Burdisso, Ricardo (Inventor); Fuller, Chris R. (Inventor); O'Brien, Walter F. (Inventor); Thomas, Russell H. (Inventor); Dungan, Mary E. (Inventor)

1996-01-01

An active noise control system using a compact sound source is effective to reduce aircraft engine duct noise. The fan noise from a turbofan engine is controlled using an adaptive filtered-x LMS algorithm. Single multi channel control systems are used to control the fan blade passage frequency (BPF) tone and the BPF tone and the first harmonic of the BPF tone for a plane wave excitation. A multi channel control system is used to control any spinning mode. The multi channel control system to control both fan tones and a high pressure compressor BPF tone simultaneously. In order to make active control of turbofan inlet noise a viable technology, a compact sound source is employed to generate the control field. This control field sound source consists of an array of identical thin, cylindrically curved panels with an inner radius of curvature corresponding to that of the engine inlet. These panels are flush mounted inside the inlet duct and sealed on all edges to prevent leakage around the panel and to minimize the aerodynamic losses created by the addition of the panels. Each panel is driven by one or more piezoelectric force transducers mounted on the surface of the panel. The response of the panel to excitation is maximized when it is driven at its resonance; therefore, the panel is designed such that its fundamental frequency is near the tone to be canceled, typically 2000-4000 Hz.

La construcción de pianos en Valencia hasta inicios del siglo XX

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Alemany Ferrer, Victoria

2007-12-01

Full Text Available At around 1830 the use of pianos in Valencia becomes widespread. One of the most significant events that marked the progressive and increasing normalization of its use in the city was precisely the appearance of indigenous workshops dedicated to the piano-makings. Those first craftsmen who, in some cases –like for example, Pedro Gómez–, knew the ins and outs of the construction of the novel pianistic mechanics out of the country, opened their workshops in the decade of 1830 putting with it on record that already at that time started a local demand of instruments that justified sufficiently its work. It has been obtained information of four factories that worked between 1830 and the beginning of the 20th century. This said documentation states that the Valencian instruments made during that period (1830–1915 as much obtained great success in the internal market as in the outsider, and obtained prestigious awards in exhibitions and national and foreign displays. Also has provided with the knowledge of the production and marketing systems of those workshops, and of the characteristics that had the Valencian pianos made at the diverse times; that information has helped to value the economic and social function that had the Valencian manufacture of pianos in the 19th century and has allowed its comparison with the developed one in other Spanish provinces during the same time.

Hacia 1830 comenzó a generalizarse el uso del piano en Valencia. Uno de los hechos más significativos que marcaron la progresiva y creciente normalización de su utilización en la ciudad fue precisamente la aparición de talleres autóctonos dedicados a la fabricación de pianos. Esos primeros artesanos que, en algunos casos –como por ejemplo, Pedro Gómez–, conocieron los entresijos de la construcción de la novedosa mecánica pianística fuera del país, abrieron sus talleres en la década de 1830 dejando constancia con ello de que ya se iniciaba por

Orofacial muscular activity and related skin movement during the preparatory and sustained phases of tone production on the French horn.

Science.gov (United States)

Hirano, Takeshi; Kudo, Kazutoshi; Ohtsuki, Tatsuyuki; Kinoshita, Hiroshi

2013-07-01

This study investigated activity of the embouchure-related orofacial muscles during pre- and postattack phases of sound production by 10 trained French-horn players. Surface electromyogram (EMG) from five selected facial muscles, and related facial skin kinematics were examined in relation to pitch and intensity of a tone produced. No difference in EMGs and facial kinematics between the two phases was found, indicating importance of appropriate formation of preattack embouchure. EMGs in all muscles during the postattack phase increased linearly with an increase in pitch, and they also increased with tone intensity without interacting with the pitch effect. Orofacial skin movement remained constant across all pitches and intensities except for lateral retraction of the lips during high-pitch tone production. Contraction of the orofacial muscles is fundamentally isometric by which tension on the lips and the cheeks is regulated for flexible sound parameter control.

Serial recall of rhythms and verbal sequences: Impacts of concurrent tasks and irrelevant sound.

Science.gov (United States)

Hall, Debbora; Gathercole, Susan E

2011-08-01

Rhythmic grouping enhances verbal serial recall, yet very little is known about memory for rhythmic patterns. The aim of this study was to compare the cognitive processes supporting memory for rhythmic and verbal sequences using a range of concurrent tasks and irrelevant sounds. In Experiment 1, both concurrent articulation and paced finger tapping during presentation and during a retention interval impaired rhythm recall, while letter recall was only impaired by concurrent articulation. In Experiments 2 and 3, irrelevant sound consisted of irrelevant speech or tones, changing-state or steady-state sound, and syncopated or paced sound during presentation and during a retention interval. Irrelevant speech was more damaging to rhythm and letter recall than was irrelevant tone sound, but there was no effect of changing state on rhythm recall, while letter recall accuracy was disrupted by changing-state sound. Pacing of sound did not consistently affect either rhythm or letter recall. There are similarities in the way speech and rhythms are processed that appear to extend beyond reliance on temporal coding mechanisms involved in serial-order recall.

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

Science.gov (United States)

Zheng, Yi; Samuel, Arthur G

2018-02-01

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

Constraints on Tone Sensitivity in Novel Word Learning by Monolingual and Bilingual Infants: Tone Properties Are More Influential than Tone Familiarity

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Burnham, Denis; Singh, Leher; Mattock, Karen; Woo, Pei J.; Kalashnikova, Marina

2018-01-01

This study compared tone sensitivity in monolingual and bilingual infants in a novel word learning task. Tone language learning infants (Experiment 1, Mandarin monolingual; Experiment 2, Mandarin-English bilingual) were tested with Mandarin (native) or Thai (non-native) lexical tone pairs which contrasted static vs. dynamic (high vs. rising) tones or dynamic vs. dynamic (rising vs. falling) tones. Non-tone language, English-learning infants (Experiment 3) were tested on English intonational contrasts or the Mandarin or Thai tone contrasts. Monolingual Mandarin language infants were able to bind tones to novel words for the Mandarin High-Rising contrast, but not for the Mandarin Rising-Falling contrast; and they were insensitive to both the High-Rising and the Rising-Falling tone contrasts in Thai. Bilingual English-Mandarin infants were similar to the Mandarin monolinguals in that they were sensitive to the Mandarin High-Rising contrast and not to the Mandarin Rising-Falling contrast. However, unlike the Mandarin monolinguals, they were also sensitive to the High Rising contrast in Thai. Monolingual English learning infants were insensitive to all three types of contrasts (Mandarin, Thai, English), although they did respond differentially to tone-bearing vs. intonation-marked words. Findings suggest that infants' sensitivity to tones in word learning contexts depends heavily on tone properties, and that this influence is, in some cases, stronger than effects of language familiarity. Moreover, bilingual infants demonstrated greater phonological flexibility in tone interpretation. PMID:29354077

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

Science.gov (United States)

Quam, Carolyn; Creel, Sarah C

2017-01-01

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

Neural Correlates of Indicators of Sound Change in Cantonese: Evidence from Cortical and Subcortical Processes.

Science.gov (United States)

Maggu, Akshay R; Liu, Fang; Antoniou, Mark; Wong, Patrick C M

2016-01-01

Across time, languages undergo changes in phonetic, syntactic, and semantic dimensions. Social, cognitive, and cultural factors contribute to sound change, a phenomenon in which the phonetics of a language undergo changes over time. Individuals who misperceive and produce speech in a slightly divergent manner (called innovators ) contribute to variability in the society, eventually leading to sound change. However, the cause of variability in these individuals is still unknown. In this study, we examined whether such misperceptions are represented in neural processes of the auditory system. We investigated behavioral, subcortical (via FFR), and cortical (via P300) manifestations of sound change processing in Cantonese, a Chinese language in which several lexical tones are merging. Across the merging categories, we observed a similar gradation of speech perception abilities in both behavior and the brain (subcortical and cortical processes). Further, we also found that behavioral evidence of tone merging correlated with subjects' encoding at the subcortical and cortical levels. These findings indicate that tone-merger categories, that are indicators of sound change in Cantonese, are represented neurophysiologically with high fidelity. Using our results, we speculate that innovators encode speech in a slightly deviant neurophysiological manner, and thus produce speech divergently that eventually spreads across the community and contributes to sound change.

New perspectives on mechanisms of sound generation in songbirds

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Goller, Franz; Larsen, Ole Næsbye

2002-01-01

-tone mechanism similar to human phonation with the labia forming a pneumatic valve. The classical avian model proposed that vibrations of the thin medial tympaniform membranes are the primary sound generating mechanism. As a direct test of these two hypotheses we ablated the medial tympaniform membranes in two......The physical mechanisms of sound generation in the vocal organ, the syrinx, of songbirds have been investigated mostly with indirect methods. Recent direct endoscopic observation identified vibrations of the labia as the principal sound source. This model suggests sound generation in a pulse...... atmosphere) as well as direct (labial vibration during tonal sound) measurements of syringeal vibrations support a vibration-based soundgenerating mechanism even for tonal sounds....

Algorithmic modeling of the irrelevant sound effect (ISE) by the hearing sensation fluctuation strength.

Science.gov (United States)

Schlittmeier, Sabine J; Weissgerber, Tobias; Kerber, Stefan; Fastl, Hugo; Hellbrück, Jürgen

2012-01-01

Background sounds, such as narration, music with prominent staccato passages, and office noise impair verbal short-term memory even when these sounds are irrelevant. This irrelevant sound effect (ISE) is evoked by so-called changing-state sounds that are characterized by a distinct temporal structure with varying successive auditory-perceptive tokens. However, because of the absence of an appropriate psychoacoustically based instrumental measure, the disturbing impact of a given speech or nonspeech sound could not be predicted until now, but necessitated behavioral testing. Our database for parametric modeling of the ISE included approximately 40 background sounds (e.g., speech, music, tone sequences, office noise, traffic noise) and corresponding performance data that was collected from 70 behavioral measurements of verbal short-term memory. The hearing sensation fluctuation strength was chosen to model the ISE and describes the percept of fluctuations when listening to slowly modulated sounds (f(mod) background sounds, the algorithm estimated behavioral performance data in 63 of 70 cases within the interquartile ranges. In particular, all real-world sounds were modeled adequately, whereas the algorithm overestimated the (non-)disturbance impact of synthetic steady-state sounds that were constituted by a repeated vowel or tone. Implications of the algorithm's strengths and prediction errors are discussed.

Taiwanese Composers and Piano Works in the XX Century: Traditional Chinese Culture and the Taiwan Xin Yinyue

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Luca Pisano

2005-01-01

Full Text Available The paper will try to prove how piano music can be considered a main tool for understanding the evolution of XX century Taiwanese New Music. Starting from the first generation of Taiwanese composers and on the basis of their piano works, the meaning of "xin yinyue" will be analysed; the paper will then try to identify the influences of both so-called "traditional culture" and western music in the development of the new music written by the subsequent generations of composers. The role of Xuanyin yaji (Atelier de creation musicale "Formusica" in the spreading of new piano works in the 90s will be also taken into consideration, as it allows us to draw out an outline of present-day piano music trends in Taiwan.

Rate effects on timing, key velocity, and finger kinematics in piano performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Bella, Simone Dalla; Palmer, Caroline

2011-01-01

We examined the effect of rate on finger kinematics in goal-directed actions of pianists. In addition, we evaluated whether movement kinematics can be treated as an indicator of personal identity. Pianists' finger movements were recorded with a motion capture system while they performed melodies from memory at different rates. Pianists' peak finger heights above the keys preceding keystrokes increased as tempo increased, and were attained about one tone before keypress. These rate effects were not simply due to a strategy to increase key velocity (associated with tone intensity) of the corresponding keystroke. Greater finger heights may compensate via greater tactile feedback for a speed-accuracy tradeoff that underlies the tendency toward larger temporal variability at faster tempi. This would allow pianists to maintain high temporal accuracy when playing at fast rates. In addition, finger velocity and accelerations as pianists' fingers approached keys were sufficiently unique to allow pianists' identification with a neural-network classifier. Classification success was higher in pianists with more extensive musical training. Pianists' movement "signatures" may reflect unique goal-directed movement kinematic patterns, leading to individualistic sound.

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

Science.gov (United States)

Quam, Carolyn; Creel, Sarah C.

2017-01-01

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

Predicting Expressive Dynamics in Piano Performances using Neural Networks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Herwaarden, Sam; Grachten, Maarten; de Haas, W. Bas

2014-01-01

This paper presents a model for predicting expressive accentuation in piano performances with neural networks. Using Restricted Boltzmann Machines (RBMs), features are learned from performance data, after which these features are used to predict performed loudness. During feature learning, data

Piano training in youths with hand motor impairments after damage to the developing brain

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lampe R

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Renée Lampe,1,* Anna Thienel,2 Jürgen Mitternacht,1 Tobias Blumenstein,1 Varvara Turova,1 Ana Alves-Pinto1,* 1Research Unit for Paediatric Neuroorthopaedics and Cerebral Palsy, Orthopaedics Department, Klinikum Rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, 2Department Sonderpädagogik, Ludwig Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany *These authors contributed equally to this work Abstract: Damage to the developing brain may lead to impairment of the hand motor function and negatively impact on patients’ quality of life. Development of manual dexterity and finger and hand motor function may be promoted by learning to play the piano. The latter brings together music with the intensive training of hand coordination and fine finger mobility. We investigated if learning to play the piano helped to improve hand motor skills in 18 youths with hand motor disorders resulting from damage during early brain development. Participants trained 35–40 minutes twice a week for 18 months with a professional piano teacher. With the use of a Musical Instrument Digital Interface piano, the uniformity of finger strokes could be objectively assessed from the timing of keystrokes. The analysis showed a significant improvement in the uniformity of keystrokes during the training. Furthermore, the youths showed strong motivation and engagement during the study. This is nevertheless an open study, and further studies remain needed to exclude effects of growth and concomitant therapies on the improvements observed and clarify which patients will more likely benefit from learning to play the piano. Keywords: manual skill, cerebral palsy, neurodevelopmental disorder, music, rehabilitation

Lack of spacing effects during piano learning.

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Melody Wiseheart

Full Text Available Spacing effects during retention of verbal information are easily obtained, and the effect size is large. Relatively little evidence exists on whether motor skill retention benefits from distributed practice, with even less evidence on complex motor skills. We taught a 17-note musical sequence on a piano to individuals without prior formal training. There were five lags between learning episodes: 0-, 1-, 5-, 10-, and 15-min. After a 5-min retention interval, participants' performance was measured using three criteria: accuracy of note playing, consistency in pressure applied to the keys, and consistency in timing. No spacing effect was found, suggesting that the effect may not always be demonstrable for complex motor skills or non-verbal abilities (timing and motor skills. Additionally, we taught short phrases from five songs, using the same set of lags and retention interval, and did not find any spacing effect for accuracy of song reproduction. Our findings indicate that although the spacing effect is one of the most robust phenomena in the memory literature (as demonstrated by verbal learning studies, the effect may vary when considered in the novel realm of complex motor skills such as piano performance.

Lack of spacing effects during piano learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Wiseheart, Melody; D'Souza, Annalise A; Chae, Jacey

2017-01-01

Spacing effects during retention of verbal information are easily obtained, and the effect size is large. Relatively little evidence exists on whether motor skill retention benefits from distributed practice, with even less evidence on complex motor skills. We taught a 17-note musical sequence on a piano to individuals without prior formal training. There were five lags between learning episodes: 0-, 1-, 5-, 10-, and 15-min. After a 5-min retention interval, participants' performance was measured using three criteria: accuracy of note playing, consistency in pressure applied to the keys, and consistency in timing. No spacing effect was found, suggesting that the effect may not always be demonstrable for complex motor skills or non-verbal abilities (timing and motor skills). Additionally, we taught short phrases from five songs, using the same set of lags and retention interval, and did not find any spacing effect for accuracy of song reproduction. Our findings indicate that although the spacing effect is one of the most robust phenomena in the memory literature (as demonstrated by verbal learning studies), the effect may vary when considered in the novel realm of complex motor skills such as piano performance.

Noise and noise disturbances from wind power plants - Tests with interactive control of sound parameters for more comfortable and less perceptible sounds

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Persson-Waye, K.; Oehrstroem, E.; Bjoerkman, M.; Agge, A.

2001-12-01

In experimental pilot studies, a methodology has been worked out for interactively varying sound parameters in wind power plants. In the tests, 24 persons varied the center frequency of different band-widths, the frequency of a sinus-tone and the amplitude-modulation of a sinus-tone in order to create as comfortable a sound as possible. The variations build on the noise from the two wind turbines Bonus and Wind World. The variations were performed with a constant dba level. The results showed that the majority preferred a low-frequency tone (94 Hz and 115 Hz for Wind World and Bonus, respectively). The mean of the most comfortable amplitude-modulation varied between 18 and 22 Hz, depending on the ground frequency. The mean of the center-frequency for the different band-widths varied from 785 to 1104 Hz. In order to study the influence of the wind velocity on the acoustic character of the noise, a long-time measurement program has been performed. A remotely controlled system has been developed, where wind velocity, wind direction, temperature and humidity are registered simultaneously with the noise. Long-time registrations have been performed for four different wing turbines

Absolute pitch: effects of timbre on note-naming ability.

Science.gov (United States)

Vanzella, Patrícia; Schellenberg, E Glenn

2010-11-11

Absolute pitch (AP) is the ability to identify or produce isolated musical tones. It is evident primarily among individuals who started music lessons in early childhood. Because AP requires memory for specific pitches as well as learned associations with verbal labels (i.e., note names), it represents a unique opportunity to study interactions in memory between linguistic and nonlinguistic information. One untested hypothesis is that the pitch of voices may be difficult for AP possessors to identify. A musician's first instrument may also affect performance and extend the sensitive period for acquiring accurate AP. A large sample of AP possessors was recruited on-line. Participants were required to identity test tones presented in four different timbres: piano, pure tone, natural (sung) voice, and synthesized voice. Note-naming accuracy was better for non-vocal (piano and pure tones) than for vocal (natural and synthesized voices) test tones. This difference could not be attributed solely to vibrato (pitch variation), which was more pronounced in the natural voice than in the synthesized voice. Although starting music lessons by age 7 was associated with enhanced note-naming accuracy, equivalent abilities were evident among listeners who started music lessons on piano at a later age. Because the human voice is inextricably linked to language and meaning, it may be processed automatically by voice-specific mechanisms that interfere with note naming among AP possessors. Lessons on piano or other fixed-pitch instruments appear to enhance AP abilities and to extend the sensitive period for exposure to music in order to develop accurate AP.

Absolute pitch: effects of timbre on note-naming ability.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Patrícia Vanzella

2010-11-01

Full Text Available Absolute pitch (AP is the ability to identify or produce isolated musical tones. It is evident primarily among individuals who started music lessons in early childhood. Because AP requires memory for specific pitches as well as learned associations with verbal labels (i.e., note names, it represents a unique opportunity to study interactions in memory between linguistic and nonlinguistic information. One untested hypothesis is that the pitch of voices may be difficult for AP possessors to identify. A musician's first instrument may also affect performance and extend the sensitive period for acquiring accurate AP.A large sample of AP possessors was recruited on-line. Participants were required to identity test tones presented in four different timbres: piano, pure tone, natural (sung voice, and synthesized voice. Note-naming accuracy was better for non-vocal (piano and pure tones than for vocal (natural and synthesized voices test tones. This difference could not be attributed solely to vibrato (pitch variation, which was more pronounced in the natural voice than in the synthesized voice. Although starting music lessons by age 7 was associated with enhanced note-naming accuracy, equivalent abilities were evident among listeners who started music lessons on piano at a later age.Because the human voice is inextricably linked to language and meaning, it may be processed automatically by voice-specific mechanisms that interfere with note naming among AP possessors. Lessons on piano or other fixed-pitch instruments appear to enhance AP abilities and to extend the sensitive period for exposure to music in order to develop accurate AP.

Leading edge effect in laminar boundary layer excitation by sound

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Leehey, P.; Shapiro, P.

1980-01-01

Essentially plane pure tone sound waves were directed downstream over a heavily damped smooth flat plate installed in a low turbulence (0.04%) subsonic wind tunnel. Laminar boundary layer disturbance growth rates were measured with and without sound excitation and compared with numerical results from spatial stability theory. The data indicate that the sound field and Tollmien-Schlichting (T-S) waves coexist with comparable amplitudes when the latter are damped; moreover, the response is linear. Higher early growth rates occur for excitation by sound than by stream turbulence. Theoretical considerations indicate that the boundary layer is receptive to sound excitation primarily at the test plate leading edge. (orig.)

Flow hydrodynamics near inlet key of Piano Key Weir (PKW)

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Department of Water Resources Development and Management, Indian Institute ... on the hydrodynamic performance near inlet key of Piano Key Weir (PKW). ... nature of flows is clearly understood with the help of advanced instrumentation.

Equivalent threshold sound pressure levels (ETSPL) for Interacoustics DD 45 supra-aural audiometric earphones

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Poulsen, Torben

2010-01-01

This paper describes the determination and results of pure tone Equivalent Threshold Sound Pressure Levels for the Interacoustics DD45 audiometric earphone equipped with standard Model 51 cushions. The size and shape of the DD45 transducer resembles the classical Telephonics TDH 39 earphone. Pure...... tone hearing threshold measurements were performed for both ears of 29 test subjects. All audiometric frequencies from 125 Hz to 8 kHz were used. The data are intended for inclusion in future standardized Reference Equivalent Threshold Sound Pressure Levels. The results show that the DD45 may be a good...

Fractal dimension analysis of complexity in Ligeti piano pieces

Science.gov (United States)

Bader, Rolf

2005-04-01

Fractal correlation dimensional analysis has been performed with whole solo piano pieces by Gyrgy Ligeti at every 50ms interval of the pieces. The resulting curves of development of complexity represented by the fractal dimension showed up a very reasonable correlation with the perceptional density of events during these pieces. The seventh piece of Ligeti's ``Musica ricercata'' was used as a test case. Here, each new part of the piece was followed by an increase of the fractal dimension because of the increase of information at the part changes. The second piece ``Galamb borong,'' number seven of the piano Etudes was used, because Ligeti wrote these Etudes after studying fractal geometry. Although the piece is not fractal in the strict mathematical sense, the overall structure of the psychoacoustic event-density as well as the detailed event development is represented by the fractal dimension plot.

The development of the idiomatic piano language through Clementi’s edition of D. Scarlatti’s sonatas (1791

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Laura Cuervo Calvo

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Muzio Clementi edited the first known publication of Domenico Scarlatti´s sonatas for piano: Scarlatti’s Chefs d’Oeuvre, for the Harpsichord or Piano forte [1791]. This work contains ten Scarlatti´s sonatas selected by Clementi among some 18th- century manuscripts, one Antonio Soler sonata, and another anonymous one. The imnportance of this collection is that it made possible the diffusion of the Scarlatti’s sonatas Kk 378, 380, 490, 400, 475, 381, 206, 531, 462, 463, which only were accessible to a minority. Moreover, The musical text of Clementi´s edition varies considerably from most other manuscript sources. Studying the published reviews, it will be possible to contribute information about the interpretive practice of the key instruments about the end of the 18th century, about the characteristics of the English pianos for which Clementi realized the above mentioned review, and about the development of the idiomatic specific language of the piano in this epoch.

10 Hz Amplitude Modulated Sounds Induce Short-Term Tinnitus Suppression

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Patrick Neff

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Objectives: Acoustic stimulation or sound therapy is proposed as a main treatment option for chronic subjective tinnitus. To further probe the field of acoustic stimulations for tinnitus therapy, this exploratory study compared 10 Hz amplitude modulated (AM sounds (two pure tones, noise, music, and frequency modulated (FM sounds and unmodulated sounds (pure tone, noise regarding their temporary suppression of tinnitus loudness. First, it was hypothesized that modulated sounds elicit larger temporary loudness suppression (residual inhibition than unmodulated sounds. Second, with manipulation of stimulus loudness and duration of the modulated sounds weaker or stronger effects of loudness suppression were expected, respectively.Methods: We recruited 29 participants with chronic tonal tinnitus from the multidisciplinary Tinnitus Clinic of the University of Regensburg. Participants underwent audiometric, psychometric and tinnitus pitch matching assessments followed by an acoustic stimulation experiment with a tinnitus loudness growth paradigm. In a first block participants were stimulated with all of the sounds for 3 min each and rated their subjective tinnitus loudness to the pre-stimulus loudness every 30 s after stimulus offset. The same procedure was deployed in the second block with the pure tone AM stimuli matched to the tinnitus frequency, manipulated in length (6 min, and loudness (reduced by 30 dB and linear fade out. Repeated measures mixed model analyses of variance (ANOVA were calculated to assess differences in loudness growth between the stimuli for each block separately.Results: First, we found that all sounds elicit a short-term suppression of tinnitus loudness (seconds to minutes with strongest suppression right after stimulus offset [F(6, 1331 = 3.74, p < 0.01]. Second, similar to previous findings we found that AM sounds near the tinnitus frequency produce significantly stronger tinnitus loudness suppression than noise [vs. Pink

Developing clinical piano improvisation skills

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wigram, Anthony Lewis

2003-01-01

Teaching piano improvisation skills for use in clinical work relies on the development of a range of musical techniques and therapeutic methods that are combined and integrated. Simple musical styles of playing such as melody dialogues, two chord accompaniments, walking basses (tonal and atonal), 6...... skilful way of helping a client or group of clients move, or develop their musical expression (Wigram & Bonde 2002 pp 278-279). Frame-working is a method that offers a musical structure to the music of a client. This structure could have the goal of enhancing the music aesthetically, or guiding the client...

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...

Statistical representation of sound textures in the impaired auditory system

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

McWalter, Richard Ian; Dau, Torsten

2015-01-01

Many challenges exist when it comes to understanding and compensating for hearing impairment. Traditional methods, such as pure tone audiometry and speech intelligibility tests, offer insight into the deficiencies of a hearingimpaired listener, but can only partially reveal the mechanisms...... that underlie the hearing loss. An alternative approach is to investigate the statistical representation of sounds for hearing-impaired listeners along the auditory pathway. Using models of the auditory periphery and sound synthesis, we aimed to probe hearing impaired perception for sound textures – temporally...

Memory for pure tone sequences without contour.

Science.gov (United States)

Lefebvre, Christine; Jolicœur, Pierre

2016-06-01

We presented pure tones interspersed with white noise sounds to disrupt contour perception in an acoustic short-term memory (ASTM) experiment during which we recorded the electroencephalogram. The memory set consisted of seven stimuli, 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 of which were to-be-remembered tones. We estimated each participant׳s capacity, K, for each set size and measured the amplitude of the SAN (sustained anterior negativity, an ERP related to acoustic short-term memory). We correlated their K slopes with their SAN amplitude slopes as a function of set size, and found a significant link between performance and the SAN: a larger increase in SAN amplitude was linked with a larger number of stimuli maintained in ASTM. The SAN decreased in amplitude in the later portion of the silent retention interval, but the correlation between the SAN and capacity remained strong. These results show the SAN is not an index of contour but rather an index of the maintenance of individual objects in STM. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled SI: Auditory working memory. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Teaching Resonance and Harmonics with Guitar and Piano

Science.gov (United States)

Sobel, Michael

2014-01-01

In a recent paper, Kasar, Yurumezoglu, and Sengoren show how to use a guitar, or two guitars, to demonstrate resonance. Here we extend this idea by showing how to use a guitar or a piano (both acoustic) to demonstrate resonance, harmonics, and the properties of the musical scale. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each instrument.…

Conditioned sounds enhance visual processing.

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Fabrizio Leo

Full Text Available This psychophysics study investigated whether prior auditory conditioning influences how a sound interacts with visual perception. In the conditioning phase, subjects were presented with three pure tones ( =  conditioned stimuli, CS that were paired with positive, negative or neutral unconditioned stimuli. As unconditioned reinforcers we employed pictures (highly pleasant, unpleasant and neutral or monetary outcomes (+50 euro cents, -50 cents, 0 cents. In the subsequent visual selective attention paradigm, subjects were presented with near-threshold Gabors displayed in their left or right hemifield. Critically, the Gabors were presented in synchrony with one of the conditioned sounds. Subjects discriminated whether the Gabors were presented in their left or right hemifields. Participants determined the location more accurately when the Gabors were presented in synchrony with positive relative to neutral sounds irrespective of reinforcer type. Thus, previously rewarded relative to neutral sounds increased the bottom-up salience of the visual Gabors. Our results are the first demonstration that prior auditory conditioning is a potent mechanism to modulate the effect of sounds on visual perception.

Xinyinqin: a computer-based heart sound simulator.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhan, X X; Pei, J H; Xiao, Y H

1995-01-01

"Xinyinqin" is the Chinese phoneticized name of the Heart Sound Simulator (HSS). The "qin" in "Xinyinqin" is the Chinese name of a category of musical instruments, which means that the operation of HSS is very convenient--like playing an electric piano with the keys. HSS is connected to the GAME I/O of an Apple microcomputer. The generation of sound is controlled by a program. Xinyinqin is used as a teaching aid of Diagnostics. It has been applied in teaching for three years. In this demonstration we will introduce the following functions of HSS: 1) The main program has two modules. The first one is the heart auscultation training module. HSS can output a heart sound selected by the student. Another program module is used to test the student's learning condition. The computer can randomly simulate a certain heart sound and ask the student to name it. The computer gives the student's answer an assessment: "correct" or "incorrect." When the answer is incorrect, the computer will output that heart sound again for the student to listen to; this process is repeated until she correctly identifies it. 2) The program is convenient to use and easy to control. By pressing the S key, it is able to output a slow heart rate until the student can clearly identify the rhythm. The heart rate, like the actual rate of a patient, can then be restored by hitting any key. By pressing the SPACE BAR, the heart sound output can be stopped to allow the teacher to explain something to the student. The teacher can resume playing the heart sound again by hitting any key; she can also change the content of the training by hitting RETURN key. In the future, we plan to simulate more heart sounds and incorporate relevant graphs.

Programa de entrenamiento cognitivo-constructivista para piano de acompa??amiento de ballet cl??sico

OpenAIRE

Herrera Torres, Luc??a; G??mez, Ileana Guillermina

2011-01-01

El aprendizaje del piano de acompa??amiento es una tarea compleja para la que se requiere m??ltiples habilidades. Entre ellas, dos son de especial relevancia: el control r??tmico y el procesamiento dual. El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo principal analizar la eficacia de un programa de entrenamiento cognitivo-constructivista en el piano de acompa??amiento de ballet cl??sico. Para ello, se realiz?? un estudio de casos con tres alumnos de la materia Pr??cticas de acompa??am...

Ethnocultural Development of Future Music Teachers in Process of the Tatar Piano Music’s Studying

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Liliya I. Salikhova

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Studying the Tatar piano repertoire as element of national musical traditions is an important factor of ethnocultural development of the future music teachers of Tatarstan in the course of vocational training in higher education institution. It is caused inexhaustible by opportunities of ethnomusical heritage in formation of the personality, need of development in students of professionally significant ethnopsychological qualities, readiness for the solution of musical and educational tasks on the basis of the Tatar national culture. Disclosure of potential of the Tatar piano music in ethnocultural development of future music teachers became a research objective. On the basis of synthesis of experience of musical and performing training of future music teachers - students of Leo Tolstoy Institute of Philology and Intercultural Communication of Kazan Federal University, the performing analysis of the Tatar piano music, authors submit compositions in which found the brightest embodiment of tradition of the Tatar folk art. It is shown that, working on piano works, students learn deep moral and esthetic meaning of the Tatar folklore. They develop ethnocultural ideas of love, family values, gratitude to parents and respect of seniors, devotion to traditions of a sort, the importance of family education. Performance of songs always opened the emotional world of the person, reflected his intimate thoughts and experiences connected with hard destiny, aspiration fortunately and belief in the best. The deep moral and esthetic meaning of the Tatar folklore embodied by means of expression of piano music is shown in article; musical contents of works of the Tatar composers, their variety and opportunities in ethnocultural development of future music teachers reveal.

Research on the Interior Sound Quality in Hybrid Electric Vehicle

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Liao Lian Ying

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Even the overall level of vehicle interior noise of hybrid electric vehicle (HEV reduced to a certain degree, the vibration and noise generated by the engine, motor, generator and power split have made greater effect on the vehicle interior sound quality in HEV. In order to research the feature of vehicle interior sound quality in HEV, the HEV is used to be the research object, the binaural noise sample of the driver when playing different kinds of music in the vehicle with the speed of sixty kilometers per hour is collected. ArtemiS is used to conduct frequency division processing, so as to obtain the relative weight of each frequency band and the overall noise. The tone, roughness and sharpness of sound quality subjective evaluation parameters are quantified, the SPSS is used to establish the linear regression model of the sample, and the best masking music tracks are found out. Then, the sound samples that contains the best music tracks and the simple vehicle interior noise are re-collected, the regression model and ArtemiS are used to predict the subjective evaluation value. The research results show that when adding the music, the tone degree rises and the lowering degree decreases, thus the disturbing degree reduces, which significantly improves the sound quality in the HEV.

Rate effects on timing, key velocity, and finger kinematics in piano performance.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Simone Dalla Bella

Full Text Available We examined the effect of rate on finger kinematics in goal-directed actions of pianists. In addition, we evaluated whether movement kinematics can be treated as an indicator of personal identity. Pianists' finger movements were recorded with a motion capture system while they performed melodies from memory at different rates. Pianists' peak finger heights above the keys preceding keystrokes increased as tempo increased, and were attained about one tone before keypress. These rate effects were not simply due to a strategy to increase key velocity (associated with tone intensity of the corresponding keystroke. Greater finger heights may compensate via greater tactile feedback for a speed-accuracy tradeoff that underlies the tendency toward larger temporal variability at faster tempi. This would allow pianists to maintain high temporal accuracy when playing at fast rates. In addition, finger velocity and accelerations as pianists' fingers approached keys were sufficiently unique to allow pianists' identification with a neural-network classifier. Classification success was higher in pianists with more extensive musical training. Pianists' movement "signatures" may reflect unique goal-directed movement kinematic patterns, leading to individualistic sound.

Extended piano techniques : in theory, history and performance practice

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vaes, Luc Paul Frank

2009-01-01

So-called "extended techniques" have suffered a consistent lack of understanding from a theoretical, historical and practical point of view. Although most of them – e.g. playing directly on the strings, cluster- and glissando-techniques – exist in a substantial part of the repertoire for the piano

What Can Lexical Tone Training Studies in Adults Tell Us about Tone Processing in Children?

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Mark Antoniou

2018-01-01

Full Text Available A growing number of studies on the acquisition of lexical tone by adult learners have revealed that factors such as language background, musical experience, cognitive abilities, and neuroanatomy all play a role in determining tone learning success. On the basis of these findings, it has been argued that the effectiveness of tone learning in adulthood depends on individual differences in these factors. However, it is not clear whether similar individual differences play an analogous role in tone learning in childhood. Indeed, relatively few studies have made comparisons between how adults and children learn lexical tones. Here, we review recent developments for tone learning in both adults and children. The review covers tone training in a range of contexts, including in naive listeners, in native speakers of other tone languages, in listeners with varying levels of musical experience, and in individuals with speech and hearing disorders. Finally, we discuss the parallels between adult and child tone learning, and provide recommendations concerning how findings in adult tone training can provide insights into tone learning for children by accommodating the needs of individual learners.

Sound localization and occupational noise

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pedro de Lemos Menezes

2014-02-01

Full Text Available OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to determine the effects of occupational noise on sound localization in different spatial planes and frequencies among normal hearing firefighters. METHOD: A total of 29 adults with pure-tone hearing thresholds below 25 dB took part in the study. The participants were divided into a group of 19 firefighters exposed to occupational noise and a control group of 10 adults who were not exposed to such noise. All subjects were assigned a sound localization task involving 117 stimuli from 13 sound sources that were spatially distributed in horizontal, vertical, midsagittal and transverse planes. The three stimuli, which were square waves with fundamental frequencies of 500, 2,000 and 4,000 Hz, were presented at a sound level of 70 dB and were randomly repeated three times from each sound source. The angle between the speaker's axis in the same plane was 45°, and the distance to the subject was 1 m. RESULT: The results demonstrate that the sound localization ability of the firefighters was significantly lower (p<0.01 than that of the control group. CONCLUSION: Exposure to occupational noise, even when not resulting in hearing loss, may lead to a diminished ability to locate a sound source.

Piano a Rogers: Vysoce technické nás osvobodí

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Švácha, Rostislav

2007-01-01

Roč. 14, č. 3 (2007), s. 78 ISSN 1210-9568 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z80330511 Keywords : architecture * Renzo Piano * Richard Rogers Subject RIV: AL - Art, Architecture, Cultural Heritage

Sound-contingent visual motion aftereffect

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Kobayashi Maori

2011-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background After a prolonged exposure to a paired presentation of different types of signals (e.g., color and motion, one of the signals (color becomes a driver for the other signal (motion. This phenomenon, which is known as contingent motion aftereffect, indicates that the brain can establish new neural representations even in the adult's brain. However, contingent motion aftereffect has been reported only in visual or auditory domain. Here, we demonstrate that a visual motion aftereffect can be contingent on a specific sound. Results Dynamic random dots moving in an alternating right or left direction were presented to the participants. Each direction of motion was accompanied by an auditory tone of a unique and specific frequency. After a 3-minutes exposure, the tones began to exert marked influence on the visual motion perception, and the percentage of dots required to trigger motion perception systematically changed depending on the tones. Furthermore, this effect lasted for at least 2 days. Conclusions These results indicate that a new neural representation can be rapidly established between auditory and visual modalities.

Composer Recognition based on 2D-Filtered Piano-Rolls

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Velarde, Gissel; Weyde, Tillman; Cancino Chacón, Carlos

2016-01-01

We propose a method for music classification based on the use of convolutional models on symbolic pitch-time representations (i.e. piano-rolls) which we apply to composer recognition. An excerpt of a piece to be classified is first sampled to a 2D pitch-time representation which is then subjected...

Playing piano can improve upper extremity function after stroke: case studies.

Science.gov (United States)

Villeneuve, Myriam; Lamontagne, Anouk

2013-01-01

Music-supported therapy (MST) is an innovative approach that was shown to improve manual dexterity in acute stroke survivors. The feasibility of such intervention in chronic stroke survivors and its longer-term benefits, however, remain unknown. The objective of this pilot study was to estimate the short- and long-term effects of a 3-week piano training program on upper extremity function in persons with chronic stroke. A multiple pre-post sequential design was used, with measurements taken at baseline (week0, week3), prior to (week6) and after the intervention (week9), and at 3-week follow-up (week12). Three persons with stroke participated in the 3-week piano training program that combined structured piano lessons to home practice program. The songs, played on an electronic keyboard, involved all 5 digits of the affected hand and were displayed using a user-friendly MIDI program. After intervention, all the three participants showed improvements in their fine (nine hole peg test) and gross (box and block test) manual dexterity, as well as in the functional use of the upper extremity (Jebsen hand function test). Improvements were maintained at follow-up. These preliminary results support the feasibility of using an MST approach that combines structured lessons to home practice to improve upper extremity function in chronic stroke.

Playing Piano Can Improve Upper Extremity Function after Stroke: Case Studies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Myriam Villeneuve

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Music-supported therapy (MST is an innovative approach that was shown to improve manual dexterity in acute stroke survivors. The feasibility of such intervention in chronic stroke survivors and its longer-term benefits, however, remain unknown. The objective of this pilot study was to estimate the short- and long-term effects of a 3-week piano training program on upper extremity function in persons with chronic stroke. A multiple pre-post sequential design was used, with measurements taken at baseline (week0, week3, prior to (week6 and after the intervention (week9, and at 3-week follow-up (week12. Three persons with stroke participated in the 3-week piano training program that combined structured piano lessons to home practice program. The songs, played on an electronic keyboard, involved all 5 digits of the affected hand and were displayed using a user-friendly MIDI program. After intervention, all the three participants showed improvements in their fine (nine hole peg test and gross (box and block test manual dexterity, as well as in the functional use of the upper extremity (Jebsen hand function test. Improvements were maintained at follow-up. These preliminary results support the feasibility of using an MST approach that combines structured lessons to home practice to improve upper extremity function in chronic stroke.

Overexposure effects of a 1-kHz tone on the distortion product otoacoustic emission in humans

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Reuter, Karen; Ordoñez, Rodrigo Pizarro; Hammershøi, Dorte

2007-01-01

The effects of overexposure on the properties of distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) are investigated. In total, 39 normal-hearing humans were monaurally exposed to a 1-kHz tone lasting for 3 min at an equivalent threshold sound-pressure level of 105.5 dB. The effects of overexposure...

Monolingual and Bilingual Infants’ Ability to Use Non-native Tone for Word Learning Deteriorates by the Second Year After Birth

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Liquan Liu

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Previous studies reported a non-native word learning advantage for bilingual infants at around 18 months. We investigated developmental changes in infant interpretation of sounds that aid in object mapping. Dutch monolingual and bilingual (exposed to Dutch and a second non-tone-language infants’ word learning ability was examined on two novel label–object pairings using syllables differing in Mandarin tones as labels (flat vs. falling. Infants aged 14–15 months, regardless of language backgrounds, were sensitive to violations in the label–objects pairings when lexical tones were switched compared to when they were the same as habituated. Conversely at 17–18 months, neither monolingual nor bilingual infants demonstrated learning. Linking with existing literature, infants’ ability to associate non-native tones with meanings may be related to tonal acoustic properties and/or perceptual assimilation to native prosodic categories. These findings provide new insights into the relation between infant tone perception, learning, and interpretative narrowing from a developmental perspective.

Effects of music learning and piano practice on cognitive function, mood and quality of life in older adults

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sofia eSeinfeld

2013-11-01

Full Text Available Reading music and playing a musical instrument is a complex activity that comprises motor and multisensory (auditory, visual, and somatosensory integration in a unique way. Music has also a well-known impact on the emotional state, while it can be a motivating activity. For those reasons, musical training has become a useful framework to study brain plasticity. Our aim was to study the specific effects of musical training versus the effects of other leisure activities in elderly people. With that purpose we evaluated the impact of piano training on cognitive function, mood and quality of life in older adults. A group of participants that received piano lessons and did daily training for four-month (n=13 was compared to an age-matched control group (n=16 that participated in other types of leisure activities (physical exercise, computer lessons, painting lessons, among other. An exhaustive assessment that included neuropsychological tests as well as mood and quality of life questionnaires was carried out before starting the piano program and immediately after finishing (4 months later in the two groups. We found a significant improvement on the piano training group on the Stroop test that measures executive function, inhibitory control and divided attention. Furthermore, a trend indicating an enhancement of visual scanning and motor ability was also found (Trial Making Test part A. Finally, in our study piano lessons decreased depression, induced positive mood states, and improved the psychological and physical quality of life of the elderly. Our results suggest that playing piano and learning to read music can be a useful intervention in older adults to promote cognitive reserve and improve subjective well-being.

