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PubMed2006

Effects of prepulse intensity, duration, and bandwidth on perceived intensity of startling acoustic stimuli.

Intense abrupt stimuli can elicit a startle reflex; a weak "prepulse" 30-300 ms earlier can reduce both startle and perceived stimulus intensity. Prepulse inhibition (PPI) of startle, an operational measure of sensorimotor gating, is used to understand brain disorders characterized by gating deficits. Compared to startle, PPI of perceived stimulus intensity (PPIPSI) may provide information that is distinct, and easier to acquire and analyze. To develop this experimental measure, we examined PPIPSI under different stimulus conditions. Both PPI and PPIPSI exhibited a non-linear relationship to prepulse intensity, with prepulses 15 dB(A) above background causing maximal inhibition of both measures. A 50 ms broadband noise prepulse produced maximal PPI and PPIPSI, whereas 5 and 20 ms pure tone prepulses produced maximal PPIPSI and PPI, respectively. PPIPSI is a robust, parametrically sensitive and "low tech" measure of sensory gating that may become a valuable tool for understanding the biology of certain mental disorders.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2006

Influence of pitch tilts on the perception of gravity-referenced eye level in labyrinthine defective subjects.

We investigate the role of vestibular information in judging the gravity-referenced eye level (i.e., earth-referenced horizon or GREL) during sagittal body tilt whilst seated. Ten bilateral labyrinthine-defective subjects (LDS) and 10 age-matched controls set a luminous dot to their perception of GREL in darkness, with and without arm pointing. Although judgements were linearly influenced by the magnitude of whole-body tilt, results showed no significant difference between LDS and age-matched controls in the subjective GREL accuracy or in the intra-subject variability of judgement. However, LDS performance without arm pointing was related to the degree of vestibular compensation inferred from another postural study performed with the same patients. LDS did not utilize upper limb input during arm pointing movements as a source of graviceptive information to compensate for the vestibular loss. The data suggest that vestibular cues are not of prime importance in GREL estimates in static conditions. The absence of difference between controls and LDS GREL performance, and the correlation between the postural task and GREL accuracy, indicate that somatosensory input may convey as much graviceptive information required for GREL judgements as the vestibular system.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Critical bandwidth determined by masking in the presence of two narrow-band noises.

In this experiment, the critical band (CB)-widths were measured using two narrow-band noises (NBNs) with steep cut-off slopes as a masker, varying their spectral level and center-frequency. The following results were obtained: (i) The CB-widths at all center-frequencies were narrower than the classical CB-widths estimated by Zwicker et al [J Acoust Soc Am 29:548-557 (1957)], and decreased continuously toward the lower frequency at the center-frequencies below 500 Hz, though Zwicker's data were constant in the same range. These results barely coincided with the frequency dependence of the equivalent rectangular bandwidth (ERB) which was estimated from the shape of the auditory filter measured directly. (ii) Level dependence of masking noise in CB was constant beyond 20 dB of the masked threshold. This depends on the use of NBN as a masker. (iii) The CB was influenced by distortion products and off-frequency listening. Accordingly, the bandwidths might differ with the experimental method.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Measurement and management of tinnitus. Part I. Measurement.

This paper comprises mainly a description of the clinical practice and experience of the Tinnitus Clinic at the General Hospital, Nottingham, which has evolved as a result of and during the course of a 3-year DHSS-sponsored study of the efficacy of tinnitus maskers. The paper is supported by some experimental data from laboratory, epidemiological and clinical studies, and by information on the number of patients who can be seen, the staff required and the methods used in the clinic.

Humans↗
PubMed2004

[Significance of auditory processing deficits for the pathogenesis of reading and spelling disorders].

OBJECTIVE: It has been claimed that children with dyslexia show auditory processing deficits and a training of auditory perception is recommended as a therapy. this study addresses the question whether a causal connection between auditory perception and dyslexia can be proven empirically. METHOD: 27 dyslexic children with average intelligence and normal hearing and 31 controls were examined. The auditory perception ability was judged with non-linguistic (pitch, tone duration, sound discrimination tasks) and verbal (speech in noise, compressed speech) tasks. In addition auditory short-term memory, nonverbal IQ, spelling and language ability were assessed. RESULTS: Group differences were found in tone processing tasks, but not in sound discrimination or auditory verbal tasks. Despite significant main effects in tone processing tasks the individual values of the dyslexic children lay predominantly in the range of the controls. In addition, there was no correlation between tone processing and spelling ability. CONCLUSION: Dyslexic children do not show remarkable deficits in verbal auditory processing. Auditory low level deficits can only be observed within a small subgroup. There is no evidence for central auditory dysfunction as a cause of dyslexia. The relevance of auditory processing training for treatment programmes for dyslexia should be questioned.

