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PubMed2002

The otolithic organ as a receptor of vestibular hearing revealed by vestibular-evoked myogenic potentials in patients with inner ear anomalies.

The human vestibule has preserved an ancestral sound sensitivity and it has been suggested that a reflex could originate from this property underlying cervical muscle micro-contractions secondary to strong acoustic stimulation. Previous studies have established that an early component of loud sound-evoked myogenic potentials from the sternocleidomastoid muscle originate in the vestibule. This is based on findings that the response can still be obtained from patients with complete loss of cochlear and vestibular (semi-circular canal) function. Our data confirm, in a more direct way, a saccular origin of this short-latency acoustic response and verifies that a saccular acoustic response persists in the human ear. The contribution of this response to the perception of loud sounds is discussed. It is concluded that vestibular response to sound might be used to assist in the rehabilitation of deafness.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1986

On the cross-modal perception of intensity.

Are cross-modality matches based on absolute equivalences between the intensities of perceptual experiences in different senses, or are they based on relative positions within the respective sets of stimuli? To help answer this question, we conducted a series of three experiments; in each the levels of stimulus magnitude in one modality stayed constant while the levels in the other changed from session to session. Results obtained by two methods--magnitude matching and cross-modal difference estimation--agreed in revealing the following: First, the cross-modality matches seem to represent in all cases a compromise between absolute equivalence and relative (contextual) comparison, the compromise being about 50-50 for both auditory loudness versus vibratory loudness and auditory loudness versus visual brightness, but more nearly, though not wholly, absolute for perceived auditory duration versus visual duration. Second, individual variations abounded, with some subjects evidencing totally absolute matching, others totally relative matching (with little consistency, however, between tasks or between comparisons of different pairs of modalities). Third, the judgments of cross-modal difference were consistent with a model of linear subtraction, and in the case of loudness, the underlying scale was roughly compatible with Stevens's sone scale. Finally, a model designed to describe sequential dependencies in response can account for at least part of the context-induced changes in cross-modal equivalence.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Human temporal auditory acuity as assessed by envelope following responses.

Temporal auditory acuity, the ability to discriminate rapid changes in the envelope of a sound, is essential for speech comprehension. Human envelope following responses (EFRs) recorded from scalp electrodes were evaluated as an objective measurement of temporal processing in the auditory nervous system. The temporal auditory acuity of older and younger participants was measured behaviorally using both gap and modulation detection tasks. These findings were then related to EFRs evoked by white noise that was amplitude modulated (25% modulation depth) with a sweep of modulation frequencies from 20 to 600 Hz. The frequency at which the EFR was no longer detectable was significantly correlated with behavioral measurements of gap detection (r = -0.43), and with the maximum perceptible modulation frequency (r = 0.72). The EFR techniques investigated here might be developed into a clinically useful objective estimate of temporal auditory acuity for subjects who cannot provide reliable behavioral responses.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2006

The role of overt head movement and attention in persuasion.

This study examined the effect of overt head movement on attitudes toward a product. In a headphones test, participants were required to listen to music and to either nod or shake their heads. Some participants listened to a CD of music; other participants listened to a CD of the same music and a persuasive message about the headphones. Overt head movement affected participants' product choice and price perception when they were presented with the music and a persuasive message. The findings are interpreted to suggest that head movement can be instrumental in participants' product evaluation if the head movement is directed or focused on the attitude object.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

The effects of expansion on the objective and subjective performance of hearing instrument users.

The present study investigated the effects of expansion on the objective and subjective performance of 20 hearing instrument users fitted binaurally with digital ITE products. Objective performance was evaluated in quiet using the Connected Speech Test and in noise using the Hearing in Noise Test. Subjective performance was evaluated in two ways: (a) by having each participant rate their satisfaction regarding the amount of noise reduction they perceived in each expansion condition on a daily basis and (b) by having each participant indicate which expansion condition they preferred following the completion of a two-week trial. Results indicated that expansion significantly reduced low-level speech perception performance; however, satisfaction and preference ratings significantly increased when using expansion. The effect of degree of hearing loss, expansion kneepoint, and expansion ratio on the effectiveness of expansion for a given listener was discussed.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1978

Intensity perception. IX. Effect of a fixed standard on resolution in identification.

This note reports some measurements of the changes in identification performance that result form presenting a fixed standard before each trial. These measurements indicate that the presence of the standard improves performance for test stimuli in the vicinity of the standard, except when the standard is near the extremes of the stimulus range.