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.

Preattentive cortical-evoked responses to pure tones, harmonic tones, and speech: influence of music training.

Science.gov (United States)

Nikjeh, Dee A; Lister, Jennifer J; Frisch, Stefan A

2009-08-01

Cortical auditory evoked potentials, including mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3a to pure tones, harmonic complexes, and speech syllables, were examined across groups of trained musicians and nonmusicians. Because of the extensive formal and informal auditory training received by musicians throughout their lifespan, it was predicted that these electrophysiological indicators of preattentive pitch discrimination and involuntary attention change would distinguish musicians from nonmusicians and provide insight regarding the influence of auditory training and experience on central auditory function. A total of 102 (67 trained musicians, 35 nonmusicians) right-handed young women with normal hearing participated in three auditory stimulus conditions: pure tones (25 musicians/15 nonmusicians), harmonic tones (42 musicians/20 nonmusicians), and speech syllables (26 musicians/15 nonmusicians). Pure tone and harmonic tone stimuli were presented in multideviant oddball paradigms designed to elicit MMN and P3a. Each paradigm included one standard and two infrequently occurring deviants. For the pure tone condition, the standard pure tone was 1000 Hz, and the two deviant tones differed in frequency from the standard by either 1.5% (1015 Hz) or 6% (1060 Hz). The harmonic tone complexes were digitally created and contained a fundamental frequency (F0) and three harmonics. The amplitude of each harmonic was divided by its harmonic number to create a natural amplitude contour in the frequency spectrum. The standard tone was G4 (F0 = 392 Hz), and the two deviant tones differed in fundamental frequency from the standard by 1.5% (F0 = 386 Hz) or 6% (F0 = 370 Hz). The fundamental frequencies of the harmonic tones occur within the average female vocal range. The third condition to elicit MMN and P3a was designed for the presentation of speech syllables (/ba/ and /da/) and was structured as a traditional oddball paradigm (one standard/one infrequent deviant). Each speech stimulus was

Effects of musical training on the auditory cortex in children.

Science.gov (United States)

Trainor, Laurel J; Shahin, Antoine; Roberts, Larry E

2003-11-01

Several studies of the effects of musical experience on sound representations in the auditory cortex are reviewed. Auditory evoked potentials are compared in response to pure tones, violin tones, and piano tones in adult musicians versus nonmusicians as well as in 4- to 5-year-old children who have either had or not had extensive musical experience. In addition, the effects of auditory frequency discrimination training in adult nonmusicians on auditory evoked potentials are examined. It was found that the P2-evoked response is larger in both adult and child musicians than in nonmusicians and that auditory training enhances this component in nonmusician adults. The results suggest that the P2 is particularly neuroplastic and that the effects of musical experience can be seen early in development. They also suggest that although the effects of musical training on cortical representations may be greater if training begins in childhood, the adult brain is also open to change. These results are discussed with respect to potential benefits of early musical training as well as potential benefits of musical experience in aging.

Extended Piano Techniques and Teaching in Music Education Departments

Science.gov (United States)

Akbulut Demirci, Sirin; Sungurtekin, Mete; Yilmaz, Nilüfer; Engür, Doruk

2015-01-01

The article is composed of the results of the study carried out within the scope of the project entitled "Extended Piano Techniques and Teaching in Music Education Departments." Within the scope of the project, 16 students taking education at Music Education Department, Uludag University, learned six pieces composed for the project via…

Lack of spacing effects during piano learning

OpenAIRE

Wiseheart, Melody; D?Souza, Annalise A.; Chae, Jacey

2017-01-01

Spacing effects during retention of verbal information are easily obtained, and the effect size is large. Relatively little evidence exists on whether motor skill retention benefits from distributed practice, with even less evidence on complex motor skills. We taught a 17-note musical sequence on a piano to individuals without prior formal training. There were five lags between learning episodes: 0-, 1-, 5-, 10-, and 15-min. After a 5-min retention interval, participants' performance was meas...

Methodology of Artistic Identification on the Path of the Comprehension of Composer's Works in a Piano Class

Science.gov (United States)

Meleshkina, Elena Anatolyevna; Scherbakova, Anna Iosifovna; Korsakova, Irina Anatolyevna; Slavina, Elena Vladimirovna; Kazakova, Irina Sergeevna

2016-01-01

The article is devoted to the reflection on the problem of the "immersion" in the artistic world of a composer's creative work in a piano class in the beginning of the 21st century. The wealth and diversity of the music material for piano players determine the new quality of understanding music and set high goals and objectives for a…

Pre-attentive processing of spectrally complex sounds with asynchronous onsets: an event-related potential study with human subjects.

Science.gov (United States)

Tervaniemi, M; Schröger, E; Näätänen, R

1997-05-23

Neuronal mechanisms involved in the processing of complex sounds with asynchronous onsets were studied in reading subjects. The sound onset asynchrony (SOA) between the leading partial and the remaining complex tone was varied between 0 and 360 ms. Infrequently occurring deviant sounds (in which one out of 10 harmonics was different in pitch relative to the frequently occurring standard sound) elicited the mismatch negativity (MMN), a change-specific cortical event-related potential (ERP) component. This indicates that the pitch of standard stimuli had been pre-attentively coded by sensory-memory traces. Moreover, when the complex-tone onset fell within temporal integration window initiated by the leading-partial onset, the deviants elicited the N2b component. This indexes that involuntary attention switch towards the sound change occurred. In summary, the present results support the existence of pre-perceptual integration mechanism of 100-200 ms duration and emphasize its importance in switching attention towards the stimulus change.

Detection of time-varying harmonic amplitude alterations due to spectral interpolations between musical instrument tones.

Science.gov (United States)

Horner, Andrew B; Beauchamp, James W; So, Richard H Y

2009-01-01

Gradated spectral interpolations between musical instrument tone pairs were used to investigate discrimination as a function of time-averaged spectral difference. All possible nonidentical pairs taken from a collection of eight musical instrument sounds consisting of bassoon, clarinet, flute, horn, oboe, saxophone, trumpet, and violin were tested. For each pair, several tones were generated with different balances between the primary and secondary instruments, where the balance was fixed across the duration of each tone. Among primary instruments it was found that changes to horn and bassoon [corrected] were most easily discriminable, while changes to saxophone and trumpet timbres were least discriminable. Among secondary instruments, the clarinet had the strongest effect on discrimination, whereas the bassoon had the least effect. For primary instruments, strong negative correlations were found between discrimination and their spectral incoherences, suggesting that the presence of dynamic spectral variations tends to increase the difficulty of detecting time-varying alterations such as spectral interpolation.

[A Method of Synthesizing Tinnitus Rehabilitation Sound Based on Pentatonic Scale and Chaos].

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Jiemei; He, Peiyu; Pan, Fan

2015-12-01

Tinnitus is a common clinical symptom and its occurrence rate is high. It seriously affects life quality of the patients. Scientific researches show that listening some similar and none-repetitive music can relieve tinnitus to some extent. The overall music accorded with self-similarity character by the direct mapping method based on chaos. However, there were often the same tones continuous repeating a few times and tone mutations. To solve the problem, this paper proposes a new method for tinnitus rehabilitation sound synthesis based on pentatonic scale, chaos and musical instrument digital interface (MIDI). Experimental results showed that the tinnitus rehabilitation sounds were not only self-similar and incompletely reduplicate, but also no sudden changes. Thus, it has a referential significance for tinnitus treatment.

Developing the Sufficiency Perception Scale in the Area of Accompaniment with Piano for Candidate Music Teachers

OpenAIRE

PİJİ, Duygu

2013-01-01

The music teacher’s accompanying the songs by piano in music education at schoolappears to be important regarding the development of melody, rhythm and harmony feelingsof the students. The music teacher candidates receive their knowledge and skill in the areaof piano accompaniment through the Accompaniment lesson within the Music TeachingLicense Program. In this research, with the purpose of defining the perception of sufficiencyregarding the accompaniment levels of music teacher candidates a...

The interaction between room and musical instruments studied by multi-channel auralization

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rindel, Jens Holger; Otondo, Felipe

2005-01-01

in the anechoic recording. With this technique the variations in sound radiation from the musical instrument during the performance e.g. due to changes in level or movements can be reproduced with the influence of the surrounding room surfaces. Examples include a grand piano and a clarinet.......The directivity of musical instruments is very complicated and typically changes from one tone to the next. So, instead of measuring the average directivity, a multi-channel auralization method has been developed, which allows a highly accurate and realistic sounding auralization of musical...... instruments in rooms. Anechoic recordings have been made with 5 and 13 evenly distributed microphones around the musical instrument. The reproduction is made with a room acoustics simulation software using a compound source, which is in fact a number of highly directive sources, one for each of the channels...

The Visual Memory-Based Memorization Techniques in Piano Education

Science.gov (United States)

Yucetoker, Izzet

2016-01-01

Problem Statement: Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the leading composers of the baroque period. In addition to his huge contributions in the artistic dimension, he also served greatly in the field of education. This study has been done for determining the impact of visual memory-based memorization practices in the piano education on the visual…

Obras nacionalistas brasileiras para violoncelo e piano

OpenAIRE

Borges, Gabriel Saliba e

2012-01-01

Este trabalho tem por finalidade complementar o projeto de performance musical que se baseia em três obras para violoncelo e piano de distintos compositores brasileiros, compostas no período em que estes compartilhavam os mesmos ideais nacionalistas, porém expressados de formas diferentes. Francisco Mignone, José Guerra Vicente e Camargo Guarnieri, contemporâneos e que figuram entre os grandes compositores brasileiros do séc. XX, fazem parte do hall de compositores nacionais, a que se soma...

Numerical simulation of the generation mechanism of axisymmetric supersonic jet screech tones

Science.gov (United States)

Li, X. D.; Gao, J. H.

2005-08-01

In this paper an axisymmetric computational aeroacoustic procedure is developed to investigate the generation mechanism of axisymmetric supersonic jet screech tones. The axisymmetric Navier-Stokes equations and the two equations standard k-ɛ turbulence model modified by Turpin and Troyes ["Validation of a two-equation turbulence model for axisymmetric reacting and non-reaction flows," AIAA Paper No. 2000-3463 (2000)] are solved in the generalized curvilinear coordinate system. A generalized wall function is applied in the nozzle exit wall region. The dispersion-relation-preserving scheme is applied for space discretization. The 2N storage low-dissipation and low-dispersion Runge-Kutta scheme is employed for time integration. Much attention is paid to far-field boundary conditions and turbulence model. The underexpanded axisymmetric supersonic jet screech tones are simulated over the Mach number from 1.05 to 1.2. Numerical results are presented and compared with the experimental data by other researchers. The simulated wavelengths of A0, A1, A2, and B modes and part of simulated amplitudes agree very well with the measurement data by Ponton and Seiner ["The effects of nozzle exit lip thickness on plume resonance," J. Sound Vib. 154, 531 (1992)]. In particular, the phenomena of modes jumping have been captured correctly although the numerical procedure has to be improved to predict the amplitudes of supersonic jet screech tones more accurately. Furthermore, the phenomena of shock motions are analyzed. The predicted splitting and combination of shock cells are similar with the experimental observations of Panda ["Shock oscillation in underexpanded screeching jets," J. Fluid. Mech. 363, 173 (1998)]. Finally, the receptivity process is numerically studied and analyzed. It is shown that the receptivity zone is associated with the initial thin shear layer, and the incoming and reflected sound waves.

Congenital amusia (or tone-deafness interferes with pitch processing in tone languages

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Barbara eTillmann

2011-06-01

Full Text Available Congenital amusia is a neurogenetic disorder that affects music processing and that is ascribed to a deficit in pitch processing. We investigated whether this deficit extended to pitch processing in speech, notably the pitch changes used to contrast lexical tones in tonal languages. Congenital amusics and matched controls, all non-tonal language speakers, were tested for lexical tone discrimination in Mandarin Chinese (Experiment 1 and in Thai (Experiment 2. Tones were presented in pairs and participants were required to make same/different judgments. Experiment 2 additionally included musical analogs of Thai tones for comparison. Performance of congenital amusics was inferior to that of controls for all materials, suggesting a domain-general pitch-processing deficit. The pitch deficit of amusia is thus not limited to music, but may compromise the ability to process and learn tonal languages. Combined with acoustic analyses of the tone material, the present findings provide new insights into the nature of the pitch-processing deficit exhibited by amusics.

Congenital Amusia (or Tone-Deafness) Interferes with Pitch Processing in Tone Languages.

Science.gov (United States)

Tillmann, Barbara; Burnham, Denis; Nguyen, Sebastien; Grimault, Nicolas; Gosselin, Nathalie; Peretz, Isabelle

2011-01-01

Congenital amusia is a neurogenetic disorder that affects music processing and that is ascribed to a deficit in pitch processing. We investigated whether this deficit extended to pitch processing in speech, notably the pitch changes used to contrast lexical tones in tonal languages. Congenital amusics and matched controls, all non-tonal language speakers, were tested for lexical tone discrimination in Mandarin Chinese (Experiment 1) and in Thai (Experiment 2). Tones were presented in pairs and participants were required to make same/different judgments. Experiment 2 additionally included musical analogs of Thai tones for comparison. Performance of congenital amusics was inferior to that of controls for all materials, suggesting a domain-general pitch-processing deficit. The pitch deficit of amusia is thus not limited to music, but may compromise the ability to process and learn tonal languages. Combined with acoustic analyses of the tone material, the present findings provide new insights into the nature of the pitch-processing deficit exhibited by amusics.

TONE DEVELOPMENT STUDIES WITH A STUDENT DURING FLUTE EDUCATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Begum Aytemur

2016-12-01

Full Text Available This research investigated the effect of a five stage study program applied by the researcher to one student who had entered university playing the flute, but who had not resolved lip and tone problems in one educational semester through basic long sound studies and scale studies. The participant in the research was a 19 year old student who had completed first year of the music teaching program and had performed in the year-end concert; however she was criticized by listeners and flute teachers for forced and scratchy tone. The research had the basic aim of solving these problems. As a result the “single subject study model”, chosen for research on individuals requesting private training, was chosen for this research model. The findings of the study were collected as video recordings of scale, study and piece work in initial, training and final stages of a six-week education course run every day. To evaluate the obtained recordings, a “Behavior for Quality Flute Tone Scale” was created. The video recordings were investigated by three flute teaching staff, expert in the area, who provided points in accordance with the scale. The obtained points were analyzed using the SPSS 15.0 program. The results showed that the study program created by the researcher provided rapid tonal development of the student. It is considered that the study is important to present an alternative route for flute students experiencing similar problems.

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

Science.gov (United States)

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

2017-12-01

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

Perception of environmental sounds by experienced cochlear implant patients

Science.gov (United States)

Shafiro, Valeriy; Gygi, Brian; Cheng, Min-Yu; Vachhani, Jay; Mulvey, Megan

2011-01-01

Objectives Environmental sound perception serves an important ecological function by providing listeners with information about objects and events in their immediate environment. Environmental sounds such as car horns, baby cries or chirping birds can alert listeners to imminent dangers as well as contribute to one's sense of awareness and well being. Perception of environmental sounds as acoustically and semantically complex stimuli, may also involve some factors common to the processing of speech. However, very limited research has investigated the abilities of cochlear implant (CI) patients to identify common environmental sounds, despite patients' general enthusiasm about them. This project (1) investigated the ability of patients with modern-day CIs to perceive environmental sounds, (2) explored associations among speech, environmental sounds and basic auditory abilities, and (3) examined acoustic factors that might be involved in environmental sound perception. Design Seventeen experienced postlingually-deafened CI patients participated in the study. Environmental sound perception was assessed with a large-item test composed of 40 sound sources, each represented by four different tokens. The relationship between speech and environmental sound perception, and the role of working memory and some basic auditory abilities were examined based on patient performance on a battery of speech tests (HINT, CNC, and individual consonant and vowel tests), tests of basic auditory abilities (audiometric thresholds, gap detection, temporal pattern and temporal order for tones tests) and a backward digit recall test. Results The results indicated substantially reduced ability to identify common environmental sounds in CI patients (45.3%). Except for vowels, all speech test scores significantly correlated with the environmental sound test scores: r = 0.73 for HINT in quiet, r = 0.69 for HINT in noise, r = 0.70 for CNC, r = 0.64 for consonants and r = 0.48 for vowels. HINT and

Congenital Amusia (or Tone-Deafness) Interferes with Pitch Processing in Tone Languages

OpenAIRE

Tillmann, Barbara; Burnham, Denis; Nguyen, Sebastien; Grimault, Nicolas; Gosselin, Nathalie; Peretz, Isabelle

2011-01-01

Congenital amusia is a neurogenetic disorder that affects music processing and that is ascribed to a deficit in pitch processing. We investigated whether this deficit extended to pitch processing in speech, notably the pitch changes used to contrast lexical tones in tonal languages. Congenital amusics and matched controls, all non-tonal language speakers, were tested for lexical tone discrimination in Mandarin Chinese (Experiment 1) and in Thai (Experiment 2). Tones were presented in pairs an...

Sparse representation of Gravitational Sound

Science.gov (United States)

Rebollo-Neira, Laura; Plastino, A.

2018-03-01

Gravitational Sound clips produced by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are considered within the particular context of data reduction. We advance a procedure to this effect and show that these types of signals can be approximated with high quality using significantly fewer elementary components than those required within the standard orthogonal basis framework. Furthermore, a local measure sparsity is shown to render meaningful information about the variation of a signal along time, by generating a set of local sparsity values which is much smaller than the dimension of the signal. This point is further illustrated by recourse to a more complex signal, generated by Milde Science Communication to divulge Gravitational Sound in the form of a ring tone.

Experimental investigation of the piano hammer-string interaction.

Science.gov (United States)

Birkett, Stephen

2013-04-01

Experimental techniques for investigating the piano hammer-string interaction are described. It is argued that the accuracy, consistency, and scope of conclusions of previous studies can be compromised by limitations of the conventional methods relating to key inputs; physical distortion; numerical distortion, particularly when differentiation or integration of measured signals is used to derive primary response variables; contact identification; and synchronization issues. These problems are discussed, and experimental methods that have been devised to avoid them are described and illustrated by detailed results from a study of the hammer-string interaction in a vertical piano. High resolution displacements are obtained directly by non-contact high-speed imaging and quantitative motion tracking. The attention focused on achieving very accurate and consistent temporal and spatial alignment, including the objective procedure used for contact identification, allows meaningful comparisons of responses from separate tests. String motion at the strike point and on each side of it, as well as hammer motion, is obtained for eight dynamic levels from 1.06 to 2.98 m/s impact velocity. Detailed observations of the force-compression behavior of the hammer interacting with real strings are presented. The direct effects of hammer shank deflection and agraffe string pulses on the interaction are also highlighted.

Learning piano melodies in visuo-motor or audio-motor training conditions and the neural correlates of their cross-modal transfer

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Engel, Annerose; Bangert, Marc; Horbank, David; Hijmans, Brenda S.; Wilkens, Katharina; Keller, Peter E.; Keysers, Christian

2012-01-01

To investigate the cross-modal transfer of movement patterns necessary to perform melodies on the piano, 22 non-musicians learned to play short sequences on a piano keyboard by 1) merely listening and replaying (vision of own fingers occluded) or 2) merely observing silent finger movements and

Perception and Modeling of Affective Qualities of Musical Instrument Sounds across Pitch Registers.

Science.gov (United States)

McAdams, Stephen; Douglas, Chelsea; Vempala, Naresh N

2017-01-01

Composers often pick specific instruments to convey a given emotional tone in their music, partly due to their expressive possibilities, but also due to their timbres in specific registers and at given dynamic markings. Of interest to both music psychology and music informatics from a computational point of view is the relation between the acoustic properties that give rise to the timbre at a given pitch and the perceived emotional quality of the tone. Musician and nonmusician listeners were presented with 137 tones produced at a fixed dynamic marking (forte) playing tones at pitch class D# across each instrument's entire pitch range and with different playing techniques for standard orchestral instruments drawn from the brass, woodwind, string, and pitched percussion families. They rated each tone on six analogical-categorical scales in terms of emotional valence (positive/negative and pleasant/unpleasant), energy arousal (awake/tired), tension arousal (excited/calm), preference (like/dislike), and familiarity. Linear mixed models revealed interactive effects of musical training, instrument family, and pitch register, with non-linear relations between pitch register and several dependent variables. Twenty-three audio descriptors from the Timbre Toolbox were computed for each sound and analyzed in two ways: linear partial least squares regression (PLSR) and nonlinear artificial neural net modeling. These two analyses converged in terms of the importance of various spectral, temporal, and spectrotemporal audio descriptors in explaining the emotion ratings, but some differences also emerged. Different combinations of audio descriptors make major contributions to the three emotion dimensions, suggesting that they are carried by distinct acoustic properties. Valence is more positive with lower spectral slopes, a greater emergence of strong partials, and an amplitude envelope with a sharper attack and earlier decay. Higher tension arousal is carried by brighter sounds

Neural signatures of lexical tone reading.

Science.gov (United States)

Kwok, Veronica P Y; Wang, Tianfu; Chen, Siping; Yakpo, Kofi; Zhu, Linlin; Fox, Peter T; Tan, Li Hai

2015-01-01

Research on how lexical tone is neuroanatomically represented in the human brain is central to our understanding of cortical regions subserving language. Past studies have exclusively focused on tone perception of the spoken language, and little is known as to the lexical tone processing in reading visual words and its associated brain mechanisms. In this study, we performed two experiments to identify neural substrates in Chinese tone reading. First, we used a tone judgment paradigm to investigate tone processing of visually presented Chinese characters. We found that, relative to baseline, tone perception of printed Chinese characters were mediated by strong brain activation in bilateral frontal regions, left inferior parietal lobule, left posterior middle/medial temporal gyrus, left inferior temporal region, bilateral visual systems, and cerebellum. Surprisingly, no activation was found in superior temporal regions, brain sites well known for speech tone processing. In activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis to combine results of relevant published studies, we attempted to elucidate whether the left temporal cortex activities identified in Experiment one is consistent with those found in previous studies of auditory lexical tone perception. ALE results showed that only the left superior temporal gyrus and putamen were critical in auditory lexical tone processing. These findings suggest that activation in the superior temporal cortex associated with lexical tone perception is modality-dependent. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Tone language fluency impairs pitch discrimination

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Isabelle ePeretz

2011-07-01

Full Text Available Here we present evidence that native speakers of a tone language, in which pitch contributes to word meaning, are impaired in the discrimination of falling pitches in tone sequences, as compared to speakers of a non-tone language. Both groups were presented with monotonic and isochronous sequences of five tones (i.e., constant pitch and intertone interval. They were required to detect when the fourth tone was displaced in pitch or time. While speakers of a tone language performed more poorly in the detection of downward pitch changes, they did not differ from non-tone language speakers in their perception of upward pitch changes or in their perception of subtle time changes. Moreover, this impairment cannot be attributed to low musical aptitude since the impairment remains unchanged when individual differences in musical pitch-based processing is taken into account. Thus, the impairment appears highly specific and may reflect the influence of statistical regularities of tone languages.

Metingen aan speciale akoestische maatregelen in een concertzaal

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Houtsma, A.J.M.; Martin, H.J.; Hak, C.C.J.M.; van Donselaar, C.J.

1997-01-01

In a recently constructed concert hall (14400 m3, 1250 seats), problems were encountered initially with solo piano performances. Music critics judged the piano sound as 'weak' and 'swimming in space'. As a remedy, an acoustic reflector to enhance direct sound, in combination with a curtain to reduce

A.L. SOKOVNIN’S PIANO SCHOOL. ELENA RESHETNICHENKO — SOME TRAITS OF THE CREATIVE PORTRAIT

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

MELNIC TAMARA

2017-06-01

Full Text Available This article is dedicated to the memory of E. Reshetnicenco — an educator at the General Piano Department, one of the most talented representatives of A. Sokovnin’s piano school. In the creations of romantic composers, which form the basis of the concert repertoire, is captured the figurative and emotional field, the most consonant to the nature of the pianist. At the same time, her interpretations combined an analytical approach to the compositions, a thorough reasoning of details, and disregard of external effects. All these were distinctive features of all Sokovnin’s disciples.

Pianists exhibit enhanced memory for vocal melodies but not piano melodies.

Science.gov (United States)

Weiss, Michael W; Vanzella, Patrícia; Schellenberg, E Glenn; Trehub, Sandra E

2015-01-01

Nonmusicians remember vocal melodies (i.e., sung to la la) better than instrumental melodies. If greater exposure to the voice contributes to those effects, then long-term experience with instrumental timbres should elicit instrument-specific advantages. Here we evaluate this hypothesis by comparing pianists with other musicians and nonmusicians. We also evaluate the possibility that absolute pitch (AP), which involves exceptional memory for isolated pitches, influences melodic memory. Participants heard 24 melodies played in four timbres (voice, piano, banjo, marimba) and were subsequently required to distinguish the melodies heard previously from 24 novel melodies presented in the same timbres. Musicians performed better than nonmusicians, but both groups showed a comparable memory advantage for vocal melodies. Moreover, pianists performed no better on melodies played on piano than on other instruments, and AP musicians performed no differently than non-AP musicians. The findings confirm the robust nature of the voice advantage and rule out explanations based on familiarity, practice, and motor representations.

O método de leitura à primeira vista ao piano de Wilhelm Keilmann e sua fundamentação teórica

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Maria Elisa Risarto

2010-12-01

Full Text Available This article aims at analyzing the foundation methods of teaching sight reading at the piano as proposed by Wilhelm Keilmann in his Introduction to Sight Reading at the Piano or other Keyboard Instrument. A bibliographic research identified the cognitive capabilities and skills that are involved in sight reading at the piano and other musical instruments, and verified the pedagogical effectiveness of this methodology.

A modal approach to piano soundboard vibroacoustic behavior.

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Trévisan, Benjamin; Ege, Kerem; Laulagnet, Bernard

2017-02-01

This paper presents an analytical method for modeling the vibro-acoustic behavior of ribbed non-rectangular orthotropic clamped plates. To do this, the non-rectangular plate is embedded in an extended rectangular simply supported plate on which a spring distribution is added, blocking the extended part of the surface, and allowing the description of any inner surface shapes. The acoustical radiation of the embedded plate is ensured using the radiation impedances of the extended rectangular simply supported plate. This method is applied to an upright piano soundboard: a non-rectangular orthotropic plate ribbed in both directions by several straight stiffeners. A modal decomposition is adopted on the basis of the rectangular extended simply supported plate modes, making it possible to calculate the modes of a piano soundboard in the frequency range [0;3000] Hz, showing the different associated mode families. Likewise, the acoustical radiation is calculated using the radiation impedances of a simply supported baffled plate, demonstrating the influence of the string coupling point positions on the acoustic radiated power. The paper ends with the introduction of indicators taking into account spatial and spectral variations of the excitation depending on the notes, which add to the accuracy of the study from the musical standpoint. A parametrical study, which includes several variations of soundboard design, highlights the complexity of rendering high-pitched notes homogeneous.

THE SONATA FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO BY VIOREL MUNTEANU IN THE INTERPRETATIVE CONCEPTION OF NATIVE MUSICIANS

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STOLEARCIUC XENIA

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Signed in 1974, the Sonata for violin and piano by Viorel Munteanu continues the Enescu tradition and distinguishes itself by an original musical language, that alongside of the form sobriety, places this opus among the most representative examples of Romanian chamber instrumental music of the second half of the 20th century. Special attention is given to the exploration of the source of folklore and the Byzantine influence that generate the intonational-thematic structure of the whole work and relate it to the opuses of Moldovan music. Thus, the abundance of sound symbols and specific elements of the „pastoral” space reveals essential aspects of the interpretative conception of the native musicians. This composition was premiered in Chisinau within the framework of the 25th edition of the International Festival The Days of New Music. In the present article the author wants to pay her respects to the late violinist Angela Molodojan who performed with remarkable artistry, originality and musical refinement the violin part in the above-mentioned creation.

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

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Nan Xu Rattanasone

2018-05-01

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

Comparison of sound propagation and perception of three types of backup alarms with regards to worker safety

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Véronique Vaillancourt

2013-01-01

Full Text Available A technology of backup alarms based on the use of a broadband signal has recently gained popularity in many countries. In this study, the performance of this broadband technology is compared to that of a conventional tonal alarm and a multi-tone alarm from a worker-safety standpoint. Field measurements of sound pressure level patterns behind heavy vehicles were performed in real work environments and psychoacoustic measurements (sound detection thresholds, equal loudness, perceived urgency and sound localization were carried out in the laboratory with human subjects. Compared with the conventional tonal alarm, the broadband alarm generates a much more uniform sound field behind vehicles, is easier to localize in space and is judged slighter louder at representative alarm levels. Slight advantages were found with the tonal alarm for sound detection and for perceived urgency at low levels, but these benefits observed in laboratory conditions would not overcome the detrimental effects associated with the large and abrupt variations in sound pressure levels (up to 15-20 dB within short distances observed in the field behind vehicles for this alarm, which are significantly higher than those obtained with the broadband alarm. Performance with the multi-tone alarm generally fell between that of the tonal and broadband alarms on most measures.

Non-tip auditory-nerve responses that are suppressed by low-frequency bias tones originate from reticular lamina motion.

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Nam, Hui; Guinan, John J

2017-12-14

Recent cochlear mechanical measurements show that active processes increase the motion response of the reticular lamina (RL) at frequencies more than an octave below the local characteristic frequency (CF) for CFs above 5 kHz. A possible correlate is that in high-CF (>5 kHz) auditory-nerve (AN) fibers, responses to frequencies 1-3 octaves below CF ("tail" frequencies) can be inhibited by medial olivocochlear (MOC) efferents. These results indicate that active processes enhance the sensitivity of tail-frequency RL and AN responses. Perhaps related is that some apical low-CF AN fibers have tuning-curve (TC) "side-lobe" response areas at frequencies above and below the TC-tip that are MOC inhibited. We hypothesized that the tail and side-lobe responses are enhanced by the same active mechanisms as CF cochlear amplification. If responses to CF, tail-frequency, and TC-side-lobe tones are all enhanced by prestin motility controlled by outer-hair-cell (OHC) transmembrane voltage, then they should depend on OHC stereocilia position in the same way. To test this, we cyclically changed the OHC-stereocilia mechano-electric-transduction (MET) operating point with low-frequency "bias" tones (BTs) and increased the BT level until the BT caused quasi-static OHC MET saturation that reduced or "suppressed" the gain of OHC active processes. While measuring cat AN-fiber responses, 50 Hz BT level series, 70-120 dB SPL, were run alone and with CF tones, or 2.5 kHz tail-frequency tones, or side-lobe tones. BT-tone-alone responses were used to exclude BT sound levels that produced AN responses that might obscure BT suppression. Data were analyzed to show the BT phase that suppressed the tone responses at the lowest sound level. We found that AN responses to CF, tail-frequency, and side-lobe tones were suppressed at the same BT phase in almost all cases. The data are consistent with the enhancement of responses to CF, tail-frequency, and side-lobe tones all being due to the same

An Analysis of Students' Self-Efficacy and Motivation in Piano, Based on Different Variables and the Reasons for Their Failure

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Egilmez, Hatice Onuray; Engur, Doruk

2017-01-01

In this study, the self-efficacy and motivation of Zeki Muren Fine Arts High School piano students were examined based on different variables as well as the reasons for their failure. The data on their self-efficacy were obtained through self-efficacy scale of piano performance and the data on their motivation were obtained through motivation…

Deformation of a sound field caused by a manikin

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Weinrich, Søren G.

1981-01-01

around the head at distances of 1 cm to 2 m, measured from the tip of the nose. The signals were pure tones at 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 kHz. It was found that the presence of the manikin caused changes in the SPL of the sound field of at most ±2.5 dB at a distance of 1 m from the surface of the manikin....... Only over an interval of approximately 20 ° behind the manikin (i.e., opposite the sound source) did the manikin cause much larger changes, up to 9 dB. These changes are caused by destructive interference between sounds coming from opposite sides of the manikin. In front of the manikin, the changes...

Synchronized tapping facilitates learning sound sequences as indexed by the P300.

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Kamiyama, Keiko S; Okanoya, Kazuo

2014-01-01

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether and how single finger tapping in synchrony with sound sequences contributed to the auditory processing of them. The participants learned two unfamiliar sound sequences via different methods. In the tapping condition, they learned an auditory sequence while they tapped in synchrony with each sound onset. In the no tapping condition, they learned another sequence while they kept pressing a key until the sequence ended. After these learning sessions, we presented the two melodies again and recorded event-related potentials (ERPs). During the ERP recordings, 10% of the tones within each melody deviated from the original tones. An analysis of the grand average ERPs showed that deviant stimuli elicited a significant P300 in the tapping but not in the no-tapping condition. In addition, the significance of the P300 effect in the tapping condition increased as the participants showed highly synchronized tapping behavior during the learning sessions. These results indicated that single finger tapping promoted the conscious detection and evaluation of deviants within the learned sequences. The effect was related to individuals' musical ability to coordinate their finger movements along with external auditory events.

Sound preference test in animal models of addicts and phobias.

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Soga, Ryo; Shiramatsu, Tomoyo I; Kanzaki, Ryohei; Takahashi, Hirokazu

2016-08-01

Biased or too strong preference for a particular object is often problematic, resulting in addiction and phobia. In animal models, alternative forced-choice tasks have been routinely used, but such preference test is far from daily situations that addicts or phobic are facing. In the present study, we developed a behavioral assay to evaluate the preference of sounds in rodents. In the assay, several sounds were presented according to the position of free-moving rats, and quantified the sound preference based on the behavior. A particular tone was paired with microstimulation to the ventral tegmental area (VTA), which plays central roles in reward processing, to increase sound preference. The behaviors of rats were logged during the classical conditioning for six days. Consequently, some behavioral indices suggest that rats search for the conditioned sound. Thus, our data demonstrated that quantitative evaluation of preference in the behavioral assay is feasible.

The development of infants' use of property-poor sounds to individuate objects.

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Wilcox, Teresa; Smith, Tracy R

2010-12-01

There is evidence that infants as young as 4.5 months use property-rich but not property-poor sounds as the basis for individuating objects (Wilcox, Woods, Tuggy, & Napoli, 2006). The current research sought to identify the age at which infants demonstrate the capacity to use property-poor sounds. Using the task of Wilcox et al., infants aged 7 and 9 months were tested. The results revealed that 9- but not 7-month-olds demonstrated sensitivity to property-poor sounds (electronic tones) in an object individuation task. Additional results confirmed that the younger infants were sensitive to property-rich sounds (rattle sounds). These are the first positive results obtained with property-poor sounds in infants and lay the foundation for future research to identify the underlying basis for the developmental hierarchy favoring property-rich over property-poor sounds and possible mechanisms for change. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Insights and Opinions of College Students on Classical Piano Instrumental Music

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Pelayo, Jose Maria G., III

2013-01-01

Classical Piano Instrumental Music has been used for meditation hitherto. This study tried to discover the insights and opinions of individuals with no formal musical training and how it may affect their mood, emotions, feelings, imagination, attitude, perception in life, and personality. The researcher conducted this study in order to determine…

A Conferência Nacional de Pedagogia do Piano como referência para uma definição da área de estudo

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Maria Isabel Montandon

2004-12-01

Full Text Available In 1980, the National Conference on Piano Pedagogy was created in the United States. Its purpose was to address curriculum building problems in piano pedagogy. Yet, the growth and complexity of the meetings led to a change of the original purpose of the Conference, what can be interpreted as a lack of clarity or uncertainty about the meanings and boundaries of the field. Eventually, this growth led also to the end of the Conference. This paper relates part of my doctoral research that aims at identify trends in piano pedagogy in the United States as reflected by the Proceedings of the National Conference on Piano Pedagogy, 1981-1995.

Matching by Monotonic Tone Mapping.

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Kovacs, Gyorgy

2018-06-01

In this paper, a novel dissimilarity measure called Matching by Monotonic Tone Mapping (MMTM) is proposed. The MMTM technique allows matching under non-linear monotonic tone mappings and can be computed efficiently when the tone mappings are approximated by piecewise constant or piecewise linear functions. The proposed method is evaluated in various template matching scenarios involving simulated and real images, and compared to other measures developed to be invariant to monotonic intensity transformations. The results show that the MMTM technique is a highly competitive alternative of conventional measures in problems where possible tone mappings are close to monotonic.

Robot educativo de bajo costo que interpreta melodías en piano

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Yeison Alberto Buitrago Suescún

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Presenta el diseño de un robot educacional que interpreta melodías en un piano. El propósito principal de este robot es servir como instrumento de prácticas en materias relacionadas con fundamentos de robótica, especialmente en los temas de análisis cinemático. Su control se implementó en el software Matlab, que es de uso común en las universidades. Los materiales y equipos utilizados para su implementación son de fáciladquisición y bajo costo, con el fin de que pueda ser replicado fácilmente por un estudiante. La aplicación del intérprete de melodías en un piano estimula a los estudiantes desde edades tempranas a incursionar en esta área tan importante.

Attention-driven auditory cortex short-term plasticity helps segregate relevant sounds from noise.

Science.gov (United States)

Ahveninen, Jyrki; Hämäläinen, Matti; Jääskeläinen, Iiro P; Ahlfors, Seppo P; Huang, Samantha; Lin, Fa-Hsuan; Raij, Tommi; Sams, Mikko; Vasios, Christos E; Belliveau, John W

2011-03-08

How can we concentrate on relevant sounds in noisy environments? A "gain model" suggests that auditory attention simply amplifies relevant and suppresses irrelevant afferent inputs. However, it is unclear whether this suffices when attended and ignored features overlap to stimulate the same neuronal receptive fields. A "tuning model" suggests that, in addition to gain, attention modulates feature selectivity of auditory neurons. We recorded magnetoencephalography, EEG, and functional MRI (fMRI) while subjects attended to tones delivered to one ear and ignored opposite-ear inputs. The attended ear was switched every 30 s to quantify how quickly the effects evolve. To produce overlapping inputs, the tones were presented alone vs. during white-noise masking notch-filtered ±1/6 octaves around the tone center frequencies. Amplitude modulation (39 vs. 41 Hz in opposite ears) was applied for "frequency tagging" of attention effects on maskers. Noise masking reduced early (50-150 ms; N1) auditory responses to unattended tones. In support of the tuning model, selective attention canceled out this attenuating effect but did not modulate the gain of 50-150 ms activity to nonmasked tones or steady-state responses to the maskers themselves. These tuning effects originated at nonprimary auditory cortices, purportedly occupied by neurons that, without attention, have wider frequency tuning than ±1/6 octaves. The attentional tuning evolved rapidly, during the first few seconds after attention switching, and correlated with behavioral discrimination performance. In conclusion, a simple gain model alone cannot explain auditory selective attention. In nonprimary auditory cortices, attention-driven short-term plasticity retunes neurons to segregate relevant sounds from noise.

Unsteady phenomena in the edge tone

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Paal, G.; Vaik, I.

2007-01-01

Despite its geometrical simplicity, the edge tone displays a remarkably complex behaviour. A plane jet oscillates around the wedge-shaped object with a relatively stable frequency and under certain circumstances emits an audible tone. This configuration plays a central role in the sound production of several wind instruments but occurs in industrial situations too. The flow exhibits various interesting nonlinear phenomena reported in the literature which are not entirely explained. In this paper, detailed high precision numerical simulations of the flow are reported under various conditions. Several phenomena are reproduced in agreement with the literature such as the existence of 'stages', the dependence of oscillation frequency on the outflow velocity and the orifice-edge distance within one stage, the pressure distribution on the edge surface, etc. A criterion for the appropriate time step for constant accuracy has been derived. The location of force action is surprisingly stable; it remains in a very narrow region of the wedge surface independently of the Reynolds number and the orifice-edge distance but it is much further behind the edge tip than reported in the literature. The various stages can coexist in different ways: jumping back and forth between stages or being superposed on each other. Regardless of the form, the first stage continues to be dominant even when the second and third stage appears. The question of disturbance propagation velocity and disturbance wavelength is also investigated. The development of higher harmonics of a single stage along the orifice-edge tip distance is presented

Sound power emitted by a pure-tone source in a reverberation room

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jacobsen, Finn; Molares, Alfonso Rodriguez

2009-01-01

Energy considerations are of enormous practical importance in acoustics. In "energy acoustics," sources of noise are described in terms of the sound power they emit, the underlying assumption being that this property is independent of the particular environment where the sources are placed. Howev...

Time course of the influence of musical expertise on the processing of vocal and musical sounds.

Science.gov (United States)

Rigoulot, S; Pell, M D; Armony, J L

2015-04-02

Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have suggested that different cerebral regions preferentially process human voice and music. Yet, little is known on the temporal course of the brain processes that decode the category of sounds and how the expertise in one sound category can impact these processes. To address this question, we recorded the electroencephalogram (EEG) of 15 musicians and 18 non-musicians while they were listening to short musical excerpts (piano and violin) and vocal stimuli (speech and non-linguistic vocalizations). The task of the participants was to detect noise targets embedded within the stream of sounds. Event-related potentials revealed an early differentiation of sound category, within the first 100 ms after the onset of the sound, with mostly increased responses to musical sounds. Importantly, this effect was modulated by the musical background of participants, as musicians were more responsive to music sounds than non-musicians, consistent with the notion that musical training increases sensitivity to music. In late temporal windows, brain responses were enhanced in response to vocal stimuli, but musicians were still more responsive to music. These results shed new light on the temporal course of neural dynamics of auditory processing and reveal how it is impacted by the stimulus category and the expertise of participants. Copyright © 2015 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

THE PIANO COLLECTION SPRING MOOD BY O.P.NEGRUTSI: STYLISTIC AND GENRE FEATURES OF THE WORKS

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GUPALOVA ELENA

2015-12-01

Full Text Available In the focus of this article is the music collection by O. Negrutsi „Spring Mood”, published in 2009 and edited by I .Stolyar. The piano Miniatures, that are different in variety of artistic ideas and content, are included in this anthology. All the works included in this collection have a number of teaching and performing features, a typical figurative and emotional system, evi­dent technical issues based on national folklore. All this makes them indispensable for the pedagogical and concert repertoire of the Special Piano course in the secondary and higher educational institutions of the Republic of Moldova.

