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Nagels L, Gaudrain E, Vickers D, Hendriks P, Başkent D. Prelingually Deaf Children With Cochlear Implants Show Better Perception of Voice Cues and Speech in Competing Speech Than Postlingually Deaf Adults With Cochlear Implants. Ear Hear 2024; 45:952-968. [PMID: 38616318 PMCID: PMC11175806 DOI: 10.1097/aud.0000000000001489] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/29/2022] [Accepted: 01/10/2024] [Indexed: 04/16/2024]
Abstract
OBJECTIVES Postlingually deaf adults with cochlear implants (CIs) have difficulties with perceiving differences in speakers' voice characteristics and benefit little from voice differences for the perception of speech in competing speech. However, not much is known yet about the perception and use of voice characteristics in prelingually deaf implanted children with CIs. Unlike CI adults, most CI children became deaf during the acquisition of language. Extensive neuroplastic changes during childhood could make CI children better at using the available acoustic cues than CI adults, or the lack of exposure to a normal acoustic speech signal could make it more difficult for them to learn which acoustic cues they should attend to. This study aimed to examine to what degree CI children can perceive voice cues and benefit from voice differences for perceiving speech in competing speech, comparing their abilities to those of normal-hearing (NH) children and CI adults. DESIGN CI children's voice cue discrimination (experiment 1), voice gender categorization (experiment 2), and benefit from target-masker voice differences for perceiving speech in competing speech (experiment 3) were examined in three experiments. The main focus was on the perception of mean fundamental frequency (F0) and vocal-tract length (VTL), the primary acoustic cues related to speakers' anatomy and perceived voice characteristics, such as voice gender. RESULTS CI children's F0 and VTL discrimination thresholds indicated lower sensitivity to differences compared with their NH-age-equivalent peers, but their mean discrimination thresholds of 5.92 semitones (st) for F0 and 4.10 st for VTL indicated higher sensitivity than postlingually deaf CI adults with mean thresholds of 9.19 st for F0 and 7.19 st for VTL. Furthermore, CI children's perceptual weighting of F0 and VTL cues for voice gender categorization closely resembled that of their NH-age-equivalent peers, in contrast with CI adults. Finally, CI children had more difficulties in perceiving speech in competing speech than their NH-age-equivalent peers, but they performed better than CI adults. Unlike CI adults, CI children showed a benefit from target-masker voice differences in F0 and VTL, similar to NH children. CONCLUSION Although CI children's F0 and VTL voice discrimination scores were overall lower than those of NH children, their weighting of F0 and VTL cues for voice gender categorization and their benefit from target-masker differences in F0 and VTL resembled that of NH children. Together, these results suggest that prelingually deaf implanted CI children can effectively utilize spectrotemporally degraded F0 and VTL cues for voice and speech perception, generally outperforming postlingually deaf CI adults in comparable tasks. These findings underscore the presence of F0 and VTL cues in the CI signal to a certain degree and suggest other factors contributing to the perception challenges faced by CI adults.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leanne Nagels
- Center for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
- Research School of Behavioural and Cognitive Neurosciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
| | - Etienne Gaudrain
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
- Research School of Behavioural and Cognitive Neurosciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
- CNRS UMR 5292, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Auditory Cognition and Psychoacoustics, Inserm UMRS 1028, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Université de Lyon, Lyon, France
| | - Deborah Vickers
- Cambridge Hearing Group, Sound Lab, Clinical Neurosciences Department, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Petra Hendriks
- Center for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
- Research School of Behavioural and Cognitive Neurosciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
| | - Deniz Başkent
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
- Research School of Behavioural and Cognitive Neurosciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
- W.J. Kolff Institute for Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
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Calcus A. Development of auditory scene analysis: a mini-review. Front Hum Neurosci 2024; 18:1352247. [PMID: 38532788 PMCID: PMC10963424 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2024.1352247] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/07/2023] [Accepted: 02/22/2024] [Indexed: 03/28/2024] Open
Abstract
Most auditory environments contain multiple sound waves that are mixed before reaching the ears. In such situations, listeners must disentangle individual sounds from the mixture, performing the auditory scene analysis. Analyzing complex auditory scenes relies on listeners ability to segregate acoustic events into different streams, and to selectively attend to the stream of interest. Both segregation and selective attention are known to be challenging for adults with normal hearing, and seem to be even more difficult for children. Here, we review the recent literature on the development of auditory scene analysis, presenting behavioral and neurophysiological results. In short, cognitive and neural mechanisms supporting stream segregation are functional from birth but keep developing until adolescence. Similarly, from 6 months of age, infants can orient their attention toward a target in the presence of distractors. However, selective auditory attention in the presence of interfering streams only reaches maturity in late childhood at the earliest. Methodological limitations are discussed, and a new paradigm is proposed to clarify the relationship between auditory scene analysis and speech perception in noise throughout development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Axelle Calcus
- Center for Research in Cognitive Neuroscience (CRCN), ULB Neuroscience Institute (UNI), Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
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Hisaizumi M, Tantam D. Enhanced sensitivity to pitch perception and its possible relation to language acquisition in autism. AUTISM & DEVELOPMENTAL LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENTS 2024; 9:23969415241248618. [PMID: 38817731 PMCID: PMC11138189 DOI: 10.1177/23969415241248618] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/01/2024]
Abstract
Background and aims Fascinations for or aversions to particular sounds are a familiar feature of autism, as is an ability to reproduce another person's utterances, precisely copying the other person's prosody as well as their words. Such observations seem to indicate not only that autistic people can pay close attention to what they hear, but also that they have the ability to perceive the finer details of auditory stimuli. This is consistent with the previously reported consensus that absolute pitch is more common in autistic individuals than in neurotypicals. We take this to suggest that autistic people have perception that allows them to pay attention to fine details. It is important to establish whether or not this is so as autism is often presented as a deficit rather than a difference. We therefore undertook a narrative literature review of studies of auditory perception, in autistic and nonautistic individuals, focussing on any differences in processing linguistic and nonlinguistic sounds. Main contributions We find persuasive evidence that nonlinguistic auditory perception in autistic children differs from that of nonautistic children. This is supported by the additional finding of a higher prevalence of absolute pitch and enhanced pitch discriminating abilities in autistic children compared to neurotypical children. Such abilities appear to stem from atypical perception, which is biased toward local-level information necessary for processing pitch and other prosodic features. Enhanced pitch discriminating abilities tend to be found in autistic individuals with a history of language delay, suggesting possible reciprocity. Research on various aspects of language development in autism also supports the hypothesis that atypical pitch perception may be accountable for observed differences in language development in autism. Conclusions The results of our review of previously published studies are consistent with the hypothesis that auditory perception, and particularly pitch perception, in autism are different from the norm but not always impaired. Detail-oriented pitch perception may be an advantage given the right environment. We speculate that unusually heightened sensitivity to pitch differences may be at the cost of the normal development of the perception of the sounds that contribute most to early language development. Implications The acquisition of speech and language may be a process that normally involves an enhanced perception of speech sounds at the expense of the processing of nonlinguistic sounds, but autistic children may not give speech sounds this same priority.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Digby Tantam
- Middlesex University, Existential Academy, London, UK
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Flaherty MM, Buss E, Libert K. Effects of Target and Masker Fundamental Frequency Contour Depth on School-Age Children's Speech Recognition in a Two-Talker Masker. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2023; 66:400-414. [PMID: 36580582 DOI: 10.1044/2022_jslhr-22-00207] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE Maturation of the ability to recognize target speech in the presence of a two-talker speech masker extends into early adolescence. This study evaluated whether children benefit from differences in fundamental frequency (f o) contour depth between the target and masker speech, a cue that has been shown to improve recognition in adults. METHOD Speech stimuli were recorded from talkers using three speaking styles, with f o contour depths that were Flat, Normal, or Exaggerated. Targets were open-set, declarative sentences produced by a female talker, and maskers were two streams of concatenated sentences produced by a second female talker. Listeners were children (ages 5-17 years) and adults (ages 18-24 years) with normal hearing. Each listener was tested in one of the three masker styles paired with all three target styles. Speech recognition thresholds (SRTs) corresponding to 50% correct were estimated by fitting psychometric functions to adaptive track data. RESULTS For adults, performance did not differ significantly across conditions with matched speaking styles. A mismatch benefit was observed when combining Flat targets with the Exaggerated masker and Exaggerated targets with the Flat masker, and for both Flat and Exaggerated targets paired with the Normal masker. For children, there was a significant effect of age in all conditions. Flat targets in the Flat masker were associated with lower SRTs than the other two matched conditions, and a mismatch benefit was observed for young children only when the target f o contour was less variable than the masker f o contour. CONCLUSIONS Whereas child-directed speech often has exaggerated pitch contours, young children were better able to recognize speech with less variable f o. Age effects were observed in the benefit of mismatched speaking styles for some conditions, which could be related to differences in baseline SRTs rather than differences in segregation abilities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mary M Flaherty
- Department of Speech and Hearing Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign
| | - Emily Buss
- Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
| | - Kelsey Libert
- Department of Speech and Hearing Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign
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Neurodevelopmental oscillatory basis of speech processing in noise. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2022; 59:101181. [PMID: 36549148 PMCID: PMC9792357 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2022.101181] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/28/2022] [Revised: 10/31/2022] [Accepted: 11/25/2022] [Indexed: 11/27/2022] Open
Abstract
Humans' extraordinary ability to understand speech in noise relies on multiple processes that develop with age. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we characterize the underlying neuromaturational basis by quantifying how cortical oscillations in 144 participants (aged 5-27 years) track phrasal and syllabic structures in connected speech mixed with different types of noise. While the extraction of prosodic cues from clear speech was stable during development, its maintenance in a multi-talker background matured rapidly up to age 9 and was associated with speech comprehension. Furthermore, while the extraction of subtler information provided by syllables matured at age 9, its maintenance in noisy backgrounds progressively matured until adulthood. Altogether, these results highlight distinct behaviorally relevant maturational trajectories for the neuronal signatures of speech perception. In accordance with grain-size proposals, neuromaturational milestones are reached increasingly late for linguistic units of decreasing size, with further delays incurred by noise.