Agraphia↗
PubMed1990

Duplex perception: a comparison of monosyllables and slamming doors.

Duplex perception has been interpreted as revealing distinct systems for general auditory perception and speech perception. The systems yield distinct experiences of the same acoustic signal, the one conforming to the acoustic structure itself and the other to its source in vocal-tract activity. However, this interpretation has not been tested by examining whether duplex perception can be obtained for nonspeech sounds that are not plausibly perceived by a specialized system. In five experiments, we replicate some of the phenomena associated with duplex perception of speech using the sound of a slamming door. Similarities between subjects' responses to syllables and door sounds are striking enough to suggest that some conclusions in the speech literature should be tempered that (a) duplex perception is special to sounds for which there are perceptual modules and (b) duplex perception occurs because distinct systems have rendered different percepts of the same acoustic signal.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Reflex facilitation of the rabbit nictitating membrane response by an auditory stimulus as a function of interstimulus interval.

The ability of an auditory stimulus to facilitate the amplitude and latency of the unconditioned nictitating membrane (NM) response in rabbits was investigated over a wide range of interstimulus intervals (ISIs) for both delay (Experiments 1-4) and trace (Experiments 3 and 4) procedures. The auditory stimulus was a 1000-Hz tone (T) at either 85 or 95 dB, and the reflex-eliciting stimulus was a 2.0 psi (pounds per square inch) corneal air puff (AP). The results indicate that (a) robust facilitation of the NM response, as measured by an increased amplitude and a reduced latency, can be obtained at long ISIs (2,000-32,000 ms); (b) increasing the tone intensity can increase reflex facilitation of the peak amplitude; (c) at comparable ISIs, delay procedures produce more facilitation of both amplitude and latency than do trace procedures; and (d) when trace procedures are used, amplitude and latency facilitation by a 125-ms tone follows an inverted U-shaped ISI function in which facilitation peaks between 125 and 500 ms, rapidly decreases between 1,000 and 2,000 ms, and disappears by 4,000 ms.

Animals↗
PubMed1984

Magnitude estimation of loudness. II: Loudness perception in presbycusic listeners.

Because clinical methods most commonly used for assessing loudness are indirect measures that require one normal or near normal ear, loudness perception has not been studied thoroughly in listeners with symmetrical hearing loss. In this investigation, loudness perception was studied in three groups of listeners: normal listeners, listeners with asymmetrical sensorineural hearing loss, and individuals with bilaterally symmetrical hearing impairment due to presbycusis. In Experiment 1, a Magnitude Estimation of Loudness (ME) technique was compared to Alternate Binaural Loudness Balance ( ABLB ) results for subjects with asymmetrical hearing impairment. Results indicate that ME and ABLB measurements produce similar evidence of abnormally rapid growth of loudness in asymmetrically impaired listeners. In Experiment 2, loudness growth in individuals with normal hearing or with presbycusic hearing impairment was determined from ME measurements. Although presbycusic subjects tended to have steeper loudness functions than normal subjects, the differences did not reach statistical significance except at 6000 Hz, suggesting that, as a group, presbycusic listeners display little, if any, recruitment of loudness.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Masking-level difference in filtered-random and amplitude-modulated noise.

The masking characteristics of filtered-random noise and amplitude-modulated noise (40-dB pressure-spectrum level) were studied in a series of four experiments using a masking-level difference paradigm, that is, 500-Hz thresholds in S0N0 and SpiN0 binaural conditions. In Experiment 1 a filtered noise (200-800 Hz) and an amplitude-modulated noise (425-575 Hz) produced equal thresholds in S0N0; for SpiN0, however, the thresholds in amplitude-modulated noise were 1.6 dB lower than were the thresholds in filtered noise. In Experiment 2 S0N0 and SpiN0 thresholds were established in three filtered noise bandwidths (200-800 Hz, 335-685 Hz, and 410-600 Hz) and in the amplitude-modulated noise (425-575 Hz). When the bandwidths of the filtered-random and amplitude-modulated noises were similar, the SpiN0 thresholds were the same but the S0N0 thresholds were different. Experiments 3 and 4 indicated that with amplitude-modulated noise when the zero amplitude crossings of the tone and the noise coincided, the S0N0, SpiN0, and SmNm thresholds were 1.2-2.0 dB higher than were the thresholds when the zero crossings of the tone and noise did not coincide. The data indicate that the masking characteristics of filtered-random noise and amplitude-modulated noise are different. The findings are interpreted as an indication that perceptual phenomena depend on the temporal characteristics as well as the power spectrum of the signal and masker.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

The effect of continuous monaural noise on loudness matches to tinnitus.