Tone Noise Predictions for a Spacecraft Cabin Ventilation Fan Ingesting Distorted Inflow and the Challenges of Validation

Science.gov (United States)

Koch, L. Danielle; Shook, Tony D.; Astler, Douglas T.; Bittinger, Samantha A.

2012-01-01

A fan tone noise prediction code has been developed at NASA Glenn Research Center that is capable of estimating duct mode sound power levels for a fan ingesting distorted inflow. This code was used to predict the circumferential and radial mode sound power levels in the inlet and exhaust duct of an axial spacecraft cabin ventilation fan. Noise predictions at fan design rotational speed were generated. Three fan inflow conditions were studied: an undistorted inflow, a circumferentially symmetric inflow distortion pattern (cylindrical rods inserted radially into the flowpath at 15deg, 135deg, and 255deg), and a circumferentially asymmetric inflow distortion pattern (rods located at 15deg, 52deg and 173deg). Noise predictions indicate that tones are produced for the distorted inflow cases that are not present when the fan operates with an undistorted inflow. Experimental data are needed to validate these acoustic predictions, as well as the aerodynamic performance predictions. Given the aerodynamic design of the spacecraft cabin ventilation fan, a mechanical and electrical conceptual design study was conducted. Design features of a fan suitable for obtaining detailed acoustic and aerodynamic measurements needed to validate predictions are discussed.

Correlation Between Resting Testosterone/Cortisol Ratio and Sound-Induced Vasoconstriction at Fingertip in Men.

Science.gov (United States)

Ooishi, Yuuki

2018-01-01

A sound-induced sympathetic tone has been used as an index for orienting responses to auditory stimuli. The resting testosterone/cortisol ratio is a biomarker of social aggression that drives an approaching behavior in response to environmental stimuli, and a higher testosterone level and a lower cortisol level can facilitate the sympathetic response to environmental stimuli. Therefore, it is possible that the testosterone/cortisol ratio is correlated with the sound-induced sympathetic tone. The current study investigated the relationship between the resting testosterone/cortisol ratio and vasoconstriction induced by listening to sound stimuli. Twenty healthy males aged 29.0 ± 0.53 years (mean ± S.E.M) participated in the study. They came to the laboratory for 3 days and listened to one of three types of sound stimuli for 1 min on each day. Saliva samples were collected for an analysis of salivary testosterone and cortisol levels on the day of each experiment. After the collecting the saliva sample, we measured the blood volume pulse (BVP) amplitude at a fingertip. Since vasoconstriction is mediated by the activation of the sympathetic nerves, the strength of the reduction in BVP amplitude at a fingertip was called the BVP response (finger BVPR). No difference was observed between the sound-induced finger BVPR for the three types of sound stimuli ( p = 0.779). The correlation coefficient between the sound-induced finger BVPR and the salivary testosterone/cortisol ratio within participants was significantly different from no correlation ( p = 0.011) and there was a trend toward a significance in the correlation between the sound-induced finger BVPR and the salivary testosterone/cortisol ratio between participants ( r = 0.39, p = 0.088). These results suggest that the testosterone/cortisol ratio affects the difference in the sound-evoked sympathetic response.

A CASE STUDY OF STUDENT’S PROGRESS IN PIANO PLAYING: THE ROLE OF TRAINING MODEL IN STUDENT’S EXPERTISE

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Maja Marijan

2016-02-01

Full Text Available A case study of student’s progress in piano playing was carried out as an empirical research investigating student’s progress in piano performance. The research was outlined as a multiple process carrying out in three phases. The paper discusses the valuation of the training model through the assessment of the student’s level of attainment. The analysis included descriptive statistics for all the variables, and correlations between variables and the level of attainment. Factors that influence the student’s progress in piano playing, student’s individual characteristics (traits,and cognitive abilities, were measured objectively and were related to significant aspect of musical behavior. These items were assessed at the commencement of the student’s tuition program and at the cut-off date set for the study period. Findings confirmed that the change of training model has significant impact on the student’s progress in very short period, in this case three-week research period. Introduction of organized, and intuitive training model influenced cognitive abilities and motor skills, and personality constructs, such as anxiety, motivation, sense of contentment, self confidence, energy and effort. The difference is large enough to permit the conclusion that the proper training model leads to an important progress in student’s piano playing.

Musical Preferences as a Function of Stimulus Complexity of Piano Jazz

Science.gov (United States)

Gordon, Josh; Gridley, Mark C.

2013-01-01

Seven excerpts of modern jazz piano improvisations were selected to represent a range of perceived complexities. Audio recordings of the excerpts were played for 27 listeners who were asked to indicate their level of enjoyment on 7-point scales. Indications of enjoyment followed an inverted-U when plotted against perceived complexity of the music.…

A tone analyzer based on a piezoelectric polymer and organic thin film transistors.

Science.gov (United States)

Hsu, Yu-Jen; Kymissis, Ioannis

2012-12-01

A tone analyzer is demonstrated using a distributed resonator architecture on a tensioned piezoelectric polyvinyledene diuoride (PVDF) sheet. This sheet is used as both the resonator and detection element. Two architectures are demonstrated; one uses distributed, directly addressed elements as a proof of concept, and the other integrates organic thin film transistor-based transimpedance amplifiers directly with the PVDF to convert the piezoelectric charge signal into a current signal. The PVDF sheet material is instrumented along its length, and the amplitude response at 15 sites is recorded and analyzed as a function of the frequency of excitation. The determination of the dominant component of an incoming tone is demonstrated using linear system decomposition of the time-averaged response of the sheet and is performed without any time domain analysis. This design allows for the determination of the spectral composition of a sound using the mechanical signal processing provided by the amplitude response and eliminates the need for time-domain downstream signal processing of the incoming signal.

Behavioral avoidance threshold level of a harbor porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) for a continuous 50 kHz pure tone (L)

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kastelein, R.A.; Verboom, W.C.; Jennings, N.; Haan, D. de

2008-01-01

The use of ultrasonic sounds in alarms for gillnets may be advantageous, but the deterring effects of ultrasound on porpoises are not well understood. Therefore a harbor porpoise in a large floating pen was subjected to a continuous 50 kHz pure tone with a source level of 122 +/- 3dB (re 1uPa, rms).

Behavioral avoidance threshold level of a harbor porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) for a continuous 50 kHz pure tone (L)

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kastelein, R.A.; Verboom, W.C.; Jennings, N.; Haan, de D.

2008-01-01

The use of ultrasonic sounds in alarms for gillnets may be advantageous, but the deterring effects of ultrasound on porpoises are not well understood. Therefore a harbor porpoise in a large floating pen was subjected to a continuous 50 kHz pure tone with a source level of 122±3 dB (re 1 ¿Pa, rms).

Perspectives on the Pure-Tone Audiogram.

Science.gov (United States)

Musiek, Frank E; Shinn, Jennifer; Chermak, Gail D; Bamiou, Doris-Eva

The pure-tone audiogram, though fundamental to audiology, presents limitations, especially in the case of central auditory involvement. Advances in auditory neuroscience underscore the considerably larger role of the central auditory nervous system (CANS) in hearing and related disorders. Given the availability of behavioral audiological tests and electrophysiological procedures that can provide better insights as to the function of the various components of the auditory system, this perspective piece reviews the limitations of the pure-tone audiogram and notes some of the advantages of other tests and procedures used in tandem with the pure-tone threshold measurement. To review and synthesize the literature regarding the utility and limitations of the pure-tone audiogram in determining dysfunction of peripheral sensory and neural systems, as well as the CANS, and to identify other tests and procedures that can supplement pure-tone thresholds and provide enhanced diagnostic insight, especially regarding problems of the central auditory system. A systematic review and synthesis of the literature. The authors independently searched and reviewed literature (journal articles, book chapters) pertaining to the limitations of the pure-tone audiogram. The pure-tone audiogram provides information as to hearing sensitivity across a selected frequency range. Normal or near-normal pure-tone thresholds sometimes are observed despite cochlear damage. There are a surprising number of patients with acoustic neuromas who have essentially normal pure-tone thresholds. In cases of central deafness, depressed pure-tone thresholds may not accurately reflect the status of the peripheral auditory system. Listening difficulties are seen in the presence of normal pure-tone thresholds. Suprathreshold procedures and a variety of other tests can provide information regarding other and often more central functions of the auditory system. The audiogram is a primary tool for determining type

Detecting change in stochastic sound sequences.

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Benjamin Skerritt-Davis

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Our ability to parse our acoustic environment relies on the brain's capacity to extract statistical regularities from surrounding sounds. Previous work in regularity extraction has predominantly focused on the brain's sensitivity to predictable patterns in sound sequences. However, natural sound environments are rarely completely predictable, often containing some level of randomness, yet the brain is able to effectively interpret its surroundings by extracting useful information from stochastic sounds. It has been previously shown that the brain is sensitive to the marginal lower-order statistics of sound sequences (i.e., mean and variance. In this work, we investigate the brain's sensitivity to higher-order statistics describing temporal dependencies between sound events through a series of change detection experiments, where listeners are asked to detect changes in randomness in the pitch of tone sequences. Behavioral data indicate listeners collect statistical estimates to process incoming sounds, and a perceptual model based on Bayesian inference shows a capacity in the brain to track higher-order statistics. Further analysis of individual subjects' behavior indicates an important role of perceptual constraints in listeners' ability to track these sensory statistics with high fidelity. In addition, the inference model facilitates analysis of neural electroencephalography (EEG responses, anchoring the analysis relative to the statistics of each stochastic stimulus. This reveals both a deviance response and a change-related disruption in phase of the stimulus-locked response that follow the higher-order statistics. These results shed light on the brain's ability to process stochastic sound sequences.

Directional sound radiation from substation transformers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Maybee, N.

2009-01-01

This paper presented the results of a study in which acoustical measurements at two substations were analyzed to investigate the directional behaviour of typical arrays having 2 or 3 transformers. Substation transformers produce a characteristic humming sound that is caused primarily by vibration of the core at twice the frequency of the power supply. The humming noise radiates predominantly from the tank enclosing the core. The main components of the sound are harmonics of 120 Hz. Sound pressure level data were obtained for various directions and distances from the arrays, ranging from 0.5 m to over 100 m. The measured sound pressure levels of the transformer tones displayed substantial positive and negative excursions from the calculated average values for many distances and directions. The results support the concept that the directional effects are associated with constructive and destructive interference of tonal sound waves emanating from different parts of the array. Significant variations in the directional sound pattern can occur in the near field of a single transformer or an array, and the extent of the near field is significantly larger than the scale of the array. Based on typical dimensions for substation sites, the distance to the far field may be much beyond the substation boundary and beyond typical setbacks to the closest dwellings. As such, the directional sound radiation produced by transformer arrays introduces additional uncertainty in the prediction of substation sound levels at dwellings within a few hundred meters of a substation site. 4 refs., 4 figs.

Tuning In to Sound: Frequency-Selective Attentional Filter in Human Primary Auditory Cortex

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Da Costa, Sandra; van der Zwaag, Wietske; Miller, Lee M.; Clarke, Stephanie

2013-01-01

Cocktail parties, busy streets, and other noisy environments pose a difficult challenge to the auditory system: how to focus attention on selected sounds while ignoring others? Neurons of primary auditory cortex, many of which are sharply tuned to sound frequency, could help solve this problem by filtering selected sound information based on frequency-content. To investigate whether this occurs, we used high-resolution fMRI at 7 tesla to map the fine-scale frequency-tuning (1.5 mm isotropic resolution) of primary auditory areas A1 and R in six human participants. Then, in a selective attention experiment, participants heard low (250 Hz)- and high (4000 Hz)-frequency streams of tones presented at the same time (dual-stream) and were instructed to focus attention onto one stream versus the other, switching back and forth every 30 s. Attention to low-frequency tones enhanced neural responses within low-frequency-tuned voxels relative to high, and when attention switched the pattern quickly reversed. Thus, like a radio, human primary auditory cortex is able to tune into attended frequency channels and can switch channels on demand. PMID:23365225

A piano training program to improve manual dexterity and upper extremity function in chronic stroke survivors

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Myriam eVilleneuve

2014-08-01

Full Text Available Objective: Music-supported therapy was shown to induce improvements in motor skills in stroke survivors. Whether all stroke individuals respond similarly to the intervention and whether gains can be maintained over time remain unknown. We estimated the immediate and retention effects of a piano training program on upper extremity function in persons with chronic stroke. Methods: Thirteen stroke participants engaged in a 3-week piano training comprising of supervised sessions (9 x 60min and home practice. Fine and gross manual dexterity, movement coordination and functional use of the upper extremity were assessed at baseline, pre-intervention, post-intervention and at a 3-week follow-up. Results: Significant improvements were observed for all outcomes at post-intervention and follow-up, compared to pre-intervention scores. Larger magnitudes of change in manual dexterity and functional use of the upper extremity were associated with higher initial levels of motor recovery. Conclusions: Piano training can result in sustainable improvements in upper extremity function in chronic stroke survivors. Individuals with a higher initial level of motor recovery at baseline appear to benefit the most from this intervention.

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

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

2015-01-01

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

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

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Ming-Tao eYang

2015-08-01

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

Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto N1 in B flat minor, Op.23 / David J. Fanning

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Fanning, David J.

1990-01-01

Uuest heliplaadist "Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto N1 in B flat minor, Op.23, Suite N4 in G major, Op.61, "Mozartiana". Constantine Orbelian (pf), Philarmonia Orchestra, Neeme Järvi" Chandos ABTD 1413. CHAN 8777

Stenhammer: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2 in D minor / Robert Layton

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Layton, Robert

1994-01-01

Uuest heliplaadist "Stenhammer: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2 in D minor, Op. 23. Serenade in F, Op. 31. Florez och Blanzeflor, Op. 3... Munich Philharmonic Orchestra / Stig Westerberg; Serenade - selected comparison: Gothenburg SO, Järvi" (2/87) BIS CD 310

Lexical tone and stuttering in Cantonese.

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

2018-01-01

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

Musical Identities in Transition: Solo-Piano Students' Accounts of Entering the Academy

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Juuti, Sini; Littleton, Karen

2010-01-01

The purpose of this study was to explore the identity work of adult instrumental students negotiating their entry to a prestigious music academy and the professional field of music. Ten classical solo-piano students' accounts of their musical histories and experiences were collected through research interviews. The thematic analyses presented…

Spectral integration in speech and non-speech sounds

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Jacewicz, Ewa

2005-04-01

Spectral integration (or formant averaging) was proposed in vowel perception research to account for the observation that a reduction of the intensity of one of two closely spaced formants (as in /u/) produced a predictable shift in vowel quality [Delattre et al., Word 8, 195-210 (1952)]. A related observation was reported in psychoacoustics, indicating that when the components of a two-tone periodic complex differ in amplitude and frequency, its perceived pitch is shifted toward that of the more intense tone [Helmholtz, App. XIV (1875/1948)]. Subsequent research in both fields focused on the frequency interval that separates these two spectral components, in an attempt to determine the size of the bandwidth for spectral integration to occur. This talk will review the accumulated evidence for and against spectral integration within the hypothesized limit of 3.5 Bark for static and dynamic signals in speech perception and psychoacoustics. Based on similarities in the processing of speech and non-speech sounds, it is suggested that spectral integration may reflect a general property of the auditory system. A larger frequency bandwidth, possibly close to 3.5 Bark, may be utilized in integrating acoustic information, including speech, complex signals, or sound quality of a violin.

Sound stream segregation: a neuromorphic approach to solve the "cocktail party problem" in real-time.

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Thakur, Chetan Singh; Wang, Runchun M; Afshar, Saeed; Hamilton, Tara J; Tapson, Jonathan C; Shamma, Shihab A; van Schaik, André

2015-01-01

The human auditory system has the ability to segregate complex auditory scenes into a foreground component and a background, allowing us to listen to specific speech sounds from a mixture of sounds. Selective attention plays a crucial role in this process, colloquially known as the "cocktail party effect." It has not been possible to build a machine that can emulate this human ability in real-time. Here, we have developed a framework for the implementation of a neuromorphic sound segregation algorithm in a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). This algorithm is based on the principles of temporal coherence and uses an attention signal to separate a target sound stream from background noise. Temporal coherence implies that auditory features belonging to the same sound source are coherently modulated and evoke highly correlated neural response patterns. The basis for this form of sound segregation is that responses from pairs of channels that are strongly positively correlated belong to the same stream, while channels that are uncorrelated or anti-correlated belong to different streams. In our framework, we have used a neuromorphic cochlea as a frontend sound analyser to extract spatial information of the sound input, which then passes through band pass filters that extract the sound envelope at various modulation rates. Further stages include feature extraction and mask generation, which is finally used to reconstruct the targeted sound. Using sample tonal and speech mixtures, we show that our FPGA architecture is able to segregate sound sources in real-time. The accuracy of segregation is indicated by the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the segregated stream (90, 77, and 55 dB for simple tone, complex tone, and speech, respectively) as compared to the SNR of the mixture waveform (0 dB). This system may be easily extended for the segregation of complex speech signals, and may thus find various applications in electronic devices such as for sound segregation and

Safety of the HyperSound® Audio System in subjects with normal hearing

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Ritvik P. Mehta

2015-11-01

Full Text Available The objective of the study was to assess the safety of the HyperSound® Audio System (HSS, a novel audio system using ultrasound technology, in normal hearing subjects under normal use conditions; we considered preexposure and post-exposure test design. We investigated primary and secondary outcome measures: i temporary threshold shift (TTS, defined as >10 dB shift in pure tone air conduction thresholds and/or a decrement in distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs >10 dB at two or more frequencies; ii presence of new-onset otologic symptoms after exposure. Twenty adult subjects with normal hearing underwent a pre-exposure assessment (pure tone air conduction audiometry, tympanometry, DPOAEs and otologic symptoms questionnaire followed by exposure to a 2-h movie with sound delivered through the HSS emitter followed by a post-exposure assessment. No TTS or new-onset otological symptoms were identified. HSS demonstrates excellent safety in normal hearing subjects under normal use conditions.

Safety of the HyperSound® Audio System in Subjects with Normal Hearing.

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Mehta, Ritvik P; Mattson, Sara L; Kappus, Brian A; Seitzman, Robin L

2015-06-11

The objective of the study was to assess the safety of the HyperSound® Audio System (HSS), a novel audio system using ultrasound technology, in normal hearing subjects under normal use conditions; we considered pre-exposure and post-exposure test design. We investigated primary and secondary outcome measures: i) temporary threshold shift (TTS), defined as >10 dB shift in pure tone air conduction thresholds and/or a decrement in distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) >10 dB at two or more frequencies; ii) presence of new-onset otologic symptoms after exposure. Twenty adult subjects with normal hearing underwent a pre-exposure assessment (pure tone air conduction audiometry, tympanometry, DPOAEs and otologic symptoms questionnaire) followed by exposure to a 2-h movie with sound delivered through the HSS emitter followed by a post-exposure assessment. No TTS or new-onset otological symptoms were identified. HSS demonstrates excellent safety in normal hearing subjects under normal use conditions.

Dissociation of Detection and Discrimination of Pure Tones following Bilateral Lesions of Auditory Cortex

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Dykstra, Andrew R.; Koh, Christine K.; Braida, Louis D.; Tramo, Mark Jude

2012-01-01

It is well known that damage to the peripheral auditory system causes deficits in tone detection as well as pitch and loudness perception across a wide range of frequencies. However, the extent to which to which the auditory cortex plays a critical role in these basic aspects of spectral processing, especially with regard to speech, music, and environmental sound perception, remains unclear. Recent experiments indicate that primary auditory cortex is necessary for the normally-high perceptual acuity exhibited by humans in pure-tone frequency discrimination. The present study assessed whether the auditory cortex plays a similar role in the intensity domain and contrasted its contribution to sensory versus discriminative aspects of intensity processing. We measured intensity thresholds for pure-tone detection and pure-tone loudness discrimination in a population of healthy adults and a middle-aged man with complete or near-complete lesions of the auditory cortex bilaterally. Detection thresholds in his left and right ears were 16 and 7 dB HL, respectively, within clinically-defined normal limits. In contrast, the intensity threshold for monaural loudness discrimination at 1 kHz was 6.5±2.1 dB in the left ear and 6.5±1.9 dB in the right ear at 40 dB sensation level, well above the means of the control population (left ear: 1.6±0.22 dB; right ear: 1.7±0.19 dB). The results indicate that auditory cortex lowers just-noticeable differences for loudness discrimination by approximately 5 dB but is not necessary for tone detection in quiet. Previous human and Old-world monkey experiments employing lesion-effect, neurophysiology, and neuroimaging methods to investigate the role of auditory cortex in intensity processing are reviewed. PMID:22957087

Dissociation of detection and discrimination of pure tones following bilateral lesions of auditory cortex.

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Dykstra, Andrew R; Koh, Christine K; Braida, Louis D; Tramo, Mark Jude

2012-01-01

It is well known that damage to the peripheral auditory system causes deficits in tone detection as well as pitch and loudness perception across a wide range of frequencies. However, the extent to which to which the auditory cortex plays a critical role in these basic aspects of spectral processing, especially with regard to speech, music, and environmental sound perception, remains unclear. Recent experiments indicate that primary auditory cortex is necessary for the normally-high perceptual acuity exhibited by humans in pure-tone frequency discrimination. The present study assessed whether the auditory cortex plays a similar role in the intensity domain and contrasted its contribution to sensory versus discriminative aspects of intensity processing. We measured intensity thresholds for pure-tone detection and pure-tone loudness discrimination in a population of healthy adults and a middle-aged man with complete or near-complete lesions of the auditory cortex bilaterally. Detection thresholds in his left and right ears were 16 and 7 dB HL, respectively, within clinically-defined normal limits. In contrast, the intensity threshold for monaural loudness discrimination at 1 kHz was 6.5 ± 2.1 dB in the left ear and 6.5 ± 1.9 dB in the right ear at 40 dB sensation level, well above the means of the control population (left ear: 1.6 ± 0.22 dB; right ear: 1.7 ± 0.19 dB). The results indicate that auditory cortex lowers just-noticeable differences for loudness discrimination by approximately 5 dB but is not necessary for tone detection in quiet. Previous human and Old-world monkey experiments employing lesion-effect, neurophysiology, and neuroimaging methods to investigate the role of auditory cortex in intensity processing are reviewed.

Dissociation of detection and discrimination of pure tones following bilateral lesions of auditory cortex.

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Andrew R Dykstra

Full Text Available It is well known that damage to the peripheral auditory system causes deficits in tone detection as well as pitch and loudness perception across a wide range of frequencies. However, the extent to which to which the auditory cortex plays a critical role in these basic aspects of spectral processing, especially with regard to speech, music, and environmental sound perception, remains unclear. Recent experiments indicate that primary auditory cortex is necessary for the normally-high perceptual acuity exhibited by humans in pure-tone frequency discrimination. The present study assessed whether the auditory cortex plays a similar role in the intensity domain and contrasted its contribution to sensory versus discriminative aspects of intensity processing. We measured intensity thresholds for pure-tone detection and pure-tone loudness discrimination in a population of healthy adults and a middle-aged man with complete or near-complete lesions of the auditory cortex bilaterally. Detection thresholds in his left and right ears were 16 and 7 dB HL, respectively, within clinically-defined normal limits. In contrast, the intensity threshold for monaural loudness discrimination at 1 kHz was 6.5 ± 2.1 dB in the left ear and 6.5 ± 1.9 dB in the right ear at 40 dB sensation level, well above the means of the control population (left ear: 1.6 ± 0.22 dB; right ear: 1.7 ± 0.19 dB. The results indicate that auditory cortex lowers just-noticeable differences for loudness discrimination by approximately 5 dB but is not necessary for tone detection in quiet. Previous human and Old-world monkey experiments employing lesion-effect, neurophysiology, and neuroimaging methods to investigate the role of auditory cortex in intensity processing are reviewed.

Musical training increases functional connectivity, but does not enhance mu suppression.

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Wu, C Carolyn; Hamm, Jeff P; Lim, Vanessa K; Kirk, Ian J

2017-09-01

Musical training provides an ideal platform for investigating action representation for sound. Learning to play an instrument requires integration of sensory and motor perception-action processes. Functional neuroimaging studies have indicated that listening to trained music can result in the activity in premotor areas, even after a short period of training. These studies suggest that action representation systems are heavily dependent on specific sensorimotor experience. However, others suggest that because humans naturally move to music, sensorimotor training is not necessary and there is a more general action representation for music. We previously demonstrated that EEG mu suppression, commonly implemented to demonstrate mirror-neuron-like action representation while observing movements, can also index action representations for sounds in pianists. The current study extends these findings to a group of non-musicians who learned to play randomised sequences on a piano, in order to acquire specific sound-action mappings for the five fingers of their right hand. We investigated training-related changes in neural dynamics as indexed by mu suppression and task-related coherence measures. To test the specificity of training effects, we included sounds similar to those encountered in the training and additionally rhythm sequences. We found no effect of training on mu suppression between pre- and post-training EEG recordings. However, task-related coherence indexing functional connectivity between electrodes over audiomotor areas increased after training. These results suggest that long-term training in musicians and short-term training in novices may be associated with different stages of audiomotor integration that can be reflected in different EEG measures. Furthermore, the changes in functional connectivity were specifically found for piano tones, and were not apparent when participants listened to rhythms, indicating some degree of specificity related to training

Dementias show differential physiological responses to salient sounds.

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Fletcher, Phillip D; Nicholas, Jennifer M; Shakespeare, Timothy J; Downey, Laura E; Golden, Hannah L; Agustus, Jennifer L; Clark, Camilla N; Mummery, Catherine J; Schott, Jonathan M; Crutch, Sebastian J; Warren, Jason D

2015-01-01

Abnormal responsiveness to salient sensory signals is often a prominent feature of dementia diseases, particularly the frontotemporal lobar degenerations, but has been little studied. Here we assessed processing of one important class of salient signals, looming sounds, in canonical dementia syndromes. We manipulated tones using intensity cues to create percepts of salient approaching ("looming") or less salient withdrawing sounds. Pupil dilatation responses and behavioral rating responses to these stimuli were compared in patients fulfilling consensus criteria for dementia syndromes (semantic dementia, n = 10; behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, n = 16, progressive nonfluent aphasia, n = 12; amnestic Alzheimer's disease, n = 10) and a cohort of 26 healthy age-matched individuals. Approaching sounds were rated as more salient than withdrawing sounds by healthy older individuals but this behavioral response to salience did not differentiate healthy individuals from patients with dementia syndromes. Pupil responses to approaching sounds were greater than responses to withdrawing sounds in healthy older individuals and in patients with semantic dementia: this differential pupil response was reduced in patients with progressive nonfluent aphasia and Alzheimer's disease relative both to the healthy control and semantic dementia groups, and did not correlate with nonverbal auditory semantic function. Autonomic responses to auditory salience are differentially affected by dementias and may constitute a novel biomarker of these diseases.

[AN OVERALL SOUND PROCESS] Becoming Neoclassical: Instrumentation in the Sketches for Webern's Concerto, Op. 24

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David H. Miller

2016-05-01

Full Text Available In September 1928 Anton Webern wrote to publisher Emil Hertzka to report on the composition of a work “in the spirit of some of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos.” In June 1934 that work stood completed as the Concerto for Nine Instruments, Op. 24. While Op. 24 has been celebrated as a paradigmatic example of Webern’s forward-looking serial techniques, it simultaneously exhibits a strong neoclassical influence, as Kathryn Bailey (1991 has demonstrated in her study of sonata and ritornello principles in the Concerto’s first movement. Neoclassical models may have also played a role in dramatically shifting conceptions of instrumentation and genre evident in sketches from the work’s extended period of composition, during which time it transformed from a piece for large symphonic orchestra, to a concerto for solo piano with orchestral accompaniment, to a concerto grosso with a continuo-like piano part. The dramatic shifts found in the sketches are best understood in relation to Webern’s compositional activities in the decade preceding Op. 24. During this period, Webern revised several of his pre-World War I orchestral compositions, reducing the size and diversity of the ensembles with an eye towards Fasslichkeit (“comprehensibility”; a similar goal motivated the arrangements he produced for Arnold Schoenberg’s Society for Private Musical Performances. When considered alongside an instrumentation-centric view of the sketches for Op. 24, these activities suggest an intriguing view of the Concerto. If its twelve-tone row marks Op. 24 as an apex of Webern’s serial technique, its instrumentation makes it an apex of his neoclassicism.In September 1928 Anton Webern wrote to publisher Emil Hertzka to report on the composition of a work “in the spirit of some of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos.” In June 1934 that work stood completed as the Concerto for Nine Instruments, Op. 24. While Op. 24 has been celebrated as a paradigmatic example

Somatotopic mapping of piano fingering errors in sensorimotor experts: TMS studies in pianists and visually trained musically naives.

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Candidi, Matteo; Sacheli, Lucia Maria; Mega, Ilaria; Aglioti, Salvatore Maria

2014-02-01

Virtuosic musical performance requires fine sensorimotor skills and high predictive control of the fast finger movements that produce the intended sounds, and cannot be corrected once the notes have been played. The anticipatory nature of motor control in experts explains why musical performance is barely affected by auditory feedback. Using single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation, we provide evidence that, in expert pianists (Experiment 1), the observation of a mute piano fingering error induces 1) a time-locked facilitation of hand corticospinal representation which occurred 300 and 700 ms but not 100 ms after error onset, and 2) a somatotopic corticospinal facilitation of the very same finger that commits the error. In a second experiment, we show that no corticospinal modulation is found in non-pianist naïve individuals who were experimentally trained to visually detect the observed fingering errors (Experiment 2). This is the first evidence showing that the refined somatosensory and motor skills of musicians exceed the domain of individual motor control and may provide the brain with fine anticipatory, simulative error monitoring systems for the evaluation of others' movements.

Validation of the Predicted Circumferential and Radial Mode Sound Power Levels in the Inlet and Exhaust Ducts of a Fan Ingesting Distorted Inflow

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Koch, L. Danielle

2012-01-01

Fan inflow distortion tone noise has been studied computationally and experimentally. Data from two experiments in the NASA Glenn Advanced Noise Control Fan rig have been used to validate acoustic predictions. The inflow to the fan was distorted by cylindrical rods inserted radially into the inlet duct one rotor chord length upstream of the fan. The rods were arranged in both symmetric and asymmetric circumferential patterns. In-duct and farfield sound pressure level measurements were recorded. It was discovered that for positive circumferential modes, measured circumferential mode sound power levels in the exhaust duct were greater than those in the inlet duct and for negative circumferential modes, measured total circumferential mode sound power levels in the exhaust were less than those in the inlet. Predicted trends in overall sound power level were proven to be useful in identifying circumferentially asymmetric distortion patterns that reduce overall inlet distortion tone noise, as compared to symmetric arrangements of rods. Detailed comparisons between the measured and predicted radial mode sound power in the inlet and exhaust duct indicate limitations of the theory.

Effects of capacity limits, memory loss, and sound type in change deafness.

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Gregg, Melissa K; Irsik, Vanessa C; Snyder, Joel S

2017-11-01

Change deafness, the inability to notice changes to auditory scenes, has the potential to provide insights about sound perception in busy situations typical of everyday life. We determined the extent to which change deafness to sounds is due to the capacity of processing multiple sounds and the loss of memory for sounds over time. We also determined whether these processing limitations work differently for varying types of sounds within a scene. Auditory scenes composed of naturalistic sounds, spectrally dynamic unrecognizable sounds, tones, and noise rhythms were presented in a change-detection task. On each trial, two scenes were presented that were same or different. We manipulated the number of sounds within each scene to measure memory capacity and the silent interval between scenes to measure memory loss. For all sounds, change detection was worse as scene size increased, demonstrating the importance of capacity limits. Change detection to the natural sounds did not deteriorate much as the interval between scenes increased up to 2,000 ms, but it did deteriorate substantially with longer intervals. For artificial sounds, in contrast, change-detection performance suffered even for very short intervals. The results suggest that change detection is generally limited by capacity, regardless of sound type, but that auditory memory is more enduring for sounds with naturalistic acoustic structures.

Nonspeech Oral Motor Treatment Issues Related to Children with Developmental Speech Sound Disorders

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Ruscello, Dennis M.

2008-01-01

Purpose: This article examines nonspeech oral motor treatments (NSOMTs) in the population of clients with developmental speech sound disorders. NSOMTs are a collection of nonspeech methods and procedures that claim to influence tongue, lip, and jaw resting postures; increase strength; improve muscle tone; facilitate range of motion; and develop…

Acoustic and categorical dissimilarity of musical timbre: Evidence from asymmetriesbetween acoustic and chimeric sounds

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Kai eSiedenburg

2016-01-01

Full Text Available This paper investigates the role of acoustic and categorical information in timbre dissimilarity ratings. Using a Gammatone-filterbank-based sound transformation, we created tones that were rated as less familiar than recorded tones from orchestral instruments and that were harder to associate with an unambiguous sound source (Exp. 1. A subset of transformed tones, a set of orchestral recordings, and a mixed set were then rated on pairwise dissimilarity (Exp. 2A. We observed that recorded instrument timbres clustered into subsets that distinguished timbres according to acoustic and categorical properties. For the subset of cross-category comparisons in the mixed set, we observed asymmetries in the distribution of ratings, as well as a stark decay of inter-rater agreement. These effects were replicated in a more robust within-subjects design (Exp. 2B and cannot be explained by acoustic factors alone. We finally introduced a novel model of timbre dissimilarity based on partial least-squares regression that compared the contributions of both acoustic and categorical timbre descriptors. The best model fit (R^2 = .88 was achieved when both types of descriptors were taken into account. These findings are interpreted as evidence for an interplay of acoustic and categorical information in timbre dissimilarity perception.

The effects of intervening interference on working memory for sound location as a function of inter-comparison interval.

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Ries, Dennis T; Hamilton, Traci R; Grossmann, Aurora J

2010-09-01

This study examined the effects of inter-comparison interval duration and intervening interference on auditory working memory (AWM) for auditory location. Interaural phase differences were used to produce localization cues for tonal stimuli and the difference limen for interaural phase difference (DL-IPD) specified as the equivalent angle of incidence between two sound sources was measured in five different conditions. These conditions consisted of three different inter-comparison intervals [300 ms (short), 5000 ms (medium), and 15,000 ms (long)], the medium and long of which were presented both in the presence and absence of intervening tones. The presence of intervening stimuli within the medium and long inter-comparison intervals produced a significant increase in the DL-IPD compared to the medium and long inter-comparison intervals condition without intervening tones. The result obtained in the condition with a short inter-comparison interval was roughly equivalent to that obtained for the medium inter-comparison interval without intervening tones. These results suggest that the ability to retain information about the location of a sound within AWM decays slowly; however, the presence of intervening sounds readily disrupts the retention process. Overall, the results suggest that the temporal decay of information within AWM regarding the location of a sound from a listener's environment is so gradual that it can be maintained in trace memory for tens of seconds in the absence of intervening acoustic signals. Conversely, the presence of intervening sounds within the retention interval may facilitate the use of context memory, even for shorter retention intervals, resulting in a less detailed, but relevant representation of the location that is resistant to further degradation. Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Sound localization in common vampire bats: Acuity and use of the binaural time cue by a small mammal

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Heffner, Rickye S.; Koay, Gimseong; Heffner, Henry E.

2015-01-01

Passive sound-localization acuity and the ability to use binaural time and intensity cues were determined for the common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus). The bats were tested using a conditioned suppression/avoidance procedure in which they drank defibrinated blood from a spout in the presence of sounds from their right, but stopped drinking (i.e., broke contact with the spout) whenever a sound came from their left, thereby avoiding a mild shock. The mean minimum audible angle for three bats for a 100-ms noise burst was 13.1°—within the range of thresholds for other bats and near the mean for mammals. Common vampire bats readily localized pure tones of 20 kHz and higher, indicating they could use interaural intensity-differences. They could also localize pure tones of 5 kHz and lower, thereby demonstrating the use of interaural time-differences, despite their very small maximum interaural distance of 60 μs. A comparison of the use of locus cues among mammals suggests several implications for the evolution of sound localization and its underlying anatomical and physiological mechanisms. PMID:25618037

Individual differences in the biomechanical effect of loudness and tempo on upper-limb movements during repetitive piano keystrokes.

Science.gov (United States)

Furuya, Shinichi; Aoki, Tomoko; Nakahara, Hidehiro; Kinoshita, Hiroshi

2012-02-01

The present study addressed the effect of loudness and tempo on kinematics and muscular activities of the upper extremity during repetitive piano keystrokes. Eighteen pianists with professional music education struck two keys simultaneously and repetitively with a combination of four loudness levels and four tempi. The results demonstrated a significant interaction effect of loudness and tempo on peak angular velocity for the shoulder, elbow, wrist and finger joints, mean muscular activity for the corresponding flexors and extensors, and their co-activation level. The interaction effect indicated greater increases with tempo when eliciting louder tones for all joints and muscles except for the elbow velocity showing a greater decrease with tempo. Multiple-regression analysis and K-means clustering further revealed that 18 pianists were categorized into three clusters with different interaction effects on joint kinematics. These clusters were characterized by either an elbow-velocity decrease and a finger-velocity increase, a finger-velocity decrease with increases in shoulder and wrist velocities, or a large elbow-velocity decrease with a shoulder-velocity increase when increasing both loudness and tempo. Furthermore, the muscular load considerably differed across the clusters. These findings provide information to determine muscles with the greatest potential risk of playing-related disorders based on movement characteristics of individual pianists. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Tune in to the Tone: Lexical Tone Identification is Associated with Vocabulary and Word Recognition Abilities in Young Chinese Children.

Science.gov (United States)

Tong, Xiuli; Tong, Xiuhong; McBride-Chang, Catherine

2015-12-01

Lexical tone is one of the most prominent features in the phonological representation of words in Chinese. However, little, if any, research to date has directly evaluated how young Chinese children's lexical tone identification skills contribute to vocabulary acquisition and character recognition. The present study distinguished lexical tones from segmental phonological awareness and morphological awareness in order to estimate the unique contribution of lexical tone in early vocabulary acquisition and character recognition. A sample of 199 Cantonese children aged 5-6 years was assessed on measures of lexical tone identification, segmental phonological awareness, morphological awareness, nonverbal ability, vocabulary knowledge, and Chinese character recognition. It was found that lexical tone awareness and morphological awareness were both associated with vocabulary knowledge and character recognition. However, there was a significant relationship between lexical tone awareness and both vocabulary knowledge and character recognition, even after controlling for the effects of age, nonverbal ability, segmental phonological awareness and morphological awareness. These findings suggest that lexical tone is a key factor accounting for individual variance in young children's lexical acquisition in Chinese, and that lexical tone should be considered in understanding how children learn new Chinese vocabulary words, in either oral or written forms.

Narratives in Teaching Practice: Matti Raekallio as Narrator in His Piano Lessons

Science.gov (United States)

Hyry-Beihammer, Eeva Kaisa

2011-01-01

The present article considers the narratives told in piano lessons, studied as both a teacher's "way of knowing" and as echoes of "masters' voices" in classical music. The main character is a well known Finnish music pedagogue and artist, Matti Raekallio, and the study focuses on his knowledge of teaching practice; that is, his…

El piano de la música de salón. Un estudio de caso en Guadalajara de Buga, 1890-1930

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maria Victoria Casas Figueroa

2010-01-01

Full Text Available El artículo analiza, a partir de las partituras empastadas y obras manuscritas, entre otro tipo de fuentes, la música de salón y la interpretación del piano en Guadalajara de Buga (Valle del Cauca entre 1897 y 1930. En particular el papel jugado por las mujeres pianistas, los compositores y directores locales. La autora estudia también la composición musical y tendencias registradas, los distintos esquemas rítmicos del vals y el pasillo manifiestos en la escritura de la música para piano. Identifica que para ciertos aires tales como el vals, el pasillo, entre otros, existen diferentes formas de ejecución del instrumento, uso del teclado, y que la armonía del repertorio está dada por el ambiente tonal. El piano se muestra como un factor diferenciador respecto de la colectividad.

The effect of F0 contour on the intelligibility of speech in the presence of interfering sounds for Mandarin Chinese.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Jing; Yang, Hongying; Wu, Xihong; Moore, Brian C J

2018-02-01

In Mandarin Chinese, the fundamental frequency (F0) contour defines lexical "Tones" that differ in meaning despite being phonetically identical. Flattening the F0 contour impairs the intelligibility of Mandarin Chinese in background sounds. This might occur because the flattening introduces misleading lexical information. To avoid this effect, two types of speech were used: single-Tone speech contained Tones 1 and 0 only, which have a flat F0 contour; multi-Tone speech contained all Tones and had a varying F0 contour. The intelligibility of speech in steady noise was slightly better for single-Tone speech than for multi-Tone speech. The intelligibility of speech in a two-talker masker, with the difference in mean F0 between the target and masker matched across conditions, was worse for the multi-Tone target in the multi-Tone masker than for any other combination of target and masker, probably because informational masking was maximal for this combination. The introduction of a perceived spatial separation between the target and masker, via the precedence effect, led to better performance for all target-masker combinations, especially the multi-Tone target in the multi-Tone masker. In summary, a flat F0 contour does not reduce the intelligibility of Mandarin Chinese when the introduction of misleading lexical cues is avoided.