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Calcus A, Schoof T, Rosen S, Shinn-Cunningham B, Souza P. Switching Streams Across Ears to Evaluate Informational Masking of Speech-on-Speech. Ear Hear 2021; 41:208-216. [PMID: 31107365 PMCID: PMC6856419 DOI: 10.1097/aud.0000000000000741] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVES This study aimed to evaluate the informational component of speech-on-speech masking. Speech perception in the presence of a competing talker involves not only informational masking (IM) but also a number of masking processes involving interaction of masker and target energy in the auditory periphery. Such peripherally generated masking can be eliminated by presenting the target and masker in opposite ears (dichotically). However, this also reduces IM by providing listeners with lateralization cues that support spatial release from masking (SRM). In tonal sequences, IM can be isolated by rapidly switching the lateralization of dichotic target and masker streams across the ears, presumably producing ambiguous spatial percepts that interfere with SRM. However, it is not clear whether this technique works with speech materials. DESIGN Speech reception thresholds (SRTs) were measured in 17 young normal-hearing adults for sentences produced by a female talker in the presence of a competing male talker under three different conditions: diotic (target and masker in both ears), dichotic, and dichotic but switching the target and masker streams across the ears. Because switching rate and signal coherence were expected to influence the amount of IM observed, these two factors varied across conditions. When switches occurred, they were either at word boundaries or periodically (every 116 msec) and either with or without a brief gap (84 msec) at every switch point. In addition, SRTs were measured in a quiet condition to rule out audibility as a limiting factor. RESULTS SRTs were poorer for the four switching dichotic conditions than for the nonswitching dichotic condition, but better than for the diotic condition. Periodic switches without gaps resulted in the worst SRTs compared to the other switch conditions, thus maximizing IM. CONCLUSIONS These findings suggest that periodically switching the target and masker streams across the ears (without gaps) was the most efficient in disrupting SRM. Thus, this approach can be used in experiments that seek a relatively pure measure of IM, and could be readily extended to translational research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Axelle Calcus
- UCL Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences, 2 Wakefield Street, London WC1N 1PF, United Kingdom
- Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs, Département d’Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, PSL University, CNRS, 75005 Paris, France
| | - Tim Schoof
- UCL Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences, 2 Wakefield Street, London WC1N 1PF, United Kingdom
| | - Stuart Rosen
- UCL Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences, 2 Wakefield Street, London WC1N 1PF, United Kingdom
| | | | - Pamela Souza
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Knowles Hearing Center, Northwestern University, 2240 Campus Drive, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA
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Brace KM, Sussman ES. The role of attention and explicit knowledge in perceiving bistable auditory input. Psychophysiology 2021; 58:e13875. [PMID: 34110020 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13875] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/03/2020] [Revised: 04/19/2021] [Accepted: 05/14/2021] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
The auditory system frequently encounters ambiguous sound input that can be perceived in multiple ways. The current study investigated the role of explicit knowledge in modulating how sounds are represented in auditory memory for a bistable sound sequence that could be perceived equally as integrated or segregated. We hypothesized that the dominant percept of the bistable sequence would suppress representation of the alternative perceptual organization as a function of how much top-down knowledge the listener had about the structure of the sequence. Performance measures and event-related brain potentials were compared when participants had explicit knowledge about one perceptual organization in the first half of the experiment to when they had explicit knowledge of both in the second half. We hypothesized that knowledge would modify the brain response to the alternative percept of the bistable sequence. However, that did not occur. When participants were performing one task, with no explicit knowledge of the bistable structure of the sequence, both integrated and segregated percepts were represented in auditory working memory. This demonstrates that explicit knowledge about the sounds is not a necessary factor for deriving and maintaining representations of multiple sound organizations within a complex sound environment. Passive attention operates in parallel with active or selective attention to maintain consistent representations of the environment, representations that may or may not be useful for task performance. It suggests a highly adaptive system useful in everyday listening situations where the listener has no prior knowledge about how the sound environment is structured.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kelin M Brace
- Department of Neuroscience, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA
| | - Elyse S Sussman
- Department of Neuroscience, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA.,Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA
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Nagels L, Gaudrain E, Vickers D, Hendriks P, Başkent D. School-age children benefit from voice gender cue differences for the perception of speech in competing speech. THE JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2021; 149:3328. [PMID: 34241121 DOI: 10.1121/10.0004791] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/24/2020] [Accepted: 04/08/2021] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
Differences in speakers' voice characteristics, such as mean fundamental frequency (F0) and vocal-tract length (VTL), that primarily define speakers' so-called perceived voice gender facilitate the perception of speech in competing speech. Perceiving speech in competing speech is particularly challenging for children, which may relate to their lower sensitivity to differences in voice characteristics than adults. This study investigated the development of the benefit from F0 and VTL differences in school-age children (4-12 years) for separating two competing speakers while tasked with comprehending one of them and also the relationship between this benefit and their corresponding voice discrimination thresholds. Children benefited from differences in F0, VTL, or both cues at all ages tested. This benefit proportionally remained the same across age, although overall accuracy continued to differ from that of adults. Additionally, children's benefit from F0 and VTL differences and their overall accuracy were not related to their discrimination thresholds. Hence, although children's voice discrimination thresholds and speech in competing speech perception abilities develop throughout the school-age years, children already show a benefit from voice gender cue differences early on. Factors other than children's discrimination thresholds seem to relate more closely to their developing speech in competing speech perception abilities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leanne Nagels
- Center for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen, Groningen 9712EK, Netherlands
| | - Etienne Gaudrain
- CNRS UMR 5292, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Auditory Cognition and Psychoacoustics, Inserm UMRS 1028, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Université de Lyon, Lyon, France
| | - Deborah Vickers
- Sound Lab, Cambridge Hearing Group, Clinical Neurosciences Department, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 0SZ, United Kingdom
| | - Petra Hendriks
- Center for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen, Groningen 9712EK, Netherlands
| | - Deniz Başkent
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen 9713GZ, Netherlands
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Development of central auditory processes in Polish children and adolescents at the age from 7 to 16 years. CURRENT PSYCHOLOGY 2021. [DOI: 10.1007/s12144-021-01540-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
AbstractThere are discrepancies in the literature regarding the course of central auditory processes (CAP) maturation in typically developing children and adolescents. The purpose of the study was to provide an overview of age – related improvement in CAP in Polish primary and secondary school students aged 7–16 years. 180 children/adolescents, subdivided into 9 age categories, and 20 adults (aged 18–24 years) performed the Dichotic Digit Test (DDT), Duration Pattern Test (DPT), Frequency Pattern Test (FPT), Gap Detection Test (GDT) and adaptive Speech-in-Noise (aSpN). The 12-year-olds was retested after w week. We found the age effects only for the DDT, DPT and FPT. In the right ear DDT the 7-year-olds performed more poorly than all groups ≥12. In the left ear DDT both 7- and 8-year-olds achieved less correct responses compared with the 13-, 14-, 15-year-olds and with the adults. The right ear advantage was greater in the 7-year-olds than in the 15-year-olds and adult group. At the age of 7 there was lower DPT and FPT scores than in all participants ≥13 whereas the 8-year-olds obtained less correct responses in the FPT than all age categories ≥12. Almost all groups (except for the 7-year-olds) performed better in the DPT than FPT. The test-retest reliability for all tests was satisfactory. The study demonstrated that different CAP have their own patterns of improvement with age and some of them are specific for the Polish population. The psychoacoustic battery may be useful in screening for CAP disorders in Poland.