Discrimination, Psychological↗
PubMed1987

Perceptual organization of acoustic stimuli by budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus): I. Pure tones.

A new combination of operant conditioning and psychophysical scaling procedures was used to study auditory perception in a small bird. In a same-different discrimination task, budgerigars learned to discriminate among pure tones that varied along one or more acoustic dimensions. Response latencies were used to generate a matrix of interstimulus similarities. Multidimensional scaling procedures were used to arrange these acoustic stimuli in a multidimensional space that supposedly reflects the bird's perceptual organization. For tones that varied in intensity, duration, and frequency simultaneously, budgerigars were much more sensitive to frequency changes. From a set of tones that varied only in intensity, it was possible to calculate the growth of loudness with intensity for the budgerigar. For tones that varied only in frequency, budgerigars showed evidence of an "acoustic fovea" for frequency change in the spectral region of 2-4 kHz. Budgerigars and humans also differed in their perceptual grouping of tone sequences that rise, fall, or remain constant in pitch. Surprisingly, budgerigars were much less responsive to pitch contour than were humans.

Animals↗
PubMed1996

[Reaction times at auditory threshold: a comparison of normal hearing probands and patients with hearing damage].

BACKGROUND: The purpose of the study was to examine the latencies between tonal stimuli and response of normal ears at the threshold compared with ears with a frequency-specific threshold above 70 dB. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Reaction times to tonal stimuli of 122 adults with normal hearing and adults with hearing loss were compared at the threshold of hearing to reaction times beyond the threshold. The study group of tested patients was divided into four groups corresponding to the frequency-specific hearing loss on the basis of previous audiometric investigations. RESULTS: The results reveal that response latencies in ears with normal hearing asymptomatically approach the auditory threshold. In contrast, we failed to measure a significant prolongation of reaction times in presence of extensive hearing loss (above 70 dB) even at the minimum level of auditory perception. In the presence of extensive hearing loss (above 70 dB), we detected a significantly lower rise of threshold response latencies at normal audiometric frequencies than in normal ears. CONCLUSION: The reaction time results are evaluated, and the possible role of the outer hair cells are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Perception and annoyance due to wind turbine noise--a dose-response relationship.

Installed global wind power increased by 26% during 2003, with U.S and Europe accounting for 90% of the cumulative capacity. Little is known about wind turbines' impact on people living in their vicinity. The aims of this study were to evaluate the prevalence of annoyance due to wind turbine noise and to study dose-response relationships. Interrelationships between noise annoyance and sound characteristics, as well as the influence of subjective variables such as attitude and noise sensitivity, were also assessed. A cross-sectional study was performed in Sweden in 2000. Responses were obtained through questionnaires (n = 351; response rate 68.4%), and doses were calculated as A-weighted sound pressure levels for each respondent. A statistically significant dose-response relationship was found, showing higher proportion of people reporting perception and annoyance than expected from the present dose-response relationships for transportation noise. The unexpected high proportion of annoyance could be due to visual interference, influencing noise annoyance, as well as the presence of intrusive sound characteristics. The respondents' attitude to the visual impact of wind turbines on the landscape scenery was found to influence noise annoyance.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1983

Percepts from the Vienna cochlear prosthesis.

This report includes psychophysical data on some of the 13 patients who have been equipped with intracochlear electrodes and the 6 patients who have received an extracochlear electrode. Thresholds and uncomfortable listening levels versus frequency, amplitude difference limens, and gap detection in noise and frequency difference limens have been determined and represent some essential characteristics of prosthetic hearing.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

Intensity perception. XIV. Intensity discrimination in listeners with sensorineural hearing loss.

Intensity discrimination of pulsed tones (also called level discrimination) was measured as a function of level in 13 listeners with sensorineural hearing impairment of primarily cochlear origin, one listener with a vestibular schwannoma, and six listeners with normal hearing. Measurements were also made in normal ears presented with masking noise spectrally shaped to produce audiograms similar to those of the cochlearly impaired listeners. For unilateral impairments, tests were made at the same frequency in the normal and impaired ears. For bilateral-sloping impairments, tests were made at different frequencies in the same ear. The normal listeners showed results similar to other data in the literature. The listener with a vestibular schwannoma showed greatly reduced intensity resolution, except at a few levels. For listeners with recruiting sensorineural impairments, the results are discussed according to the configuration of the impairment and are compared across configurations at equal SPL, equal SL, and equal loudness level. Listeners with increasing hearing losses at frequencies above the test frequency generally showed impaired resolution, especially at high levels, and less deviation from Weber's law than normal listeners. Listeners with decreasing hearing loss at frequencies above the test frequency showed nearly normal intensity-resolution functions. Whereas these trends are generally present, there are also large differences among individuals. Results obtained from normal listeners who were tested in the presence of masking noise indicate that elevated thresholds and reduced dynamic range account for some, but not all, of the effects of recruiting sensorineural impairment on intensity resolution.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2001

Maximizing effective audibility in hearing aid fitting.