Sound stream segregation: a neuromorphic approach to solve the “cocktail party problem” in real-time

Science.gov (United States)

Thakur, Chetan Singh; Wang, Runchun M.; Afshar, Saeed; Hamilton, Tara J.; Tapson, Jonathan C.; Shamma, Shihab A.; van Schaik, André

2015-01-01

The human auditory system has the ability to segregate complex auditory scenes into a foreground component and a background, allowing us to listen to specific speech sounds from a mixture of sounds. Selective attention plays a crucial role in this process, colloquially known as the “cocktail party effect.” It has not been possible to build a machine that can emulate this human ability in real-time. Here, we have developed a framework for the implementation of a neuromorphic sound segregation algorithm in a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). This algorithm is based on the principles of temporal coherence and uses an attention signal to separate a target sound stream from background noise. Temporal coherence implies that auditory features belonging to the same sound source are coherently modulated and evoke highly correlated neural response patterns. The basis for this form of sound segregation is that responses from pairs of channels that are strongly positively correlated belong to the same stream, while channels that are uncorrelated or anti-correlated belong to different streams. In our framework, we have used a neuromorphic cochlea as a frontend sound analyser to extract spatial information of the sound input, which then passes through band pass filters that extract the sound envelope at various modulation rates. Further stages include feature extraction and mask generation, which is finally used to reconstruct the targeted sound. Using sample tonal and speech mixtures, we show that our FPGA architecture is able to segregate sound sources in real-time. The accuracy of segregation is indicated by the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the segregated stream (90, 77, and 55 dB for simple tone, complex tone, and speech, respectively) as compared to the SNR of the mixture waveform (0 dB). This system may be easily extended for the segregation of complex speech signals, and may thus find various applications in electronic devices such as for sound segregation

Sound stream segregation: a neuromorphic approach to solve the ‘cocktail party problem’ in real-time

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chetan Singh Thakur

2015-09-01

Full Text Available The human auditory system has the ability to segregate complex auditory scenes into a foreground component and a background, allowing us to listen to specific speech sounds from a mixture of sounds. Selective attention plays a crucial role in this process, colloquially known as the ‘cocktail party effect’. It has not been possible to build a machine that can emulate this human ability in real-time. Here, we have developed a framework for the implementation of a neuromorphic sound segregation algorithm in a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA. This algorithm is based on the principles of temporal coherence and uses an attention signal to separate a target sound stream from background noise. Temporal coherence implies that auditory features belonging to the same sound source are coherently modulated and evoke highly correlated neural response patterns. The basis for this form of sound segregation is that responses from pairs of channels that are strongly positively correlated belong to the same stream, while channels that are uncorrelated or anti-correlated belong to different streams. In our framework, we have used a neuromorphic cochlea as a frontend sound analyser to extract spatial information of the sound input, which then passes through band pass filters that extract the sound envelope at various modulation rates. Further stages include feature extraction and mask generation, which is finally used to reconstruct the targeted sound. Using sample tonal and speech mixtures, we show that our FPGA architecture is able to segregate sound sources in real-time. The accuracy of segregation is indicated by the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR of the segregated stream (90, 77 and 55 dB for simple tone, complex tone and speech, respectively as compared to the SNR of the mixture waveform (0 dB. This system may be easily extended for the segregation of complex speech signals, and may thus find various applications in electronic devices such as for

CONSTRUCTION SENSITIVITY IN PINGYAO TONE SANDHI

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Hui-shan Lin

2012-06-01

Full Text Available This paper investigates tone sandhi phenomena in Pingyao, a Jin dialect spoken in Shanxi province in China. Pingyao tone sandhi is special in that tone sandhi in bi-syllabic strings is construction sensitive, but tone sandhi in tri-syllabic strings is not fully conditioned by construction types. Based on Optimality Theory (OT, this paper proposes analyses for bi-tonal and tri-tonal sandhi in Pingyao. We show that while bi-tonal sandhi can be accounted for by assuming that there are different grammars associated with different construction types, the lack of construction sensitivity in certain tri-syllabic strings suggests that the association between construction types and phonological grammars can be sacrificed to comply with a higher demand. In Pingyao, the higher demand is to avoid having a tri-tonal string with marked tone sandhi domain from being associated with conflicting grammars.

Musical ability and non-native speech-sound processing are linked through sensitivity to pitch and spectral information.

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Kempe, Vera; Bublitz, Dennis; Brooks, Patricia J

2015-05-01

Is the observed link between musical ability and non-native speech-sound processing due to enhanced sensitivity to acoustic features underlying both musical and linguistic processing? To address this question, native English speakers (N = 118) discriminated Norwegian tonal contrasts and Norwegian vowels. Short tones differing in temporal, pitch, and spectral characteristics were used to measure sensitivity to the various acoustic features implicated in musical and speech processing. Musical ability was measured using Gordon's Advanced Measures of Musical Audiation. Results showed that sensitivity to specific acoustic features played a role in non-native speech-sound processing: Controlling for non-verbal intelligence, prior foreign language-learning experience, and sex, sensitivity to pitch and spectral information partially mediated the link between musical ability and discrimination of non-native vowels and lexical tones. The findings suggest that while sensitivity to certain acoustic features partially mediates the relationship between musical ability and non-native speech-sound processing, complex tests of musical ability also tap into other shared mechanisms. © 2014 The British Psychological Society.

Connecting science and the musical arts in teaching tone quality: Integrating Helmholtz motion and master violin teachers' pedagogies

Science.gov (United States)

Collins, Cheri D.

Is it possible for students to achieve better tone quality from even their factory-made violins? All violins, regardless of cost, have a common capacity for good tone in certain frequencies. These signature modes outline the first position range of a violin (196-600 hertz). To activate this basic capacity of all violins, the string must fully vibrate. To accomplish this the bow must be pulled across the string with enough pressure (relative to its speed and contact point) for the horsehairs to catch. This friction permits the string to vibrate in Helmholtz Motion, which produces a corner that travels along the edge of the string between the bridge and the nut. Creating this corner is the most fundamental technique for achieving good tone. The findings of celebrated scientists Ernest Chladni, Hermann von Helmholtz, and John Schelleng will be discussed and the tone-production pedagogy of master teachers Carl Flesch, Ivan Galamian, Robert Gerle, and Simon Fischer will be investigated. Important connections between the insights of these scientists and master teachers are evident. Integrating science and art can provide teachers with a better understanding of the characteristics of good tone. This can help their students achieve the best possible sound from their instruments. In the private studio the master teacher may not use the words "Helmholtz Motion." Yet through modeling and listening students are able to understand and create a quality tone. Music teachers without experience in string performance may be assigned to teach strings in classroom and ensembles settings. As a result modeling good tone is not always possible. However, all teachers and conductors can understand the fundamental behavior of string vibration and adapt their instruction strategies towards student success. Better tonal quality for any string instrument is ultimately achieved. Mastery and use of the Helmholtz Motion benefits teachers and students alike. Simple practice exercises for teaching

Representation of acoustic signals in the eighth nerve of the Tokay gecko: I. Pure tones.

Science.gov (United States)

Sams-Dodd, F; Capranica, R R

1994-06-01

A systematic study of the encoding properties of 146 auditory nerve fibers in the Tokay gecko (Gekko gecko, L) was conducted with respect to pure tones and two-tone rate suppression. Our aim was a comprehensive understanding of the peripheral encoding of simple tonal stimuli and their representation by temporal synchronization and spike rate codes as a prelude to subsequent studies of more complex signals. Auditory nerve fibers in the Tokay gecko have asymmetrical, V-shaped excitatory tuning curves with best excitatory frequencies that range from 200-5100 Hz and thresholds between 4-35 dB SPL. A low-frequency excitatory 'tail' extends far into the low-frequency range and two-tone suppression is present only on the high frequency side of the tuning curve. The response properties to pure tones at different loci within a tuning curve can differ greatly, due to evident interactions between the representations of temporal, spectral and intensity stimulus features. For frequencies below 1250 Hz, pure tones are encoded by both temporal synchronization and spike rate codes, whereas above this frequency a fiber's ability to encode the waveform periodicity is lost and only a rate code predominates. These complimentary representations within a tuning curve raise fundamental issues which need to be addressed in interpreting how more complex, bioacoustic communication signals are represented in the peripheral and central auditory system. And since auditory nerve fibers in the Tokay gecko exhibit tonal sensitivity, selective frequency tuning, and iso-intensity and iso-frequency contours that seem comparable to similar measures in birds and mammals, these issues likely apply to most higher vertebrates in general. The simpler wiring diagram of the reptilian auditory system, coupled with the Tokay gecko's remarkable vocalizations, make this animal a good evolutionary model in which to experimentally explore the encoding of more complex sounds of communicative significance.

Teaching Resonance and Harmonics with Guitar and Piano1

Science.gov (United States)

Sobel, Michael

2014-02-01

In a recent paper,2 Kasar, Yurumezoglu, and Sengoren show how to use a guitar, or two guitars, to demonstrate resonance. Here we extend this idea by showing how to use a guitar or a piano (both acoustic) to demonstrate resonance, harmonics, and the properties of the musical scale. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each instrument. Students who know something about music can get a little more out of these demonstrations than others, but all students will observe some important and interesting phenomena in an everyday setting.

Effects of multiple congruent cues on concurrent sound segregation during passive and active listening: an event-related potential (ERP) study.

Science.gov (United States)

Kocsis, Zsuzsanna; Winkler, István; Szalárdy, Orsolya; Bendixen, Alexandra

2014-07-01

In two experiments, we assessed the effects of combining different cues of concurrent sound segregation on the object-related negativity (ORN) and the P400 event-related potential components. Participants were presented with sequences of complex tones, half of which contained some manipulation: one or two harmonic partials were mistuned, delayed, or presented from a different location than the rest. In separate conditions, one, two, or three of these manipulations were combined. Participants watched a silent movie (passive listening) or reported after each tone whether they perceived one or two concurrent sounds (active listening). ORN was found in almost all conditions except for location difference alone during passive listening. Combining several cues or manipulating more than one partial consistently led to sub-additive effects on the ORN amplitude. These results support the view that ORN reflects a combined, feature-unspecific assessment of the auditory system regarding the contribution of two sources to the incoming sound. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Cardiac vagal tone, a non-invasive measure of parasympathetic tone, is a clinically relevant tool in Type 1 diabetes mellitus

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brock, C; Jessen, N; Brock, B

2017-01-01

AIMS: To compare a novel index of parasympathetic tone, cardiac vagal tone, with established autonomic variables and to test the hypotheses that (1) cardiac vagal tone would be associated with established time and frequency domain measures of heart rate and (2) cardiac vagal tone would be lower...... identification of people with Type 1 diabetes who should undergo formal autonomic function testing....

Tone as a health concept: An analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

McDowall, Donald; Emmanuel, Elizabeth; Grace, Sandra; Chaseling, Marilyn

2017-11-01

Concept analysis. This paper is a report on the analysis of the concept of tone in chiropractic. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the concept of tone as originally understood by Daniel David Palmer from 1895 to 1914 and to monitor its evolution over time. Data was sourced from Palmer's original work, published between 1895 and 1914. A literature search from 1980 to 2016 was also performed on the online databases CINHAL, PubMed and Scopus with key terms including 'tone', 'chiropractic', 'Palmer', 'vitalism', 'health', 'homeostasis', 'holism' and 'wellness'. Finally hand-searches were conducted through chiropractic books and professional literature from 1906 to 1980 for any references to 'tone'. Rodgers' evolutionary method of analysis was used to categorise the data in relation to the surrogates, attributes, references, antecedents and consequences of tone. A total of 49 references were found: five from publications by Palmer; three from the database searches, and; the remaining 41 from professional books, trade journals and websites. There is no clear interpretation of tone in the contemporary chiropractic literature. Tone is closely aligned with functional neurology and can be understood as an interface between the metaphysical and the biomedical. Using the concept of tone as a foundation for practice could strengthen the identity of the chiropractic profession. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Acoustic and Categorical Dissimilarity of Musical Timbre: Evidence from Asymmetries Between Acoustic and Chimeric Sounds

Science.gov (United States)

Siedenburg, Kai; Jones-Mollerup, Kiray; McAdams, Stephen

2016-01-01

This paper investigates the role of acoustic and categorical information in timbre dissimilarity ratings. Using a Gammatone-filterbank-based sound transformation, we created tones that were rated as less familiar than recorded tones from orchestral instruments and that were harder to associate with an unambiguous sound source (Experiment 1). A subset of transformed tones, a set of orchestral recordings, and a mixed set were then rated on pairwise dissimilarity (Experiment 2A). We observed that recorded instrument timbres clustered into subsets that distinguished timbres according to acoustic and categorical properties. For the subset of cross-category comparisons in the mixed set, we observed asymmetries in the distribution of ratings, as well as a stark decay of inter-rater agreement. These effects were replicated in a more robust within-subjects design (Experiment 2B) and cannot be explained by acoustic factors alone. We finally introduced a novel model of timbre dissimilarity based on partial least-squares regression that compared the contributions of both acoustic and categorical timbre descriptors. The best model fit (R2 = 0.88) was achieved when both types of descriptors were taken into account. These findings are interpreted as evidence for an interplay of acoustic and categorical information in timbre dissimilarity perception. PMID:26779086

Effects of musical training on sound pattern processing in high-school students.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Wenjung; Staffaroni, Laura; Reid, Errold; Steinschneider, Mitchell; Sussman, Elyse

2009-05-01

Recognizing melody in music involves detection of both the pitch intervals and the silence between sequentially presented sounds. This study tested the hypothesis that active musical training in adolescents facilitates the ability to passively detect sequential sound patterns compared to musically non-trained age-matched peers. Twenty adolescents, aged 15-18 years, were divided into groups according to their musical training and current experience. A fixed order tone pattern was presented at various stimulus rates while electroencephalogram was recorded. The influence of musical training on passive auditory processing of the sound patterns was assessed using components of event-related brain potentials (ERPs). The mismatch negativity (MMN) ERP component was elicited in different stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) conditions in non-musicians than musicians, indicating that musically active adolescents were able to detect sound patterns across longer time intervals than age-matched peers. Musical training facilitates detection of auditory patterns, allowing the ability to automatically recognize sequential sound patterns over longer time periods than non-musical counterparts.

A Loudness Function for Maintaining Spectral Balance at Changing Sound Pressure Levels

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Sofus Birkedal

Our perception of loudness is a function of frequency as well as sound pressure level as described in ISO226:2003: Normal Equal Loudness Level Contours, which describes the needed sound pressure level for pure tones to be perceived equally loud. At a music performance, this is taking care...... of by the sound engineer by listening to the individual sound sources and adjust and equalize them to the wanted spectral balance including the whole chain of audio equipment and surroundings. At a live venue the sound pressure level will normally change during a concert, and typically increase over time......B is doubling of the effect to the loudspeakers). A level depending digital loudness function has been made based on ISO226:2003, and will be demonstrated. It can maintain the spectral balance at alternating levels and is based on fractional order digital filters. Tutorial. Abstract T3.3 (30th August 16:00 - 17...

Noise and noise disturbances from wind power plants - Tests with interactive control of sound parameters for more comfortable and less perceptible sounds; Buller och bullerstoerningar fraan vindkraftverk - Foersoek med interaktiv styrning av ljudparametrar foer behagligare och mindre maerkbara ljud

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Persson-Waye, K.; Oehrstroem, E.; Bjoerkman, M.; Agge, A. [Goeteborg Univ. (Sweden). Dept. of Environmental Medicine

2001-12-01

In experimental pilot studies, a methodology has been worked out for interactively varying sound parameters in wind power plants. In the tests, 24 persons varied the center frequency of different band-widths, the frequency of a sinus-tone and the amplitude-modulation of a sinus-tone in order to create as comfortable a sound as possible. The variations build on the noise from the two wind turbines Bonus and Wind World. The variations were performed with a constant dba level. The results showed that the majority preferred a low-frequency tone (94 Hz and 115 Hz for Wind World and Bonus, respectively). The mean of the most comfortable amplitude-modulation varied between 18 and 22 Hz, depending on the ground frequency. The mean of the center-frequency for the different band-widths varied from 785 to 1104 Hz. In order to study the influence of the wind velocity on the acoustic character of the noise, a long-time measurement program has been performed. A remotely controlled system has been developed, where wind velocity, wind direction, temperature and humidity are registered simultaneously with the noise. Long-time registrations have been performed for four different wing turbines.

Orientation Estimation and Signal Reconstruction of a Directional Sound Source

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Guarato, Francesco

, one for each call emission, were compared to those calculated through a pre-existing technique based on interpolation of sound-pressure levels at microphone locations. The application of the method to the bat calls could provide knowledge on bat behaviour that may be useful for a bat-inspired sensor......Previous works in the literature about one tone or broadband sound sources mainly deal with algorithms and methods developed in order to localize the source and, occasionally, estimate the source bearing angle (with respect to a global reference frame). The problem setting assumes, in these cases......, omnidirectional receivers collecting the acoustic signal from the source: analysis of arrival times in the recordings together with microphone positions and source directivity cues allows to get information about source position and bearing. Moreover, sound sources have been included into sensor systems together...

Reinforcement Learning for a New Piano Mover

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yuko Ishiwaka

2005-08-01

Full Text Available We attempt to achieve corporative behavior of autonomous decentralized agents constructed via Q-Learning, which is a type of reinforcement learning. As such, in the present paper, we examine the piano mover's problem. We propose a multi-agent architecture that has a training agent, learning agents and intermediate agent. Learning agents are heterogeneous and can communicate with each other. The movement of an object with three kinds of agent depends on the composition of the actions of the learning agents. By learning its own shape through the learning agents, avoidance of obstacles by the object is expected. We simulate the proposed method in a two-dimensional continuous world. Results obtained in the present investigation reveal the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Dementias show differential physiological responses to salient sounds

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Phillip David Fletcher

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Abnormal responsiveness to salient sensory signals is often a prominent feature of dementia diseases, particularly the frontotemporal lobar degenerations, but has been little studied. Here we assessed processing of one important class of salient signals, looming sounds, in canonical dementia syndromes. We manipulated tones using intensity cues to create percepts of salient approaching (‘looming’ or less salient withdrawing sounds. Pupil dilatation responses and behavioural rating responses to these stimuli were compared in patients fulfilling consensus criteria for dementia syndromes (semantic dementia, n=10; behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia, n=16, progressive non-fluent aphasia, n=12; amnestic Alzheimer’s disease, n=10 and a cohort of 26 healthy age-matched individuals. Approaching sounds were rated as more salient than withdrawing sounds by healthy older individuals but this behavioural response to salience did not differentiate healthy individuals from patients with dementia syndromes. Pupil responses to approaching sounds were greater than responses to withdrawing sounds in healthy older individuals and in patients with semantic dementia: this differential pupil response was reduced in patients with progressive nonfluent aphasia and Alzheimer’s disease relative both to the healthy control and semantic dementia groups, and did not correlate with nonverbal auditory semantic function. Autonomic responses to auditory salience are differentially affected by dementias and may constitute a novel biomarker of these diseases.

Dementias show differential physiological responses to salient sounds

Science.gov (United States)

Fletcher, Phillip D.; Nicholas, Jennifer M.; Shakespeare, Timothy J.; Downey, Laura E.; Golden, Hannah L.; Agustus, Jennifer L.; Clark, Camilla N.; Mummery, Catherine J.; Schott, Jonathan M.; Crutch, Sebastian J.; Warren, Jason D.

2015-01-01

Abnormal responsiveness to salient sensory signals is often a prominent feature of dementia diseases, particularly the frontotemporal lobar degenerations, but has been little studied. Here we assessed processing of one important class of salient signals, looming sounds, in canonical dementia syndromes. We manipulated tones using intensity cues to create percepts of salient approaching (“looming”) or less salient withdrawing sounds. Pupil dilatation responses and behavioral rating responses to these stimuli were compared in patients fulfilling consensus criteria for dementia syndromes (semantic dementia, n = 10; behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, n = 16, progressive nonfluent aphasia, n = 12; amnestic Alzheimer's disease, n = 10) and a cohort of 26 healthy age-matched individuals. Approaching sounds were rated as more salient than withdrawing sounds by healthy older individuals but this behavioral response to salience did not differentiate healthy individuals from patients with dementia syndromes. Pupil responses to approaching sounds were greater than responses to withdrawing sounds in healthy older individuals and in patients with semantic dementia: this differential pupil response was reduced in patients with progressive nonfluent aphasia and Alzheimer's disease relative both to the healthy control and semantic dementia groups, and did not correlate with nonverbal auditory semantic function. Autonomic responses to auditory salience are differentially affected by dementias and may constitute a novel biomarker of these diseases. PMID:25859194

Loudness of complex sounds as a function of the standard stimulus and the number of components

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Florentine, Mary; Buus, Søren; Bonding, Per

1978-01-01

The purpose of this study was twofold: to determine if the measured loudness level of a signal depends on the standard stimulus used and to measure loudness as a function of the number of components in a wide-band signal. The stimuli were a pure tone, tone complexes with frequency separations...... of 231 and 1592 Hz, and noise bands with widths of 220 and 1592 Hz. The center frequency was 1 kHz and the loudness level was approximately 65 phons. Loudness matches between all combinations of stimuli showed that the measured loudness of the sounds did not depend on the standard stimulus used...... and the measured loudness level of a wide-band sound increased as a function of the number of components. Individual observers were consistent in their loudness estimations; the greatest source of variability was among subjects. Additional measurements indicated that the rate at which loudness increased beyond...

Illusory conjunctions of pitch and duration in unfamiliar tone sequences.

Science.gov (United States)

Thompson, W F; Hall, M D; Pressing, J

2001-02-01

In 3 experiments, the authors examined short-term memory for pitch and duration in unfamiliar tone sequences. Participants were presented a target sequence consisting of 2 tones (Experiment 1) or 7 tones (Experiments 2 and 3) and then a probe tone. Participants indicated whether the probe tone matched 1 of the target tones in both pitch and duration. Error rates were relatively low if the probe tone matched 1 of the target tones or if it differed from target tones in pitch, duration, or both. Error rates were remarkably high, however, if the probe tone combined the pitch of 1 target tone with the duration of a different target tone. The results suggest that illusory conjunctions of these dimensions frequently occur. A mathematical model is presented that accounts for the relative contribution of pitch errors, duration errors, and illusory conjunctions of pitch and duration.

Children's Invented Notations and Verbal Responses to a Piano Work by Claude Debussy

Science.gov (United States)

Elkoshi, Rivka

2015-01-01

This study considers the way children listen to classical music composed for them and the effect of age on their spontaneous invented notations and verbal responses. The musical selection is a piano piece for children by Claude Debussy:"'Jimbo's Lullaby" from "Children's Corner". Two hundred and nine children 4-9.5-years-old…

Experimental Investigation of Propagation and Reflection Phenomena in Finite Amplitude Sound Beams.

Science.gov (United States)

Averkiou, Michalakis Andrea

Measurements of finite amplitude sound beams are compared with theoretical predictions based on the KZK equation. Attention is devoted to harmonic generation and shock formation related to a variety of propagation and reflection phenomena. Both focused and unfocused piston sources were used in the experiments. The nominal source parameters are piston radii of 6-25 mm, frequencies of 1-5 MHz, and focal lengths of 10-20 cm. The research may be divided into two parts: propagation and reflection of continuous-wave focused sound beams, and propagation of pulsed sound beams. In the first part, measurements of propagation curves and beam patterns of focused pistons in water, both in the free field and following reflection from curved targets, are presented. The measurements are compared with predictions from a computer model that solves the KZK equation in the frequency domain. A novel method for using focused beams to measure target curvature is developed. In the second part, measurements of pulsed sound beams from plane pistons in both water and glycerin are presented. Very short pulses (less than 2 cycles), tone bursts (5-30 cycles), and frequency modulated (FM) pulses (10-30 cycles) were measured. Acoustic saturation of pulse propagation in water is investigated. Self-demodulation of tone bursts and FM pulses was measured in glycerin, both in the near and far fields, on and off axis. All pulse measurements are compared with numerical results from a computer code that solves the KZK equation in the time domain. A quasilinear analytical solution for the entire axial field of a self-demodulating pulse is derived in the limit of strong absorption. Taken as a whole, the measurements provide a broad data base for sound beams of finite amplitude. Overall, outstanding agreement is obtained between theory and experiment.

Integrating Piano Keyboarding into the Elementary Classroom: Effects on Memory Skills and Sentiment Toward School.

Science.gov (United States)

Marcinkiewicz, Henryk R.; And Others

1995-01-01

Discovered that the introduction of piano keyboarding into elementary school music instruction produced a positive effect regarding children's sentiment towards school. No discernible effect was revealed concerning memory skills. Includes statistical data and description of survey questionnaires. (MJP)

The dissimilar time course of temporary threshold shifts and reduction of inhibition in the inferior colliculus following intense sound exposure.

Science.gov (United States)

Heeringa, A N; van Dijk, P

2014-06-01

Excessive noise exposure is known to produce an auditory threshold shift, which can be permanent or transient in nature. Recent studies showed that noise-induced temporary threshold shifts are associated with loss of synaptic connections to the inner hair cells and with cochlear nerve degeneration, which is reflected in a decreased amplitude of wave I of the auditory brainstem response (ABR). This suggests that, despite normal auditory thresholds, central auditory processing may be abnormal. We recorded changes in central auditory processing following a sound-induced temporary threshold shift. Anesthetized guinea pigs were exposed for 1 h to a pure tone of 11 kHz (124 dB sound pressure level). Hearing thresholds, amplitudes of ABR waves I and IV, and spontaneous and tone-evoked firing rates in the inferior colliculus (IC) were assessed immediately, one week, two weeks, and four weeks post exposure. Hearing thresholds were elevated immediately following overexposure, but recovered within one week. The amplitude of the ABR wave I was decreased in all sound-exposed animals for all test periods. In contrast, the ABR wave IV amplitude was only decreased immediately after overexposure and recovered within a week. The proportion of IC units that show inhibitory responses to pure tones decreased substantially up to two weeks after overexposure, especially when stimulated with high frequencies. The proportion of excitatory responses to low frequencies was increased. Spontaneous activity was unaffected by the overexposure. Despite rapid normalization of auditory thresholds, our results suggest an increased central gain following sound exposure and an abnormal balance between excitatory and inhibitory responses in the midbrain up to two weeks after overexposure. These findings may be associated with hyperacusis after a sound-induced temporary threshold shift. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Does Central Bank Tone Move Asset Prices?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schmeling, Maik; Wagner, Christian

the next press conference. Moreover, we find that positive tone changes are associated with increasing government bond yields, lower implied equity volatility, lower variance risk premia, and lower corporate credit spreads. Since we also show that tone changes are unrelated to current and future economic...... fundamentals, these results support the conjecture that central bank tone matters for asset prices through a risk-based channel. Our main findings also apply to U.S. markets, where stock prices and Treasury yields increase when the Fed chair’s tone in the Congressional Testimony becomes more positive....

Effects of short-term piano training on measures of finger tapping, somatosensory perception and motor-related brain activity in patients with cerebral palsy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alves-Pinto A

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Ana Alves-Pinto,1 Stefan Ehrlich,2 Gordon Cheng,2 Varvara Turova,1 Tobias Blumenstein,1 Renée Lampe1 1Research Unit of the Buhl-Strohmaier Foundation for Paediatric Neuroorthopaedics and Cerebral Palsy, Department of Orthopaedics, Klinikum Rechts der Isar, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany; 2Chair for Cognitive Systems, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany Abstract: Playing a musical instrument demands the integration of sensory and perceptual information with motor processes in order to produce a harmonic musical piece. The diversity of brain mechanisms involved and the joyful character of playing an instrument make musical instrument training a potential vehicle for neurorehabilitation of motor skills in patients with cerebral palsy (CP. This clinical condition is characterized by motor impairments that can affect, among others, manual function, and limit severely the execution of basic daily activities. In this study, adolescents and adult patients with CP, as well as a group of typically developing children learned to play piano for 4 consecutive weeks, having completed a total of 8 hours of training. For ten of the participants, learning was supported by a special technical system aimed at helping people with sensorimotor deficits to better discriminate fingers and orient themselves along the piano keyboard. Potential effects of piano training were assessed with tests of finger tapping at the piano and tests of perception of vibratory stimulation of fingers, and by measuring neuronal correlates of motor learning in the absence of and after piano training. Results were highly variable especially among participants with CP. Nevertheless, a significant effect of training on the ability to perceive the localization of vibrations over fingers was found. No effects of training on the performance of simple finger tapping sequences at the piano or on motor

A survey of students' performance on the piano: a case study of the ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Piano playing is one of the major courses under applied music studies in all departments of music in Nigeria. This course is compulsory for all the students either as a major or minor instrument as the case maybe. However, scholars have carried out different studies on the challenges of music students. However, The ...

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

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

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.

A system for heart sounds classification.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Grzegorz Redlarski

Full Text Available The future of quick and efficient disease diagnosis lays in the development of reliable non-invasive methods. As for the cardiac diseases - one of the major causes of death around the globe - a concept of an electronic stethoscope equipped with an automatic heart tone identification system appears to be the best solution. Thanks to the advancement in technology, the quality of phonocardiography signals is no longer an issue. However, appropriate algorithms for auto-diagnosis systems of heart diseases that could be capable of distinguishing most of known pathological states have not been yet developed. The main issue is non-stationary character of phonocardiography signals as well as a wide range of distinguishable pathological heart sounds. In this paper a new heart sound classification technique, which might find use in medical diagnostic systems, is presented. It is shown that by combining Linear Predictive Coding coefficients, used for future extraction, with a classifier built upon combining Support Vector Machine and Modified Cuckoo Search algorithm, an improvement in performance of the diagnostic system, in terms of accuracy, complexity and range of distinguishable heart sounds, can be made. The developed system achieved accuracy above 93% for all considered cases including simultaneous identification of twelve different heart sound classes. The respective system is compared with four different major classification methods, proving its reliability.

The harpsichord in 1929 and the emperor's new clothes

Science.gov (United States)

Kottick, Edward

2004-05-01

By the end of the 19th century the harpsichord was considered obsolete. Viewed from the vantage point of a century of brilliant advances in piano technology, it was an outworn, outmoded relic of a distasteful past. It was overly delicate in nature; its soundboard was too thin, and thus unstable; its case construction was unsubstantial. Its light, unbushed keyboards were inadequate. Its quaint bird-quill plectra were viewed with disdain, and its sound was thought to be weak and unattractive. Nevertheless, by the year 1929 the harpsichord was enjoying a revival that was at that time in its 40th year, and that revival continues today. If this instrument was considered so inadequate, why has its revival been so successful and long-lasting? All the answers boil down to one word: sound. This paper will explore the contrast of the tonal qualities of the revival harpsichords and the antiques, and the way those qualities changed in response to the shifting tastes of builders, performers, and listeners. Ultimately, changing tastes led to a return to the sound of the classical harpsichord. Embedded in this tale is an important lesson on the dangers of characterizing the tone of any instrument.

Rhythm Deficits in "Tone Deafness"

Science.gov (United States)

Foxton, Jessica M.; Nandy, Rachel K.; Griffiths, Timothy D.

2006-01-01

It is commonly observed that "tone deaf" individuals are unable to hear the beat of a tune, yet deficits on simple timing tests have not been found. In this study, we investigated rhythm processing in nine individuals with congenital amusia ("tone deafness") and nine controls. Participants were presented with pairs of 5-note sequences, and were…

Discrimination of musical instrument sounds resynthesized with simplified spectrotemporal parameters.

Science.gov (United States)

McAdams, S; Beauchamp, J W; Meneguzzi, S

1999-02-01

The perceptual salience of several outstanding features of quasiharmonic, time-variant spectra was investigated in musical instrument sounds. Spectral analyses of sounds from seven musical instruments (clarinet, flute, oboe, trumpet, violin, harpsichord, and marimba) produced time-varying harmonic amplitude and frequency data. Six basic data simplifications and five combinations of them were applied to the reference tones: amplitude-variation smoothing, coherent variation of amplitudes over time, spectral-envelope smoothing, forced harmonic-frequency variation, frequency-variation smoothing, and harmonic-frequency flattening. Listeners were asked to discriminate sounds resynthesized with simplified data from reference sounds resynthesized with the full data. Averaged over the seven instruments, the discrimination was very good for spectral envelope smoothing and amplitude envelope coherence, but was moderate to poor in decreasing order for forced harmonic frequency variation, frequency variation smoothing, frequency flattening, and amplitude variation smoothing. Discrimination of combinations of simplifications was equivalent to that of the most potent constituent simplification. Objective measurements were made on the spectral data for harmonic amplitude, harmonic frequency, and spectral centroid changes resulting from simplifications. These measures were found to correlate well with discrimination results, indicating that listeners have access to a relatively fine-grained sensory representation of musical instrument sounds.

Brahms J. Piano Quartet No 1 in G minor, Op. 25 (orch. Schoenberg) / Jonathan Swain

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Swain, Jonathan

1991-01-01

Uuest heliplaadist "Brahms J. Piano Quartet No 1 in G minor, Op. 25 (orch. Schoenberg). Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Händel, Op. 24 (orch, Rubbra). London Symphony Orchestra /Neeme Järvi" Chandos ABTD 1450; CD CHAN 8825 (71 minutes)

Musical experience and Mandarin tone discrimination and imitation

Science.gov (United States)

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

2004-05-01

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

Categorical Perception of Lexical Tones in Mandarin-speaking Congenital Amusics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wan Ting Huang

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Previous research suggests that within Mandarin-speaking congenital amusics, only a subgroup has behavioral lexical tone perception impairments (tone agnosia, whereas the rest of amusics do not. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the categorical nature of lexical tone perception in Mandarin-speaking amusics with and without behavioral lexical tone deficits. Three groups of listeners (controls, pure amusics and amusics with tone agnosia participated in tone identification and discrimination tasks. Indexes of the categorical perception of a physical continuum of fundamental frequencies ranging from a rising to level tone were measured. Specifically, the stimulus durations were manipulated at 100 and 200 ms. For both stimulus durations, all groups exhibited similar categorical boundaries. The pure amusics showed sharp identification slopes and significantly peaked discrimination functions similar to those of normal controls. However, such essential characteristics for the categorical perception of lexical tones were not observed in amusics with tone agnosia. An enlarged step-size from 20 Hz to 35 Hz was not able to produce any discrimination peaks in tone agnosics either. The current study revealed that only amusics with tone agnosia showed a lack of categorical tone perception, while the pure amusics demonstrated typical categorical perception of lexical tones, indicating that the deficit of pitch processing in music does not necessarily result in the deficit in the categorical perception of lexical tones. The different performance between congenital amusics with and without tone agnosia provides a new perspective on the proposition of the relationship between music and speech perception.

The internal auditory clock: what can evoked potentials reveal about the analysis of temporal sound patterns, and abnormal states of consciousness?

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, S J

2002-09-01

Whereas in vision a large amount of information may in theory be extracted from instantaneous images, sound exists only in its temporal extent, and most of its information is contained in the pattern of changes over time. The "echoic memory" is a pre-attentive auditory sensory store in which sounds are apparently retained in full temporal detail for a period of a few seconds. From the long-latency auditory evoked potentials to spectro-temporal modulation of complex harmonic tones, at least two automatic sound analysis processes can be identified whose time constants suggest participation of the echoic memory. When a steady tone changes its pitch or timbre, "change-type" CP1, CN1 and CP2 potentials are maximally recorded near the vertex. These potentials appear to reflect a process concerned with the distribution of sound energy across the frequency spectrum. When, on the other hand, changes occur in the temporal pattern of tones (in which individual pitch changes are occurring at a rate sufficiently rapid for the C-potentials to be refractory), a large mismatch negativity (or MN1) and following positivity (MP2) are generated. The amplitude of these potentials is influenced by the degree of regularity of the pattern, larger responses being generated to a "deviant" tone when the pitch and time of occurrence of the "standards" are fully specified by the preceding pattern. At the sudden cessation of changes, on resumption of a steady pitch, a mismatch response is generated whose latency is determined with high precision (in the order of a few milliseconds) by the anticipated time of the next change, which did not in fact occur. The mismatch process, therefore, functions as spectro-temporal auditory pattern analyser, whose consequences are manifested each time the pattern changes. Since calibration of the passage of time is essential for all conscious and subconscious behaviour, is it possible that some states of unconsciousness may be directly due to disruption of

Mozart K.448 and epileptiform discharges: effect of ratio of lower to higher harmonics.

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Lung-Chang; Lee, Wei-Te; Wu, Hui-Chuan; Tsai, Chin-Lin; Wei, Ruey-Chang; Jong, Yuh-Jyh; Yang, Rei-Cheng

2010-05-01

Certain music has been shown to improve mental function, leading to what is known as the Mozart effect. This study measured the impact of Mozart's Sonata for two pianos in D major, K.448, on different epileptic foci of epileptiform discharge in Taiwanese children (n=58) with seizure disorders and investigated the characteristics of the musical stimulus presented that resulted in epileptiform discharge reduction. We examined the relationship between the number of discharges with the foci of epileptiform discharge (n=6), sleep state, gender, and mentality. A continuous electroencephalogram was recorded before, during and after exposure to Mozart's Sonata for two pianos in D major, K.448 (piano K.448), and the frequencies of discharges were compared. The study was repeated a week later using digitally computerized string version of the same musical stimulus (string K.448), in patients who responded to piano K.448 with the largest reduction in interictal discharges (n=11). Interictal discharges were reduced in most (81.0%) patients and varied greatly (33.10+/-28.33%) as they listened to the piano K.448 (more fundamental tones and lower harmonics). Patients with generalized or central discharge showed the most improvement. In most patients (76.1%), the decrease in epileptiform discharges continued after the music ended. The state of wakefulness, gender and mentality did not affect the results. Although the string K.448 had a larger number of higher harmonics in the spectrogram analysis, the discharges were not reduced at all when listening to this music. These results suggest that listening to Mozart K.448 for two pianos reduced epileptiform discharges in children with epilepsy. This study suggests that it is possible to reduce the number of epileptiform discharges in some patients by optimizing the fundamental tones and minimizing the higher frequency harmonics. Copyright 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Playing Piano Can Improve Upper Extremity Function after Stroke: Case Studies

OpenAIRE

Villeneuve, Myriam; Lamontagne, Anouk

2013-01-01

Music-supported therapy (MST) is an innovative approach that was shown to improve manual dexterity in acute stroke survivors. The feasibility of such intervention in chronic stroke survivors and its longer-term benefits, however, remain unknown. The objective of this pilot study was to estimate the short- and long-term effects of a 3-week piano training program on upper extremity function in persons with chronic stroke. A multiple pre-post sequential design was used, with measurements taken a...

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

Science.gov (United States)

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

2012-01-01

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

Loudness of tone pulses in a free field

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Poulsen, Torben

1981-01-01

Investigations of temporal loudness summation of tone pulses have been performed. The investigations comprised equal loudness determinations between pairs of tone pulses with a duration ratio of 1:2, and threshold determinations of the same tone pulses. Pulse durations ranged from 5 to 640 ms...

[Dichotic perception of Mandarin third tone by Mexican Chinese learners].

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Hongbin

2014-05-01

To investigate the relationship between the advantage ear (cerebral hemisphere) of Spanish-speaking Mexican learners and the third Chinese tone. Third tone Chinese vowel syllables were used as experimental materials with dichotic listening technology to test the Spanish-speaking Mexican Chinese learners (20-32 years old) who studied Chinese about 20 h. In terms of error rates to identify the third Chinese tone, the Spanish-speaking Mexican Chinese learners's reaction to the third tone suggested that their left ears were the advantageous ear (the right cerebral hemisphere) (Z=-2.091, P=0.036). The verbal information of tones influenced the perception of Mexican Chinese learners' mandarin tones. In the process of learning mandarin tones, Mexican Chinese learners gradually formed the category of tones.

Modeling pitch perception of complex tones

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Houtsma, A.J.M.

1986-01-01

When one listens to a series of harmonic complex tones that have no acoustic energy at their fundamental frequencies, one usually still hears a melody that corresponds to those missing fundamentals. Since it has become evident some two decades ago that neither Helmholtz's difference tone theory nor

Antagonism and Mutual Dependency. Critial Models of Performance and “Piano Interpretation Schools”

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rui Cruz

2011-12-01

Full Text Available To polarize and, coincidently, intersect two different concepts, in terms of a distinction/analogy between “piano interpretation schools” and “critical models” is the aim of this paper. The former, with its prior connotations of both empiricism and dogmatism and not directly shaped by aesthetic criteria or interpretational ideals, depends mainly on the aural and oral tradition as well the teacher-student legacy; the latter employs ideally the generic criteria of interpretativeness, which can be measured in accordance to an aesthetic formula and can include features such as non-obviousness, inferentially, lack of consensus, concern with meaning or significance, concern with structure or design, etc. The relative autonomy of the former is a challenge to the latter, which embraces the range of perspectives available in the horizon of the history of ideas about music and interpretation. The effort of recognizing models of criticism within musical interpretation creates the vehicle for new understandings of the nature and the historical development of Western classical piano performance, promoting also the production of quality critical argument and the communication of key performance tendencies and styles.

Analysis of speech sounds is left-hemisphere predominant at 100-150ms after sound onset.

Science.gov (United States)

Rinne, T; Alho, K; Alku, P; Holi, M; Sinkkonen, J; Virtanen, J; Bertrand, O; Näätänen, R

1999-04-06

Hemispheric specialization of human speech processing has been found in brain imaging studies using fMRI and PET. Due to the restricted time resolution, these methods cannot, however, determine the stage of auditory processing at which this specialization first emerges. We used a dense electrode array covering the whole scalp to record the mismatch negativity (MMN), an event-related brain potential (ERP) automatically elicited by occasional changes in sounds, which ranged from non-phonetic (tones) to phonetic (vowels). MMN can be used to probe auditory central processing on a millisecond scale with no attention-dependent task requirements. Our results indicate that speech processing occurs predominantly in the left hemisphere at the early, pre-attentive level of auditory analysis.

Musical Scales in Tone Sequences Improve Temporal Accuracy.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Min S; Di Luca, Massimiliano

2018-01-01

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

The perceptual enhancement of tones by frequency shifts.

Science.gov (United States)

Demany, Laurent; Carcagno, Samuele; Semal, Catherine

2013-04-01

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

Effect of sound intensity on tonotopic fMRI maps in the unanesthetized monkey.

Science.gov (United States)

Tanji, Kazuyo; Leopold, David A; Ye, Frank Q; Zhu, Charles; Malloy, Megan; Saunders, Richard C; Mishkin, Mortimer

2010-01-01

The monkey's auditory cortex includes a core region on the supratemporal plane (STP) made up of the tonotopically organized areas A1, R, and RT, together with a surrounding belt and a lateral parabelt region. The functional studies that yielded the tonotopic maps and corroborated the anatomical division into core, belt, and parabelt typically used low-amplitude pure tones that were often restricted to threshold-level intensities. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging in awake rhesus monkeys to determine whether, and if so how, the tonotopic maps and the pattern of activation in core, belt, and parabelt are affected by systematic changes in sound intensity. Blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) responses to groups of low- and high-frequency pure tones 3-4 octaves apart were measured at multiple sound intensity levels. The results revealed tonotopic maps in the auditory core that reversed at the putative areal boundaries between A1 and R and between R and RT. Although these reversals of the tonotopic representations were present at all intensity levels, the lateral spread of activation depended on sound amplitude, with increasing recruitment of the adjacent belt areas as the intensities increased. Tonotopic organization along the STP was also evident in frequency-specific deactivation (i.e. "negative BOLD"), an effect that was intensity-specific as well. Regions of positive and negative BOLD were spatially interleaved, possibly reflecting lateral inhibition of high-frequency areas during activation of adjacent low-frequency areas, and vice versa. These results, which demonstrate the strong influence of tonal amplitude on activation levels, identify sound intensity as an important adjunct parameter for mapping the functional architecture of auditory cortex.