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Oster MM, Werner LA. Infants' use of isolated and combined temporal cues in speech sound segregation. THE JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2020; 148:401. [PMID: 32752747 PMCID: PMC7386947 DOI: 10.1121/10.0001582] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/18/2019] [Revised: 06/14/2020] [Accepted: 06/28/2020] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
This paper investigates infants' and adults' use of envelope cues and combined onset asynchrony and envelope cues in the segregation of concurrent vowels. Listeners heard superimposed vowel pairs consisting of two different vowels spoken by a male and a female talker and were trained to respond to one specific target vowel, either the male /u:/ or male /i:/. Vowel detection was measured in three conditions. In the baseline condition the two superimposed vowels had similar amplitude envelopes and synchronous onset. In the envelope cue condition, the amplitude envelopes of the two vowels differed. In the combined cue condition, both the onset time and amplitude envelopes of the two vowels differed. Seven-month-old infants' concurrent vowel segregation improved both with envelope and with combined onset asynchrony and envelope cues to the same extent as adults'. A preliminary investigation with 3-month-old infants suggested that neither envelope cues nor combined asynchrony and envelope cues improved their ability to detect the target vowel. Taken together, these results suggest that envelope and combined onset-asynchrony cues are available to infants as they attempt to process competing speech sounds, at least after 7 months of age.
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Affiliation(s)
- Monika-Maria Oster
- Listen and Talk, 8610 8th Avenue Northeast, Seattle, Washington 98115, USA
| | - Lynne A Werner
- Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, 1417 Northeast 42nd Street, Seattle, Washington 98105, USA
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Carlier MEM, Harmony T. Development of auditory sensory memory in preterm infants. Early Hum Dev 2020; 145:105045. [PMID: 32325331 DOI: 10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2020.105045] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/01/2019] [Revised: 04/12/2020] [Accepted: 04/13/2020] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- María Elizabeth Mónica Carlier
- Unidad de Investigación en Neurodesarrollo "Dr. Augusto Fernández Guardiola", Departamento de Neurobiología Conductual y Cognitiva del Instituto de Neurobiología de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México UNAM, Campus Querétaro, Mexico
| | - Thalía Harmony
- Unidad de Investigación en Neurodesarrollo "Dr. Augusto Fernández Guardiola", Departamento de Neurobiología Conductual y Cognitiva del Instituto de Neurobiología de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México UNAM, Campus Querétaro, Mexico.
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Flaherty MM, Buss E, Leibold LJ. Developmental Effects in Children's Ability to Benefit From F0 Differences Between Target and Masker Speech. Ear Hear 2020; 40:927-937. [PMID: 30334835 PMCID: PMC6467703 DOI: 10.1097/aud.0000000000000673] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVES The objectives of this study were to (1) evaluate the extent to which school-age children benefit from fundamental frequency (F0) differences between target words and competing two-talker speech, and (2) assess whether this benefit changes with age. It was predicted that while children would be more susceptible to speech-in-speech masking compared to adults, they would benefit from differences in F0 between target and masker speech. A second experiment was conducted to evaluate the relationship between frequency discrimination thresholds and the ability to benefit from target/masker differences in F0. DESIGN Listeners were children (5 to 15 years) and adults (20 to 36 years) with normal hearing. In the first experiment, speech reception thresholds (SRTs) for disyllabic words were measured in a continuous, 60-dB SPL two-talker speech masker. The same male talker produced both the target and masker speech (average F0 = 120 Hz). The level of the target words was adaptively varied to estimate the level associated with 71% correct identification. The procedure was a four-alternative forced-choice with a picture-pointing response. Target words either had the same mean F0 as the masker or it was shifted up by 3, 6, or 9 semitones. To determine the benefit of target/masker F0 separation on word recognition, masking release was computed by subtracting thresholds in each shifted-F0 condition from the threshold in the unshifted-F0 condition. In the second experiment, frequency discrimination thresholds were collected for a subset of listeners to determine whether sensitivity to F0 differences would be predictive of SRTs. The standard was the syllable /ba/ with an F0 of 250 Hz; the target stimuli had a higher F0. Discrimination thresholds were measured using a three-alternative, three-interval forced choice procedure. RESULTS Younger children (5 to 12 years) had significantly poorer SRTs than older children (13 to 15 years) and adults in the unshifted-F0 condition. The benefit of F0 separations generally increased with increasing child age and magnitude of target/masker F0 separation. For 5- to 7-year-olds, there was a small benefit of F0 separation in the 9-semitone condition only. For 8- to 12-year-olds, there was a benefit from both 6- and 9-semitone separations, but to a lesser degree than what was observed for older children (13 to 15 years) and adults, who showed a substantial benefit in the 6- and 9-semitone conditions. Examination of individual data found that children younger than 7 years of age did not benefit from any of the F0 separations tested. Results for the frequency discrimination task indicated that, while there was a trend for improved thresholds with increasing age, these thresholds were not predictive of the ability to use F0 differences in the speech-in-speech recognition task after controlling for age. CONCLUSIONS The overall pattern of results suggests that children's ability to benefit from F0 differences in speech-in-speech recognition follows a prolonged developmental trajectory. Younger children are less able to capitalize on differences in F0 between target and masker speech. The extent to which individual children benefitted from target/masker F0 differences was not associated with their frequency discrimination thresholds.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mary M. Flaherty
- Center for Hearing Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, Nebraska, USA
| | - Emily Buss
- Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
| | - Lori J. Leibold
- Center for Hearing Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, Nebraska, USA
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Children’s suffix effects for verbal working memory reflect phonological coding and perceptual grouping. J Exp Child Psychol 2019; 183:276-294. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2019.03.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/11/2018] [Revised: 03/07/2019] [Accepted: 03/08/2019] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
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Murphy CFB, Hashim E, Dillon H, Bamiou DE. British children's performance on the listening in spatialised noise-sentences test (LISN-S). Int J Audiol 2019; 58:754-760. [PMID: 31195858 DOI: 10.1080/14992027.2019.1627592] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
Abstract
Objective: To investigate whether British children's performance is equivalent to North American norms on the listening in spatialised noise-sentences test (LiSN-S). Design: Prospective study comparing the performance of a single British group of children to North-American norms on the LiSN-S (North American version). Study sample: The British group was composed of 46 typically developing children, aged 6-11 years 11 months, from a mainstream primary school in London. Results: No significant difference was observed between the British's group performance and the North-American norms for Low-cue, High-cue, Spatial Advantage and Total Advantage measure. The British group presented a significantly lower performance only for Talker Advantage measure (z-score: 0.35, 95% confidence interval -0.12 to -0.59). Age was significantly correlated with all unstandardised measures. Conclusion: Our results indicate that, when assessing British children, it would be appropriate to add a corrective factor of 0.35 to the z-score value obtained for the Talker Advantage in order to compare it to the North-American norms. This strategy would enable the use of LiSN-S in the UK to assess auditory stream segregation based on spatial cues.