OBJECTIVE: This paper examines why more audibility is not always better than less audibility if hearing-impaired people are to best understand speech. DESIGN: We used speech perception data from 14 normally hearing and 40 hearing-impaired people to quantify the contribution of audibility to speech intelligibility. The quantification revealed that the effectiveness of audibility decreased with hearing loss, and the decrement was greater at high frequencies than at lower frequencies. To apply the Speech Intelligibility Index (SII) model to predict speech intelligibility for hearing-impaired people, we modified the model to take account of effective audibility rather than physical audibility. RESULTS: The modified SII model provided an adequate description of speech performance of people with a wide range of hearing threshold levels. We applied the model to the evaluation of two prescriptions for a sloping audiogram at prescribed levels and at equated loudness levels to demonstrate the necessity of considering loudness and effective audibility in prescribing amplification. Effective audibility is defined as audibility corrected for the effects of level distortion and hearing loss desensitization, and this paper proposes a method of estimating effective audibility from hearing threshold level at different frequencies. CONCLUSIONS: The practical implication of considering effective audibility in prescribing hearing aids is that for a given listening level, less gain is provided at frequencies where the hearing is most impaired to allow more gain at frequencies where audibility is most useful. In developing the NAL-NL1 prescription for nonlinear hearing aids, we adopted the modified SII model together with a loudness model to derive optimal gain-frequency response characteristics that maximize predicted speech intelligibility for people with different degrees of hearing losses.

Audiometry, Speech↗
PubMed2003

Investigations of the precedence effect in budgerigars: the perceived location of auditory images.

The perceived location of auditory images has been recently studied in budgerigars [Dent and Dooling, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 113, 2146-2158 (2003)]. Those results suggested that budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) perceive precedence effect stimuli in a manner similar to humans and other animals. Here we extend those experiments to include the effects of intensity on the perceived location of auditory images and the perceived location of paired stimuli from multiple locations in space. We measured the abilities of budgerigars to discriminate between paired stimuli separated in time, intensity, and/or location. Increasing the intensity of a lag stimulus disrupted localization dominance. Budgerigars also perceived simultaneously presented (away from the midline) stimuli as very similar to a single sound presented from the midline, much like the phantom image reported in humans. The perception of paired stimuli from one side of the head versus two sides of the head was also examined and showed that the spatial cues available in these stimuli are important and that echoes are not perceptually inaccessible during localization dominance conditions. The results from these experiments add further data showing the precedence effect in budgerigars is similar to that found in humans and other animals.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2001

Effects of low-pass filtering on the intelligibility of speech in quiet for people with and without dead regions at high frequencies.

A dead region is a region of the cochlea where there are no functioning inner hair cells (IHCs) and/or neurons; it can be characterized in terms of the characteristic frequencies of the IHCs bordering that region. We examined the effect of high-frequency amplification on speech perception for subjects with high-frequency hearing loss with and without dead regions. The limits of any dead regions were defined by measuring psychophysical tuning curves and were confirmed using the TEN test described in Moore et al. [Br. J. Audiol. 34, 205-224 (2000)]. The speech stimuli were vowel-consonant-vowel (VCV) nonsense syllables, using one of three vowels (/i/, /a/, and /u/) and 21 different consonants. In a baseline condition, subjects were tested using broadband stimuli with a nominal input level of 65 dB SPL. Prior to presentation via Sennheiser HD580 earphones, the stimuli were subjected to the frequency-gain characteristic prescribed by the "Cambridge" formula, which is intended to give speech at 65 dB SPL the same overall loudness as for a normal listener, and to make the average loudness of the speech the same for each critical band over the frequency range important for speech intelligibility (in a listener without a dead region). The stimuli for all other conditions were initially subjected to this same frequency-gain characteristic. Then, the speech was low-pass filtered with various cutoff frequencies. For subjects without dead regions, performance generally improved progressively with increasing cutoff frequency. This indicates that they benefited from high-frequency information. For subjects with dead regions, two patterns of performance were observed. For most subjects, performance improved with increasing cutoff frequency until the cutoff frequency was somewhat above the estimated edge frequency of the dead region, but hardly changed with further increases. For a few subjects, performance initially improved with increasing cutoff frequency and then worsened with further increases, although the worsening was significant only for one subject. The results have important implications for the fitting of hearing aids.