Evaluation of the Tone Fan Noise Design/Prediction System (TFaNS) at the NASA Glenn Research Center

Science.gov (United States)

Koch, L. Danielle

1999-01-01

Version 1.4 of TFaNS, the Tone Fan Noise Design/Prediction System. has recently been evaluated at the NASA Glenn Research Center. Data from tests of the Allison Ultra High Bypass Fan (UHBF) were used to compare to predicted farfield directivities for the radial stator configuration. There was good agreement between measured and predicted directivities at low fan speeds when rotor effects were neglected in the TFaNS calculations. At higher fan speeds, TFaNS is shown to be useful in predicting overall trends rather than absolute sound pressure levels.

Development of a computer-based automated pure tone hearing screening device: a preliminary clinical trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Gan, Kok Beng; Azeez, Dhifaf; Umat, Cila; Ali, Mohd Alauddin Mohd; Wahab, Noor Alaudin Abdul; Mukari, Siti Zamratol Mai-Sarah

2012-10-01

Hearing screening is important for the early detection of hearing loss. The requirements of specialized equipment, skilled personnel, and quiet environments for valid screening results limit its application in schools and health clinics. This study aimed to develop an automated hearing screening kit (auto-kit) with the capability of realtime noise level monitoring to ensure that the screening is performed in an environment that conforms to the standard. The auto-kit consists of a laptop, a 24-bit resolution sound card, headphones, a microphone, and a graphical user interface, which is calibrated according to the American National Standards Institute S3.6-2004 standard. The auto-kit can present four test tones (500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz) at 25 or 40 dB HL screening cut-off level. The clinical results at 40 dB HL screening cut-off level showed that the auto-kit has a sensitivity of 92.5% and a specificity of 75.0%. Because the 500 Hz test tone is not included in the standard hearing screening procedure, it can be excluded from the auto-kit test procedure. The exclusion of 500 Hz test tone improved the specificity of the auto-kit from 75.0% to 92.3%, which suggests that the auto-kit could be a valid hearing screening device. In conclusion, the auto-kit may be a valuable hearing screening tool, especially in countries where resources are limited.

Playing-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders Among Classical Piano Students at Tertiary Institutions in Malaysia: Proportion and Associated Risk Factors.

Science.gov (United States)

Ling, Chia-Ying; Loo, Fung-Chiat; Hamedon, Titi R

2018-06-01

Musicians are prone to performance injuries due to the nature of musical practice, and classical pianists are among the groups at high risk for playing-related musculoskeletal disorders (PRMDs). With the growing number of classical pianists in Malaysia, this study aimed to investigate the proportion of PRMDs occurring among classical piano students in tertiary institutions in Malaysia. Associations between gender, practice habits, diet, sports involvement, and PRMD were investigated. A survey was conducted among classical piano students (n=192) at tertiary institutions of Kuala Lumpur and Selangor. Results showed that 35.8% (n=68) students reported having PRMD. The shoulder was the most commonly affected body site, followed by the arm, finger, and wrist. Pain, fatigue, and stiffness were the most cited symptoms by those who suffered from a PRMD. Chi-square analysis showed a significant relationship between the occurrence of PRMD and practice hours (p=0.031), the habit of taking breaks during practice (p=0.045), physical cool-down exercises (p=0.037), and special diet (p=0.007). Multivariate logistic regression analyses confirmed the independent correlation between PRMDs and the lack of taking a break during practice, physical cool-down exercises, and special diet. Because PRMDs are reported at various severity levels, this study should increase awareness of PRMD among classical piano students and encourage injury prevention in musicians in the future to ensure long-lasting music careers.

Moderate Baseline Vagal Tone Predicts Greater Prosociality in Children

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, Jonas G.; Kahle, Sarah; Hastings, Paul D.

2016-01-01

Vagal tone is widely believed to be an important physiological aspect of emotion regulation and associated positive behaviors. However, there is inconsistent evidence for relations between children’s baseline vagal tone and their helpful or prosocial responses to others (Hastings & Miller, 2014). Recent work in adults suggests a quadratic association (inverted U-shape curve) between baseline vagal tone and prosociality (Kogan et al., 2014). The present research examined whether this nonlinear association was evident in children. We found consistent evidence for a quadratic relation between vagal tone and prosociality across 3 samples of children using 6 different measures. Compared to low and high vagal tone, moderate vagal tone in early childhood concurrently predicted greater self-reported prosociality (Study 1), observed empathic concern in response to the distress of others and greater generosity toward less fortunate peers (Study 2), and longitudinally predicted greater self-, mother-, and teacher-reported prosociality 5.5 years later in middle childhood (Study 3). Taken together, our findings suggest that moderate vagal tone at rest represents a physiological preparedness or tendency to engage in different forms of prosociality across different contexts. Early moderate vagal tone may reflect an optimal balance of regulation and arousal that helps prepare children to sympathize, comfort, and share with others. PMID:27819463

Sound Synthesis of the Harpsichord Using a Computationally Efficient Physical Model

Science.gov (United States)

Välimäki, Vesa; Penttinen, Henri; Knif, Jonte; Laurson, Mikael; Erkut, Cumhur

2004-12-01

A sound synthesis algorithm for the harpsichord has been developed by applying the principles of digital waveguide modeling. A modification to the loss filter of the string model is introduced that allows more flexible control of decay rates of partials than is possible with a one-pole digital filter, which is a usual choice for the loss filter. A version of the commuted waveguide synthesis approach is used, where each tone is generated with a parallel combination of the string model and a second-order resonator that are excited with a common excitation signal. The second-order resonator, previously proposed for this purpose, approximately simulates the beating effect appearing in many harpsichord tones. The characteristic key-release thump terminating harpsichord tones is reproduced by triggering a sample that has been extracted from a recording. A digital filter model for the soundboard has been designed based on recorded bridge impulse responses of the harpsichord. The output of the string models is injected in the soundboard filter that imitates the reverberant nature of the soundbox and, particularly, the ringing of the short parts of the strings behind the bridge.

Sound Synthesis of the Harpsichord Using a Computationally Efficient Physical Model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Knif Jonte

2004-01-01

Full Text Available A sound synthesis algorithm for the harpsichord has been developed by applying the principles of digital waveguide modeling. A modification to the loss filter of the string model is introduced that allows more flexible control of decay rates of partials than is possible with a one-pole digital filter, which is a usual choice for the loss filter. A version of the commuted waveguide synthesis approach is used, where each tone is generated with a parallel combination of the string model and a second-order resonator that are excited with a common excitation signal. The second-order resonator, previously proposed for this purpose, approximately simulates the beating effect appearing in many harpsichord tones. The characteristic key-release thump terminating harpsichord tones is reproduced by triggering a sample that has been extracted from a recording. A digital filter model for the soundboard has been designed based on recorded bridge impulse responses of the harpsichord. The output of the string models is injected in the soundboard filter that imitates the reverberant nature of the soundbox and, particularly, the ringing of the short parts of the strings behind the bridge.

A fundamental residue pitch perception bias for tone language speakers

Science.gov (United States)

Petitti, Elizabeth

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

Inter-individual differences in audio-motor learning of piano melodies and white matter fiber tract architecture

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Engel, Annerose; Hijmans, Brenda S.; Cerliani, Leonardo; Bangert, Marc; Nanetti, Luca; Keller, Peter E.; Keysers, Christian

Humans vary substantially in their ability to learn new motor skills. Here, we examined inter-individual differences in learning to play the piano, with the goal of identifying relations to structural properties of white matter fiber tracts relevant to audio-motor learning. Non-musicians (n = 18)

COMPOSITION PECULIARITIES IN THE SONATA C-MOLL FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO BY KONSTANTIN ROMANOV

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

ŢIRCUNOVA SVETLANA

2015-06-01

Full Text Available The author analyzes the Sonata for Violin and Piano by Konstantin Romanov written in Chisinau in 1920s. This is one of the first works known in national music in the genre of sonata for violin, written on the territory of the Republic of Moldova. The work is considered in terms of its musical form built in the classical traditions.

When does the tone of earnings press releases matter?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Boudt, Kris; Thewissen, James; Torsin, Wouter

2018-01-01

The tone of a firm's financial disclosure is increasingly used as a variable in panel data regressions to predict future performance and explain investors’ reaction at earnings announcement. We investigate when tone is informative, and argue that the informativeness of tone increases with the

Implementation of lean manufacturing to reduce waste in production line with value stream mapping approach and Kaizen in division sanding upright piano, case study in: PT. X

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Santosa W. A.

2018-01-01

Full Text Available PT. XY produces musical instruments such as Upright Pianos and Grand Pianos. Due to a competitive competition, a good quality product is highly required as well as increasing the production scale. To achieve these objectives, company needs to reduce wastes occurred in its production lines, particularly in the division of sanding panel upright piano (UP which produces type of PE B1 pianos. High cycle time and lead-time are caused by wastes in UP panel sanding division. Therefore, it is needed improvements to be applied here so that the production lines will be run more effectively and efficiently. This study aims to identify wastes using Value Stream Mapping (VSM as a tool of lean manufacturing and to implement the improvements using Kaizen. It is found that the wastes are motion and waiting. Furthermore, the improvements (kaizen are focused on reducing motion and waiting wastes. It is shown that cycle time decreased from 51.16 minutes to 41.90 minutes, work in process or inventory can be reduced to 24 pcs over 32 pcs, and the lead-time is 0.167 days of 0.222 days.

Conditioning Influences Audio-Visual Integration by Increasing Sound Saliency

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Fabrizio Leo

2011-10-01

Full Text Available We investigated the effect of prior conditioning of an auditory stimulus on audiovisual integration in a series of four psychophysical experiments. The experiments factorially manipulated the conditioning procedure (picture vs monetary conditioning and multisensory paradigm (2AFC visual detection vs redundant target paradigm. In the conditioning sessions, subjects were presented with three pure tones (= conditioned stimulus, CS that were paired with neutral, positive, or negative unconditioned stimuli (US, monetary: +50 euro cents,.–50 cents, 0 cents; pictures: highly pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral IAPS. In a 2AFC visual selective attention paradigm, detection of near-threshold Gabors was improved by concurrent sounds that had previously been paired with a positive (monetary or negative (picture outcome relative to neutral sounds. In the redundant target paradigm, sounds previously paired with positive (monetary or negative (picture outcomes increased response speed to both auditory and audiovisual targets similarly. Importantly, prior conditioning did not increase the multisensory response facilitation (ie, (A + V/2 – AV or the race model violation. Collectively, our results suggest that prior conditioning primarily increases the saliency of the auditory stimulus per se rather than influencing audiovisual integration directly. In turn, conditioned sounds are rendered more potent for increasing response accuracy or speed in detection of visual targets.

Testing a model of intonation in a tone language.

Science.gov (United States)

Lindau, M

1986-09-01

Schematic fundamental frequency curves of simple statements and questions are generated for Hausa, a two-tone language of Nigeria, using a modified version of an intonational model developed by Gårding and Bruce [Nordic Prosody II, edited by T. Fretheim (Tapir, Trondheim, 1981), pp. 33-39]. In this model, rules for intonation and tones are separated. Intonation is represented as sloping grids of (near) parallel lines, inside which tones are placed. The tones are associated with turning points of the fundamental frequency contour. Local rules may also modify the exact placement of a tone within the grid. The continuous fundamental frequency contour is modeled by concatenating the tonal points using polynomial equations. Thus the final pitch contour is modeled as an interaction between global and local factors. The slope of the intonational grid lines depends at least on sentence type (statement or question), sentence length, and tone pattern. The model is tested by reference to data from nine speakers of Kano Hausa.

Perspectives on Mobilization of Musical Knowledge during Collaborative Piano Activities: Three Cases Studies

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Samuel Henrique Cianbroni

2017-04-01

Full Text Available The present work seeks to investigate the perspectives in respect to mobilization of musical knowledge by undergraduate students engaged in collaborative piano situations. Three undergraduate piano majors were investigated during three different types of collaborative activities: instrumental ensemble, choral ensemble and solo vocal. The qualitative methodology was based on a case study for descriptions of the data collected through interviews and recordings of rehearsals, music classes, institutional exams, and public performances. The Santos model (2007 was shown to be suitable for the study, especially with regard to identifying the differences between the investigative and the self-regulated cycles, which were distinct among the research participants. The perspectives of knowledge mobilization were revealed through the various ways of perceiving and approaching the collaborative activity with which the participants were engaged, imbued with both their beliefs and demonstrated values. The present study displayed two factors: (1 the influence with which previous systematized (i.e., already learned experiences and forms of personal interest exert on this aspect of musical practice and (2 the importance of investigating what already exists in terms of practiced knowledge (and systematized in the experiences of undergraduate students with the goal to connect forms of knowledge to means of learning.

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

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

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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

Music and the brain - design of an MEG compatible piano.

Science.gov (United States)

Chacon-Castano, Julian; Rathbone, Daniel R; Hoffman, Rachel; Heng Yang; Pantazis, Dimitrios; Yang, Jason; Hornberger, Erik; Hanumara, Nevan C

2017-07-01

Magnetoencephalography (MEG) neuroimaging has been used to study subjects' responses when listening to music, but research into the effects of playing music has been limited by the lack of MEG compatible instruments that can operate in a magnetically shielded environment without creating electromagnetic interference. This paper describes the design and preliminary testing of an MEG compatible piano keyboard with 25 full size keys that employs a novel 3-state optical encoder design and electronics to provide realistic velocity-controlled volume modulation. This instrument will allow researchers to study musical performance on a finer timescale than fMRI and enable a range of MEG studies.

Two-tone nonlinear electrostatic waves in the quantum electron–hole plasma of semiconductors

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dubinov, A. E., E-mail: dubinov-ae@yandex.ru; Kitayev, I. N. [Russian Federal Nuclear Center–All-Russia Scientific and Research Institute of Experimental Physics (RFNC–VNIIEF) (Russian Federation)

2017-01-15

Longitudinal electrostatic waves in the quantum electron–hole plasma of semiconductors are considered taking into account the degeneracy of electrons and holes and the exchange interaction. It is found in the framework of linear theory that the dispersion curve of longitudinal waves has two branches: plasmon and acoustic. An expression for the critical cutoff frequency for plasma oscillations and an expression for the speed of sound for acoustic vibrations are derived. It is shown that the plasma wave always exists in the form of a superposition of two components, characterized by different periods and wavelengths. Two nonlinear solutions are obtained within nonlinear theory: one in the form of a simple superposition of two tones and the other in the form of beats.

Dissociation of tone and vowel processing in Mandarin idioms.

Science.gov (United States)

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

2012-09-01

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

Cantonese tone production performance of mainstream school children with hearing impairment.

Science.gov (United States)

Cheung, Karen K L; Lau, Ada H Y; Lam, Joffee H S; Lee, Kathy Y S

2014-12-01

This study investigated the Cantonese tone production ability of children with hearing impairment studying in mainstream schools. The participants were 87 Cantonese-speaking children with mild-to-profound degrees of hearing loss aged 5.92-13.58 in Hong Kong. Most of the children were fitted with hearing aids (n = 65); 17 of them had profound hearing impairment, one who had severe hearing loss had cochlear implantation, and four who had mild hearing loss were without any hearing device. The Hong Kong Cantonese Articulation Test was administered, and the tones produced were rated by two of the authors and a speech-language pathologist. Group effects of tones, hearing loss level, and also an interaction of the two were found to be significant. The children with profound hearing impairment performed significantly worse than most of the other children. Tone 1 was produced most accurately, whereas tone 6 productions were the poorest. No relationship was found between the number of years of mainstreaming and tone production ability. Tone production error pattern revealed that confusion patterns in tone perception coincided with those in production. Tones having a similar fundamental frequency (F0) at the onset also posed difficulty in tone production for children with hearing impairment.

Laser vibrometry measurements of vibration and sound fields of a bowed violin

Science.gov (United States)

Gren, Per; Tatar, Kourosh; Granström, Jan; Molin, N.-E.; Jansson, Erik V.

2006-04-01

Laser vibrometry measurements on a bowed violin are performed. A rotating disc apparatus, acting as a violin bow, is developed. It produces a continuous, long, repeatable, multi-frequency sound from the instrument that imitates the real bow-string interaction for a 'very long bow'. What mainly differs is that the back and forward motion of the real bow is replaced by the rotating motion with constant velocity of the disc and constant bowing force (bowing pressure). This procedure is repeatable. It is long lasting and allows laser vibrometry techniques to be used, which measure forced vibrations by bowing at all excited frequencies simultaneously. A chain of interacting parts of the played violin is studied: the string, the bridge and the plates as well as the emitted sound field. A description of the mechanics and the sound production of the bowed violin is given, i.e. the production chain from the bowed string to the produced tone.

Tone perception in Mandarin-speaking school age children with otitis media with effusion.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ting Cai

Full Text Available The present study explored tone perception ability in school age Mandarin-speaking children with otitis media with effusion (OME in noisy listening environments. The study investigated the interaction effects of noise, tone type, age, and hearing status on monaural tone perception, and assessed the application of a hierarchical clustering algorithm for profiling hearing impairment in children with OME.Forty-one children with normal hearing and normal middle ear status and 84 children with OME with or without hearing loss participated in this study. The children with OME were further divided into two subgroups based on their severity and pattern of hearing loss using a hierarchical clustering algorithm. Monaural tone recognition was measured using a picture-identification test format incorporating six sets of monosyllabic words conveying four lexical tones under speech spectrum noise, with the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR conditions ranging from -9 to -21 dB.Linear correlation indicated tone recognition thresholds of children with OME were significantly correlated with age and pure tone hearing thresholds at every frequency tested. Children with hearing thresholds less affected by OME performed similarly to their peers with normal hearing. Tone recognition thresholds of children with auditory status more affected by OME were significantly inferior to those of children with normal hearing or with minor hearing loss. Younger children demonstrated poorer tone recognition performance than older children with OME. A mixed design repeated-measure ANCOVA showed significant main effects of listening condition, hearing status, and tone type on tone recognition. Contrast comparisons revealed that tone recognition scores were significantly better under -12 dB SNR than under -15 dB SNR conditions and tone recognition scores were significantly worse under -18 dB SNR than those obtained under -15 dB SNR conditions. Tone 1 was the easiest tone to identify and

Tone perception in Mandarin-speaking school age children with otitis media with effusion.

Science.gov (United States)

Cai, Ting; McPherson, Bradley; Li, Caiwei; Yang, Feng

2017-01-01

The present study explored tone perception ability in school age Mandarin-speaking children with otitis media with effusion (OME) in noisy listening environments. The study investigated the interaction effects of noise, tone type, age, and hearing status on monaural tone perception, and assessed the application of a hierarchical clustering algorithm for profiling hearing impairment in children with OME. Forty-one children with normal hearing and normal middle ear status and 84 children with OME with or without hearing loss participated in this study. The children with OME were further divided into two subgroups based on their severity and pattern of hearing loss using a hierarchical clustering algorithm. Monaural tone recognition was measured using a picture-identification test format incorporating six sets of monosyllabic words conveying four lexical tones under speech spectrum noise, with the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions ranging from -9 to -21 dB. Linear correlation indicated tone recognition thresholds of children with OME were significantly correlated with age and pure tone hearing thresholds at every frequency tested. Children with hearing thresholds less affected by OME performed similarly to their peers with normal hearing. Tone recognition thresholds of children with auditory status more affected by OME were significantly inferior to those of children with normal hearing or with minor hearing loss. Younger children demonstrated poorer tone recognition performance than older children with OME. A mixed design repeated-measure ANCOVA showed significant main effects of listening condition, hearing status, and tone type on tone recognition. Contrast comparisons revealed that tone recognition scores were significantly better under -12 dB SNR than under -15 dB SNR conditions and tone recognition scores were significantly worse under -18 dB SNR than those obtained under -15 dB SNR conditions. Tone 1 was the easiest tone to identify and Tone 3 was the most

Swimming Behavior of Roach (Rutilus rutilus) and Three-spined Stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) in Response to Wind Power Noise and Single-tone Frequencies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Andersson, Mathias H.; Dock-Aakerman, Emily; Ubral-Hedenberg, Ramona; Oehman, Marcus C. (Dept. of Zoology, Stockholm Univ., Stockholm (Sweden)); Sigray, Peter (Dept. of Underwater Research, Swedish Defense Research Agency, Stockholm (Sweden))

2007-12-15

There is an environmental concern of how fish may be influenced by the developments of wind power offshore installations (20-23). In this study, two different species of fish were exposed to single-tone frequencies and sound generated by an offshore wind power plant. Both species reacted to the wind power noise which indicate that the noise may cause stress. However, fish have been noticed to habituate to sound and to associate with windmills at sea. This study was a small scale experiment. For a comprehensive understanding on how fish respond to wind power noise, additional studies are needed involving more species and large scale laboratory and field experiments based on detailed measurements of the noise generated from wind power plants

Self-test web-based pure-tone audiometry: validity evaluation and measurement error analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Masalski, Marcin; Kręcicki, Tomasz

2013-04-12

Potential methods of application of self-administered Web-based pure-tone audiometry conducted at home on a PC with a sound card and ordinary headphones depend on the value of measurement error in such tests. The aim of this research was to determine the measurement error of the hearing threshold determined in the way described above and to identify and analyze factors influencing its value. The evaluation of the hearing threshold was made in three series: (1) tests on a clinical audiometer, (2) self-tests done on a specially calibrated computer under the supervision of an audiologist, and (3) self-tests conducted at home. The research was carried out on the group of 51 participants selected from patients of an audiology outpatient clinic. From the group of 51 patients examined in the first two series, the third series was self-administered at home by 37 subjects (73%). The average difference between the value of the hearing threshold determined in series 1 and in series 2 was -1.54dB with standard deviation of 7.88dB and a Pearson correlation coefficient of .90. Between the first and third series, these values were -1.35dB±10.66dB and .84, respectively. In series 3, the standard deviation was most influenced by the error connected with the procedure of hearing threshold identification (6.64dB), calibration error (6.19dB), and additionally at the frequency of 250Hz by frequency nonlinearity error (7.28dB). The obtained results confirm the possibility of applying Web-based pure-tone audiometry in screening tests. In the future, modifications of the method leading to the decrease in measurement error can broaden the scope of Web-based pure-tone audiometry application.

Lexical tone and stuttering loci in Mandarin: evidence from preschool children who stutter.

Science.gov (United States)

Chou, Fang-Chi; Zebrowski, Patricia; Yang, Shu-Lan

2015-02-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between stuttering loci and lexical tone in Mandarin-speaking preschoolers. Conversational samples from 20 Taiwanese children who stutter (CWS; M = 4:9; range = 3:2-6:4) were analysed for frequency and type of speech disfluency and lexical tone associated with stuttering-like disfluencies (SLDs). Results indicated that SLDs were significantly more likely to be produced on Mandarin syllables carrying Tone 3 and Tone 4 syllables compared to syllables carrying either Tone 1 or Tone 2. Post-hoc analyses revealed: (1) no significant differences in the stuttering frequencies between Tone 1 and Tone 2, or between Tone 3 and Tone 4, and (2) a higher incidence of stuttering on syllables carrying Tone 3 and Tone 4 embedded in conflicting (as opposed to compatible) tonal contexts. Results suggest that the higher incidence of stuttering on Mandarin syllables carrying either Tone 3 or 4 may be attributed to the increased level of speech motor demand underlying rapid F0 change both within and across syllables.

The sound and the fury--bees hiss when expecting danger.

Science.gov (United States)

Wehmann, Henja-Niniane; Gustav, David; Kirkerud, Nicholas H; Galizia, C Giovanni

2015-01-01

Honey bees are important model systems for the investigation of learning and memory and for a better understanding of the neuronal basics of brain function. Honey bees also possess a rich repertoire of tones and sounds, from queen piping and quacking to worker hissing and buzzing. In this study, we tested whether the worker bees' sounds can be used as a measure of learning. We therefore conditioned honey bees aversively to odours in a walking arena and recorded both their sound production and their movement. Bees were presented with two odours, one of which was paired with an electric shock. Initially, the bees did not produce any sound upon odour presentation, but responded to the electric shock with a strong hissing response. After learning, many bees hissed at the presentation of the learned odour, while fewer bees hissed upon presentation of another odour. We also found that hissing and movement away from the conditioned odour are independent behaviours that can co-occur but do not necessarily do so. Our data suggest that hissing can be used as a readout for learning after olfactory conditioning, but that there are large individual differences between bees concerning their hissing reaction. The basis for this variability and the possible ecological relevance of the bees' hissing remain to be investigated.

Loss and persistence of implicit memory for sound: evidence from auditory stream segregation context effects.

Science.gov (United States)

Snyder, Joel S; Weintraub, David M

2013-07-01

An important question is the extent to which declines in memory over time are due to passive loss or active interference from other stimuli. The purpose of the present study was to determine the extent to which implicit memory effects in the perceptual organization of sound sequences are subject to loss and interference. Toward this aim, we took advantage of two recently discovered context effects in the perceptual judgments of sound patterns, one that depends on stimulus features of previous sounds and one that depends on the previous perceptual organization of these sounds. The experiments measured how listeners' perceptual organization of a tone sequence (test) was influenced by the frequency separation, or the perceptual organization, of the two preceding sequences (context1 and context2). The results demonstrated clear evidence for loss of context effects over time but little evidence for interference. However, they also revealed that context effects can be surprisingly persistent. The robust effects of loss, followed by persistence, were similar for the two types of context effects. We discuss whether the same auditory memories might contain information about basic stimulus features of sounds (i.e., frequency separation), as well as the perceptual organization of these sounds.

Sound Synthesis of the Harpsichord Using a Computationally Efficient Physical Model

OpenAIRE

Vesa Välimäki; Henri Penttinen; Mikael Laurson; Jonte Knif; Cumhur Erkut

2004-01-01

A sound synthesis algorithm for the harpsichord has been developed by applying the principles of digital waveguide modeling. A modification to the loss filter of the string model is introduced that allows more flexible control of decay rates of partials than is possible with a one-pole digital filter, which is a usual choice for the loss filter. A version of the commuted waveguide synthesis approach is used, where each tone is generated with a parallel combination of the string model and a s...

Hearing Impairment CausedbyOccupational Noise*

African Journals Online (AJOL)

1971-08-28

Aug 28, 1971 ... over-all noise level, (b) exposure duration in a working day, and (c) exposure .... The highest tone on a piano is about 4 000 Hz. This is the frequency for which ..... hours per week and serves as the decisive criterion for hearing ...

Empirical measurements on a Sesotho tone labeling algorithm

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Raborife, M

2012-05-01

Full Text Available This paper discusses the empirical assessments employed on two versions of a Sesotho tone labeling algorithm. This algorithm uses linguistically-defined Sesotho tonal rules to predict the tone labels on the syllables of Sesotho words. The two...

Masking functions and fixed-signal functions for low-level 1000-Hz tones.

Science.gov (United States)

Shepherd, Daniel; Hautus, Michael J; Jesteadt, Walt

2013-06-01

Masking functions and fixed-signal functions were constructed using a narrow range of pedestal intensities for 10-ms, 1000-Hz gated tones. Data from three experiments agreed with previously reported data, clearly demonstrating negative masking and the pedestal effect. The data extend earlier findings by showing (1) the resilience of the pedestal effect when a background noise masker is introduced; (2) a possible indifference of the fixed-signal function to stimulus duration; (3) the ability of a set of psychometric functions to produce both masking and fixed-signal functions; (4) depending on method, the impact of unit choice on the interpretation of both the pedestal effect and negative masking data. Results are discussed in relation to current psychophysical models, and suggest that accounting for the auditory system's sensitivity to differences in low-level sounds remains a challenge.

Dopamine transporters govern diurnal variation in extracellular dopamine tone

OpenAIRE

Ferris, Mark J.; España, Rodrigo A.; Locke, Jason L.; Konstantopoulos, Joanne K.; Rose, Jamie H.; Chen, Rong; Jones, Sara R.

2014-01-01

The mechanism for diurnal (i.e., light/dark) oscillations in extracellular dopamine tone in mesolimbic and nigrostriatal systems is unknown. This is because, unlike other neurotransmitter systems, variation in dopamine tone does not correlate with variation in dopamine cell firing. The current research pinpoints the dopamine transporter as a critical governor of diurnal variation in both extracellular dopamine tone and the intracellular availability of releasable dopamine. These data describe...

Re-examining Czerny’s and Moscheles’s Metronome Marks for Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas

OpenAIRE

Noorduin, Marten

2017-01-01

Shortly after Beethoven’s death, several of his closest associates provided performance indications for editions of his works. Previous discussions of Carl Czerny’s and Ignaz Moscheles’s metronome marks for Beethoven’s piano sonatas have highlighted the importance of these indications for our understanding of the intended performance practice of these works. Nevertheless, the provenance and meaning of these metronome marks have remained unclear, which has led to some confusion in the literatu...

Vagal tone during infant contingency learning and its disruption.

Science.gov (United States)

Sullivan, Margaret Wolan

2016-04-01

This study used contingency learning to examine changes in infants' vagal tone during learning and its disruption. The heart rate of 160 five-month-old infants was recorded continuously during the first of two training sessions as they experienced an audiovisual event contingent on their pulling. Maternal reports of infant temperament were also collected. Baseline vagal tone, a measure of parasympathetic regulation of the heart, was related to vagal levels during the infants' contingency learning session, but not to their learner status. Vagal tone levels did not vary significantly over session minutes. Instead, vagal tone levels were a function of both individual differences in learner status and infant soothability. Vagal levels of infants who learned in the initial session were similar regardless of their soothability; however, vagal levels of infants who learned in a subsequent session differed as a function of soothability. Additionally, vagal levels during contingency disruption were significantly higher among infants in this group who were more soothable as opposed to those who were less soothable. The results suggest that contingency learning and disruption is associated with stable vagal tone in the majority of infants, but that individual differences in attention processes and state associated with vagal tone may be most readily observed during the disruption phase. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Statistics of EMIC Rising Tones Observed by the Van Allen Probes

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Sigsbee, K. M.; Kletzing, C.; Smith, C. W.; Santolik, O.

2017-12-01

We will present results from an ongoing statistical study of electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) wave rising tones observed by the Van Allen Probes. Using data from the Electric and Magnetic Field Instrument Suite and Integrated Science (EMFISIS) fluxgate magnetometer, we have identified orbits by both Van Allen Probes with EMIC wave events from the start of the mission in fall 2012 through fall 2016. Orbits with EMIC wave events were further examined for evidence of rising tones. Most EMIC wave rising tones were found during H+ band EMIC wave events. In Fourier time-frequency power spectrograms of the fluxgate magnetometer data, H+ band rising tones generally took the form of triggered emission type events, where the discrete rising tone structures rapidly rise in frequency out of the main band of observed H+ EMIC waves. A smaller percentage of EMIC wave rising tone events were found in the He+ band, where rising tones may appear as discrete structures with a positive slope embedded within the main band of observed He+ EMIC waves, similar in appearance to whistler-mode chorus elements. Understanding the occurrence rate and properties of rising tone EMIC waves will provide observational context for theoretical studies indicating that EMIC waves exhibiting non-linear behavior, such as rising tones, may be more effective at scattering radiation belt electrons than ordinary EMIC waves.

Producing of Impedance Tube for Measurement of Acoustic Absorption Coefficient of Some Sound Absorber Materials

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R. Golmohammadi

2008-04-01

Full Text Available Introduction & Objective: Noise is one of the most important harmful agents in work environment. In spit of industrial improvements, exposure with over permissible limit of noise is counted as one of the health complication of workers. In Iran, do not exact information of the absorption coefficient of acoustic materials. Iranian manufacturer have not laboratory for measured of sound absorbance of their products, therefore using of sound absorber is limited for noise control in industrial and non industrial constructions. The goal of this study was to design an impedance tube based on pressure method for measurement of the sound absorption coefficient of acoustic materials.Materials & Methods: In this study designing of measuring system and method of calculation of sound absorption based on a available equipment and relatively easy for measurement of the sound absorption coefficient related to ISO10534-1 was performed. Measuring system consist of heavy asbestos tube, a pure tone sound generator, calibrated sound level meter for measuring of some commonly of sound absorber materials was used. Results: In this study sound absorption coefficient of 23 types of available acoustic material in Iran was tested. Reliability of results by three repeat of measurement was tested. Results showed that the standard deviation of sound absorption coefficient of study materials was smaller than .Conclusion: The present study performed a necessary technology of designing and producing of impedance tube for determining of acoustical materials absorption coefficient in Iran.

Work Ethic, Motivation, and Parental Influences in Chinese and North American Children Learning to Play the Piano

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Comeau, Gilles; Huta, Veronika; Liu, YiFei

2015-01-01

This study compared 50 Chinese and 100 North American Caucasian children aged 6 to 17 who were learning piano, in terms of their work ethic, motivation, and parental influences. Compared to North American Caucasians, Chinese children and parents believed more strongly that musical ability requires hard work, and Chinese children were more…

Intracellular responses to frequency modulated tones in the dorsal cortex of the mouse inferior colliculus

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Ruediger eGeis

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Frequency modulations occur in many natural sounds, including vocalizations. The neuronal response to frequency modulated (FM stimuli has been studied extensively in different brain areas, with an emphasis on the auditory cortex and the central nucleus of the inferior colliculus. Here, we measured the responses to FM sweeps in whole-cell recordings from neurons in the dorsal cortex of the mouse inferior colliculus. Both up- and downward logarithmic FM sweeps were presented at two different speeds to both the ipsi- and the contralateral ear. Based on the number of action potentials that were fired, between 10-24% of cells were selective for rate or direction of the FM sweeps. A somewhat lower percentage of cells, 6-21%, showed selectivity based on EPSP size. To study the mechanisms underlying the generation of FM selectivity, we compared FM responses with responses to simple tones in the same cells. We found that if pairs of neurons responded in a similar way to simple tones, they generally also responded in a similar way to FM sweeps. Further evidence that FM selectivity can be generated within the dorsal cortex was obtained by reconstructing FM sweeps from the response to simple tones using three different models. In about half of the direction selective neurons the selectivity was generated by spectrally asymmetric synaptic inhibition. In addition, evidence for direction selectivity based on the timing of excitatory responses was also obtained in some cells. No clear evidence for the local generation of rate selectivity was obtained. We conclude that FM direction selectivity can be generated within the dorsal cortex of the mouse inferior colliculus by multiple mechanisms.

Pilot tones in WDM networks with wavelength converters

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kloch, Allan; Mikkelsen, Benny; Stubkjær, Kristian

1997-01-01

Here we investigate the transmission of a pilot tone through an interferometric wavelength converter (IWC) in conjunction with a 2.5 Gbit/s experiment. The pilot tone is added by sinusoidal modulation of the bias current to the signal laser. After the IWC (Michelson interferometer) the converted...

One-tone suppression in the frog auditory nerve

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christensen-Dalsgaard, J; Jørgensen, M B

1996-01-01

Sixty-seven fibers of a sample of 401 in the auditory nerve of grassfrogs (Rana temporaria) showed one-tone suppression, i.e., their spontaneous activity was suppressed by tones. All fibers were afferents from the amphibian papilla with best frequencies between 100 and 400 Hz. Best suppression...

Coherence of the irrelevant-sound effect: individual profiles of short-term memory and susceptibility to task-irrelevant materials.

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Elliott, Emily M; Cowan, Nelson

2005-06-01

We examined individual and developmental differences in the disruptive effects of irrelevant sounds on serial recall of printed lists. In Experiment 1, we examined adults (N = 205) receiving eight-item lists to be recalled. Although their susceptibility to disruption of recall by irrelevant sounds was only slightly related to memory span, regression analyses documented highly reliable individual differences in this susceptibility across speech and tone distractors, even with variance from span level removed. In Experiment 2, we examined adults (n = 64) and 8-year-old children (n = 63) receiving lists of a length equal to a predetermined span and one item shorter (span-1). We again found significant relationships between measures of span and susceptibility to irrelevant sounds, although in only two of the measures. We conclude that some of the cognitive processes helpful in performing a span task may not be beneficial in the presence of irrelevant sounds.

Electrophysiological evidence for a defect in the processing of temporal sound patterns in multiple sclerosis.

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Jones, S J; Sprague, L; Vaz Pato, M

2002-11-01

To assess the processing of spectrotemporal sound patterns in multiple sclerosis by using auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) to complex harmonic tones. 22 patients with definite multiple sclerosis but mild disability and no auditory complaints were compared with 15 normal controls. Short latency AEPs were recorded using standard methods. Long latency AEPs were recorded to synthesised musical instrument tones, at onset every two seconds, at abrupt frequency changes every two seconds, and at the end of a two second period of 16/s frequency changes. The subjects were inattentive but awake, reading irrelevant material. Short latency AEPs were abnormal in only 4 of 22 patients, whereas long latency AEPs were abnormal to one or more stimuli in 17 of 22. No significant latency prolongation was seen in response to onset and infrequent frequency changes (P1, N1, P2) but the potentials at the end of 16/s frequency modulations, particularly the P2 peaking approximately 200 ms after the next expected change, were significantly delayed. The delayed responses appear to be a mild disorder in the processing of change in temporal sound patterns. The delay may be conceived of as extra time taken to compare the incoming sound with the contents of a temporally ordered sensory memory store (the long auditory store or echoic memory), which generates a response when the next expected frequency change fails to occur. The defect cannot be ascribed to lesions of the afferent pathways and so may be due to disseminated brain lesions visible or invisible on magnetic resonance imaging.

Effects of low harmonics on tone identification in natural and vocoded speech.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Chang; Azimi, Behnam; Tahmina, Qudsia; Hu, Yi

2012-11-01

This study investigated the contribution of low-frequency harmonics to identifying Mandarin tones in natural and vocoded speech in quiet and noisy conditions. Results showed that low-frequency harmonics of natural speech led to highly accurate tone identification; however, for vocoded speech, low-frequency harmonics yielded lower tone identification than stimuli with full harmonics, except for tone 4. Analysis of the correlation between tone accuracy and the amplitude-F0 correlation index suggested that "more" speech contents (i.e., more harmonics) did not necessarily yield better tone recognition for vocoded speech, especially when the amplitude contour of the signals did not co-vary with the F0 contour.

Structural, functional, and perceptual differences in Heschl's gyrus and musical instrument preference.

Science.gov (United States)

Schneider, Peter; Sluming, Vanessa; Roberts, Neil; Bleeck, Stefan; Rupp, André

2005-12-01

The musical pitch of harmonic complex sounds, such as instrumental sounds, is perceived primarily by decoding either the fundamental pitch (keynote) or spectral aspects of the stimuli, for example, single harmonics. We divided 334 professional musicians, including symphony orchestra musicians, 75 amateur musicians, and 54 nonmusicians, into either fundamental pitch listeners or spectral pitch listeners. We observed a strong correlation between pitch perception preference and asymmetry of brain structure and function in the pitch-sensitive lateral areas of Heschl's gyrus (HG), irrespective of musical ability. In particular, fundamental pitch listeners exhibited both larger gray matter volume measured using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and enhanced P50m activity measured using magnetoencephalography (MEG) in the left lateral HG, which is sensitive to rapid temporal processing. Their chosen instruments were percussive or high-pitched instruments that produce short, sharp, or impulsive tones (e.g., drums, guitar, piano, trumpet, or flute). By contrast, spectral pitch listeners exhibited a dominant right lateral HG, which is known to be sensitive to slower temporal and spectral processing. Their chosen instruments were lower-pitched melodic instruments that produce rather sustained tones with characteristic changes in timbre (e.g., bassoon, saxophone, french horn, violoncello, or organ). Singers also belonged to the spectral pitch listeners. Furthermore, the absolute size of the neural HG substrate depended strongly on musical ability. Overall, it is likely that both magnitude and asymmetry of lateral HG, and the related perceptual mode, may have an impact on preference for particular musical instruments and on musical performance.

Multi-Variate EEG Analysis as a Novel Tool to Examine Brain Responses to Naturalistic Music Stimuli.

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Irene Sturm

Full Text Available Note onsets in music are acoustic landmarks providing auditory cues that underlie the perception of more complex phenomena such as beat, rhythm, and meter. For naturalistic ongoing sounds a detailed view on the neural representation of onset structure is hard to obtain, since, typically, stimulus-related EEG signatures are derived by averaging a high number of identical stimulus presentations. Here, we propose a novel multivariate regression-based method extracting onset-related brain responses from the ongoing EEG. We analyse EEG recordings of nine subjects who passively listened to stimuli from various sound categories encompassing simple tone sequences, full-length romantic piano pieces and natural (non-music soundscapes. The regression approach reduces the 61-channel EEG to one time course optimally reflecting note onsets. The neural signatures derived by this procedure indeed resemble canonical onset-related ERPs, such as the N1-P2 complex. This EEG projection was then utilized to determine the Cortico-Acoustic Correlation (CACor, a measure of synchronization between EEG signal and stimulus. We demonstrate that a significant CACor (i can be detected in an individual listener's EEG of a single presentation of a full-length complex naturalistic music stimulus, and (ii it co-varies with the stimuli's average magnitudes of sharpness, spectral centroid, and rhythmic complexity. In particular, the subset of stimuli eliciting a strong CACor also produces strongly coordinated tension ratings obtained from an independent listener group in a separate behavioral experiment. Thus musical features that lead to a marked physiological reflection of tone onsets also contribute to perceived tension in music.

Continuous tone printing in silicone from CNC milled matrices

Science.gov (United States)

Hoskins, S.; McCallion, P.

2014-02-01

Current research at the Centre for Fine Print Research (CFPR) at the University of the West of England, Bristol, is exploring the potential of creating coloured pictorial imagery from a continuous tone relief surface. To create the printing matrices the research team have been using CNC milled images where the height of the relief image is dictated by creating a tone curve and then milling this curve into a series of relief blocks from which the image is cast in a silicone ink. A translucent image is cast from each of the colour matrices and each colour is assembled - one on top of another - resulting is a colour continuous tone print, where colour tone is created by physical depth of colour. This process is a contemporary method of continuous tone colour printing based upon the Nineteenth Century black and white printing process of Woodburytype as developed by Walter Bentley Woodbury in 1865. Woodburytype is the only true continuous tone printing process invented, and although its delicate and subtle surfaces surpassed all other printing methods at the time. The process died out in the late nineteenth century as more expedient and cost effective methods of printing prevailed. New research at CFPR builds upon previous research that combines 19th Century Photomechanical techniques with digital technology to reappraise the potential of these processes.