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Affiliation(s)
- C F B Murphy
- The Ear Institute, University College London , London , UK
| | - E Hashim
- The Ear Institute, University College London , London , UK
| | - H Dillon
- Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University , Sydney , Australia.,Manchester Centre for Audiology and Deafness, University of Manchester , Manchester , UK.,National Acoustic Laboratories (NAL), Macquarie University , Macquarie Park , Australia
| | - D E Bamiou
- The Ear Institute, University College London , London , UK.,University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre, National Institute for Health Research , London , UK
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15
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Taranu M, Wimmer MC, Ross J, Farkas D, van Ee R, Winkler I, Denham SL. Children's perception of visual and auditory ambiguity and its link to executive functions and creativity. J Exp Child Psychol 2019; 184:123-138. [PMID: 31029832 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2019.03.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/03/2018] [Revised: 03/25/2019] [Accepted: 03/26/2019] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
Abstract
The phenomenon of perceptual bistability provides insights into aspects of perceptual processing not normally accessible to everyday experience. However, most experiments have been conducted in adults, and it is not clear to what extent key aspects of perceptual switching change through development. The current research examined the ability of 6-, 8-, and 10-year-old children (N = 66) to switch between competing percepts of ambiguous visual and auditory stimuli and links between switching rate, executive functions, and creativity. The numbers of switches participants reported in two visual tasks (ambiguous figure and ambiguous structure from motion) and two auditory tasks (verbal transformation and auditory streaming) were measured in three 60-s blocks. In addition, inhibitory control was measured with a Stroop task, set shifting was measured with a verbal fluency task, and creativity was measured with a divergent thinking task. The numbers of perceptual switches increased in all four tasks from 6 to 10 years of age but differed across tasks in that they were higher in the verbal transformation and ambigous structure-from-motion tasks than in the ambigous figure and auditory streaming tasks for all age groups. Although perceptual switching rates differed across tasks, there were predictive relationships between switching rates in some tasks. However, little evidence for the influence of central processes on perceptual switching was found. Overall, the results support the notion that perceptual switching is largely modality and task specific and that this property is already evident when perceptual switching emerges.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mihaela Taranu
- Cognition Institute and School of Psychology, University of Plymouth, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK
| | - Marina C Wimmer
- Cognition Institute and School of Psychology, University of Plymouth, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK.
| | - Josephine Ross
- Psychology, School of Social Sciences, University of Dundee, Nethergate, Dundee DD1 4HN, Scotland, UK
| | - Dávid Farkas
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Centre of Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, H-1117 Budapest, Hungary
| | - Raymond van Ee
- Biophysics, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, Radboud University, 6500 GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Department of Brain and Cognition, Leuven University, 3000 BE Leuven, Belgium; Department of Brain, Behavior and Cognition, Philips Research, High Tech Campus, 5656 AE Eindhoven, The Netherlands
| | - István Winkler
- Department of Cognitive Science, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, H-1111 Budapest, Hungary
| | - Susan L Denham
- Cognition Institute and School of Psychology, University of Plymouth, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK
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16
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Oster MM, Werner LA. Infants use onset asynchrony cues in auditory scene analysis. THE JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2018; 144:2052. [PMID: 30404496 PMCID: PMC6181648 DOI: 10.1121/1.5058397] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/23/2018] [Revised: 09/01/2018] [Accepted: 09/17/2018] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
This experiment investigated the effect of onset asynchrony on the segregation of concurrent vowels in infants and adults. Two vowels, randomly chosen from seven American-English vowels, were superimposed. Each vowel pair contained one vowel by a male and one by a female talker. A train of such vowel pairs was presented to listeners, who were trained to respond to the male target vowel /i:/ or /u:/. The ability to identify the target vowel was compared among three conditions: synchronous onset, 100-, and 200-ms onset asynchrony. Experiment 1 measured performance, in d', in 7-month-old infants and adults. Infants and adults performed better with asynchronous than synchronous vowel onset, regardless of asynchrony duration. Experiment 2 compared the proportion of 3-month-old infants achieving an 80% correct criterion with and without onset asynchrony. Significantly more infants reached criterion with asynchronous than with synchronous vowel onset. Asynchrony duration did not influence performance. These experiments show that infants, as young as 3 months old, benefit from onset asynchrony.
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Affiliation(s)
- Monika-Maria Oster
- Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, 1417 Northeast 42nd Street, Seattle, Washington 98105, USA
| | - Lynne A Werner
- Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, 1417 Northeast 42nd Street, Seattle, Washington 98105, USA
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17
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Porter HL, Spitzer ER, Buss E, Leibold LJ, Grose JH. Forward and Backward Masking of Consonants in School-Age Children and Adults. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2018; 61:1807-1814. [PMID: 29971342 PMCID: PMC6195056 DOI: 10.1044/2018_jslhr-h-17-0403] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/28/2017] [Revised: 01/11/2018] [Accepted: 03/20/2018] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE This experiment sought to determine whether children's increased susceptibility to nonsimultaneous masking, particularly backward masking, is evident for speech stimuli. METHOD Five- to 9-year-olds and adults with normal hearing heard nonsense consonant-vowel-consonant targets. In Experiments 1 and 2, those targets were presented between two 250-ms segments of 70-dB-SPL speech-shaped noise, at either -30 dB signal-to-noise ratio (Experiment 1) or at the listener's word recognition threshold (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, the target was presented in steady speech-shaped noise at listener threshold. For all experiments, percent correct was estimated for initial and final consonants. RESULTS In the nonsimultaneous noise conditions, child-adult differences were larger for the final consonant than the initial consonant whether listeners were tested at -30 dB signal-to-noise ratio (Experiment 1) or at their individual word recognition threshold (Experiment 2). Children were not particularly susceptible to backward masking relative to adults when tested in a steady masker (Experiment 3). CONCLUSIONS Child-adult differences were greater for backward than forward masking for speech in a nonsimultaneous noise masker, as observed in previous psychophysical studies using tonal stimuli. Children's greater susceptibility to nonsimultaneous masking, and backward masking in particular, could play a role in their limited ability to benefit from masker envelope modulation when recognizing masked speech.
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Affiliation(s)
- Heather L. Porter
- Center for Hearing Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, NE
| | - Emily R. Spitzer
- Department of Allied Health Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
| | - Emily Buss
- Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
| | - Lori J. Leibold
- Center for Hearing Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, NE
| | - John H. Grose
- Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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18
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Buss E, Leibold LJ, Porter HL, Grose JH. Speech recognition in one- and two-talker maskers in school-age children and adults: Development of perceptual masking and glimpsing. THE JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2017; 141:2650. [PMID: 28464682 PMCID: PMC5391283 DOI: 10.1121/1.4979936] [Citation(s) in RCA: 47] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/14/2023]
Abstract
Children perform more poorly than adults on a wide range of masked speech perception paradigms, but this effect is particularly pronounced when the masker itself is also composed of speech. The present study evaluated two factors that might contribute to this effect: the ability to perceptually isolate the target from masker speech, and the ability to recognize target speech based on sparse cues (glimpsing). Speech reception thresholds (SRTs) were estimated for closed-set, disyllabic word recognition in children (5-16 years) and adults in a one- or two-talker masker. Speech maskers were 60 dB sound pressure level (SPL), and they were either presented alone or in combination with a 50-dB-SPL speech-shaped noise masker. There was an age effect overall, but performance was adult-like at a younger age for the one-talker than the two-talker masker. Noise tended to elevate SRTs, particularly for older children and adults, and when summed with the one-talker masker. Removing time-frequency epochs associated with a poor target-to-masker ratio markedly improved SRTs, with larger effects for younger listeners; the age effect was not eliminated, however. Results were interpreted as indicating that development of speech-in-speech recognition is likely impacted by development of both perceptual masking and the ability recognize speech based on sparse cues.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emily Buss
- Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA
| | - Lori J Leibold
- Center for Hearing Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, Nebraska 68131, USA
| | - Heather L Porter
- Hearing and Speech Department, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90027, USA
| | - John H Grose
- Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA
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19
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Bouvet L, Mottron L, Valdois S, Donnadieu S. Auditory Stream Segregation in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Benefits and Downsides of Superior Perceptual Processes. J Autism Dev Disord 2016; 46:1553-61. [PMID: 24281422 DOI: 10.1007/s10803-013-2003-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Auditory stream segregation allows us to organize our sound environment, by focusing on specific information and ignoring what is unimportant. One previous study reported difficulty in stream segregation ability in children with Asperger syndrome. In order to investigate this question further, we used an interleaved melody recognition task with children in the autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In this task, a probe melody is followed by a mixed sequence, made up of a target melody interleaved with a distractor melody. These two melodies have either the same [0 semitone (ST)] or a different mean frequency (6, 12 or 24 ST separation conditions). Children have to identify if the probe melody is present in the mixed sequence. Children with ASD performed better than typical children when melodies were completely embedded. Conversely, they were impaired in the ST separation conditions. Our results confirm the difficulty of children with ASD in using a frequency cue to organize auditory perceptual information. However, superior performance in the completely embedded condition may result from superior perceptual processes in autism. We propose that this atypical pattern of results might reflect the expression of a single cognitive feature in autism.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lucie Bouvet
- Laboratoire de Neurosciences Fonctionnelles et Pathologiques, Département de psychologie, Université Lille 3, BP 60 149, 59653, Villeneuve d'Ascq Cedex, France. .,Laboratoire de Psychologie et Neurocognition (UMR CNRS 5105), Grenoble, France.