Aged↗
PubMed1988

Illusory continuity of tonal and infratonal periodic sounds.

Temporal induction can restore masked or obliterated portions of signals so that tones may seem continuous when alternated with sounds having appropriate spectral composition and intensity. The upper intensity limits for the induction of tones (pulsation thresholds) are related to masking functions and have been used to define the characteristics of frequency domain (place) analysis of tones. The present study has found that induction also occurs for infratonal periodic sounds that require a time domain analysis for perception of acoustic repetition. Limits for temporal induction were determined for iterated frozen noise segments from 10-2000 Hz alternated with a louder on-line noise. Masked thresholds were also obtained for the pulsed signals presented along with continuous noise, and it was found that the relation between induction limits and masking changed with frequency. The results obtained for induction and masking are discussed in terms of general principles governing restoration of obliterated sounds.

Attention↗
PubMed1984

Does silence simply separate speech components?

A study was conducted to test one possible acoustic explanation of one role played by silent intervals in the perception of stop consonants. We hypothesized that silence creates a separation between the different components of a speech stimulus, thus reducing the magnitude of the auditory interaction between the stimulus components. In order to test this auditory separation hypothesis, we attempted to trade silence against an auditory separation based upon the selective lateralization of the stimulus components created by an interaural phase shift. In finding no such trading relation, we failed to support the auditory separation hypothesis.

Dominance, Cerebral↗
PubMed1994

Programming the cochlear implant based on electrical acoustic reflex thresholds: patient performance.

The electrical acoustic reflex threshold (EART) has been shown to be a reliable estimate of behavioral comfort levels in both child and adult cochlear implant patients. The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential for using EARTs for programming the Nucleus cochlear implant. EARTs and behavioral comfort levels were obtained from 7 adult implant patients. Two programs or "maps" were made for each patient, one based on behavioral comfort levels and one based on EARTs. Performance on open set tests of speech recognition was measured with each map. Mean data suggest that speech perception is similar with both maps. Analysis of individual data revealed that, whereas 2 subjects performed better with the C-level maps, the remaining 5 subjects tended to perform either better with the EART map or equally well with both maps. These results suggest that EARTs may be an adequate substitute for comfort levels when programming the implant for patients who are unable to make reliable psychophysical judgments.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

The measurement of the lateralization of narrow bands of noise using an acoustic pointing paradigm: the effect of sound-pressure level.

The effects of varying interaural time delay (ITD) and interaural intensity difference (IID) were measured in normal-hearing subjects as a function of eleven frequencies and at sound-pressure levels (SPL) from 60 to 90 dB SPL and at 25-dB sensation level. Using an "acoustic" pointing paradigm, the IID of a 500-Hz narrow-band (100 Hz) noise (the "pointer") was varied by the subject to coincide with that of a "target" ITD stimulus. ITDs of 0, +/- 200, and +/- 400 microseconds were obtained through total waveform delays of narrow-band noise (NBN), including envelope and fine structure. The results of this experiment confirm the traditional view of binaural hearing for like stimuli: There is little perceived displacement away from 0 IID at frequencies of 1250 Hz and above. In the low frequencies, subjects required IIDs greater than the expected 10 dB to perceive a fully lateralized image, and they varied in the maximum value of IID that they required, regardless of frequency. Our subjects did not always perceive the intracranial locations of ITD targets symmetrically: When the signal was delayed to one ear, the resultant matching IID was often different in magnitude than for the same ITD target delayed to the opposite ear for the identical frequency. The results of two subjects suggested that people with asymmetric normal hearing have adapted to their asymmetry for lateralization tasks: The subjects were found to lateralize toward the ear with the greater SPL stimulus, regardless of the ear to which the signal was delayed, when signals of equal SL were presented, and toward the leading ear when signals of equal SPL were presented (unequal SL). Increasing the presentation levels above 60 dB SPL had an effect on the perception of high-frequency ITD targets: As the intensity level increased, the slopes of the IID versus ITD functions increased indicating better discrimination of ITD. This study is in agreement with other studies in providing strong evidence of individual differences in lateralization experiments. These individual differences might be attributable to differential sensitivity to ambiguous time stimulus cues, differential task sensitivity, age effects, threshold asymmetries, or criterion variability.

Adult↗