[Research on fractal tones generating method for tinnitus rehabilitation based on musical instrument digital interface technology].

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Lu; He, Peiyu; Pan, Fan

2014-08-01

Tinnitus is a subjective sensation of sound without external stimulation. It has become ubiquitous and has therefore aroused much attention in recent years. According to the survey, ameliorating tinnitus based on special music and reducing pressure have good effects on the treatment of it. Meantime, vicious cycle chains between tinnitus and bad feelings have been broken. However, tinnitus therapy has been restricted by using looping music. Therefore, a method of generating fractal tones based on musical instrument digital interface (MIDI) technology and pink noise has been proposed in this paper. The experimental results showed that the fractal fragments were self-similar, incompletely reduplicate, and no sudden changes in pitches and would have a referential significance for tinnitus therapy.

Representations of race and skin tone in medical textbook imagery.

Science.gov (United States)

Louie, Patricia; Wilkes, Rima

2018-04-01

Although a large literature has documented racial inequities in health care delivery, there continues to be debate about the potential sources of these inequities. Preliminary research suggests that racial inequities are embedded in the curricular edification of physicians and patients. We investigate this hypothesis by considering whether the race and skin tone depicted in images in textbooks assigned at top medical schools reflects the diversity of the U.S. We analyzed 4146 images from Atlas of Human Anatomy, Bates' Guide to Physical Examination & History Taking, Clinically Oriented Anatomy, and Gray's Anatomy for Students by coding race (White, Black, and Person of Color) and skin tone (light, medium, and dark) at the textbook, chapter, and topic level. While the textbooks approximate the racial distribution of the U.S. population - 62.5% White, 20.4% Black, and 17.0% Person of Color - the skin tones represented - 74.5% light, 21% medium, and 4.5% dark - overrepresent light skin tone and underrepresent dark skin tone. There is also an absence of skin tone diversity at the chapter and topic level. Even though medical texts often have overall proportional racial representation this is not the case for skin tone. Furthermore, racial minorities are still often absent at the topic level. These omissions may provide one route through which bias enters medical treatment. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Disturbs Coronary Tone and Its Regulatory Mechanisms.

Science.gov (United States)

Lazuko, Svetlana S; Kuzhel, Olga P; Belyaeva, Lyudmila E; Manukhina, Eugenia B; Fred Downey, H; Tseilikman, Olga B; Komelkova, Maria V; Tseilikman, Vadim E

2018-01-01

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with myocardial injury, but changes in coronary regulatory mechanisms in PTSD have not been investigated. This study evaluated the effect of PTSD-inducing stress on coronary tone and its regulation by nitric oxide (NO) and voltage-gated K + channels. PTSD was induced by exposing rats to predator stress, 15 min daily for 10 days, followed by 14 stress-free days. Presence of PTSD was confirmed by the elevated plus-maze test. Coronary tone was evaluated from changes in coronary perfusion pressure of Langendorff isolated hearts. Predator stress induced significant decreases in coronary tone of isolated hearts and in blood pressure of intact rats. L-NAME, a non-selective NO synthase (NOS) inhibitor, but not S-MT, a selective iNOS inhibitor, and increased coronary tone of control rats. In PTSD rats, both L-NAME and S-MT increased coronary tone. Therefore, the stress-induced coronary vasodilation resulted from NO overproduction by both iNOS and eNOS. NOS induction was apparently due to systemic inflammation as evidenced by increased serum interleukin-1β and C-reactive protein in PTSD rats. Decreased corticosterone in PTSD rats may have contributed to inflammation and its effect on coronary tone. PTSD was also associated with voltage-gated K + channel dysfunction, which would have also reduced coronary tone.

Perception of Lexical Neutral Tone Among Adults and Infants

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Shanshan Fan

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Neutral tone (T0 is a special tone form in Mandarin that contains tonal and stress information. Compared with canonical tones, T0 has a much shorter duration and reduced pitch contour. Its tonal contour is determined by the preceding canonical tone. However, not much is known about the perception of tonal and stress information in T0. In the current study, we investigate (1 whether T0 can be perceived as lexically unstressed by stress-language listeners; and (2 how Mandarin (tone language- and Dutch (stress language-learning infants perceive T0. Three experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, Dutch adults identified T0 as unstressed when presented with disyllabic sequences ending in T0. In Experiment 2, we used the visual fixation paradigm to test 4- to 6-month-old and 10- to 12-month-old Dutch and Mandarin infants on pseudoword discrimination (/pan1san4/ [high-level + high-falling] and /pan1san0/ [high-level + mid-falling]. T4 and T0 each exhibit a similar falling contour. The results show that (1 after being habituated to neutral tone sequences (/pan1san0/, Dutch infants discriminated the T1T0–T1T4 contrast; and (2 neither age groups of Mandarin infants discriminated the tone contrast. Assuming Mandarin infants’ lack of discrimination might be due to the similar F0 contours, we tested Mandarin infants in Experiment 3 using a more salient contrast, /pan1san2/ (high-level + mid-rising and /pan1san0/. While no overall discrimination was observed, those who were habituated to /pan1san0/ demonstrated discrimination. The continuous discrimination of Dutch infants suggests that they might process neutral–canonical tone contrast as lexical stress rather than as tonal information. Overall, Mandarin infants’ failure implies that the representation of T0 is not complete during their 1st year of life; the acquisition of tonal categories may therefore take longer than we expected.

The sound and the fury--bees hiss when expecting danger.

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Henja-Niniane Wehmann

Full Text Available Honey bees are important model systems for the investigation of learning and memory and for a better understanding of the neuronal basics of brain function. Honey bees also possess a rich repertoire of tones and sounds, from queen piping and quacking to worker hissing and buzzing. In this study, we tested whether the worker bees' sounds can be used as a measure of learning. We therefore conditioned honey bees aversively to odours in a walking arena and recorded both their sound production and their movement. Bees were presented with two odours, one of which was paired with an electric shock. Initially, the bees did not produce any sound upon odour presentation, but responded to the electric shock with a strong hissing response. After learning, many bees hissed at the presentation of the learned odour, while fewer bees hissed upon presentation of another odour. We also found that hissing and movement away from the conditioned odour are independent behaviours that can co-occur but do not necessarily do so. Our data suggest that hissing can be used as a readout for learning after olfactory conditioning, but that there are large individual differences between bees concerning their hissing reaction. The basis for this variability and the possible ecological relevance of the bees' hissing remain to be investigated.

The Sound and the Fury—Bees Hiss when Expecting Danger

Science.gov (United States)

Galizia, C. Giovanni

2015-01-01

Honey bees are important model systems for the investigation of learning and memory and for a better understanding of the neuronal basics of brain function. Honey bees also possess a rich repertoire of tones and sounds, from queen piping and quacking to worker hissing and buzzing. In this study, we tested whether the worker bees’ sounds can be used as a measure of learning. We therefore conditioned honey bees aversively to odours in a walking arena and recorded both their sound production and their movement. Bees were presented with two odours, one of which was paired with an electric shock. Initially, the bees did not produce any sound upon odour presentation, but responded to the electric shock with a strong hissing response. After learning, many bees hissed at the presentation of the learned odour, while fewer bees hissed upon presentation of another odour. We also found that hissing and movement away from the conditioned odour are independent behaviours that can co-occur but do not necessarily do so. Our data suggest that hissing can be used as a readout for learning after olfactory conditioning, but that there are large individual differences between bees concerning their hissing reaction. The basis for this variability and the possible ecological relevance of the bees’ hissing remain to be investigated. PMID:25747702

Predicting utterance pitch targets in Yoruba for tone realisation in speech synthesis

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Van Niekerk, DR

2013-01-01

Full Text Available well studied African tone language of which the linguistic details of the tone system have been thoroughly described. Three level tones, labelled High (H), Mid (M) and Low (L) are associated with syllables and have a high functional load (Courtenay... (see Figure 1). Distinct intra-syllable patterns occurring in Yoru`ba´ are falling and rising pitch contours when L and H tones are realised after H and L tones respectively. downstep downstep H L Figure 1: A simplified illustration of terracing...

Effects of PPARγ ligands on vascular tone.

Science.gov (United States)

Salomone, Salvatore; Drago, Filippo

2012-06-01

Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor γ (PPARγ), originally described as a transcription factor for genes of carbohydrate and lipid metabolism, has been more recently studied in the context of cardiovascular pathophysiology. Here, we review the available data on PPARγ ligands as modulator of vascular tone. PPARγ ligands include: thiazolidinediones (used in the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus), glitazars (bind and activate both PPARγ and PPARα), and other experimental drugs (still in development) that exploit the chemistry of thiazolidinediones as a scaffold for PPARγ-independent pharmacological properties. In this review, we examine both short (mostly from in vitro data)- and long (mostly from in vivo data)-term effects of PPARγ ligands that extend from PPARγ-independent vascular effects to PPARγ-dependent gene expression. Because endothelium is a master regulator of vascular tone, we have attempted to differentiate between endothelium-dependent and endothelium-independent effects of PPARγ ligands. Based on available data, we conclude that PPARγ ligands appear to influence vascular tone in different experimental paradigms, most often in terms of vasodilatation (potentially increasing blood flow to some tissues). These effects on vascular tone, although potentially beneficial, must be weighed against specific cardiovascular warnings that may apply to some drugs, such as rosiglitazone.

Relationship between musical characteristics and temporal breathing pattern in piano performance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yutaka Sakaguchi

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Although there is growing evidence that breathing is modulated by various motor and cognitive activities, the nature of breathing in musical performance has been little explored. The present study examined the temporal breath pattern in piano performance, aiming to elucidate how breath timing is related to musical organization/events and performance. In the experiments, the respiration of 15 professional and amateur pianists, playing 10 music excerpts in total (from four-octave C major scale, Hanon’s exercise, J. S. Bach’s Invention, Mozart’s Sonatas, and Debussy’s Clair de lune, was monitored by capnography. The relationship between breathing and musical characteristics was analyzed. Five major results were obtained. 1 Mean breath interval was shortened for excerpts in faster tempi. 2 Fluctuation of breath intervals was reduced for the pieces for finger exercise and those in faster tempi. Pianists showing large within-trial fluctuation also exhibited large inter-excerpt difference. 3 Inter-trial consistency of the breath patterns depended on the excerpts. Consistency was generally reduced for the excerpts that could be performed mechanically (i.e., pieces for finger exercise, but interestingly, one third of the participant showed consistent patterns for the simple scale, correlated with the ascending/descending sequences. 4 Pianists tended to exhale just after the music onsets, inhale at the rests, and inhibit inhale during the slur parts. There was correlation between breathing pattern and two-voice polyphonic structure for several participants. 5 Respiratory patterns were notably different among the pianists. Every pianist showed his or her own characteristic features commonly for various musical works. These findings suggest that breathing in piano performance depends not only on musical parameters and organization written in the score but also some pianist-dependent factors which might be ingrained to individual pianists.

Relationship between Musical Characteristics and Temporal Breathing Pattern in Piano Performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Sakaguchi, Yutaka; Aiba, Eriko

2016-01-01

Although there is growing evidence that breathing is modulated by various motor and cognitive activities, the nature of breathing in musical performance has been little explored. The present study examined the temporal breath pattern in piano performance, aiming to elucidate how breath timing is related to musical organization/events and performance. In the experiments, the respiration of 15 professional and amateur pianists, playing 10 music excerpts in total (from four-octave C major scale, Hanon's exercise, J. S. Bach's Invention, Mozart's Sonatas, and Debussy's Clair de lune), was monitored by capnography. The relationship between breathing and musical characteristics was analyzed. Five major results were obtained. (1) Mean breath interval was shortened for excerpts in faster tempi. (2) Fluctuation of breath intervals was reduced for the pieces for finger exercise and those in faster tempi. Pianists showing large within-trial fluctuation also exhibited large inter-excerpt difference. (3) Inter-trial consistency of the breath patterns depended on the excerpts. Consistency was generally reduced for the excerpts that could be performed mechanically (i.e., pieces for finger exercise), but interestingly, one third of the participant showed consistent patterns for the simple scale, correlated with the ascending/descending sequences. (4) Pianists tended to exhale just after the music onsets, inhale at the rests, and inhibit inhale during the slur parts. There was correlation between breathing pattern and two-voice polyphonic structure for several participants. (5) Respiratory patterns were notably different among the pianists. Every pianist showed his or her own characteristic features commonly for various musical works. These findings suggest that breathing in piano performance depends not only on musical parameters and organization written in the score but also some pianist-dependent factors which might be ingrained to individual pianists.

Development of low postural tone compensatory patterns in children - theoretical basis.

Science.gov (United States)

Gogola, Anna; Saulicz, Edward; Kuszewski, Michał; Matyja, Małgorzata; Myśliwiec, Andrzej

2014-01-01

Neurological literature indicates the existence of children with low postural tone without association with central nervous system damage. This fact induces to think about mechanisms, which allow these children to maintain upright posture. There is a suspicion that compensatory mechanism included in this process, enables to achieve upright posture, but at expense of body posture quality. Observations of children's developmental stages caused determination of some postural tone area, which comprise both children with normotonia and with low postural tone without characteristics of central nervous system (CNS) damage. Set of specific qualities allows determination of two types of low postural tone: spastoidal and atetoidal type. Spastoidal type is characterized by deep trunk muscles (local) low postural tone compensated by excessive tension of superficial muscles (global). Atetoidal type includes children with low postural tone in both deep and superficial muscles. At inefficient active subsystem, verticalization proceeds at excessive use of passive subsystem qualities, that is meniscus, ligament, bone shape, and muscles passive features. From neurodevelopmental point of view compensatory mechanisms can be used in children with low postural tone in order to achieve upright posture, but at expense of body posture quality.

Characterization of sound emitted by wind machines used for frost control

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gambino, V.; Gambino, T. [Aercoustics Engineering Ltd., Toronto, ON (Canada); Fraser, H.W. [Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Vineland, ON (Canada)

2007-07-01

Wind machines are used in Niagara-on-the-Lake to protect cold-sensitive crops against cold injury during winter's extreme cold temperatures,spring's late frosts and autumn's early frosts. The number of wind machines in Ontario has about doubled annually from only a few in the late 1990's, to more than 425 in 2006. They are not used for generating power. Noise complaints have multiplied as the number of wind machines has increased. The objective of this study was to characterize the sound produced by wind machines; learn why residents are annoyed by wind machine noise; and suggest ways to possibly reduce sound emissions. One part of the study explored acoustic emission characteristics, the sonic differences of units made by different manufacturers, sound propagation properties under typical use atmospheric conditions and low frequency noise impact potential. Tests were conducted with a calibrated Larson Davis 2900B portable spectrum analyzer. Sound was measured with a microphone whose frequency response covered the range 4 Hz to 20 kHz. The study examined and found several unique acoustic properties that are characteristic of wind machines. It was determined that noise from wind machines is due to both aerodynamic and mechanical effects, but aerodynamic sounds were found to be the most significant. It was concluded that full range or broadband sounds manifest themselves as noise components that extend throughout the audible frequency range from the bladepass frequency to upwards of 1000 Hz. The sound spectrum of a wind machine is full natural tones and impulses that give it a readily identifiable acoustic character. Atmospheric conditions including temperature, lapse rate, relative humidity, mild winds, gradients and atmospheric turbulence all play a significant role in the long range outdoor propagation of sound from wind machines. 6 refs., 6 figs.

Problems in Nonlinear Acoustics: Parametric Receiving Arrays, Focused Finite Amplitude Sound, & Noncollinear Tone-Noise Interactions

Science.gov (United States)

1987-07-01

fields (see also Chapter 4 of Ref. 22). Like our investigation, theirs is based on the Khokhlov-Zabolotskaya-Kuznetsov ( KZK ) equa- tion [23,24...25,26], also based on the KZK e(iualiou, is limited to weakly nonlinear systems. However, the practical case of a focused circular source with gain of...iment. The demonstrated abihty of the KZK equation to accurately model focused sound fields from reahstic sources [i.e., having abrupt edges and

Method to Measure Tone of Axial and Proximal Muscle

Science.gov (United States)

Gurfinkel, Victor S.; Cacciatore, Timothy W.; Cordo, Paul J.; Horak, Fay B.

2011-01-01

The control of tonic muscular activity remains poorly understood. While abnormal tone is commonly assessed clinically by measuring the passive resistance of relaxed limbs1, no systems are available to study tonic muscle control in a natural, active state of antigravity support. We have developed a device (Twister) to study tonic regulation of axial and proximal muscles during active postural maintenance (i.e. postural tone). Twister rotates axial body regions relative to each other about the vertical axis during stance, so as to twist the neck, trunk or hip regions. This twisting imposes length changes on axial muscles without changing the body's relationship to gravity. Because Twister does not provide postural support, tone must be regulated to counteract gravitational torques. We quantify this tonic regulation by the restive torque to twisting, which reflects the state of all muscles undergoing length changes, as well as by electromyography of relevant muscles. Because tone is characterized by long-lasting low-level muscle activity, tonic control is studied with slow movements that produce "tonic" changes in muscle length, without evoking fast "phasic" responses. Twister can be reconfigured to study various aspects of muscle tone, such as co-contraction, tonic modulation to postural changes, tonic interactions across body segments, as well as perceptual thresholds to slow axial rotation. Twister can also be used to provide a quantitative measurement of the effects of disease on axial and proximal postural tone and assess the efficacy of intervention. PMID:22214974

Influences on tone in Sepedi, a Southern Bantu language

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Zerbian, S

2008-09-01

Full Text Available Tone in Bantu languages is rarely studied experimentally. This paper reports a production study which reveals the intricate interaction of tonal context and morphological structure in surface tone realization in Sepedi, a South African Bantu...

Attentional and Contextual Priors in Sound Perception.

Science.gov (United States)

Wolmetz, Michael; Elhilali, Mounya

2016-01-01

Behavioral and neural studies of selective attention have consistently demonstrated that explicit attentional cues to particular perceptual features profoundly alter perception and performance. The statistics of the sensory environment can also provide cues about what perceptual features to expect, but the extent to which these more implicit contextual cues impact perception and performance, as well as their relationship to explicit attentional cues, is not well understood. In this study, the explicit cues, or attentional prior probabilities, and the implicit cues, or contextual prior probabilities, associated with different acoustic frequencies in a detection task were simultaneously manipulated. Both attentional and contextual priors had similarly large but independent impacts on sound detectability, with evidence that listeners tracked and used contextual priors for a variety of sound classes (pure tones, harmonic complexes, and vowels). Further analyses showed that listeners updated their contextual priors rapidly and optimally, given the changing acoustic frequency statistics inherent in the paradigm. A Bayesian Observer model accounted for both attentional and contextual adaptations found with listeners. These results bolster the interpretation of perception as Bayesian inference, and suggest that some effects attributed to selective attention may be a special case of contextual prior integration along a feature axis.

The prosody of Swedish underived nouns: No lexical tones required

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bruce Morén-Duolljá

2013-02-01

Full Text Available This paper provides a detailed representational analysis of the morpho-prosodic system of underived nouns in a dialect of Swedish.  It shows that the morphology, stress and tonal patterns are not as complex as they first appear once the data are looked at in sufficient detail.  Further, it shows that the renowned Swedish "lexical pitch accent" is not the result of lexical tones/tonemes.  Rather, Swedish is like all other languages and uses tones to mark the edges of prosodic constituents on the surface. "Accent 2" occurs when tones mark the edge of a structural uneven trochee (i.e. recursive foot and "accent 1" occurs elsewhere. This analysis is counter all other treatments of North Germanic tones and denies the almost unquestioned assumption that there is an underlying tone specification on roots and/or affixes in many North Germanic varieties. At the same time, it unifies the intuitions behind the three previous approaches found in the literature.

Increased dynamic regulation of postural tone through Alexander Technique training.

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Cacciatore, T W; Gurfinkel, V S; Horak, F B; Cordo, P J; Ames, K E

2011-02-01

Gurfinkel and colleagues (2006) recently found that healthy adults dynamically modulate postural muscle tone in the body axis during anti-gravity postural maintenance and that this modulation is inversely correlated with axial stiffness. Our objective in the present study was to investigate whether dynamic modulation of axial postural tone can change through training. We examined whether teachers of the Alexander Technique (AT), who undergo "long-term" (3-year) training, have greater modulation of axial postural tone than matched control subjects. In addition, we performed a longitudinal study on the effect of "short-term" (10-week) AT training on the axial postural tone of individuals with low back pain (LBP), since short term AT training has previously been shown to reduce LBP. Axial postural tone was quantified by measuring the resistance of the neck, trunk and hips to small (±10°), slow (1°/s) torsional rotation during stance. Modulation of tone was determined by the torsional resistance to rotation (peak-to-peak, phase-advance, and variability of torque) and axial muscle activity (EMG). Peak-to-peak torque was lower (∼50%), while phase-advance and cycle-to-cycle variability were enhanced for AT teachers compared to matched control subjects at all levels of the axis. In addition, LBP subjects decreased trunk and hip stiffness following short-term AT training compared to a control intervention. While changes in static levels of postural tone may have contributed to the reduced stiffness observed with the AT, our results suggest that dynamic modulation of postural tone can be enhanced through long-term training in the AT, which may constitute an important direction for therapeutic intervention. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Change of tone

CERN Multimedia

Association du personnel

2006-01-01

The President of the Staff Association set the tone by leaving the members of the SCC speechless when he read out a solemn declaration For a start, Management invites us to discuss the Five-Yearly Review without having provided any formal text. Concertation Method of analysis and use of data previously adopted by Council. Salaries. Increase. Employment conditions. Family allowances. Crèche. Career perspectives. Referendum.

Audiometric Testing With Pulsed, Steady, and Warble Tones in Listeners With Tinnitus and Hearing Loss.

Science.gov (United States)

Lentz, Jennifer J; Walker, Matthew A; Short, Ciara E; Skinner, Kimberly G

2017-09-18

This study evaluated the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association's recommendation that audiometric testing for patients with tinnitus should use pulsed or warble tones. Using listeners with varied audiometric configurations and tinnitus statuses, we asked whether steady, pulsed, and warble tones yielded similar audiometric thresholds, and which tone type was preferred. Audiometric thresholds (octave frequencies from 0.25-16 kHz) were measured using steady, pulsed, and warble tones in 61 listeners, who were divided into 4 groups on the basis of hearing and tinnitus status. Participants rated the appeal and difficulty of each tone type on a 1-5 scale and selected a preferred type. For all groups, thresholds were lower for warble than for pulsed and steady tones, with the largest effects above 4 kHz. Appeal ratings did not differ across tone type, but the steady tone was rated as more difficult than the warble and pulsed tones. Participants generally preferred pulsed and warble tones. Pulsed tones provide advantages over steady and warble tones for patients regardless of hearing or tinnitus status. Although listeners preferred pulsed and warble tones to steady tones, pulsed tones are not susceptible to the effects of off-frequency listening, a consideration when testing listeners with sloping audiograms.

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

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Salomi S Asaridou

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

Sound: Conceivably the creative language of God, holding all of creation in concert

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mark Pretorius

2011-03-01

Full Text Available This paper revolved around the idea that sound within light is the primary medium God used to bring all of creation into existence (creatio. The theory is that the harmonic tones embedded within the initial spoken light of Genesis 1:3 are still reverberating within creation today (concursus and can be used for the benefit of all (providentia. This simply means thatnature is providentially geared to move in a specific direction, according to God�s overall plan for everyone�s benefit.

A "looming bias" in spatial hearing? Effects of acoustic intensity and spectrum on categorical sound source localization.

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McCarthy, Lisa; Olsen, Kirk N

2017-01-01

Continuous increases of acoustic intensity (up-ramps) can indicate a looming (approaching) sound source in the environment, whereas continuous decreases of intensity (down-ramps) can indicate a receding sound source. From psychoacoustic experiments, an "adaptive perceptual bias" for up-ramp looming tonal stimuli has been proposed (Neuhoff, 1998). This theory postulates that (1) up-ramps are perceptually salient because of their association with looming and potentially threatening stimuli in the environment; (2) tonal stimuli are perceptually salient because of an association with single and potentially threatening biological sound sources in the environment, relative to white noise, which is more likely to arise from dispersed signals and nonthreatening/nonbiological sources (wind/ocean). In the present study, we extrapolated the "adaptive perceptual bias" theory and investigated its assumptions by measuring sound source localization in response to acoustic stimuli presented in azimuth to imply looming, stationary, and receding motion in depth. Participants (N = 26) heard three directions of intensity change (up-ramps, down-ramps, and steady state, associated with looming, receding, and stationary motion, respectively) and three levels of acoustic spectrum (a 1-kHz pure tone, the tonal vowel /ә/, and white noise) in a within-subjects design. We first hypothesized that if up-ramps are "perceptually salient" and capable of eliciting adaptive responses, then they would be localized faster and more accurately than down-ramps. This hypothesis was supported. However, the results did not support the second hypothesis. Rather, the white-noise and vowel conditions were localized faster and more accurately than the pure-tone conditions. These results are discussed in the context of auditory and visual theories of motion perception, auditory attentional capture, and the spectral causes of spatial ambiguity.

The role of tone and segmental information in visual-word recognition in Thai.

Science.gov (United States)

Winskel, Heather; Ratitamkul, Theeraporn; Charoensit, Akira

2017-07-01

Tone languages represent a large proportion of the spoken languages of the world and yet lexical tone is understudied. Thai offers a unique opportunity to investigate the role of lexical tone processing during visual-word recognition, as tone is explicitly expressed in its script. We used colour words and their orthographic neighbours as stimuli to investigate facilitation (Experiment 1) and interference (Experiment 2) Stroop effects. Five experimental conditions were created: (a) the colour word (e.g., ขาว /k h ã:w/ [white]), (b) tone different word (e.g., ข่าว /k h à:w/[news]), (c) initial consonant phonologically same word (e.g., คาว /k h a:w/ [fishy]), where the initial consonant of the word was phonologically the same but orthographically different, (d) initial consonant different, tone same word (e.g., หาว /hã:w/ yawn), where the initial consonant was orthographically different but the tone of the word was the same, and (e) initial consonant different, tone different word (e.g., กาว /ka:w/ glue), where the initial consonant was orthographically different, and the tone was different. In order to examine whether tone information per se had a facilitative effect, we also included a colour congruent word condition where the segmental (S) information was different but the tone (T) matched the colour word (S-T+) in Experiment 2. Facilitation/interference effects were found for all five conditions when compared with a neutral control word. Results of the critical comparisons revealed that tone information comes into play at a later stage in lexical processing, and orthographic information contributes more than phonological information.

Perceived Pitch of Violin and Cello Vibrato Tones among Music Majors

Science.gov (United States)

Geringer, John M.; MacLeod, Rebecca B.; Allen, Michael L.

2010-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceived pitch of string vibrato tones. The authors used recordings of acoustic instruments (cello and violin) to provide both vibrato stimulus tones and the nonvibrato tones that listeners adjusted to match the perceived pitch of the vibrato stimuli. We were interested especially in whether there…

Sound and sound sources

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Larsen, Ole Næsbye; Wahlberg, Magnus

2017-01-01

There is no difference in principle between the infrasonic and ultrasonic sounds, which are inaudible to humans (or other animals) and the sounds that we can hear. In all cases, sound is a wave of pressure and particle oscillations propagating through an elastic medium, such as air. This chapter...... is about the physical laws that govern how animals produce sound signals and how physical principles determine the signals’ frequency content and sound level, the nature of the sound field (sound pressure versus particle vibrations) as well as directional properties of the emitted signal. Many...... of these properties are dictated by simple physical relationships between the size of the sound emitter and the wavelength of emitted sound. The wavelengths of the signals need to be sufficiently short in relation to the size of the emitter to allow for the efficient production of propagating sound pressure waves...

Improvement of Tone's method with two-term rational approximation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yamamoto, Akio; Endo, Tomohiro; Chiba, Go

2011-01-01

An improvement of Tone's method, which is a resonance calculation method based on the equivalence theory, is proposed. In order to increase calculation accuracy, the two-term rational approximation is incorporated for the representation of neutron flux. Furthermore, some theoretical aspects of Tone's method, i.e., its inherent approximation and choice of adequate multigroup cross section for collision probability estimation, are also discussed. The validity of improved Tone's method is confirmed through a verification calculation in an irregular lattice geometry, which represents part of an LWR fuel assembly. The calculation result clarifies the validity of the present method. (author)

Tone Attrition in Mandarin Speakers of Varying English Proficiency

Science.gov (United States)

Creel, Sarah C.

2017-01-01

Purpose The purpose of this study was to determine whether the degree of dominance of Mandarin–English bilinguals' languages affects phonetic processing of tone content in their native language, Mandarin. Method We tested 72 Mandarin–English bilingual college students with a range of language-dominance profiles in the 2 languages and ages of acquisition of English. Participants viewed 2 photographs at a time while hearing a familiar Mandarin word referring to 1 photograph. The names of the 2 photographs diverged in tone, vowels, or both. Word recognition was evaluated using clicking accuracy, reaction times, and an online recognition measure (gaze) and was compared in the 3 conditions. Results Relative proficiency in English was correlated with reduced word recognition success in tone-disambiguated trials, but not in vowel-disambiguated trials, across all 3 dependent measures. This selective attrition for tone content emerged even though all bilinguals had learned Mandarin from birth. Lengthy experience with English thus weakened tone use. Conclusions This finding has implications for the question of the extent to which bilinguals' 2 phonetic systems interact. It suggests that bilinguals may not process pitch information language-specifically and that processing strategies from the dominant language may affect phonetic processing in the nondominant language—even when the latter was learned natively. PMID:28124064

Vowel and tone recognition in quiet and in noise among Mandarin-speaking amusics.

Science.gov (United States)

Tang, Wei; Wang, Xi-Jian; Li, Jia-Qi; Liu, Chang; Dong, Qi; Nan, Yun

2018-03-06

Music and language are two intricately linked communication modalities in humans. A deficit in music pitch processing as manifested in the condition of congenital amusia has been related to difficulties in lexical tone processing for both tone and non-tonal languages. However, it is still unclear whether amusia also affects the perception of vowel phonemes in quiet and in noise. In this study, we examined vowel-plus-tone identification in quiet and noise conditions among Mandarin-speaking amusics with and without speech tone difficulties (tone agnosics and pure amusics, respectively), and IQ- and age-matched controls. Overall, pure amusics showed vowel and tone identification comparable to the controls in both quiet and noise conditions. Compared to pure amusics and controls, tone agnosics showed deficits in tone perception in both quiet and noise conditions. More importantly, their vowel perception was lower than pure amusics and controls in noise conditions, e.g., at a signal-to-noise ratio of -4 dB, although they showed normal-like performance in quiet and at a signal-to-noise ratio of -8 dB. These results suggest that when amusia affected speech tone processing (e.g., tone agnosics), it could also compromise vowel processing in noise. However, amusia alone does not affect tone or vowel perception in Mandarin Chinese either in quiet or in noise. Overall, the current study highlights the necessity of taking heterogeneity within the amusic group into account when considering the related speech deficits in this group. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Using Web-Based Instruction to Teach Music Theory in the Piano Studio: Defining, Designing, and Implementing an Integrative Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Carney, Robert D.

2010-01-01

This dissertation rationalizes the best use of Web-based instruction (WBI) for teaching music theory to private piano students in the later primary grades. It uses an integrative research methodology for defining, designing, and implementing a curriculum that includes WBI. Research from the fields of music education, educational technology,…

Subgroup differences in the lexical tone mismatch negativity (MMN) among Mandarin speakers with congenital amusia.

Science.gov (United States)

Nan, Yun; Huang, Wan-ting; Wang, Wen-jing; Liu, Chang; Dong, Qi

2016-01-01

The association/dissociation of pitch processing between music and language is a long lasting debate. We examined this music-language relationship by investigating to what extent pitch deficits in these two domains were dissociable. We focused on a special neurodevelopmental pitch disorder - congenital amusia, which primarily affects musical pitch processing. Recent research has also revealed lexical tone deficits in speech among amusics. Approximately one-third of Mandarin amusics exhibits behavioural difficulties in lexical tone perception, which is known as tone agnosia. Using mismatch negativities (MMNs), our current work probed lexical tone encoding at the pre-attentive level among the Mandarin amusics with (tone agnosics) and without (pure amusics) behavioural lexical tone deficits compared with age- and IQ-matched controls. Relative to the controls and the pure amusics, the tone agnosics exhibited reduced MMNs specifically in response to lexical tone changes. Their tone-consonant MMNs were intact and similar to those of the other two groups. Moreover, the tone MMN reduction over the left hemisphere was tightly linked to behavioural insensitivity to lexical tone changes. The current study thus provides the first psychophysiological evidence of subgroup differences in lexical tone processing among Mandarin amusics and links amusics' behavioural tone deficits to impaired pre-attentive tone processing. Despite the overall music pitch deficits, the subgroup differences in lexical tone processing in Mandarin-speaking amusics suggest dissociation of pitch deficits between music and speech. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The coordination of boundary tones and its interaction with prominence.

Science.gov (United States)

Katsika, Argyro; Krivokapić, Jelena; Mooshammer, Christine; Tiede, Mark; Goldstein, Louis

2014-05-01

This study investigates the coordination of boundary tones as a function of stress and pitch accent. Boundary tone coordination has not been experimentally investigated previously, and the effect of prominence on this coordination, and whether it is lexical (stress-driven) or phrasal (pitch accent-driven) in nature is unclear. We assess these issues using a variety of syntactic constructions to elicit different boundary tones in an Electromagnetic Articulography (EMA) study of Greek. The results indicate that the onset of boundary tones co-occurs with the articulatory target of the final vowel. This timing is further modified by stress, but not by pitch accent: boundary tones are initiated earlier in words with non-final stress than in words with final stress regardless of accentual status. Visual data inspection reveals that phrase-final words are followed by acoustic pauses during which specific articulatory postures occur. Additional analyses show that these postures reach their achievement point at a stable temporal distance from boundary tone onsets regardless of stress position. Based on these results and parallel findings on boundary lengthening reported elsewhere, a novel approach to prosody is proposed within the context of Articulatory Phonology: rather than seeing prosodic (lexical and phrasal) events as independent entities, a set of coordination relations between them is suggested. The implications of this account for prosodic architecture are discussed.

Preattentive processing of emotional musical tones: a multidimensional scaling and ERP study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thomas F Münte

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Musical emotion can be conveyed by subtle variations in timbre. Here, we investigated whether the brain is capable to discriminate tones differing in emotional expression by recording event-related potentials (ERPs in an oddball paradigm under preattentive listening conditions. First, using multidimensional Fechnerian scaling, pairs of violin tones played with a happy or sad intonation were rated same or different by a group of non-musicians. Three happy and three sad tones were selected for the ERP experiment. The Fechnerian distances between tones within an emotion were in the same range as the distances between tones of different emotions. In two conditions, either 3 happy and 1 sad or 3 sad and 1 happy tone were presented in pseudo-random order. A mismatch negativity for the emotional deviant was observed, indicating that in spite of considerable perceptual differences between the three equiprobable tones of the standard emotion, a template was formed based on timbral cues against which the emotional deviant was compared. Based on Juslin’s assumption of redundant code usage, we propose that tones were grouped together, because they were identified as belonging to one emotional category based on different emotion-specific cues. These results indicate that the brain forms an emotional memory trace at a preattentive level and thus extends previous investigations in which emotional deviance was confounded with physical dissimilarity. Differences between sad and happy tones were observed which might be due to the fact that the happy emotion is mostly communicated by suprasegmental features.

Music and natural sounds in an auditory steady-state response based brain-computer interface to increase user acceptance.

Science.gov (United States)

Heo, Jeong; Baek, Hyun Jae; Hong, Seunghyeok; Chang, Min Hye; Lee, Jeong Su; Park, Kwang Suk

2017-05-01

Patients with total locked-in syndrome are conscious; however, they cannot express themselves because most of their voluntary muscles are paralyzed, and many of these patients have lost their eyesight. To improve the quality of life of these patients, there is an increasing need for communication-supporting technologies that leverage the remaining senses of the patient along with physiological signals. The auditory steady-state response (ASSR) is an electro-physiologic response to auditory stimulation that is amplitude-modulated by a specific frequency. By leveraging the phenomenon whereby ASSR is modulated by mind concentration, a brain-computer interface paradigm was proposed to classify the selective attention of the patient. In this paper, we propose an auditory stimulation method to minimize auditory stress by replacing the monotone carrier with familiar music and natural sounds for an ergonomic system. Piano and violin instrumentals were employed in the music sessions; the sounds of water streaming and cicadas singing were used in the natural sound sessions. Six healthy subjects participated in the experiment. Electroencephalograms were recorded using four electrodes (Cz, Oz, T7 and T8). Seven sessions were performed using different stimuli. The spectral power at 38 and 42Hz and their ratio for each electrode were extracted as features. Linear discriminant analysis was utilized to classify the selections for each subject. In offline analysis, the average classification accuracies with a modulation index of 1.0 were 89.67% and 87.67% using music and natural sounds, respectively. In online experiments, the average classification accuracies were 88.3% and 80.0% using music and natural sounds, respectively. Using the proposed method, we obtained significantly higher user-acceptance scores, while maintaining a high average classification accuracy. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Pedagogical Study of Tone Neutralization in Cibemba Phonetics ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Nekky Umera

distinct schools of thought have emerged in relation to tone in teaching phonetics ... the argument of the present writer is that the phenomenon of tone is essentially a ... Three notable published books in the area of Cibemba grammar have also ..... Sharman (1956) Tabulation of tenses in a Bantu language (Bemba). Africa.

Higuchi’s Method applied to detection of changes in timbre of digital sound synthesis of string instruments with the functional transformation method

Science.gov (United States)

Kanjanapen, Manorth; Kunsombat, Cherdsak; Chiangga, Surasak

2017-09-01

The functional transformation method (FTM) is a powerful tool for detailed investigation of digital sound synthesis by the physical modeling method, the resulting sound or measured vibrational characteristics at discretized points on real instruments directly solves the underlying physical effect of partial differential equation (PDE). In this paper, we present the Higuchi’s method to examine the difference between the timbre of tone and estimate fractal dimension of musical signals which contains information about their geometrical structure that synthesizes by FTM. With the Higuchi’s method we obtain the whole process is not complicated, fast processing, with the ease of analysis without expertise in the physics or virtuoso musicians and the easiest way for the common people can judge that sounds similarly presented.

Local adaptive tone mapping for video enhancement

Science.gov (United States)

Lachine, Vladimir; Dai, Min (.

2015-03-01

As new technologies like High Dynamic Range cameras, AMOLED and high resolution displays emerge on consumer electronics market, it becomes very important to deliver the best picture quality for mobile devices. Tone Mapping (TM) is a popular technique to enhance visual quality. However, the traditional implementation of Tone Mapping procedure is limited by pixel's value to value mapping, and the performance is restricted in terms of local sharpness and colorfulness. To overcome the drawbacks of traditional TM, we propose a spatial-frequency based framework in this paper. In the proposed solution, intensity component of an input video/image signal is split on low pass filtered (LPF) and high pass filtered (HPF) bands. Tone Mapping (TM) function is applied to LPF band to improve the global contrast/brightness, and HPF band is added back afterwards to keep the local contrast. The HPF band may be adjusted by a coring function to avoid noise boosting and signal overshooting. Colorfulness of an original image may be preserved or enhanced by chroma components correction by means of saturation function. Localized content adaptation is further improved by dividing an image to a set of non-overlapped regions and modifying each region individually. The suggested framework allows users to implement a wide range of tone mapping applications with perceptional local sharpness and colorfulness preserved or enhanced. Corresponding hardware circuit may be integrated in camera, video or display pipeline with minimal hardware budget

Emission of sound from the mammalian inner ear

Science.gov (United States)

Reichenbach, Tobias; Stefanovic, Aleksandra; Nin, Fumiaki; Hudspeth, A. J.

2013-03-01

The mammalian inner ear, or cochlea, not only acts as a detector of sound but can also produce tones itself. These otoacoustic emissions are a striking manifestation of the mechanical active process that sensitizes the cochlea and sharpens its frequency discrimination. It remains uncertain how these signals propagate back to the middle ear, from which they are emitted as sound. Although reverse propagation might occur through waves on the cochlear basilar membrane, experiments suggest the existence of a second component in otoacoustic emissions. We have combined theoretical and experimental studies to show that mechanical signals can also be transmitted by waves on Reissner's membrane, a second elastic structure within the cochea. We have developed a theoretical description of wave propagation on the parallel Reissner's and basilar membranes and its role in the emission of distortion products. By scanning laser interferometry we have measured traveling waves on Reissner's membrane in the gerbil, guinea pig, and chinchilla. The results accord with the theory and thus support a role for Reissner's membrane in otoacoustic emission. T. R. holds a Career Award at the Scientific Interface from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund; A. J. H. is an Investigator of Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

The Significance of the Level Tone in Ghanaian English: Evidence ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

2016-05-29

May 29, 2016 ... act functions, and perform interactive functions (Chun, 2002). Apart from these functions, ... that the use of falling tones can communicate deliberate rudeness he ..... phonetic features for the segmentation of tone units. In the ...

Improving Tone Recognition with Nucleus Modeling and Sequential Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Siwei

2010-01-01

Mandarin Chinese and many other tonal languages use tones that are defined as specific pitch patterns to distinguish syllables otherwise ambiguous. It had been shown that tones carry at least as much information as vowels in Mandarin Chinese [Surendran et al., 2005]. Surprisingly, though, many speech recognition systems for Mandarin Chinese have…

Skin-Tone Preferences and Self-Representation in Hispanic Children

Science.gov (United States)

Kaufman, Erin A.; Wiese, Deborah L.

2012-01-01

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

On the design of tone-free ΣΔ modulators

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Risbo, Lars

1995-01-01

Traditional one-bit ΣΔ modulators used for A/D and D/A conversion produce very predominant tones near half the sample rate which might intermodulate in the analog converter section and cause in-band tones. This paper demonstrates how the use of chaos can substitute dither as a means for extinguis...