| | - Laurent Mottron
- Clinique spécialisée de l'autisme, Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies, CETEDUM, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada
| | - Sylviane Valdois
- Laboratoire de Psychologie et Neurocognition (UMR CNRS 5105), Grenoble, France.,Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, France
| | - Sophie Donnadieu
- Laboratoire de Psychologie et Neurocognition (UMR CNRS 5105), Grenoble, France.,Université de Savoie, Chambéry, France
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20
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Max C, Widmann A, Schröger E, Sussman E. Effects of explicit knowledge and predictability on auditory distraction and target performance. Int J Psychophysiol 2015; 98:174-81. [PMID: 26386396 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2015.09.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/01/2015] [Revised: 08/28/2015] [Accepted: 09/14/2015] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
This study tested effects of task requirements and knowledge on auditory distraction effects. This was done by comparing the response to a pitch change (an irrelevant, distracting tone feature) that occurred predictably in a tone sequence (every 5th tone) under different task conditions. The same regular sound sequence was presented with task conditions varying in what information the participant was given about the predictability of the pitch change, and when this information was relevant for the task to be performed. In all conditions, participants performed a tone duration judgment task. Behavioral and event-related brain potential (ERP) measures were obtained to measure distraction effects and deviance detection. Predictable deviants produced behavioral distraction effects in all conditions. However, the P3a amplitude evoked by the predictable pitch change was largest when participants were uninformed about the regular structure of the sound sequence, showing an effect of knowledge on involuntary orienting of attention. In contrast, the mismatch negativity (MMN) component was only modulated when the regularity was relevant for the task and not by stimulus predictability itself. P3a and behavioral indices of distraction were not fully concordant. Overall, our results show differential effects of knowledge and predictability on auditory distraction effects indexed by neurophysiological (P3a) and behavioral measures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Caroline Max
- Institute for Psychology, University of Leipzig, Neumarkt 9-19, 04109 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Andreas Widmann
- Institute for Psychology, University of Leipzig, Neumarkt 9-19, 04109 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Erich Schröger
- Institute for Psychology, University of Leipzig, Neumarkt 9-19, 04109 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Elyse Sussman
- Department of Neuroscience, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 1300 Morris Park Avenue, Bronx, New York 10461, USA; Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 1300 Morris Park Avenue, Bronx, New York 10461, USA.
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21
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Gutschalk A, Rupp A, Dykstra AR. Interaction of streaming and attention in human auditory cortex. PLoS One 2015; 10:e0118962. [PMID: 25785997 PMCID: PMC4364770 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0118962] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/28/2014] [Accepted: 01/08/2015] [Indexed: 12/03/2022] Open
Abstract
Serially presented tones are sometimes segregated into two perceptually distinct streams. An ongoing debate is whether this basic streaming phenomenon reflects automatic processes or requires attention focused to the stimuli. Here, we examined the influence of focused attention on streaming-related activity in human auditory cortex using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Listeners were presented with a dichotic paradigm in which left-ear stimuli consisted of canonical streaming stimuli (ABA_ or ABAA) and right-ear stimuli consisted of a classical oddball paradigm. In phase one, listeners were instructed to attend the right-ear oddball sequence and detect rare deviants. In phase two, they were instructed to attend the left ear streaming stimulus and report whether they heard one or two streams. The frequency difference (ΔF) of the sequences was set such that the smallest and largest ΔF conditions generally induced one- and two-stream percepts, respectively. Two intermediate ΔF conditions were chosen to elicit bistable percepts (i.e., either one or two streams). Attention enhanced the peak-to-peak amplitude of the P1-N1 complex, but only for ambiguous ΔF conditions, consistent with the notion that automatic mechanisms for streaming tightly interact with attention and that the latter is of particular importance for ambiguous sound sequences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexander Gutschalk
- Department of Neurology, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
- * E-mail:
| | - André Rupp
- Department of Neurology, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
| | - Andrew R. Dykstra
- Department of Neurology, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
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22
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Christison-Lagay KL, Gifford AM, Cohen YE. Neural correlates of auditory scene analysis and perception. Int J Psychophysiol 2015; 95:238-245. [PMID: 24681354 PMCID: PMC4176604 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2014.03.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/09/2013] [Revised: 01/13/2014] [Accepted: 03/14/2014] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
The auditory system is designed to transform acoustic information from low-level sensory representations into perceptual representations. These perceptual representations are the computational result of the auditory system's ability to group and segregate spectral, spatial and temporal regularities in the acoustic environment into stable perceptual units (i.e., sounds or auditory objects). Current evidence suggests that the cortex-specifically, the ventral auditory pathway-is responsible for the computations most closely related to perceptual representations. Here, we discuss how the transformations along the ventral auditory pathway relate to auditory percepts, with special attention paid to the processing of vocalizations and categorization, and explore recent models of how these areas may carry out these computations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kate L. Christison-Lagay
- Neuroscience Graduate Group, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 19104
| | - Adam M. Gifford
- Neuroscience Graduate Group, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 19104
| | - Yale E. Cohen
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 19104
- Neuroscience, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 19104
- Department of Bioengineering University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 19104
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23
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Sussman E, Steinschneider M, Lee W, Lawson K. Auditory scene analysis in school-aged children with developmental language disorders. Int J Psychophysiol 2015; 95:113-24. [PMID: 24548430 PMCID: PMC4134435 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2014.02.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2013] [Revised: 02/05/2014] [Accepted: 02/08/2014] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Natural sound environments are dynamic, with overlapping acoustic input originating from simultaneously active sources. A key function of the auditory system is to integrate sensory inputs that belong together and segregate those that come from different sources. We hypothesized that this skill is impaired in individuals with phonological processing difficulties. There is considerable disagreement about whether phonological impairments observed in children with developmental language disorders can be attributed to specific linguistic deficits or to more general acoustic processing deficits. However, most tests of general auditory abilities have been conducted with a single set of sounds. We assessed the ability of school-aged children (7-15 years) to parse complex auditory non-speech input, and determined whether the presence of phonological processing impairments was associated with stream perception performance. A key finding was that children with language impairments did not show the same developmental trajectory for stream perception as typically developing children. In addition, children with language impairments required larger frequency separations between sounds to hear distinct streams compared to age-matched peers. Furthermore, phonological processing ability was a significant predictor of stream perception measures, but only in the older age groups. No such association was found in the youngest children. These results indicate that children with language impairments have difficulty parsing speech streams, or identifying individual sound events when there are competing sound sources. We conclude that language group differences may in part reflect fundamental maturational disparities in the analysis of complex auditory scenes.