Data from two psychophysical tasks are presented. In the first, 8 subjects with sensorineural hearing loss and tinnitus adjusted the intensity of a continuous monaural noise to mask the tinnitus. In the second, in the presence of continuous monaural noise, the same subjects adjusted the intensity of a pulsed monaural tone to match the loudness of the tinnitus. The tone was either ipsilateral or contralateral to the noise. Although the noise level required to mask the tinnitus increased substantially, as did the level of the ipsilateral matching tone, the change in the level of the contralateral matching tone was minimal. One possible explanation of these findings is related to the functioning of the peripheral auditory system.

Adaptation, Physiological↗
PubMed2003

Complexity and temporal dynamics of frequency coding in the awake rat auditory cortex.

Auditory cortical neurons are elements of a neuronal network that decomposes sounds into spectral and temporal information. In particular, their frequency selectivity has been investigated in great detail. Most studies used anaesthetized preparations and found mainly simple V-shaped tuning. The few data available from awake animals indicate that more complex forms of spectral receptive fields, i.e. frequency response areas, can be found there. We investigated frequency response areas in the awake rat primary auditory cortex using statistical evaluation and found complex forms of frequency response areas with several separate subregions in many neurons, besides classical V-shaped tuning. Response areas, as determined with narrow band noise, were very similar to those measured with pure tones. Their width was well correlated to the response strength to white noise stimulation. These results suggest that the excitatory subregions of frequency response areas were the neurons' predominant characteristic, relevant also for the processing of more complex types of stimuli. Investigating the spectrotemporal dynamics of frequency response areas revealed that approximately one-third of the neurons showed long-lasting excitatory or inhibitory components in addition to the typical ON-response. Inhibition was usually of longer duration and occurred mainly in frequency ranges outside the range of initial excitatory responses. These results indicate that auditory cortical neurons in awake animals can represent spectrotemporal information of rather different complexity.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1992

[What improvements can be gained by additional boring in hearing aid fitting?].

In several investigations the authors tried to find a objective correlation to the subjective positive reactions after venting an earmold. There was no notable effect neither on insertion gain nor on speech intelligibility in different background noise situations. In this study the most comfortable hearing level has been used. This stimulus is influenced by the suprathreshold loudness growth. The measurement has been carried out with and without venting. Comparing the results there can be seen only a little effect of venting at all frequencies. Might be that patient's report about improvement after venting results from the direct input of low frequencies through the vent to the eardrum. These frequency region plays a special part of hearing comfort to reach a comfortable sound quality.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

[Reference curves for hearing surface scaling in clinical use].

METHODS: A commercially available system for the purpose of categorial loudness rating (WHF, WESTRA ELECTRONIC GmbH, Wertingen) was applied with 57 subjects with normal hearing to evaluate reference loudness level functions for 1/3-octave bandpass filtered noise and octave bandpass filtered environmental sounds. RESULTS: The procedure can be carried out with high reproducibility without effects of training due to repetition and only slight influence of subject sex, whereas the labeling of input device and temporal structure of the environmental sounds influence results, as does the center frequency. CONCLUSIONS: Our results showed deviations compared with the reference functions displayed in the WHF system.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

Spectral, intensive, and temporal factors influencing overshoot.

Threshold was measured for a 10-msec, 4.0-kHz signal presented near the onset or in the temporal centre of a 400-msec noise masker. Overshoot, the difference (in dB) between these two thresholds, was seen only for masker bandwidths wider than a critical band. The threshold near masker onset, and hence overshoot, could be reduced by the presence of an additional noise that was presented continuously or gated on and off prior to masker onset. The spectral, intensive, and temporal properties of this effect were studied. When the additional noise was continuous and either bandpass filtered with a variable bandwidth or notch filtered with a variable notchwidth, the results indicated that energy both near and remote from the signal frequency contributed to the reduction in overshoot. The effect of this additional noise was highly dependent upon its relative level. When the additional noise was 400 msec in duration and the delay between its offset and the onset of the masker was varied, overshoot "recovered" to its maximum value within about 50 msec. Finally, as the duration of the additional noise was varied from 3 to 400 msec while the time between its offset and masker onset was fixed, the reduction in overshoot was virtually complete for durations of about 25-50 msec. The results are consistent with the notion that overshoot at least partly reflects peripheral adaptation, and that this adaptation is not restricted to the signal frequency channel but, rather, extends in both directions over several channels.

Adult↗