Long-range correlation properties in timing of skilled piano performance: the influence of auditory feedback and deep brain stimulation.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maria eHerrojo Ruiz

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Unintentional timing deviations during musical performance can be conceived of as timing errors. However, recent research on humanizing computer-generated music has demonstrated that timing fluctuations that exhibit long-range temporal correlations (LRTC are preferred by human listeners. This preference can be accounted for by the ubiquitous presence of LRTC in human tapping and rhythmic performances. Interestingly, the manifestation of LRTC in tapping behavior seems to be driven in a subject-specific manner by the LRTC properties of resting-state background cortical oscillatory activity. In this framework, the current study aimed to investigate whether propagation of timing deviations during the skilled, memorized piano performance (without metronome of 17 professional pianists exhibits LRTC and whether the structure of the correlations is influenced by the presence or absence of auditory feedback.As an additional goal, we set out to investigate the influence of altering the dynamics along the cortico-basal-ganglia-thalamo-cortical network via deep brain stimulation (DBS on the LRTC properties of musical performance. Specifically, we investigated temporal deviations during the skilled piano performance of a non-professional pianist who was treated with subthalamic-deep brain stimulation (STN-DBS due to severe Parkinson's disease, with predominant tremor affecting his right upper extremity. In the tremor-affected right hand, the timing fluctuations of the performance exhibited random correlations with DBS OFF. By contrast, DBS restored long-range dependency in the temporal fluctuations, corresponding with the general motor improvement on DBS.Overall, the present investigations are the first to demonstrate the presence of LRTC in skilled piano performances, indicating that unintentional temporal deviations are correlated over a wide range of time scales. This phenomenon is stable after removal of the auditory feedback, but is altered by STN

O Trio para piano, violino e violoncelo de Maurice Ravel a partir da análise do autor

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Danieli Verônica Longo Benedetti

2009-12-01

Full Text Available This article concerns the Trio for piano, violin and cello by the French composer Maurice Ravel (1875-1937. Written right before the First World War, this is a reference work of the French nationalist movement. A careful reading of a manuscript containing the analysis of this work by Ravel himself sheds light on some of his compositional procedures.

The “Artistic Image” Concept Applied to a Fugue at the Early Stage of Piano Practice: An Observational Study

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Luís Cláudio Barros

2017-10-01

Full Text Available This article presents the results of an investigation on the concept of “artistic image of a musical composition” proposed by Heinrich Neuhaus (1888-1964 at the initial stage of learning a fugue by J.S. Bach. The data was gathered during the first practice session of six undergraduate piano majors learning a fugue, all from two public universities in southern Brazil. The concepts proposed by Neuhaus served as a parameter for an observational study of the students’ behavior and the technical-musical activities undertaken during their practice. The aim was to verify if the concept of artistic image had been used during practice and, if so, how it was established. We also examined the study strategies that helped comprehend the musical content, guiding the learning process and organization of practice. The results should assist in increasing our knowledge of the processes involving piano practice and the strategies linked to the concept of artistic image, stressing empirical observation as an important tool to validate theoretical concepts.

Light and heavy touch reduces postural sway and modifies axial tone in Parkinson's disease.

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Franzén, Erika; Paquette, Caroline; Gurfinkel, Victor; Horak, Fay

2012-10-01

Light touch with a stable object reduces postural sway by increasing axial postural tone in healthy subjects. However, it is unknown whether subjects with Parkinson's disease (PD), who have more postural sway and higher axial postural tone than healthy subjects, can benefit from haptic touch. To investigate the effect of light and heavy touch on postural stability and hip tone in subjects with PD. Fourteen subjects with mid-stage PD and 14 healthy control subjects were evaluated during quiet standing with eyes closed with their arms (a) crossed, (b) lightly touching a fixed rigid bar in front of them, and (c) firmly gripping the bar. Postural sway was measured with a forceplate, and axial hip tone was quantified using a unique device that measures the resistance of the hips to yaw rotation while maintaining active stance. Subjects with PD significantly decreased their postural sway with light or heavy touch (P touch, hip tone was larger in PD subjects. With touch, however, tone values were similar in both groups. This change in hip tone with touch was highly correlated with the initial amount of tone (PD, r = -.72 to -.95; controls, r = -.74 to -.85). The authors showed, for the first time, that subjects with PD benefit from touch similarly to control subjects and that despite higher axial postural tone, PD subjects are able to modulate their tone with touch. Future studies should investigate the complex relationship between touch and postural tone.

Pressure injuries in people with darker skin tones: A literature review.

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Oozageer Gunowa, Neesha; Hutchinson, Marie; Brooke, Joanne; Jackson, Debra

2017-09-08

In this article, we aimed to explore the literature to ascertain what research evidence exists in relation to the identification of pressure injuries in people with dark skin tones. Pressure injuries development has been widely researched and documented; however, much of this work does not address ethnicity or race and assumes Caucasian-ness. Thus, the perceptions of people with dark skin tones and the influence of skin pigmentation on identification and management of pressure injuries is under examined. Literature review. A comprehensive electronic database search was undertaken of PubMed, Cumulative Index for Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Cochrane and British Nursing Index (BNI) between 1990-July 2016. Alongside the electronic data, journals, books, papers from conferences, relevant national and international organisations and reference lists were also used to help source key studies. A search of the literature revealed 11 relevant articles. The foci of studies included the following: risk of sustaining a pressure injuries based on skin tones, identification of pressure injuries amongst people with dark skin tones, pressure injuries and place of care and socio-economic impact on pressure injuries development. Overall, findings indicate that people with darker skin tones are more likely to develop higher stage pressure injuries. Reasons for this are not fully elucidated; however, it may be associated with current skin assessment protocols being less effective for people who have darker skin tones resulting in early damage arising from pressure not being recognised. From the literature reviewed, it can be seen that there is a lack of guidance and evidence, and people with darker skin tones are more likely in comparison with people presenting as Caucasian to develop higher stage pressure injuries. The current literature suggests a need for researchers and clinicians to consider skin tone variances rather than ethnicity when exploring comprehensive skin

Factors Influencing Sensitivity to Lexical Tone in an Artificial Language: Implications for Second Language Learning

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Caldwell-Harris, Catherine L.; Lancaster, Alia; Ladd, D. Robert; Dediu, Dan; Christiansen, Morten H.

2015-01-01

This study examined whether musical training, ethnicity, and experience with a natural tone language influenced sensitivity to tone while listening to an artificial tone language. The language was designed with three tones, modeled after level-tone African languages. Participants listened to a 15-min random concatenation of six 3-syllable words.…

Jazz Guitar Improvisation: Beginning with Guide-Tones

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Daniel Andersen

2010-12-01

Full Text Available This article discusses an approach to teaching linear improvisation to beginning jazz guitarists through the function of voice leading in harmonic progressions. The student may gain a clear understanding of improvising melodies by establishing clear visual and aural relationships between the chordal and melodic textures. Three dominant 7th chord voicings are introduced and applied to a twelve bar blues progression in F major. After learning the rhythm guitar accompaniment, single note guide tones consisting of the flat 7th and 3rd chord tones of each dominant seventh chord are extracted from the chord voicings and applied in a melodic texture following chromatic voice leading principles within the harmonic progression. Musicality within the exercises is increased by the addition of a series of rhythmic variations that are applied to the guide-tone lines. Continuing with the concept, full dominant seventh arpeggios are introduced in order to expand the available note choices as a way to build a solid foundation for improvising within harmonic progressions prior to using diatonic scales.

Split SR-RLS for the Joint Initialization of the Per-Tone Equalizers and Per-Tone Echo Cancelers in DMT-Based Receivers

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Ysebaert Geert

2004-01-01

Full Text Available In asymmetric digital subscriber lines (ADSL, the available bandwidth is divided in subcarriers or tones which are assigned to the upstream and/or downstream transmission direction. To allow efficient bidirectional communication over one twisted pair, echo cancellation is required to separate upstream and downstream channels. In addition, intersymbol interference and intercarrier interference have to be reduced by means of equalization. In this paper, a computationally efficient algorithm for adaptively initializing the per-tone equalizers (PTEQ and per-tone echo cancelers (PTEC is presented. For a given number of equalizer and echo canceler taps per-tone, it was shown that the joint PTEQ/PTEC receiver structure is able to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR on each subcarrier and hence also the achievable bit rate. The proposed initialization scheme is based on a modification of the square root recursive least squares (SR-RLS algorithm to reduce computational complexity and memory requirement compared to full SR-RLS, while keeping the convergence rate acceptably fast. Our performance analysis will show that the proposed method converges in the mean and an upper bound for the step size is given. Moreover, we will indicate how the presented initialization method can be reused in several other ADSL applications.

A new multifeature mismatch negativity (MMN) paradigm for the study of music perception with more real-sounding stimuli

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Quiroga Martinez, David Ricardo; Hansen, Niels Christian; Højlund, Andreas

. Interestingly, this reduction did not hold for mistunings and slide in the melody, probably due to interval mistuning and the high voice superiority effect. Our results indicate that it is possible to use the MMN for the study of more real-sounding music and that stimulus complexity plays a crucial role......The MMN is a brain response elicited by deviants in a series of repetitive sounds that has been valuable for the study of music perception. However, most MMN experimental designs use simple tone patterns as stimuli, failing to represent the complexity of everyday music. Our goal was to develop...... a new paradigm using more real-sounding stimuli. Concretely, we wanted to assess the perception of nonrepetitive melodies when presented alone and when embedded in two-part music. An Alberti bass used previously served both as a comparison and as the second voice in the two-part stimuli. We used MEG...

The molecular basis of the genesis of basal tone in internal anal sphincter

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Zhang, Cheng-Hai; Wang, Pei; Liu, Dong-Hai; Chen, Cai-Ping; Zhao, Wei; Chen, Xin; Chen, Chen; He, Wei-Qi; Qiao, Yan-Ning; Tao, Tao; Sun, Jie; Peng, Ya-Jing; Lu, Ping; Zheng, Kaizhi; Craige, Siobhan M.; Lifshitz, Lawrence M.; Keaney Jr, John F.; Fogarty, Kevin E.; ZhuGe, Ronghua; Zhu, Min-Sheng

2016-01-01

Smooth muscle sphincters exhibit basal tone and control passage of contents through organs such as the gastrointestinal tract; loss of this tone leads to disorders such as faecal incontinence. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying this tone remain unknown. Here, we show that deletion of myosin light-chain kinases (MLCK) in the smooth muscle cells from internal anal sphincter (IAS-SMCs) abolishes basal tone, impairing defecation. Pharmacological regulation of ryanodine receptors (RyRs), L-type voltage-dependent Ca2+ channels (VDCCs) or TMEM16A Ca2+-activated Cl− channels significantly changes global cytosolic Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i) and the tone. TMEM16A deletion in IAS-SMCs abolishes the effects of modulators for TMEM16A or VDCCs on a RyR-mediated rise in global [Ca2+]i and impairs the tone and defecation. Hence, MLCK activation in IAS-SMCs caused by a global rise in [Ca2+]i via a RyR-TMEM16A-VDCC signalling module sets the basal tone. Targeting this module may lead to new treatments for diseases like faecal incontinence. PMID:27101932

La table d'harmonie du piano - Études modales en basses et moyennes fréquences

OpenAIRE

Ege , Kerem

2009-01-01

The vibratory behaviour of the piano soundboard in the mid-frequency domain is studied in this PhD thesis. The first chapter is devoted to the board itself: its role, structure and materials. An exhaustive bibliographical study is presented and the main published results are given and synthesised. The second chapter introduces a new modal analysis technique based on a high-resolution analysis algorithm. The technique resolves cases where the Fourier transform performs poorly due to its natura...

Effects of selective attention on the electrophysiological representation of concurrent sounds in the human auditory cortex.

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Bidet-Caulet, Aurélie; Fischer, Catherine; Besle, Julien; Aguera, Pierre-Emmanuel; Giard, Marie-Helene; Bertrand, Olivier

2007-08-29

In noisy environments, we use auditory selective attention to actively ignore distracting sounds and select relevant information, as during a cocktail party to follow one particular conversation. The present electrophysiological study aims at deciphering the spatiotemporal organization of the effect of selective attention on the representation of concurrent sounds in the human auditory cortex. Sound onset asynchrony was manipulated to induce the segregation of two concurrent auditory streams. Each stream consisted of amplitude modulated tones at different carrier and modulation frequencies. Electrophysiological recordings were performed in epileptic patients with pharmacologically resistant partial epilepsy, implanted with depth electrodes in the temporal cortex. Patients were presented with the stimuli while they either performed an auditory distracting task or actively selected one of the two concurrent streams. Selective attention was found to affect steady-state responses in the primary auditory cortex, and transient and sustained evoked responses in secondary auditory areas. The results provide new insights on the neural mechanisms of auditory selective attention: stream selection during sound rivalry would be facilitated not only by enhancing the neural representation of relevant sounds, but also by reducing the representation of irrelevant information in the auditory cortex. Finally, they suggest a specialization of the left hemisphere in the attentional selection of fine-grained acoustic information.

The Enduring Significance of Skin Tone: Linking Skin Tone, Attitudes Toward Marriage and Cohabitation, and Sexual Behavior.

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Landor, Antoinette M; Halpern, Carolyn Tucker

2016-05-01

Past evidence has documented that attitudes toward marriage and cohabitation are related to sexual behavior in adolescence and young adulthood. This study extends prior research by longitudinally testing these associations across racial/ethnic groups and investigating whether culturally relevant variations within racial/ethnic minority groups, such as skin tone (i.e., lightness/darkness of skin color), are linked to attitudes toward marriage and cohabitation and sex. Drawing on family and public health literatures and theories, as well as burgeoning skin tone literature, it was hypothesized that more positive attitudes toward marriage and negative attitudes toward cohabitation would be associated with less risky sex, and that links differed for lighter and darker skin individuals. The sample included 6872 respondents (49.6 % female; 70.0 % White; 15.8 % African American; 3.3 % Asian; 10.9 % Hispanic) from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. The results revealed that marital attitudes had a significantly stronger dampening effect on risky sexual behavior of lighter skin African Americans and Asians compared with their darker skin counterparts. Skin tone also directly predicted number of partners and concurrent partners among African American males and Asian females. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of these findings for adolescence and young adulthood.

The Enduring Significance of Skin Tone: Linking Skin Tone, Attitudes Toward Marriage and Cohabitation, and Sexual Behavior

Science.gov (United States)

Landor, Antoinette M.; Halpern, Carolyn Tucker

2016-01-01

Past evidence has documented that attitudes toward marriage and cohabitation are related to sexual behavior in adolescence and young adulthood. This study extends prior research by longitudinally testing these associations across racial/ethnic groups and investigating whether culturally relevant variations within racial/ethnic minority groups, such as skin tone (i.e., lightness/darkness of skin color), are linked to attitudes toward marriage and cohabitation and sex. Drawing on family and public health literatures and theories, as well as burgeoning skin tone literature, it was hypothesized that more positive attitudes toward marriage and negative attitudes toward cohabitation would be associated with less risky sex, and that links differed for lighter and darker skin individuals. The sample included 6872 respondents (49.6 % female; 70.0 % White; 15.8 % African American; 3.3 % Asian; 10.9 % Hispanic) from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. The results revealed that marital attitudes had a significantly stronger dampening effect on risky sexual behavior of lighter skin African Americans and Asians compared with their darker skin counterparts. Skin tone also directly predicted number of partners and concurrent partners among African American males and Asian females. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of these findings for adolescence and young adulthood. PMID:26979445

Spoken word recognition in young tone language learners: Age-dependent effects of segmental and suprasegmental variation.

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Ma, Weiyi; Zhou, Peng; Singh, Leher; Gao, Liqun

2017-02-01

The majority of the world's languages rely on both segmental (vowels, consonants) and suprasegmental (lexical tones) information to contrast the meanings of individual words. However, research on early language development has mostly focused on the acquisition of vowel-consonant languages. Developmental research comparing sensitivity to segmental and suprasegmental features in young tone learners is extremely rare. This study examined 2- and 3-year-old monolingual tone learners' sensitivity to vowels and tones. Experiment 1a tested the influence of vowel and tone variation on novel word learning. Vowel and tone variation hindered word recognition efficiency in both age groups. However, tone variation hindered word recognition accuracy only in 2-year-olds, while 3-year-olds were insensitive to tone variation. Experiment 1b demonstrated that 3-year-olds could use tones to learn new words when additional support was provided, and additionally, that Tone 3 words were exceptionally difficult to learn. Experiment 2 confirmed a similar pattern of results when children were presented with familiar words. This study is the first to show that despite the importance of tones in tone languages, vowels maintain primacy over tones in young children's word recognition and that tone sensitivity in word learning and recognition changes between 2 and 3years of age. The findings suggest that early lexical processes are more tightly constrained by variation in vowels than by tones. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

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

2018-04-21

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

Automated tone grading of granite

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Catalina Hernández, J.C.; Fernández Ramón, G.

2017-01-01

The production of a natural stone processing plant is subject to the intrinsic variability of the stone blocks that constitute its raw material, which may cause problems of lack of uniformity in the visual appearance of the produced material that often triggers complaints from customers. The best way to tackle this problem is to classify the product according to its visual features, which is traditionally done by hand: an operator observes each and every piece that comes out of the production line and assigns it to the closest match among a number of predefined classes, taking into account visual features of the material such as colour, texture, grain, veins, etc. However, this manual procedure presents significant consistency problems, due to the inherent subjectivity of the classification performed by each operator, and the errors caused by their progressive fatigue. Attempts to employ automated sorting systems like the ones used in the ceramic tile industry have not been successful, as natural stone presents much higher variability than ceramic tiles. Therefore, it has been necessary to develop classification systems specifically designed for the treatment of the visual parameters that distinguish the different types of natural stone. This paper describes the details of a computer vision system developed by AITEMIN for the automatic classification of granite pieces according to their tone, which provides an integral solution to tone grading problems in the granite processing and marketing industry. The system has been designed to be easily trained by the end user, through the learning of the samples established as tone patterns by the user. [es

SOME METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF FORMING MOTOR SKILLS NECESSARY TO SIGHT-READING PIANO LESSONS

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ROMAN RUSLANA

2015-12-01

Full Text Available This article focuses on one of the urgent problems of forming a pianist – the development of score reading skills, in parti­cular the development of motor skills required for this aptitude. Since this ability is not innate, the formation of score reading skills becomes one of the central problems of musical education. Sight-reading is a complex process, requiring the development of complex musical abilities: skills in piano technique, musical and auditory representations, internal hearing. The article pre­sents a series of exercises that can serve as a solid basis for the formation and development of score reading skills.

Towards Automatic Music Transcription: Extraction of MIDI-Data out of Polyphonic Piano Music

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Jens Wellhausen

2005-06-01

Full Text Available Driven by the increasing amount of music available electronically the need of automatic search and retrieval systems for music becomes more and more important. In this paper an algorithm for automatic transcription of polyphonic piano music into MIDI data is presented, which is a very interesting basis for database applications and music analysis. The first part of the algorithm performs a note accurate temporal audio segmentation. The resulting segments are examined to extract the notes played in the second part. An algorithm for chord separation based on Independent Subspace Analysis is presented. Finally, the results are used to build a MIDI file.

Domains of H tone spreading and the noun class prefix in Xitsonga ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This article reports results from an investigation of domains of H tone spreading in Xitsonga, a southern Bantu language. High (H) tone spreads into toneless syllables but it spreads only to the first syllable if a nominal root has an H tone. Kisseberth (1994) argues that domain structures created by the Pre-High Projection rule ...

Deliberate practice is necessary but not sufficient to explain individual differences in piano sight-reading skill: the role of working memory capacity.

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Meinz, Elizabeth J; Hambrick, David Z

2010-07-01

Deliberate practice-that is, engagement in activities specifically designed to improve performance in a domain-is strongly predictive of performance in domains such as music and sports. It has even been suggested that deliberate practice is sufficient to account for expert performance. Less clear is whether basic abilities, such as working memory capacity (WMC), add to the prediction of expert performance, above and beyond deliberate practice. In evaluating participants having a wide range of piano-playing skill (novice to expert), we found that deliberate practice accounted for nearly half of the total variance in piano sight-reading performance. However, there was an incremental positive effect of WMC, and there was no evidence that deliberate practice reduced this effect. Evidence indicates that WMC is highly general, stable, and heritable, and thus our results call into question the view that expert performance is solely a reflection of deliberate practice.

Musical Tone Law Method for the Structural Damage Detection

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Weisong Yang

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Damage detection tests of inclined cables, steel pipes, spherical shells, and an actual cable-stayed bridge were conducted based on the proposed musical tone law method. The results show that the musical tone law method could be used in the damage detection of isotropic material structures with simple shape, like cables, pipes, plates, and shells. Having distinct spectral lines like a comb with a certain interval distribution rule is the main characteristic of the music tone law. Damage detection baseline could be established by quantizing the fitting relationship between modal orders and the corresponding frequency values. The main advantage of this method is that it could be used in the structural damage detection without vibration information of an intact structure as a reference.

Skin Tone Dissatisfaction, Sun Exposure, and Sun Protection in Australian Adolescents.

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Hutchinson, Amanda D; Prichard, Ivanka; Ettridge, Kerry; Wilson, Carlene

2015-08-01

This study aimed to assess the adoption of sun protection and sun exposure behaviors, the extent to which these behaviors group together, and the relationship between skin tone dissatisfaction and sun-related behaviors in South Australian adolescents (aged 12-17). A total of 2,875 secondary school students (1,461 male and 1,414 female) completed a questionnaire including questions about sun protection and sun exposure behaviors and skin tone dissatisfaction. Regular adoption of sun protection behaviors was low and ranged from 20% (wearing protective clothing) to 44% (sunscreen use). A principal components analysis identified four subgroups of sun-related behaviors: sun protection, appearance enhancement, sun avoidance, and sun exposure. Females had significantly higher skin tone dissatisfaction than males. Skin tone dissatisfaction was associated with decreased sun protection and avoidance and increased appearance enhancement and sun exposure in both males and females. Skin tone dissatisfaction plays an important role in Australian adolescents' sun-related behavior. Appearance-based interventions may be effective in reducing skin cancer risk through reduced sun exposure.

From Hearing Sounds to Recognizing Phonemes: Primary Auditory Cortex is A Truly Perceptual Language Area

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Byron Bernal

2016-11-01

Full Text Available The aim of this article is to present a systematic review about the anatomy, function, connectivity, and functional activation of the primary auditory cortex (PAC (Brodmann areas 41/42 when involved in language paradigms. PAC activates with a plethora of diverse basic stimuli including but not limited to tones, chords, natural sounds, consonants, and speech. Nonetheless, the PAC shows specific sensitivity to speech. Damage in the PAC is associated with so-called “pure word-deafness” (“auditory verbal agnosia”. BA41, and to a lesser extent BA42, are involved in early stages of phonological processing (phoneme recognition. Phonological processing may take place in either the right or left side, but customarily the left exerts an inhibitory tone over the right, gaining dominance in function. BA41/42 are primary auditory cortices harboring complex phoneme perception functions with asymmetrical expression, making it possible to include them as core language processing areas (Wernicke’s area.

The coordination of boundary tones and its interaction with prominence1

Science.gov (United States)

Katsika, Argyro; Krivokapić, Jelena; Mooshammer, Christine; Tiede, Mark; Goldstein, Louis

2014-01-01

This study investigates the coordination of boundary tones as a function of stress and pitch accent. Boundary tone coordination has not been experimentally investigated previously, and the effect of prominence on this coordination, and whether it is lexical (stress-driven) or phrasal (pitch accent-driven) in nature is unclear. We assess these issues using a variety of syntactic constructions to elicit different boundary tones in an Electromagnetic Articulography (EMA) study of Greek. The results indicate that the onset of boundary tones co-occurs with the articulatory target of the final vowel. This timing is further modified by stress, but not by pitch accent: boundary tones are initiated earlier in words with non-final stress than in words with final stress regardless of accentual status. Visual data inspection reveals that phrase-final words are followed by acoustic pauses during which specific articulatory postures occur. Additional analyses show that these postures reach their achievement point at a stable temporal distance from boundary tone onsets regardless of stress position. Based on these results and parallel findings on boundary lengthening reported elsewhere, a novel approach to prosody is proposed within the context of Articulatory Phonology: rather than seeing prosodic (lexical and phrasal) events as independent entities, a set of coordination relations between them is suggested. The implications of this account for prosodic architecture are discussed. PMID:25300341

Mirror neuron activation of musicians and non-musicians in response to motion captured piano performances

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hou, Jiancheng; Rajmohan, Ravi; Fang, Dan

2017-01-01

Mirror neurons (MNs) activate when performing an action and when an observer witnesses the same action performed by another individual. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and presentation of motion captured piano performances were used to identify differences in MN activation...... pronounced in the “Enjoyment” mode. Our findings suggest that activation of MNs is not only initiated by the imagined action of an observed movement, but such activation is modulated by the level of musical expertise and knowledge of associated motor movements that the observer brings to the viewing...

IHC-TM connect-disconnect in relation to sensitization and masking of a HF-tone burst by a LF tone. IV.

Science.gov (United States)

Crane, H D

1982-05-01

Evidence continues to accumulate that although the outer hair cells (OHCs) of the cochlea are firmly bonded to the tectorial membrane (TM), the inner hair cells (IHCS) are not. This is the fourth in a series of papers that explores how the idea of a set of disconnected hair cells that "impact" the TM is consistent with psychophysical data. The paper extends the exploration to the masking of high-frequency (HF) tone bursts by low-frequency (LF) tones and shows that the model can explain the important features of these complex data.

Persistent Thalamic Sound Processing Despite Profound Cochlear Denervation

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Anna R. Chambers

2016-08-01

Full Text Available Neurons at higher stages of sensory processing can partially compensate for a sudden drop in input from the periphery through a homeostatic plasticity process that increases the gain on weak afferent inputs. Even after a profound unilateral auditory neuropathy where > 95% of synapses between auditory nerve fibers and inner hair cells have been eliminated with ouabain, central gain can restore the cortical processing and perceptual detection of basic sounds delivered to the denervated ear. In this model of profound auditory neuropathy, cortical processing and perception recover despite the absence of an auditory brainstem response (ABR or brainstem acoustic reflexes, and only a partial recovery of sound processing at the level of the inferior colliculus (IC, an auditory midbrain nucleus. In this study, we induced a profound cochlear neuropathy with ouabain and asked whether central gain enabled a compensatory plasticity in the auditory thalamus comparable to the full recovery of function previously observed in the auditory cortex (ACtx, the partial recovery observed in the IC, or something different entirely. Unilateral ouabain treatment in adult mice effectively eliminated the ABR, yet robust sound-evoked activity persisted in a minority of units recorded from the contralateral medial geniculate body (MGB of awake mice. Sound-driven MGB units could decode moderate and high-intensity sounds with accuracies comparable to sham-treated control mice, but low-intensity classification was near chance. Pure tone receptive fields and synchronization to broadband pulse trains also persisted, albeit with significantly reduced quality and precision, respectively. MGB decoding of temporally modulated pulse trains and speech tokens were both greatly impaired in ouabain-treated mice. Taken together, the absence of an ABR belied a persistent auditory processing at the level of the MGB that was likely enabled through increased central gain. Compensatory

INSTRUMENTAL DIALOG UE IN THE COMPOSITION INCANTATION FOR TENOR-SAXOPHONE (OR BASS-CLARINET AND PIANO BY S. PÂSLARI

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ŢIRCUNOVA SVETLANA

2017-12-01

Full Text Available In the article the authors analyze the means of musical expression and the form of composition «Incantation» by Snejana Pâslari for tenor-saxophone (or clarinet bas and piano. We came to the conclusion that the musical language and synthetic structure of this composition are conditioned by its artistic design linked tothe realization of dialogical principle.

Individualized piano instruction enhances executive functioning and working memory in older adults.

Science.gov (United States)

Bugos, J A; Perlstein, W M; McCrae, C S; Brophy, T S; Bedenbaugh, P H

2007-07-01

This study evaluates transfer from domain-specific, sensorimotor training to cognitive abilities associated with executive function. We examined Individualized Piano Instruction (IPI) as a potential cognitive intervention to mitigate normal age-related cognitive decline in older adults. Thirty-one musically naïve community-dwelling older adults (ages 60-85) were randomly assigned to either the experimental group (n = 16) or control group (n = 15). Neuropsychological assessments were administered at three time points: pre-training, following six months of intervention, and following a three-month delay. The experimental group significantly improved performance on the Trail Making Test and Digit Symbol measures as compared to healthy controls. Results of this study suggest that IPI may serve as an effective cognitive intervention for age-related cognitive decline.

Infant auditory short-term memory for non-linguistic sounds.

Science.gov (United States)

Ross-Sheehy, Shannon; Newman, Rochelle S

2015-04-01

This research explores auditory short-term memory (STM) capacity for non-linguistic sounds in 10-month-old infants. Infants were presented with auditory streams composed of repeating sequences of either 2 or 4 unique instruments (e.g., flute, piano, cello; 350 or 700 ms in duration) followed by a 500-ms retention interval. These instrument sequences either stayed the same for every repetition (Constant) or changed by 1 instrument per sequence (Varying). Using the head-turn preference procedure, infant listening durations were recorded for each stream type (2- or 4-instrument sequences composed of 350- or 700-ms notes). Preference for the Varying stream was taken as evidence of auditory STM because detection of the novel instrument required memory for all of the instruments in a given sequence. Results demonstrate that infants listened longer to Varying streams for 2-instrument sequences, but not 4-instrument sequences, composed of 350-ms notes (Experiment 1), although this effect did not hold when note durations were increased to 700 ms (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 replicates and extends results from Experiments 1 and 2 and provides support for a duration account of capacity limits in infant auditory STM. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Snap your fingers! An ERP/sLORETA study investigating implicit processing of self- vs. other-related movement sounds using the passive oddball paradigm

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Christoph Justen

2016-10-01

Full Text Available So far, neurophysiological studies have investigated implicit and explicit self-related processing particularly for self-related stimuli such as the own face or name. The present study extends previous research to the implicit processing of self-related movement sounds and explores their spatiotemporal dynamics. Event-related potentials (ERPs were assessed while participants (N = 12 healthy subjects listened passively to previously recorded self- and other-related finger snapping sounds, presented either as deviants or standards during an oddball paradigm. Passive listening to low (500 Hz and high (1000 Hz pure tones served as additional control. For self- vs. other-related finger snapping sounds, analysis of ERPs revealed significant differences in the time windows of the N2a/MMN and P3. An subsequent source localization analysis with standardized low resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA revealed increased cortical activation in distinct motor areas such as the supplementary motor area (SMA in the N2a/mismatch negativity (MMN as well as the P3 time window during processing of self- and other-related finger snapping sounds. In contrast, brain regions associated with self-related processing (e.g., right anterior/posterior cingulate cortex (ACC/PPC as well as the right inferior parietal lobule (IPL showed increased activation particularly during processing of self- vs. other-related finger snapping sounds in the time windows of the N2a/MMN (ACC/PCC or the P3 (IPL. None of these brain regions showed enhanced activation while listening passively to low (500 Hz and high (1000 Hz pure tones. Taken together, the current results indicate (1 a specific role of motor regions such as SMA during auditory processing of movement-related information, regardless of whether this information is self- or other-related, (2 activation of neural sources such as the ACC/PCC and the IPL during implicit processing of self-related movement stimuli, and (3

Snap Your Fingers! An ERP/sLORETA Study Investigating Implicit Processing of Self- vs. Other-Related Movement Sounds Using the Passive Oddball Paradigm

Science.gov (United States)

Justen, Christoph; Herbert, Cornelia

2016-01-01

So far, neurophysiological studies have investigated implicit and explicit self-related processing particularly for self-related stimuli such as the own face or name. The present study extends previous research to the implicit processing of self-related movement sounds and explores their spatio-temporal dynamics. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were assessed while participants (N = 12 healthy subjects) listened passively to previously recorded self- and other-related finger snapping sounds, presented either as deviants or standards during an oddball paradigm. Passive listening to low (500 Hz) and high (1000 Hz) pure tones served as additional control. For self- vs. other-related finger snapping sounds, analysis of ERPs revealed significant differences in the time windows of the N2a/MMN and P3. An subsequent source localization analysis with standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA) revealed increased cortical activation in distinct motor areas such as the supplementary motor area (SMA) in the N2a/mismatch negativity (MMN) as well as the P3 time window during processing of self- and other-related finger snapping sounds. In contrast, brain regions associated with self-related processing [e.g., right anterior/posterior cingulate cortex (ACC/PPC)] as well as the right inferior parietal lobule (IPL) showed increased activation particularly during processing of self- vs. other-related finger snapping sounds in the time windows of the N2a/MMN (ACC/PCC) or the P3 (IPL). None of these brain regions showed enhanced activation while listening passively to low (500 Hz) and high (1000 Hz) pure tones. Taken together, the current results indicate (1) a specific role of motor regions such as SMA during auditory processing of movement-related information, regardless of whether this information is self- or other-related, (2) activation of neural sources such as the ACC/PCC and the IPL during implicit processing of self-related movement stimuli, and (3

Comparative Analysis of the Approaches Used By Prospective Music Teachers in Turkey in Practicing the Piano Works of Contemporary Turkish Composers

Science.gov (United States)

Sönmezöz, Feyza

2015-01-01

This study determined the levels of recognizing piano works of contemporary Turkish composers, the importance of practicing these works and difficulty in playing these works by the prospective music teachers in the Departments of Music Education in Turkey. Furthermore, this study performed a comparative analysis on the opinions of the prospective…

Dissimilation in the Second Language Acquisition of Mandarin Chinese Tones

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Hang

2016-01-01

This article extends Optimality Theoretic studies to the research on second language tone phonology. Specifically, this work analyses the acquisition of identical tone sequences in Mandarin Chinese by adult speakers of three non-tonal languages: English, Japanese and Korean. This study finds that the learners prefer not to use identical lexical…

Dynamic resistance training decreases sympathetic tone in hypertensive ovariectomized rats

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Shimojo, G.L.; Palma, R.K.; Brito, J.O.; Sanches, I.C. [Laboratório de Fisiologia Translacional, Programa de Ciências da Reabilitação, Universidade Nove de Julho, São Paulo, SP (Brazil); Irigoyen, M.C. [Instituto do Coração, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP (Brazil); De Angelis, K. [Laboratório de Fisiologia Translacional, Programa de Ciências da Reabilitação, Universidade Nove de Julho, São Paulo, SP (Brazil)

2015-03-27

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of resistance exercise training on hemodynamics and cardiac autonomic control in ovariectomized spontaneously hypertensive rats. Female rats were divided into 4 groups: sedentary control (SC), sedentary hypertensive (SH), sedentary hypertensive ovariectomized (SHO), and resistance-trained hypertensive ovariectomized (RTHO). Resistance exercise training was performed on a vertical ladder (5 days/week, 8 weeks) at 40-60% maximal load. Direct arterial pressure was recorded. Vagal and sympathetic tones were measured by heart rate (HR) responses to methylatropine (3 mg/kg, iv) and propranolol (4 mg/kg, iv). Ovariectomy resulted in additional increases in blood pressure in hypertensive rats and was associated with decreased vagal tone. Resistance exercise trained rats had lower mean arterial pressure than untrained rats (RTHO: 159±2.2 vs SHO: 177±3.4 mmHg), as well as resting bradycardia (RTHO: 332±9.0 vs SHO: 356±5 bpm). Sympathetic tone was also lower in the trained group. Moreover, sympathetic tone was positively correlated with resting HR (r=0.7, P<0.05). The additional arterial pressure increase in hypertensive rats caused by ovarian hormone deprivation was attenuated by moderate-intensity dynamic resistance training. This benefit may be associated with resting bradycardia and reduced cardiac sympathetic tone after training, which suggests potential benefits of resistance exercise for the management of hypertension after ovarian hormone deprivation.

Dynamic resistance training decreases sympathetic tone in hypertensive ovariectomized rats

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shimojo, G.L.; Palma, R.K.; Brito, J.O.; Sanches, I.C.; Irigoyen, M.C.; De Angelis, K.

2015-01-01

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of resistance exercise training on hemodynamics and cardiac autonomic control in ovariectomized spontaneously hypertensive rats. Female rats were divided into 4 groups: sedentary control (SC), sedentary hypertensive (SH), sedentary hypertensive ovariectomized (SHO), and resistance-trained hypertensive ovariectomized (RTHO). Resistance exercise training was performed on a vertical ladder (5 days/week, 8 weeks) at 40-60% maximal load. Direct arterial pressure was recorded. Vagal and sympathetic tones were measured by heart rate (HR) responses to methylatropine (3 mg/kg, iv) and propranolol (4 mg/kg, iv). Ovariectomy resulted in additional increases in blood pressure in hypertensive rats and was associated with decreased vagal tone. Resistance exercise trained rats had lower mean arterial pressure than untrained rats (RTHO: 159±2.2 vs SHO: 177±3.4 mmHg), as well as resting bradycardia (RTHO: 332±9.0 vs SHO: 356±5 bpm). Sympathetic tone was also lower in the trained group. Moreover, sympathetic tone was positively correlated with resting HR (r=0.7, P<0.05). The additional arterial pressure increase in hypertensive rats caused by ovarian hormone deprivation was attenuated by moderate-intensity dynamic resistance training. This benefit may be associated with resting bradycardia and reduced cardiac sympathetic tone after training, which suggests potential benefits of resistance exercise for the management of hypertension after ovarian hormone deprivation

SPECIFIC FEATURES OF THE MUSICAL LANGUAGE AND TEXTURE IN THE CONCERT WALTZ FOR TWO PIANOS BY OLEG NEGRUTA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

MAMALÂGA MARINA

2017-06-01

Full Text Available The article analyzes the Concert Waltz by Oleg Negruta written for piano duet. This work is considered in terms of form and content. Special attention is given to identifying the specificity of the musical language and texture. As a result, the conclusion is that the originality of the composer’s style is manifested in bright melody, relying on the classic-romantic harmony, enriched by jazz elements.

Current versus ideal skin tones and tanning behaviors in Caucasian college women.

Science.gov (United States)

Hemrich, Ashley; Pawlow, Laura; Pomerantz, Andrew; Segrist, Dan

2014-01-01

To explore tanning behaviors and whether a discrepancy between current and ideal skin tones exists. The sample included 78 Caucasian women from a mid-sized midwestern university. Data were collected in spring 2012 via a paper questionnaire. Sixty-two percent of the sample regularly engaged in salon tanning at least once per week, with an average frequency of 2.5 visits per week. Thirteen percent endorsed regularly tanning 4 or more times per week, and 26% reported visiting a tanning bed more than once in a 24-hour period. Ninety-four percent wished their current skin tone was darker, and ideal tone was significantly darker than current tone. The data suggest that the young Caucasian women in this sample tend to be dissatisfied with their current skin tone to an extent that leads the majority of them to engage in risky, potentially cancer-causing behavior by either salon tanning or considering tanning in the future as time and finances become available.

Rapid improvement of depressive symptoms and cognition in an elderly patient with a single session of piano playing: a clinical treatment report.

Science.gov (United States)

Manalai, Gul; Manalai, Partam; Dutta, Raja; Fegan, Gerald; Scrofani, Philip

2012-06-01

Music has been used as a non-pharmacological modality in the treatment of different conditions since ancient times. It has received attention in modern medicine in recent decades, particularly in geriatric population. The effects of music on mood and cognition are well documented. The aim of the current case report is to highlight the benefits of musical activities in the geriatric population. We report a naturalistic treatment outcome in an elderly patient on a geriatric psychiatric unit related to a single session of piano playing. A rapid and sustained improvement in mood and cognition of an elderly patient was observed after a single session of playing piano. Notwithstanding the limitations of a single subject, uncontrolled case study, the effect was dramatic. Our findings support previous claims regarding music therapy including effects of a single session music-based therapeutic interventions, and we conclude that music therapy for geriatric patients with mood and cognitive deficits is worth further systematic investigation.

Polyphonic Piano Transcription with a Note-Based Music Language Model

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Qi Wang

2018-03-01

Full Text Available This paper proposes a note-based music language model (MLM for improving note-level polyphonic piano transcription. The MLM is based on the recurrent structure, which could model the temporal correlations between notes in music sequences. To combine the outputs of the note-based MLM and acoustic model directly, an integrated architecture is adopted in this paper. We also propose an inference algorithm, in which the note-based MLM is used to predict notes at the blank onsets in the thresholding transcription results. The experimental results show that the proposed inference algorithm improves the performance of note-level transcription. We also observe that the combination of the restricted Boltzmann machine (RBM and recurrent structure outperforms a single recurrent neural network (RNN or long short-term memory network (LSTM in modeling the high-dimensional note sequences. Among all the MLMs, LSTM-RBM helps the system yield the best results on all evaluation metrics regardless of the performance of acoustic models.

Seeing the sound after visual loss: functional MRI in acquired auditory-visual synesthesia.

Science.gov (United States)

Yong, Zixin; Hsieh, Po-Jang; Milea, Dan

2017-02-01

Acquired auditory-visual synesthesia (AVS) is a rare neurological sign, in which specific auditory stimulation triggers visual experience. In this study, we used event-related fMRI to explore the brain regions correlated with acquired monocular sound-induced phosphenes, which occurred 2 months after unilateral visual loss due to an ischemic optic neuropathy. During the fMRI session, 1-s pure tones at various pitches were presented to the patient, who was asked to report occurrence of sound-induced phosphenes by pressing one of the two buttons (yes/no). The brain activation during phosphene-experienced trials was contrasted with non-phosphene trials and compared to results obtained in one healthy control subject who underwent the same fMRI protocol. Our results suggest, for the first time, that acquired AVS occurring after visual impairment is associated with bilateral activation of primary and secondary visual cortex, possibly due to cross-wiring between auditory and visual sensory modalities.

Light and heavy touch reduces postural sway and modifies axial tone in Parkinson’s disease

Science.gov (United States)

Franzén, Erika; Paquette, Caroline; Gurfinkel, Victor; Horak, Fay

2014-01-01

Background Light touch with a stable object reduces postural sway by increasing axial postural tone in healthy subjects. However, it is unknown whether subjects with Parkinson’s disease (PD), who have more postural sway and higher axial postural tone than healthy subjects, can benefit from haptic touch. Objective To investigate the effect of light and heavy touch on postural stability and hip tone in subjects with PD. Methods Fourteen subjects with mid-stage PD, and 14 healthy control subjects were evaluated during quiet standing with eyes closed with their arms: 1) crossed, 2) lightly touching a fixed rigid bar in front of them and 3) firmly gripping the bar. Postural sway was measured with a forceplate and axial hip tone was quantified using a unique device that measures the resistance of the hips to yaw rotation while maintaining active stance. Results Subjects with PD significantly decreased their postural sway with light or heavy touch (ptouch, hip tone was larger in PD subjects. With touch, however, tone values were similar in both groups. This change in hip tone with touch was highly correlated with the initial amount of tone (PD: r=− 0.72 to −0.95 and controls: r=−0.74 to−0.85). Conclusions We showed, for the first time, that subjects with PD benefit from touch similarly to control subjects and that despite higher axial postural tone, PD subjects are able to modulate their tone with touch. Future studies should investigate the complex relationship between touch and postural tone. PMID:22415944

Short and long term representation of an unfamiliar tone distribution.