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Affiliation(s)
- E Sussman
- Department of Neuroscience, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA; Department of Otorhinolaryngology-HNS, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA.
| | - M Steinschneider
- Department of Neuroscience, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA; Department of Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA
| | - W Lee
- Department of Neuroscience, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA
| | - K Lawson
- Department of Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA
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24
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Abstract
Auditory development involves changes in the peripheral and central nervous system along the auditory pathways, and these occur naturally, and in response to stimulation. Human development occurs along a trajectory that can last decades, and is studied using behavioral psychophysics, as well as physiologic measurements with neural imaging. The auditory system constructs a perceptual space that takes information from objects and groups, segregates sounds, and provides meaning and access to communication tools such as language. Auditory signals are processed in a series of analysis stages, from peripheral to central. Coding of information has been studied for features of sound, including frequency, intensity, loudness, and location, in quiet and in the presence of maskers. In the latter case, the ability of the auditory system to perform an analysis of the scene becomes highly relevant. While some basic abilities are well developed at birth, there is a clear prolonged maturation of auditory development well into the teenage years. Maturation involves auditory pathways. However, non-auditory changes (attention, memory, cognition) play an important role in auditory development. The ability of the auditory system to adapt in response to novel stimuli is a key feature of development throughout the nervous system, known as neural plasticity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ruth Litovsky
- Binaural Hearing and Speech Laboratory, Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.
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25
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Yuen KCP, Yuan M. Development of spatial release from masking in mandarin-speaking children with normal hearing. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2014; 57:2005-23. [PMID: 24950448 DOI: 10.1044/2014_jslhr-h-13-0060] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/13/2013] [Accepted: 05/24/2014] [Indexed: 05/22/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE This study investigated the development of spatial release from masking in children using closed-set Mandarin disyllabic words and monosyllabic words carrying lexical tones as test stimuli and speech spectrum-weighted noise as a masker. METHOD Twenty-six children ages 4-9 years and 12 adults, all with normal hearing, participated in speech recognition tests under 2 conditions: (a) speech and noise spatially mixed and presented from the front (NF), and (b) speech presented from the front with noise spatially separated and presented from the side (NS) with different signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). Performance-SNR psychometric functions were obtained that generated the SNR for a 50% correct score (SNR-50%) as the outcome measure. RESULTS In the child participants, SNR-50% improved with age in NS but not NF. The difference in SNR-50% between NS and NF-the spatial release from masking (SRM)-increased with age with an average improvement of 0.1-0.15 dB per month. CONCLUSIONS SRM has a long developmental time, at least up to 9 years of age, which is significantly longer than some previous developmental studies have suggested. The child participants had not yet reached the adult SRM performance level. SRM is a potential clinical measure to reflect the maturation of spatial auditory processing.
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26
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Effects of task-switching on neural representations of ambiguous sound input. Neuropsychologia 2014; 64:218-29. [PMID: 25281308 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.09.039] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/18/2014] [Revised: 09/13/2014] [Accepted: 09/22/2014] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
Abstract
The ability to perceive discrete sound streams in the presence of competing sound sources relies on multiple mechanisms that organize the mixture of the auditory input entering the ears. Many studies have focused on mechanisms that contribute to integrating sounds that belong together into one perceptual stream (integration) and segregating those that come from different sound sources (segregation). However, little is known about mechanisms that allow us to perceive individual sound sources within a dynamically changing auditory scene, when the input may be ambiguous, and heard as either integrated or segregated. This study tested the question of whether focusing on one of two possible sound organizations suppressed representation of the alternative organization. We presented listeners with ambiguous input and cued them to switch between tasks that used either the integrated or the segregated percept. Electrophysiological measures indicated which organization was currently maintained in memory. If mutual exclusivity at the neural level was the rule, attention to one of two possible organizations would preclude neural representation of the other. However, significant MMNs were elicited to both the target organization and the unattended, alternative organization, along with the target-related P3b component elicited only to the designated target organization. Results thus indicate that both organizations (integrated and segregated) were simultaneously maintained in memory regardless of which task was performed. Focusing attention to one aspect of the sounds did not abolish the alternative, unattended organization when the stimulus input was ambiguous. In noisy environments, such as walking on a city street, rapid and flexible adaptive processes are needed to help facilitate rapid switching to different sound sources in the environment. Having multiple representations available to the attentive system would allow for such flexibility, needed in everyday situations to maintain stable auditory percepts, and to allow rapid scanning of interesting events in a busy environment.
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27
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An objective measure of auditory stream segregation based on molecular psychophysics. Atten Percept Psychophys 2014; 76:829-51. [DOI: 10.3758/s13414-013-0613-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
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28
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Gutschalk A, Dykstra AR. Functional imaging of auditory scene analysis. Hear Res 2013; 307:98-110. [PMID: 23968821 DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2013.08.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 37] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/21/2013] [Revised: 07/26/2013] [Accepted: 08/08/2013] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Our auditory system is constantly faced with the task of decomposing the complex mixture of sound arriving at the ears into perceptually independent streams constituting accurate representations of individual sound sources. This decomposition, termed auditory scene analysis, is critical for both survival and communication, and is thought to underlie both speech and music perception. The neural underpinnings of auditory scene analysis have been studied utilizing invasive experiments with animal models as well as non-invasive (MEG, EEG, and fMRI) and invasive (intracranial EEG) studies conducted with human listeners. The present article reviews human neurophysiological research investigating the neural basis of auditory scene analysis, with emphasis on two classical paradigms termed streaming and informational masking. Other paradigms - such as the continuity illusion, mistuned harmonics, and multi-speaker environments - are briefly addressed thereafter. We conclude by discussing the emerging evidence for the role of auditory cortex in remapping incoming acoustic signals into a perceptual representation of auditory streams, which are then available for selective attention and further conscious processing. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled Human Auditory Neuroimaging.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexander Gutschalk
- Department of Neurology, Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
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29
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Krishnan S, Leech R, Aydelott J, Dick F. School-age children's environmental object identification in natural auditory scenes: Effects of masking and contextual congruence. Hear Res 2013; 300:46-55. [DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2013.03.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/22/2012] [Revised: 02/17/2013] [Accepted: 03/05/2013] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
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Kühnle S, Ludwig A, Meuret S, Küttner C, Witte C, Scholbach J, Fuchs M, Rübsamen R. Development of Auditory Localization Accuracy and Auditory Spatial Discrimination in Children and Adolescents. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2013; 18:48-62. [DOI: 10.1159/000342904] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/15/2012] [Accepted: 08/21/2012] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
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31
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[Influence of auditory object formation by multimodal interaction]. HNO 2012; 61:202-10. [PMID: 23241857 DOI: 10.1007/s00106-012-2524-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/27/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND The task of assigning concurrent sounds to different auditory objects is known to depend on temporal and spectral cues. When tones of high and low frequencies are presented in alternation, they can be perceived as a single (integrated) melody, or as two parallel (segregated) melodic lines, according to the presentation rate and frequency distance between the sounds. At an intermediate distance or stimulation rate, the percept is ambiguous and alternates between segregated and integrated. This work studied whether an ambiguous sound organization could be modulated towards a robust integrated or a segregated percept by the synchronous presentation of visual cues. METHODS Two interleaved sets of sounds, one high frequency and one low frequency set were presented with concurrent visual stimuli, synchronized to either a within-set frequency pattern or to the across-set intensity pattern. Elicitation of the mismatch negativity (MMN) component of event-related brain potentials served as indices for the segregated organization, when no task was performed with the sounds. As a result, MMN was elicited only when the visual pattern promoted the segregation of the sounds. RESULTS By spatial analysis of the distribution of electromagnetic potentials, four separated neuronal sources underlying the obtained MMN response were identified. One pair was located bilaterally in temporal cortical structures and another pair in occipital areas, representing the auditory and visual origin of the MMN response, evoked by inverted triplets as used in this study. Thus, the results demonstrate cross-modal effects of visual information on auditory object perception.