Science.gov (United States)

Cui, Anja X; Diercks, Charlette; Troje, Nikolaus F; Cuddy, Lola L

2016-01-01

We report on a study conducted to extend our knowledge about the process of gaining a mental representation of music. Several studies, inspired by research on the statistical learning of language, have investigated statistical learning of sequential rules underlying tone sequences. Given that the mental representation of music correlates with distributional properties of music, we tested whether participants are able to abstract distributional information contained in tone sequences to form a mental representation. For this purpose, we created an unfamiliar music genre defined by an underlying tone distribution, to which 40 participants were exposed. Our stimuli allowed us to differentiate between sensitivity to the distributional properties contained in test stimuli and long term representation of the distributional properties of the music genre overall. Using a probe tone paradigm and a two-alternative forced choice discrimination task, we show that listeners are able to abstract distributional properties of music through mere exposure into a long term representation of music. This lends support to the idea that statistical learning is involved in the process of gaining musical knowledge.

Short and long term representation of an unfamiliar tone distribution

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anja X. Cui

2016-08-01

Full Text Available We report on a study conducted to extend our knowledge about the process of gaining a mental representation of music. Several studies, inspired by research on the statistical learning of language, have investigated statistical learning of sequential rules underlying tone sequences. Given that the mental representation of music correlates with distributional properties of music, we tested whether participants are able to abstract distributional information contained in tone sequences to form a mental representation. For this purpose, we created an unfamiliar music genre defined by an underlying tone distribution, to which 40 participants were exposed. Our stimuli allowed us to differentiate between sensitivity to the distributional properties contained in test stimuli and long term representation of the distributional properties of the music genre overall. Using a probe tone paradigm and a two-alternative forced choice discrimination task, we show that listeners are able to abstract distributional properties of music through mere exposure into a long term representation of music. This lends support to the idea that statistical learning is involved in the process of gaining musical knowledge.

An Integrated Tone Mapping for High Dynamic Range Image Visualization

Science.gov (United States)

Liang, Lei; Pan, Jeng-Shyang; Zhuang, Yongjun

2018-01-01

There are two type tone mapping operators for high dynamic range (HDR) image visualization. HDR image mapped by perceptual operators have strong sense of reality, but will lose local details. Empirical operators can maximize local detail information of HDR image, but realism is not strong. A common tone mapping operator suitable for all applications is not available. This paper proposes a novel integrated tone mapping framework which can achieve conversion between empirical operators and perceptual operators. In this framework, the empirical operator is rendered based on improved saliency map, which simulates the visual attention mechanism of the human eye to the natural scene. The results of objective evaluation prove the effectiveness of the proposed solution.

Foley Sounds vs Real Sounds

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Trento, Stefano; Götzen, Amalia De

2011-01-01

This paper is an initial attempt to study the world of sound effects for motion pictures, also known as Foley sounds. Throughout several audio and audio-video tests we have compared both Foley and real sounds originated by an identical action. The main purpose was to evaluate if sound effects...

Replay of conditioned stimuli during late REM and stage N2 sleep influences affective tone rather than emotional memory strength.

Science.gov (United States)

Rihm, Julia S; Rasch, Björn

2015-07-01

Emotional memories are reprocessed during sleep, and it is widely assumed that this reprocessing occurs mainly during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. In support for this notion, vivid emotional dreams occur mainly during REM sleep, and several studies have reported emotional memory enhancement to be associated with REM sleep or REM sleep-related parameters. However, it is still unknown whether reactivation of emotional memories during REM sleep strengthens emotional memories. Here, we tested whether re-presentation of emotionally learned stimuli during REM sleep enhances emotional memory. In a split-night design, participants underwent Pavlovian conditioning after the first half of the night. Neutral sounds served as conditioned stimuli (CS) and were either paired with a negative odor (CS+) or an odorless vehicle (CS-). During sound replay in subsequent late REM or N2 sleep, half of the CS+ and half of the CS- were presented again. In contrast to our hypothesis, replay during sleep did not affect emotional memory as measured by the differentiation between CS+ and CS- in expectancy, arousal and valence ratings. However, replay unspecifically decreased subjective arousal ratings of both emotional and neutral sounds and increased positive valence ratings also for both CS+ and CS- sounds, respectively. These effects were slightly more pronounced for replay during REM sleep. Our results suggest that re-exposure to previously conditioned stimuli during late sleep does not affect emotional memory strength, but rather influences the affective tone of both emotional and neutral memories. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Usefulness of 1000-Hz probe tone in tympanometry according to age in Korean infants.

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Mina; Han, Kyu-Hee; Jung, Hyunseo; Kim, Mee-Hee; Chang, Hyun-Kyung; Kim, Shin Hye; Park, Moo Kyun; Lee, Jun Ho

2015-01-01

Numerous studies have shown the superiority of a 1000-Hz frequency probe tone for evaluating the middle ear status of infants. However, most of these studies examined Caucasian populations. This study validated the 1000-Hz probe tone and evaluated the age at which it should be used in Korean infants. Data from 83 infants (43 males, 40 females; mean age 9.2±6.2 (range 1-30) months, 165 ears) were analyzed. Tympanograms were classified according to Baldwin's modification of the method of Marchant et al. and correlated with results based on combined diagnostic tests, including an endoscopic examination of the tympanic membrane, myringotomy findings, and the air and bone conduction auditory brainstem response (ABR) thresholds. Data were analyzed in five age groups, each covering a 3-month range. The traces were measured for both 226- and 1000-Hz probe tones. The sensitivity and specificity for the different age groups were also determined. For the 226-Hz probe tone, the tympanograms showed normal traces for most ears with otitis media effusions in infants younger than 12 months. By contrast, the tympanograms using the 1000-Hz probe tone showed abnormal traces in most of the infants with otitis media effusions in all age groups. In infants with no otitis media effusion, the tympanograms using both 226- and 1000-Hz probe tones were interpreted as normal in most cases in all age groups. In infants younger than 12 months, the sensitivity of the 226-Hz probe tone was very low (0-6.6%), whereas that of the 1000-Hz probe tone was very high (90-100%). In infants older than 13 months, however, the sensitivities of the 226- and 1000-Hz probe tones were 76.2% and 85.7%, respectively. Regarding specificity, the difference between the two probe tones was not significant for any age group. This study confirmed the superiority of the 1000-Hz probe tone for evaluating the middle ear in infants. We recommend using a 1000-Hz probe tone at least up to the age of 12 months for Korean

78 FR 13869 - Puget Sound Energy, Inc.; Puget Sound Energy, Inc.; Puget Sound Energy, Inc.; Puget Sound Energy...

Science.gov (United States)

2013-03-01

...-123-LNG; 12-128-NG; 12-148-NG; 12- 158-NG] Puget Sound Energy, Inc.; Puget Sound Energy, Inc.; Puget Sound Energy, Inc.; Puget Sound Energy, Inc.; Puget Sound Energy, Inc.; CE FLNG, LLC; Consolidated...-NG Puget Sound Energy, Inc Order granting long- term authority to import/export natural gas from/to...

Auditory spatial attention to speech and complex non-speech sounds in children with autism spectrum disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Soskey, Laura N; Allen, Paul D; Bennetto, Loisa

2017-08-01

One of the earliest observable impairments in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a failure to orient to speech and other social stimuli. Auditory spatial attention, a key component of orienting to sounds in the environment, has been shown to be impaired in adults with ASD. Additionally, specific deficits in orienting to social sounds could be related to increased acoustic complexity of speech. We aimed to characterize auditory spatial attention in children with ASD and neurotypical controls, and to determine the effect of auditory stimulus complexity on spatial attention. In a spatial attention task, target and distractor sounds were played randomly in rapid succession from speakers in a free-field array. Participants attended to a central or peripheral location, and were instructed to respond to target sounds at the attended location while ignoring nearby sounds. Stimulus-specific blocks evaluated spatial attention for simple non-speech tones, speech sounds (vowels), and complex non-speech sounds matched to vowels on key acoustic properties. Children with ASD had significantly more diffuse auditory spatial attention than neurotypical children when attending front, indicated by increased responding to sounds at adjacent non-target locations. No significant differences in spatial attention emerged based on stimulus complexity. Additionally, in the ASD group, more diffuse spatial attention was associated with more severe ASD symptoms but not with general inattention symptoms. Spatial attention deficits have important implications for understanding social orienting deficits and atypical attentional processes that contribute to core deficits of ASD. Autism Res 2017, 10: 1405-1416. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

How the degree of instrumental practice in music increases perceptual sensitivity.

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Proverbio, Alice Mado; Bellini, Eleonora

2018-04-20

Literature has shown that playing a musical instrument is associated with the formation of multimodal audio visuomotor representations that are strongly instrument-specific. Here, we investigated the effect of increased motor practice on perceptual sensitivity in 32 professional musicians of comparable expertise but with different amounts of instrumental practice with piano (10,000 vs. 3,000 estimated hours). Stimuli consisted of images of pianists' hands and piano arpeggio sounds. In half of the cases, the piano fingering and piano sounds were congruent, while they were incongruent in the other cases. ERPs were recorded from 128 sites while musicians performed a congruent vs. incongruent discrimination task. A fronto-central error-related negativity (ERN), mainly generated within the anterior cingulate cortex, was observed in response to incongruent videos only in pianists. Non-pianist musicians were able to carry out the task (with a worse performance) but exhibited a smaller response-related N400 to incongruent stimuli. Source reconstruction applied to ERP responses to incongruent stimuli indicated a less automatic mechanism for detecting sensory-motor deviance and a greater emphasis on visual rather than on acoustic features in non-pianists. Overall the data suggest a profound difference between the two populations of musicians and advise against considering "expert" populations to include those that undertook only a few weeks/months of training in a new discipline. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Long-term relationships between cholinergic tone, synchronous bursting and synaptic remodeling.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maya Kaufman

Full Text Available Cholinergic neuromodulation plays key roles in the regulation of neuronal excitability, network activity, arousal, and behavior. On longer time scales, cholinergic systems play essential roles in cortical development, maturation, and plasticity. Presumably, these processes are associated with substantial synaptic remodeling, yet to date, long-term relationships between cholinergic tone and synaptic remodeling remain largely unknown. Here we used automated microscopy combined with multielectrode array recordings to study long-term relationships between cholinergic tone, excitatory synapse remodeling, and network activity characteristics in networks of cortical neurons grown on multielectrode array substrates. Experimental elevations of cholinergic tone led to the abrupt suppression of episodic synchronous bursting activity (but not of general activity, followed by a gradual growth of excitatory synapses over hours. Subsequent blockage of cholinergic receptors led to an immediate restoration of synchronous bursting and the gradual reversal of synaptic growth. Neither synaptic growth nor downsizing was governed by multiplicative scaling rules. Instead, these occurred in a subset of synapses, irrespective of initial synaptic size. Synaptic growth seemed to depend on intrinsic network activity, but not on the degree to which bursting was suppressed. Intriguingly, sustained elevations of cholinergic tone were associated with a gradual recovery of synchronous bursting but not with a reversal of synaptic growth. These findings show that cholinergic tone can strongly affect synaptic remodeling and synchronous bursting activity, but do not support a strict coupling between the two. Finally, the reemergence of synchronous bursting in the presence of elevated cholinergic tone indicates that the capacity of cholinergic neuromodulation to indefinitely suppress synchronous bursting might be inherently limited.

Long-term Relationships between Cholinergic Tone, Synchronous Bursting and Synaptic Remodeling

Science.gov (United States)

Kaufman, Maya; Corner, Michael A.; Ziv, Noam E.

2012-01-01

Cholinergic neuromodulation plays key roles in the regulation of neuronal excitability, network activity, arousal, and behavior. On longer time scales, cholinergic systems play essential roles in cortical development, maturation, and plasticity. Presumably, these processes are associated with substantial synaptic remodeling, yet to date, long-term relationships between cholinergic tone and synaptic remodeling remain largely unknown. Here we used automated microscopy combined with multielectrode array recordings to study long-term relationships between cholinergic tone, excitatory synapse remodeling, and network activity characteristics in networks of cortical neurons grown on multielectrode array substrates. Experimental elevations of cholinergic tone led to the abrupt suppression of episodic synchronous bursting activity (but not of general activity), followed by a gradual growth of excitatory synapses over hours. Subsequent blockage of cholinergic receptors led to an immediate restoration of synchronous bursting and the gradual reversal of synaptic growth. Neither synaptic growth nor downsizing was governed by multiplicative scaling rules. Instead, these occurred in a subset of synapses, irrespective of initial synaptic size. Synaptic growth seemed to depend on intrinsic network activity, but not on the degree to which bursting was suppressed. Intriguingly, sustained elevations of cholinergic tone were associated with a gradual recovery of synchronous bursting but not with a reversal of synaptic growth. These findings show that cholinergic tone can strongly affect synaptic remodeling and synchronous bursting activity, but do not support a strict coupling between the two. Finally, the reemergence of synchronous bursting in the presence of elevated cholinergic tone indicates that the capacity of cholinergic neuromodulation to indefinitely suppress synchronous bursting might be inherently limited. PMID:22911726

Long-term relationships between cholinergic tone, synchronous bursting and synaptic remodeling.

Science.gov (United States)

Kaufman, Maya; Corner, Michael A; Ziv, Noam E

2012-01-01

Cholinergic neuromodulation plays key roles in the regulation of neuronal excitability, network activity, arousal, and behavior. On longer time scales, cholinergic systems play essential roles in cortical development, maturation, and plasticity. Presumably, these processes are associated with substantial synaptic remodeling, yet to date, long-term relationships between cholinergic tone and synaptic remodeling remain largely unknown. Here we used automated microscopy combined with multielectrode array recordings to study long-term relationships between cholinergic tone, excitatory synapse remodeling, and network activity characteristics in networks of cortical neurons grown on multielectrode array substrates. Experimental elevations of cholinergic tone led to the abrupt suppression of episodic synchronous bursting activity (but not of general activity), followed by a gradual growth of excitatory synapses over hours. Subsequent blockage of cholinergic receptors led to an immediate restoration of synchronous bursting and the gradual reversal of synaptic growth. Neither synaptic growth nor downsizing was governed by multiplicative scaling rules. Instead, these occurred in a subset of synapses, irrespective of initial synaptic size. Synaptic growth seemed to depend on intrinsic network activity, but not on the degree to which bursting was suppressed. Intriguingly, sustained elevations of cholinergic tone were associated with a gradual recovery of synchronous bursting but not with a reversal of synaptic growth. These findings show that cholinergic tone can strongly affect synaptic remodeling and synchronous bursting activity, but do not support a strict coupling between the two. Finally, the reemergence of synchronous bursting in the presence of elevated cholinergic tone indicates that the capacity of cholinergic neuromodulation to indefinitely suppress synchronous bursting might be inherently limited.

Benefits of Lessons Expected by Parents : Results of a Survey on Parents Enrolling Their Children in Piano Lessons

OpenAIRE

末永,雅子

2013-01-01

With the declining birth rate, parents are becoming increasingly interested in childhood education. While the objective of cram schools and English lessons, which are targeted at advancement to higher education, is enhancement of academic ability, the expected benefits of lessons in activities such as piano and sports are not the acquisition of special knowledge or skills, but rather the development of physical fitness, concentration, and other abilities that are useful in dail...

Lexical tone recognition in noise in normal-hearing children and prelingually deafened children with cochlear implants.

Science.gov (United States)

Mao, Yitao; Xu, Li

2017-01-01

The purpose of the present study was to investigate Mandarin tone recognition in background noise in children with cochlear implants (CIs), and to examine the potential factors contributing to their performance. Tone recognition was tested using a two-alternative forced-choice paradigm in various signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions (i.e. quiet, +12, +6, 0, and -6 dB). Linear correlation analysis was performed to examine possible relationships between the tone-recognition performance of the CI children and the demographic factors. Sixty-six prelingually deafened children with CIs and 52 normal-hearing (NH) children as controls participated in the study. Children with CIs showed an overall poorer tone-recognition performance and were more susceptible to noise than their NH peers. Tone confusions between Mandarin tone 2 and tone 3 were most prominent in both CI and NH children except for in the poorest SNR conditions. Age at implantation was significantly correlated with tone-recognition performance of the CI children in noise. There is a marked deficit in tone recognition in prelingually deafened children with CIs, particularly in noise listening conditions. While factors that contribute to the large individual differences are still elusive, early implantation could be beneficial to tone development in pediatric CI users.

Heart Rate Variability and Cardiac Vagal Tone in Psychophysiological Research – Recommendations for Experiment Planning, Data Analysis, and Data Reporting

Science.gov (United States)

Laborde, Sylvain; Mosley, Emma; Thayer, Julian F.

2017-01-01

Psychophysiological research integrating heart rate variability (HRV) has increased during the last two decades, particularly given the fact that HRV is able to index cardiac vagal tone. Cardiac vagal tone, which represents the contribution of the parasympathetic nervous system to cardiac regulation, is acknowledged to be linked with many phenomena relevant for psychophysiological research, including self-regulation at the cognitive, emotional, social, and health levels. The ease of HRV collection and measurement coupled with the fact it is relatively affordable, non-invasive and pain free makes it widely accessible to many researchers. This ease of access should not obscure the difficulty of interpretation of HRV findings that can be easily misconstrued, however, this can be controlled to some extent through correct methodological processes. Standards of measurement were developed two decades ago by a Task Force within HRV research, and recent reviews updated several aspects of the Task Force paper. However, many methodological aspects related to HRV in psychophysiological research have to be considered if one aims to be able to draw sound conclusions, which makes it difficult to interpret findings and to compare results across laboratories. Those methodological issues have mainly been discussed in separate outlets, making difficult to get a grasp on them, and thus this paper aims to address this issue. It will help to provide psychophysiological researchers with recommendations and practical advice concerning experimental designs, data analysis, and data reporting. This will ensure that researchers starting a project with HRV and cardiac vagal tone are well informed regarding methodological considerations in order for their findings to contribute to knowledge advancement in their field. PMID:28265249

Using Adaptive Tone Mapping to Enhance Edge-Preserving Color Image Automatically

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lu Min-Yao

2010-01-01

Full Text Available One common characteristic of most high-contrast images is the coexistence of dark shadows and bright light source in one scene. It is very difficult to present details in both dark and bright areas simultaneously on most display devices. In order to resolve this problem, a new method utilizing bilateral filter combined with adaptive tone-mapping method is proposed to improve image quality. First of all, bilateral filter is used to decompose image into two layers: large-scale layer and detail layer. Then, the large-scale layer image is divided into three regions: bright, mid-tone, and dark region. Finally, an appropriate tone-mapping method is chosen to process each region according to its individual property. Only large-scale layer image is enhanced by using adaptive tone mapping; therefore, the details of the original image can be preserved. The experiment results demonstrate the success of proposed method. Furthermore, the proposed method can also avoid posterization produced by methods using histogram equalization.

COMPOZITIONAL AND DRAMATURGYCAL FEATURES OF THE PIECE FOR TWO PIANOS TO THE PHILHARMONIC PUBLIC OF CHISINAU BY GHENADIE CIOBANU (PART II

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

MAMALÂGA MARINA

2015-06-01

Full Text Available The authors of this article analyze the composition for two pianos «To the Philharmonic Public of Chisinau» by Ghenadie Ciobanu and reveals such aspects as the dramaturgy features of the genre, style and musical language. The authors conclude that the originality of this work relies on the composer’s individual approach to intertextuality.

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

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shervin Assari

2017-12-01

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

Simultaneous pure-tone masking : the dependence of masking asymmetries on intensity

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vogten, L.L.M.

1978-01-01

Phase locking between probe and masker was used in a series of pure-tone masking experiments. The masker was a stationary sine wave of variable frequency; the probe a fixed-frequency tone burst. We have observed that for small frequency separation the masking behaves asymmetrically around the probe

Behavioral responses by Icelandic White-Beaked Dolphins (Lagenorhynchus albirostris) to playback sounds

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rasmussen, Marianne H.; Atem, Ana; Miller, Lee A.

2016-01-01

AbstractThe aim of this study was to investigate how wild white-beaked dolphins (Lagenorhynchus albirostris)respond to the playback of novel, anthropogenic sounds. We used amplitude-modulated tones and synthetic pulse-bursts. (Some authors in the literature use the term “burst pulse” meaning a bu...... a response and a change in the natural behavior of a marine mammal—in this case, wild white-beaked dolphins........ The estimated received levels for tonal signals were from 110 to 160 dB and for pulse-bursts were 153 to 166 dB re 1 μPa (peak-to-peak). Playback of a file with no signal served as a no sound control in all experiments. The animals responded to all acoustic signals with nine different behavioral responses: (1......) circling the array, (2) turning around and approaching the camera, (3)underwater tail slapping, (4)emitting bubbles, (5)turning their belly towards the set-up, (6) emitting pulse-bursts towards the loudspeaker, (7) an increase in swim speed, (8) a change in swim direction, and (9) jumping. A total of 157...

Current and ideal skin tone: Associations with tanning behavior among sexual minority men.

Science.gov (United States)

Klimek, Patrycja; Lamb, Kalina M; Nogg, Kelsey A; Rooney, Benjamin M; Blashill, Aaron J

2018-06-01

Sexual minority men have high rates of skin cancer, yet little is known about skin cancer risk behaviors in this population. It was hypothesized that current skin tone would moderate the association between darker ideals and tanning behaviors. Data were collected online from 231 sexual minority men in San Diego, United States of America, with a mean age of 24.66 (SD = 5.44). Ideal and current skin tone ratings and indoor and outdoor tanning behaviors were assessed. Darker ideals were significantly associated with increased indoor and outdoor tanning. The effect of darker ideals on tanning was strongest among individuals with lighter current skin tone, indicating a significant interaction. Sexual minority men whose perceived skin tone did not match their ideal were more likely to engage in skin cancer risk behaviors. Future skin cancer prevention programs aimed at sexual minority men may consider techniques that modify ideal skin tone internalization. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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.

Perceptual Weights for Loudness Judgments of 6-Tone Complexes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jesteadt, Walt; Valente, Daniel L.; Joshi, Suyash Narendra

In a series of studies, 6 subjects with normal hearing (NH) and 3 with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) judged the overall loudness of 6-tone complexes comprised of octave frequencies from 0.25 to 8 kHz. In two tasks, tones were equated in level in dB SPL or in sensation level (SL) and a range....... In the “loudness” task there was no difference in mean level across the two intervals. In the “sample discrimination” task, the two complexes differed by an average of 5 dB. For both tasks, perceptual weights were derived by correlating the differences in level between matched-frequency tones in the complexes...... and the loudness decision on each trial. Weights derived from the loudness task (no mean level difference) were highly correlated with weights derived from the sample discrimination task (5-dB difference). For SPL conditions, both NH and SNHL subjects placed less weight on the lowest frequency and greater weight...

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

Science.gov (United States)

Heinzen, Christina Carolyn

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

The effects of tones in noise on human annoyance and performance

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Joonhee

Building mechanical equipment often generates prominent tones because most systems include rotating parts like fans and pumps. These tonal noises can cause unpleasant user experiences in spaces and, in turn, lead to increased complaints by building occupants. Currently, architectural engineers can apply the noise criteria guidelines in standards or publications to achieve acceptable noise conditions for assorted types of spaces. However, these criteria do not apply well if the noise contains perceptible tones. The annoyance thresholds experienced by the general population with regards to the degree of tones in noise is a significant piece of knowledge that has not been well-established. Thus, this dissertation addresses the relationship between human perception and noises with tones in the built environment. Four phases of subjective testing were conducted in an indoor acoustic testing chamber at the University of Nebraska to achieve the research objective. The results indicate that even the least prominent tones in noises can significantly decrease the cognitive performance of participants on a mentally demanding task. Factorial repeated-measures analysis of variance of test results have proven that tonality has a crucial influence on working memory capacity of subjects, whereas loudness levels alone did not. A multidimensional annoyance model, incorporating psycho-acoustical attributes of noise in addition to loudness and tonality, has been proposed as a more accurate annoyance model.

Sparse representation of sounds in the unanesthetized auditory cortex.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tomás Hromádka

2008-01-01

Full Text Available How do neuronal populations in the auditory cortex represent acoustic stimuli? Although sound-evoked neural responses in the anesthetized auditory cortex are mainly transient, recent experiments in the unanesthetized preparation have emphasized subpopulations with other response properties. To quantify the relative contributions of these different subpopulations in the awake preparation, we have estimated the representation of sounds across the neuronal population using a representative ensemble of stimuli. We used cell-attached recording with a glass electrode, a method for which single-unit isolation does not depend on neuronal activity, to quantify the fraction of neurons engaged by acoustic stimuli (tones, frequency modulated sweeps, white-noise bursts, and natural stimuli in the primary auditory cortex of awake head-fixed rats. We find that the population response is sparse, with stimuli typically eliciting high firing rates (>20 spikes/second in less than 5% of neurons at any instant. Some neurons had very low spontaneous firing rates (<0.01 spikes/second. At the other extreme, some neurons had driven rates in excess of 50 spikes/second. Interestingly, the overall population response was well described by a lognormal distribution, rather than the exponential distribution that is often reported. Our results represent, to our knowledge, the first quantitative evidence for sparse representations of sounds in the unanesthetized auditory cortex. Our results are compatible with a model in which most neurons are silent much of the time, and in which representations are composed of small dynamic subsets of highly active neurons.

Total Mercury content of skin toning creams

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Administrator

2008-04-01

Apr 1, 2008 ... Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology,. Kumasi, Ghana. ABSTRACT. The use of mercury containing skin toning creams is becoming ..... Country of Origin. Colour. Aleo Whitening Milk. 0.013. China. White.

The unique sound of the uni-vibe pedal: Part II. Transient behaviour

Science.gov (United States)

Hahlweg, Cornelius F.; Rothe, Hendrik

2013-09-01

The Uni-Vibe is an effect pedal mostly used by electric guitar players. It is based on an opto-electronically controlled all-pass chain. In last year's paper on the subject an idealized system model was derived, which lead to deeper discussion of the musical consequences of the effect in terms of harmonic analysis of single tones and chords in clean and distorted mode. As a direct continuation the present paper deals with the transient behaviour of the device. The transient response is essential for understanding the special sound character, the reaction on picking techniques and the interaction with certain instruments. Therefore the system model is expanded and the pulse response of the idealized time invariant system is derived.

'Tone at the top': Fighting military corruption in Latin America | Klaus ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This essay aims to discuss how tone at the top works in the traditional military contexts found in Latin America, and how the right tone could be adopted in corrupt military institutions to move towards an ethical role-modelling environment. For this endeavour, several strategies that can help military generals to fight military ...

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

Science.gov (United States)

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

2016-07-01

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

[Agraphia and preservation of music writing in a bilingual piano teacher].

Science.gov (United States)

Assal, G; Buttet, J

1983-01-01

A bilingual virtuoso piano teacher developed aphasia and amusia, probably due to cerebral embolism. The perfectly demarcated and unique lesion was located in the left posterior temporoparietal region. Language examinations in French and Italian demonstrated entirely comparable difficulties in both languages. The linguistic course was favorable after a period of auditory agnosia and global aphasia. Language became fluent again 3 months after the onset, with a marked vocabulary loss and phonemic paraphasias with attempts at self-correction. Repetition was altered markedly with a deficit in auditory comprehension but no remaining elements of auditory agnosia. Reading was possible, but with some difficulty and total agraphia and acalculia persisted. Musical ability was better conserved, particularly with respect to repetition and above all to writing, the sparing of the latter constituting a fairly uncommon dissociation in relation to agraphia. Findings are discussed in relation to data in the literature concerning hemispheric participation in various musical tasks.

Memory-based detection of rare sound feature combinations in anesthetized rats.

Science.gov (United States)

Astikainen, Piia; Ruusuvirta, Timo; Wikgren, Jan; Penttonen, Markku

2006-10-02

It is unclear whether the ability of the brain to discriminate rare from frequently repeated combinations of sound features is limited to the normal sleep/wake cycle. We recorded epidural auditory event-related potentials in urethane-anesthetized rats presented with rare tones ('deviants') interspersed with frequently repeated ones ('standards'). Deviants differed from standards either in frequency alone or in frequency combined with intensity. In both cases, deviants elicited event-related potentials exceeding in amplitude event-related potentials to standards between 76 and 108 ms from the stimulus onset, suggesting the independence of the underlying integrative and memory-based change detection mechanisms of the brain from the normal sleep/wake cycle. The relations of these event-related potentials to mismatch negativity and N1 in humans are addressed.

Electromagnetic correlates of musical expertise in processing of tone patterns.

Science.gov (United States)

Kuchenbuch, Anja; Paraskevopoulos, Evangelos; Herholz, Sibylle C; Pantev, Christo

2012-01-01

Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we investigated the influence of long term musical training on the processing of partly imagined tone patterns (imagery condition) compared to the same perceived patterns (perceptual condition). The magnetic counterpart of the mismatch negativity (MMNm) was recorded and compared between musicians and non-musicians in order to assess the effect of musical training on the detection of deviants to tone patterns. The results indicated a clear MMNm in the perceptual condition as well as in a simple pitch oddball (control) condition in both groups. However, there was no significant mismatch response in either group in the imagery condition despite above chance behavioral performance in the task of detecting deviant tones. The latency and the laterality of the MMNm in the perceptual condition differed significantly between groups, with an earlier MMNm in musicians, especially in the left hemisphere. In contrast the MMNm amplitudes did not differ significantly between groups. The behavioral results revealed a clear effect of long-term musical training in both experimental conditions. The obtained results represent new evidence that the processing of tone patterns is faster and more strongly lateralized in musically trained subjects, which is consistent with other findings in different paradigms of enhanced auditory neural system functioning due to long-term musical training.

Interpreting Life with Music：Piano Works Appreciation and Its Application in the Film "The Legend of 1900"%用音乐演绎生命--电影《海上钢琴师》钢琴作品赏析及其应用分析

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

李静

2015-01-01

音乐作为一门特殊的艺术形式，与其他艺术类型有着巨大差别，能够有效地融入进影视艺术创作中，为观众们呈现出声画结合的艺术效果，突出影视作品的主题内涵。在电影故事内容中，音乐旋律能够借助不同声调、声音、节奏等多种变化来展现出电影角色的内心情绪，让影片呈现出鲜明的特征。在如今的影视创作中，电影影视俨然已经成为其重要组成部分，然而钢琴音乐艺术作为影视音乐的重要途径，在影视音乐创作中具有十分重要的位置。电影《海上钢琴师》作为意大利导演托纳托雷的经典作品，以其塑造的生动形象与深刻的主题内涵成为世界电影史上获得较高赞誉的影视作品。其中运用的大量钢琴元素让观众们在欣赏电影过程中回味无穷。%Music, as a unique form of art, greatly differs from oth-er styles of art, as it can be effectively integrated with the artistic creation of films, present the audience an artistic effect of mu-sic-image combination, and highlight the theme and connotation of a film. In the stories of a film, melodies can show the internal sentiments of the characters by means of various changes in tone, sound and rhythm, so as to present the distinct features of the film. In the present film creation, film and television has un-doubtedly become an important component, while, the piano, as an important means of film music, plays a vital role in the cre-ation of film music. Due to the vivid images shaped and its pro-found theme and connotation, the film"The Legend of 1900", as a film classic directed by Tornatore, an Italian film director, has become a highly praised film in the world's film history. The ap-plication of a large number of piano-related elements in this film leads the audience to endless aftertastes in their appreciation of the film.

Contrasting the effects of duration and number of syllables on the perceptual normalization of lexical tones

Science.gov (United States)

Ciocca, Valter; Francis, Alexander L.; Yau, Teresa S.-K.

2004-05-01

In tonal languages, syllabic fundamental frequency (F0) patterns (``lexical tones'') convey lexical meaning. Listeners need to relate such pitch patterns to the pitch range of a speaker (``tone normalization'') to accurately identify lexical tones. This study investigated the amount of tonal information required to perform tone normalization. A target CV syllable, perceived as either a high level, a low level, or a mid level Cantonese tone, was preceded by a four-syllable carrier sentence whose F0 was shifted (1 semitone), or not shifted. Four conditions were obtained by gating one, two, three, or four syllables from the onset of the target. Presentation rate (normal versus fast) was set such that the duration of the one, two, and three syllable conditions (normal carrier) was equal to that of the two, three, and four syllable conditions (fast carrier). Results suggest that tone normalization is largely accomplished within 250 ms or so prior to target onset, independent of the number of syllables; additional tonal information produces a relatively small increase in tone normalization. Implications for models of lexical tone normalization will be discussed. [Work supported by the RGC of the Hong Kong SAR, Project No. HKU 7193/00H.

The main application of piano playing techniques in teaching%钢琴的演奏技法在教学中的主要应用

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

张潇文

2016-01-01

想要赢取合理的钢琴教学实效，第一要决便是督促学生掌握关键的钢琴演奏技法，主动感知作曲主体创作思想和相关历史背景，顺势彰显无比鲜明的技术个性与演奏风格。至于笔者的任务，便是结合个人实践经验制定实施全新样式的钢琴演奏技法教学应用方案，方便学生掌握不同类型音乐作品演奏旋律，为学生个体情操陶冶和思维灵活舒展，提供更为稳固的支撑引导条件。%To gain reasonable piano teaching effectiveness, the first secret is urge the students to grasp the key of the piano playing techniques, active perception composer created the main ideas and the relevant historical background, highlighting technology personality and playing style. The author's task is combined with personal experience, develop new style of piano playing skils teaching scheme, convenient for students to master the different types of music melody, to provide a more solid support guidance for cultivating students' individual character and thinking flexible stretch.

Correpetição ao piano como estratégia de aprendizagem em alunos de canto

OpenAIRE

Vilas Boas, José Carlos Salgueiro

2017-01-01

Este trabalho representa o culminar da Unidade Curricular de Prática de Ensino Supervisionada, do Mestrado em Ensino da Música ministrado em parceria pela Escola Superior de Música, Artes e Espetáculo e pela Escola Superior de Educação, do Instituto Politécnico do Porto. Compreende a informação relativa à prática pedagógica desenvolvida, através de planificações, relatórios de observação e reflexões pessoais sobre as especificidades do ensino do piano. O estágio foi desenvolvido no Conserv...

Impaired myogenic tone in mesenteric arteries from overweight rats

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sweazea Karen L

2012-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Rats fed high fat (HFD or high sucrose (HSD diets develop increased adiposity as well as impaired vasodilatory responsiveness stemming from oxidative stress. Moreover, HFD rats become hypertensive compared to either control (Chow or HSD fed rats, suggesting elevated vascular tone. We hypothesized that rats with increased adiposity and oxidative stress demonstrate augmented pressure-induced vasoconstriction (i.e. myogenic tone that could account for the hypertensive state. Methods Male Sprague-Dawley rats were fed Chow, HFD or HSD for 6 weeks. The effects of oxidative stress and endogenous nitric oxide on myogenic responses were examined in small mesenteric arteries by exposing the arteries to incremental intraluminal pressure steps in the presence of antioxidants or an inhibitor of nitric oxide synthase, LNNA (100 μM. Results Contrary to the hypothesis, rats fed either HSD or HFD had significantly impaired myogenic responses despite similar vascular morphology and passive diameter responses to increasing pressures. Vascular smooth muscle (VSM calcium levels were normal in HFD arteries suggesting that diminished calcium sensitivity was responsible for the impaired myogenic response. In contrast, VSM calcium levels were reduced in HSD arteries but were increased with pre-exposure of arteries to the antioxidants tiron (10 mM and catalase (1200 U/mL, also resulting in enhanced myogenic tone. These findings show that oxidative stress impairs myogenic tone in arteries from HSD rats by decreasing VSM calcium. Similarly, VSM calcium responses were increased in arteries from HFD rats following treatment with tiron and catalase, but this did not result in improved myogenic tone. Nitric oxide is involved in the impaired myogenic response in HFD, but not HSD, rats since inhibition with LNNA resulted in maximal myogenic responses at lower intraluminal pressures and VSM calcium levels, further implicating reduced calcium sensitivity in

Artistic and Aesthetic Specifics of Using the Piano in the Acoustic Space of Joe Hisaishi Film Music

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zaytseva Marina

2016-12-01

Full Text Available The article explains the problems of music functioning in the media text system, analyzes the stages of the creative collaboration of composer Joe Hisaishi and director Hayao Miyazaki in the creation of animated films, highlights the most important events in the biography of artists. On the example of the animated film "Spirited Away" (2001, the peculiarities of interaction of music, voice and video in the series are revealed, the role of the piano in the acoustic space of film music by Joe Hisaishi is defined.

Sound

CERN Document Server

Robertson, William C

2003-01-01

Muddled about what makes music? Stuck on the study of harmonics? Dumbfounded by how sound gets around? Now you no longer have to struggle to teach concepts you really don t grasp yourself. Sound takes an intentionally light touch to help out all those adults science teachers, parents wanting to help with homework, home-schoolers seeking necessary scientific background to teach middle school physics with confidence. The book introduces sound waves and uses that model to explain sound-related occurrences. Starting with the basics of what causes sound and how it travels, you'll learn how musical instruments work, how sound waves add and subtract, how the human ear works, and even why you can sound like a Munchkin when you inhale helium. Sound is the fourth book in the award-winning Stop Faking It! Series, published by NSTA Press. Like the other popular volumes, it is written by irreverent educator Bill Robertson, who offers this Sound recommendation: One of the coolest activities is whacking a spinning metal rod...

Absolute pitch among students in an American music conservatory: association with tone language fluency.

Science.gov (United States)

Deutsch, Diana; Dooley, Kevin; Henthorn, Trevor; Head, Brian

2009-04-01

Absolute pitch (AP), the ability to name a musical note in the absence of a reference note, is extremely rare in the U.S. and Europe, and its genesis is unclear. The prevalence of AP was examined among students in an American music conservatory as a function of age of onset of musical training, ethnicity, and fluency in speaking a tone language. Taking those of East Asian ethnicity, the performance level on a test of AP was significantly higher among those who spoke a tone language very fluently compared with those who spoke a tone language fairly fluently and also compared with those who were not fluent in speaking a tone language. The performance level of this last group did not differ significantly from that of Caucasian students who spoke only nontone language. Early onset of musical training was associated with enhanced performance, but this did not interact with the effect of language. Further analyses showed that the results could not be explained by country of early music education. The findings support the hypothesis that the acquisition of AP by tone language speakers involves the same process as occurs in the acquisition of a second tone language.

Masking release by combined spatial and masker-fluctuation effects in the open sound field.

Science.gov (United States)

Middlebrooks, John C

2017-12-01

In a complex auditory scene, signals of interest can be distinguished from masking sounds by differences in source location [spatial release from masking (SRM)] and by differences between masker-alone and masker-plus-signal envelopes. This study investigated interactions between those factors in release of masking of 700-Hz tones in an open sound field. Signal and masker sources were colocated in front of the listener, or the signal source was shifted 90° to the side. In Experiment 1, the masker contained a 25-Hz-wide on-signal band plus flanking bands having envelopes that were either mutually uncorrelated or were comodulated. Comodulation masking release (CMR) was largely independent of signal location at a higher masker sound level, but at a lower level CMR was reduced for the lateral signal location. In Experiment 2, a brief signal was positioned at the envelope maximum (peak) or minimum (dip) of a 50-Hz-wide on-signal masker. Masking was released in dip more than in peak conditions only for the 90° signal. Overall, open-field SRM was greater in magnitude than binaural masking release reported in comparable closed-field studies, and envelope-related release was somewhat weaker. Mutual enhancement of masking release by spatial and envelope-related effects tended to increase with increasing masker level.

No Perceptual Reorganization for Limburgian Tones? A Cross-Linguistic Investigation with 6- to 12-Month-Old Infants

Science.gov (United States)

Ramachers, Stefanie; Brouwer, Susanne; Fikkert, Paula

2018-01-01

Despite the fact that many of the world's languages use lexical tone, the majority of language acquisition studies has focused on non-tone languages. Research on tone languages has typically investigated wellknown tone languages such as Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese. The current study looked at a Limburgian dialect of Dutch that uses lexical…

Lexical Tones in Mandarin Chinese Infant-Directed Speech: Age-Related Changes in the Second Year of Life

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Mengru Han

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Tonal information is essential to early word learning in tone languages. Although numerous studies have investigated the intonational and segmental properties of infant-directed speech (IDS, only a few studies have explored the properties of lexical tones in IDS. These studies mostly focused on the first year of life; thus little is known about how lexical tones in IDS change as children’s vocabulary acquisition accelerates in the second year (Goldfield and Reznick, 1990; Bloom, 2001. The present study examines whether Mandarin Chinese mothers hyperarticulate lexical tones in IDS addressing 18- and 24-month-old children—at which age children are learning words at a rapid speed—vs. adult-directed speech (ADS. Thirty-nine Mandarin Chinese–speaking mothers were tested in a semi-spontaneous picture-book-reading task, in which they told the same story to their child (IDS condition and to an adult (ADS condition. Results for the F0 measurements (minimum F0, maximum F0, and F0 range of tone in the speech data revealed a continuum of differences among IDS addressing 18-month-olds, IDS addressing 24-month-olds, and ADS. Lexical tones in IDS addressing 18-month-old children had a higher minimum F0, higher maximum F0, and larger pitch range than lexical tones in ADS. Lexical tones in IDS addressing 24-month-old children showed more similarity to ADS tones with respect to pitch height: there were no differences in minimum F0 and maximum F0 between ADS and IDS. However, F0 range was still larger. These results suggest that lexical tones are generally hyperarticulated in Mandarin Chinese IDS addressing 18- and 24- month-old children despite the change in pitch level over time. Mandarin Chinese mothers hyperarticulate lexical tones in IDS when talking to toddlers and potentially facilitate tone acquisition and word learning.

Effect of harmonic rank on the streaming of complex tones

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Madsen, Sara Miay Kim; Dau, Torsten; Moore, Brian C.J.

2015-01-01

The effect of the rank of the harmonics on sequential stream segregation of complex tones was investigated for normal-hearing participants with no musical training. It was hypothesized that stream segregation would be greater for tones with high pitch salience, as assessed by fundamental frequency....... There was a significant trend for less stream segregation with increasing harmonic rank. The amount of stream segregation was inversely correlated with the f0 difference limens, consistent with the hypothesis....

Advances in dual-tone development for pitch frequency doubling