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DePape AMR, Hall GBC, Tillmann B, Trainor LJ. Auditory processing in high-functioning adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder. PLoS One 2012; 7:e44084. [PMID: 22984462 PMCID: PMC3440400 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0044084] [Citation(s) in RCA: 77] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/12/2012] [Accepted: 07/31/2012] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a pervasive developmental disorder including abnormalities in perceptual processing. We measure perception in a battery of tests across speech (filtering, phoneme categorization, multisensory integration) and music (pitch memory, meter categorization, harmonic priming). We found that compared to controls, the ASD group showed poorer filtering, less audio-visual integration, less specialization for native phonemic and metrical categories, and a higher instance of absolute pitch. No group differences were found in harmonic priming. Our results are discussed in a developmental framework where culture-specific knowledge acquired early compared to late in development is most impaired, perhaps because of early-accelerated brain growth in ASD. These results suggest that early auditory remediation is needed for good communication and social functioning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anne-Marie R. DePape
- Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| | - Geoffrey B. C. Hall
- Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
- Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| | - Barbara Tillmann
- Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Auditory Cognition and Psychoacoustics Team, CNRS-UMR 5292, INSERM U1028, Université Lyon 1, Lyon, Rhône-Alpes, France
| | - Laurel J. Trainor
- Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
- Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- * E-mail:
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Leibold LJ. Development of Auditory Scene Analysis and Auditory Attention. HUMAN AUDITORY DEVELOPMENT 2012. [DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4614-1421-6_5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/03/2022]
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Vongpaisal T, Trehub SE, Glenn Schellenberg E, van Lieshout P. Age-related changes in talker recognition with reduced spectral cues. THE JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2012; 131:501-508. [PMID: 22280611 DOI: 10.1121/1.3669978] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/31/2023]
Abstract
Temporal information provided by cochlear implants enables successful speech perception in quiet, but limited spectral information precludes comparable success in voice perception. Talker identification and speech decoding by young hearing children (5-7 yr), older hearing children (10-12 yr), and hearing adults were examined by means of vocoder simulations of cochlear implant processing. In Experiment 1, listeners heard vocoder simulations of sentences from a man, woman, and girl and were required to identify the talker from a closed set. Younger children identified talkers more poorly than older listeners, but all age groups showed similar benefit from increased spectral information. In Experiment 2, children and adults provided verbatim repetition of vocoded sentences from the same talkers. The youngest children had more difficulty than older listeners, but all age groups showed comparable benefit from increasing spectral resolution. At comparable levels of spectral degradation, performance on the open-set task of speech decoding was considerably more accurate than on the closed-set task of talker identification. Hearing children's ability to identify talkers and decode speech from spectrally degraded material sheds light on the difficulty of these domains for child implant users.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tara Vongpaisal
- Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Mississauga, Ontario L5L 1C6, Canada
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Choudhury N, Benasich AA. Maturation of auditory evoked potentials from 6 to 48 months: prediction to 3 and 4 year language and cognitive abilities. Clin Neurophysiol 2011; 122:320-38. [PMID: 20685161 DOI: 10.1016/j.clinph.2010.05.035] [Citation(s) in RCA: 135] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/11/2008] [Revised: 05/26/2010] [Accepted: 05/28/2010] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE To investigate the maturation of long-latency auditory evoked potentials (LLAEP) from 6 to 48 months in infants with a family history of language impairment (FH+) and control infants (FH-). METHODS LLAEPs of seventeen FH+ infants were compared to 28 FH- infants at 6, 9, 12, 16, 24, 36 and 48 months. Participants received a passive oddball paradigm using fast- and slow-rate non-linguistic auditory stimuli and at 36 and 48 months completed a battery of standardized language and cognitive tests. RESULTS Overall, the morphology of LLAEP responses differed for fast- versus slow-rate stimuli. Significant age-related changes in latency and amplitude were observed. Group differences, favoring FH- infants, in the rate of maturation of LLAEPs were found. Responses to fast-rate stimuli predicted language abilities at 36 and 48 months of age. CONCLUSIONS The development of LLAEP in FH+ children is modulated by differences in the rate of maturation as well as variations in temporal processing abilities. SIGNIFICANCE These findings provide evidence for the role of non-linguistic auditory processes in early language development and illustrate the utility of using a perceptual-processing skills model to further our understanding of the precursors of language development and impairment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Naseem Choudhury
- Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 197 University Ave., Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
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Smith NA, Trainor LJ. Auditory Stream Segregation Improves Infants' Selective Attention to Target Tones Amid Distractors. INFANCY 2011; 16:655-668. [PMID: 22039336 DOI: 10.1111/j.1532-7078.2011.00067.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 50] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
The present study examined the role of auditory stream segregation in the selective attention to target tones in infancy. Using a task adapted from Bregman and Rudnicky's (1975) study and implemented in a conditioned head-turn procedure, infant and adult listeners had to discriminate the temporal order of 2200 and 2400 Hz target tones presented alone, preceded and followed by 1460 Hz flanker tones, and presented within a series of 1460 Hz captor tones meant to release the target tones from the effects of the flankers by capturing the flankers into a separate stream. Infants showed the same pattern of discrimination across conditions as adults: discrimination of target tones in the target-alone condition, a decrease in performance when flanker tones were introduced, and a return to target-alone level in the captor condition. These results suggest that infants' perceptual organization of tones is similar to that of adults, and that their ability to selectively attend to target sounds and ignore distractors depends on the structural properties and perceptual organization of the non-target sounds.
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37
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Lepistö T, Kuitunen A, Sussman E, Saalasti S, Jansson-Verkasalo E, Nieminen-von Wendt T, Kujala T. Auditory stream segregation in children with Asperger syndrome. Biol Psychol 2009; 82:301-7. [PMID: 19751798 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2009.09.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 36] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/05/2009] [Revised: 09/07/2009] [Accepted: 09/08/2009] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Abstract
Individuals with Asperger syndrome (AS) often have difficulties in perceiving speech in noisy environments. The present study investigated whether this might be explained by deficient auditory stream segregation ability, that is, by a more basic difficulty in separating simultaneous sound sources from each other. To this end, auditory event-related brain potentials were recorded from a group of school-aged children with AS and a group of age-matched controls using a paradigm specifically developed for studying stream segregation. Differences in the amplitudes of ERP components were found between groups only in the stream segregation conditions and not for simple feature discrimination. The results indicated that children with AS have difficulties in segregating concurrent sound streams, which ultimately may contribute to the difficulties in speech-in-noise perception.
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Affiliation(s)
- T Lepistö
- Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 9, Helsinki FIN-00014, Finland.
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Spencer JP, Blumberg MS, McMurray B, Robinson SR, Samuelson LK, Tomblin JB. Short arms and talking eggs: Why we should no longer abide the nativist-empiricist debate. CHILD DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES 2009; 3:79-87. [PMID: 19784383 PMCID: PMC2750899 DOI: 10.1111/j.1750-8606.2009.00081.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 82] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
The nativist-empiricist debate and the nativist commitment to the idea of core knowledge and endowments that exist without relevant postnatal experience continue to distract attention from the reality of developmental systems. The developmental systems approach embraces the concept of epigenesis, that is, the view that development emerges via cascades of interactions across multiple levels of causation, from genes to environments. This view is rooted in a broader interpretation of experience and an appreciation for the nonobvious nature of development. We illustrate this systems approach with examples from studies of imprinting, spatial cognition, and language development, revealing the inadequacies of the nativist-empiricist debate and the inconvenient truths of development. Developmental scientists should no longer abide the nativist-empiricist debate and nativists' ungrounded focus on origins. Rather, the future lies in grounding our science in contemporary theory and developmental process.
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Affiliation(s)
- John P Spencer
- Department of Psychology University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa 52242
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Repp BH. Rhythmic sensorimotor coordination is resistant but not immune to auditory stream segregation. Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 2009; 62:2306-12. [PMID: 19626575 DOI: 10.1080/17470210903118107] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Abstract
In a recent study of musicians' sensorimotor synchronization with auditory sequences composed either of beat and subdivision tones differing in pitch or of beat tones only, Repp (2009) found that the phase correction response (PCR) to perturbed beats was inhibited by the presence of subdivisions regardless of whether beats and subdivisions formed integrated or segregated perceptual streams. The present study used a different paradigm in which perturbed subdivisions triggered the PCR. At the slower of two sequence tempi, the PCR was equally large in integrated and segregated conditions, but at the faster tempo stream segregation reduced the PCR substantially. This new finding indicates that although the PCR is strongly resistant to auditory stream segregation, it is not totally immune to it.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bruno H Repp
- Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT 06511-6624, USA.
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40
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Leibold LJ, Bonino AY. Release from informational masking in children: effect of multiple signal bursts. THE JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2009; 125:2200-8. [PMID: 19354396 PMCID: PMC2736737 DOI: 10.1121/1.3087435] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/17/2008] [Revised: 02/02/2009] [Accepted: 02/04/2009] [Indexed: 05/25/2023]
Abstract
This study examined the degree to which increasing the number of signal presentations provides children with a release from informational masking. Listeners were younger children (5-7 years), older children (8-10 years), and adults. Detection thresholds were measured for a sequence of repeating 50-ms bursts of a 1000-Hz pure-tone signal embedded in a sequence of 10- and 50-ms bursts of a random-frequency, two-tone masker. Masker bursts were played at an overall level of 60-dB sound pressure level in each interval of a two-interval, forced choice adaptive procedure. Performance was examined for conditions with two, four, five, and six signal bursts. Regardless of the number of signal bursts, thresholds for most children were higher than thresholds for most adults. Despite developmental effects in informational masking, however, masked threshold decreased with additional signal bursts by a similar amount for younger children, older children, and adults. The magnitude of masking release for both groups of children and for adults was inconsistent with absolute energy detection. Instead, increasing the number of signal bursts appears to aid children in the perceptual segregation of the fixed-frequency signal from the random-frequency masker as has been previously reported for adults [Kidd, G., et al. (2003). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 114, 2835-2845].
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Affiliation(s)
- Lori J Leibold
- Department of Allied Health Sciences, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA.
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41
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Sussman E, Steinschneider M. Attention effects on auditory scene analysis in children. Neuropsychologia 2009; 47:771-85. [PMID: 19124031 PMCID: PMC2643319 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2008.12.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 39] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/18/2008] [Revised: 11/24/2008] [Accepted: 12/03/2008] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
Auditory scene analysis begins in infancy, making it possible for the baby to distinguish its mother's voice from other noises in the environment. Despite the importance of this process for human behavior, the question of how perceptual sound organization develops during childhood is not well understood. The current study investigated the role of attention for perceiving sound streams in a group of school-aged children and young adults. We behaviorally determined the frequency separation at which a set of sounds was detected as one integrated or two separated streams and compared these measures with passively and actively obtained electrophysiological indices (mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3b) of the same sounds. In adults, there was a high degree of concordance between passive and active electrophysiological indices of stream segregation that matched with perception. In contrast, there was a large disparity in children. Active electrophysiological indices of streaming were concordant with behavioral measures of perception, whereas passive indices were not. In addition, children required larger frequency separations to perceive two streams compared to adults. Our results suggest that differences in stream segregation between children and adults reflect an under-development of basic auditory processing mechanisms, and indicate a developmental role of attention for shaping physiological responses that optimize processes engaged during passive audition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elyse Sussman
- Department of Neuroscience, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 1410 Pelham Parkway S, Bronx, NY 10461, USA.
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42
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Repp BH. Segregated in perception, integrated for action: immunity of rhythmic sensorimotor coordination to auditory stream segregation. Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 2008; 62:426-34. [PMID: 19037831 DOI: 10.1080/17470210802479105] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
Auditory stream segregation can occur when tones of different pitch (A, B) are repeated cyclically: The larger the pitch separation and the faster the tempo, the more likely perception of two separate streams is to occur. The present study assessed stream segregation in perceptual and sensorimotor tasks, using identical ABBABB ... sequences. The perceptual task required detection of single phase-shifted A tones; this was expected to be facilitated by the presence of B tones unless segregation occurred. The sensorimotor task required tapping in synchrony with the A tones; here the phase correction response (PCR) to shifted A tones was expected to be inhibited by B tones unless segregation occurred. Two sequence tempi and three pitch separations (2, 10, and 48 semitones) were used with musically trained participants. Facilitation of perception occurred only at the smallest pitch separation, whereas the PCR was reduced equally at all separations. These results indicate that auditory action control is immune to perceptual stream segregation, at least in musicians. This may help musicians coordinate with diverse instruments in ensemble playing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bruno H Repp
- Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT 06511-6624, USA.
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43
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Dawes P, Bishop DVM. Maturation of visual and auditory temporal processing in school-aged children. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2008; 51:1002-1015. [PMID: 18658067 DOI: 10.1044/1092-4388(2008/073)] [Citation(s) in RCA: 50] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/26/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE To examine development of sensitivity to auditory and visual temporal processes in children and the association with standardized measures of auditory processing and communication. Methods Normative data on tests of visual and auditory processing were collected on 18 adults and 98 children aged 6-10 years of age. Auditory processes included detection of pitch from temporal cues using iterated rippled noise and frequency modulation detection at 2 Hz, 40 Hz, and 240 Hz. Visual processes were coherent form and coherent motion detection. Test-retest data were gathered on 21 children. RESULTS Performance on perceptual tasks improved with age, except for fine temporal processing (iterated rippled noise) and coherent form perception, both of which were relatively stable over the age range. Within-subject variability (as assessed by track width) did not account for age-related change. There was no evidence for a common temporal processing factor, and there were no significant associations between perceptual task performance and communication level (Children's Communication Checklist, 2nd ed.; D. V. M. Bishop, 2003) or speech-based auditory processing (SCAN-C; R. W. Keith, 2000). CONCLUSIONS The auditory tasks had different developmental trajectories despite a common procedure, indicating that age-related change was not solely due to responsiveness to task demands. The 2-Hz frequency modulation detection task, previously used in dyslexia research, and the visual tasks had low reliability compared to other measures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Piers Dawes
- Department of Psychology, University of York, York YO10 5DD, United Kingdom.
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44
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Rahne T, Böckmann M, von Specht H, Sussman ES. Visual cues can modulate integration and segregation of objects in auditory scene analysis. Brain Res 2007; 1144:127-35. [PMID: 17306232 PMCID: PMC1885229 DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2007.01.074] [Citation(s) in RCA: 38] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/05/2006] [Revised: 01/15/2007] [Accepted: 01/24/2007] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
The task of assigning concurrent sounds to different auditory objects is known to depend on temporal and spectral cues. When tones of high and low frequencies are presented in alternation, they can be perceived as a single, integrated melody, or as two parallel, segregated melodic lines, according to the presentation rate and frequency distance between the sounds. At an intermediate distance, in the 'ambiguous' range, both percepts are possible. We conducted an electrophysiological experiment to determine whether an ambiguous sound organization could be modulated toward an integrated or segregated percept by the synchronous presentation of visual cues. Two sets of sounds (one high frequency and one low frequency) were interleaved. To promote integration or segregation, visual stimuli were synchronized to either the within-set frequency pattern or to the across-set intensity pattern. Elicitation of the mismatch negativity (MMN) component of event-related brain potentials was used to index the segregated organization, when no task was performed with the sounds. MMN was elicited only when the visual pattern promoted the segregation of the sounds. The results demonstrate cross-modal effects on auditory object perception in that sound ambiguity was resolved by synchronous presentation of visual stimuli, which promoted either an integrated or segregated perception of the sounds.
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Affiliation(s)
- Torsten Rahne
- Department of Experimental Audiology and Medical Physics, Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, Germany.
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45
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Sussman E, Steinschneider M. Neurophysiological evidence for context-dependent encoding of sensory input in human auditory cortex. Brain Res 2006; 1075:165-74. [PMID: 16460703 PMCID: PMC2846765 DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2005.12.074] [Citation(s) in RCA: 45] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/17/2005] [Revised: 12/08/2005] [Accepted: 12/10/2005] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
Abstract
Attention biases the way in which sound information is stored in auditory memory. Little is known, however, about the contribution of stimulus-driven processes in forming and storing coherent sound events. An electrophysiological index of cortical auditory change detection (mismatch negativity [MMN]) was used to assess whether sensory memory representations could be biased toward one organization over another (one or two auditory streams) without attentional control. Results revealed that sound representations held in sensory memory biased the organization of subsequent auditory input. The results demonstrate that context-dependent sound representations modulate stimulus-dependent neural encoding at early stages of auditory cortical processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elyse Sussman
- Department of Neuroscience, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 1410 Pelham Parkway South, NY 10461, USA.
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