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PubMed2000

Discrimination of tone durations across the menstrual cycle.

Discrimination of tone duration was studied as a function of menstrual cycle phase. In three phases of their menstrual cycle, 12 women compared the durations of 64 pairs of tones. They discriminated the tone durations least well in the premenstrual phase and tended to speed up their responding over sessions. In contrast, a control group of 12 men tended to improve their performance over sessions while response time remained constant.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Psychoacoustical tuning curves in audiology.

The correlation between classic masking patterns and psychoacoustical tuning curves is discussed quantitatively. A simplified method to measure such tuning curves in clinical use is described. They are shown to be insensitive to the frequency dependence of the hearing loss. Tuning curve data of six different groups including normal and hard-or-hearing observers are given: normal hearing, conductive hearing loss, degenerative hearing loss, noise-induced hearing loss, otosclerosis and Menière's disease. The resulting tuning curve data indicate that the frequency resolving power of the four groups mentioned last is greatley reduced but not completely absent, especially in the range of greater hearing loss. The correspondence between the frequency-resolving power measured by the tuning curve method and the result of speech discrimination tests is demonstrated. The measured data indicate that more than 50% of the patients with otosclerosis show reduced frequency selectivity although otosclerosis is commonly regarded as a conductive hearing loss.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2000

Motor and nonmotor event-related potentials during a complex processing task.

Identification of the necessary stimulus properties to elicit the stimulus preceding negativity (SPN) has been the impetus for numerous research studies. The current study was conducted to explore the possibility that the SPN is an index of cognitive resource allocation. An auditory warning stimulus (S1) indicated whether an easy or difficult discrimination would occur at S2. The SPN was collected before a nonmotor discrimination task (S2) that consisted of identifying the higher of two bars. To eliminate the influence of motor processing prior to S2, a button press on the side of the higher bar was held until perception of a response cue (S3). Additionally, P3, contingent negative variation (CNV), and behavioral measures were collected to assist in assessing the SPN. Results indicated that although the SPN exhibited increased negativity, no differences were observed based on task difficulty. However, task difficulty did affect P3 data for both the warning tone and the discrimination task, an effect not observed for the CNV. Overall, the data did not support that hypothesis that the SPN provides an index of cognitive demand.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1975

Response bias and physiological reactivity.

Sixteen Ss were selected from a group of 30 adult males for low and high levels of physiological reactivity, as defined by several measures of electrodermal activity (EDA). They were subsequently tested on two occasions on a tone discrimination task in which confidence ratings were required. High EDA Ss discriminated a significantly greater number of tones, but this apparent superiority was not due to their superior sensitivity, but to a greater bias towards responding positively to signals. The results were discussed in relation to possible mechanisms mediating individual differences in response bias and physiological reactivity.

Arousal↗
PubMed1986

Influence of duration on the frequency discrimination of Bobwhite Quail (Colinus virginianus).

In attempting to parcel out the components within calls that may have functional significance or "message value", the present study of the series pitted "best audible" frequencies of Bobwhite Quail against one another in a frequency discrimination task, and further looked at these frequencies relative to their durational limits. The tasks set for the birds were difficult. In Expers. I and II, 8 adult quail discriminated between frequencies which presumably have independent significance (the 1.0-kc/s of the adult separation call, and the 3.5-kc/s of the chick "lost" call) at lessening durations (200-30 msec). In Exper. III, duration discrimination was tested at single frequencies. The tasks were related in several ways to "real call" situations like those met by birds under field conditions. Mean frequency discrimination performance was about 75%-correct when the standard and comparison tones were both 200 msec in duration, about 65% when both were at 100 msec, and at chance levels at shorter durations. This was true whether the standard tone remained at 200 msec (Exper. I) or was shortened along with the comparison tone. The limit of durational discrimination at both peak frequencies was also of the order of 100 msec. Thus, quail can discriminate the frequency of peak frequency signals that vary in duration down to a limit of 100 msec., but as the task becomes more difficult (i.e., reduced duration or similar frequency content) decreased sensitivity might have to be offset by enhancement of other signal parameters.

Animals↗
PubMed2002

Central bottleneck influences on the processing stages of word production.

Does producing a word slow performance of a concurrent, unrelated task? In 2 experiments, 108 participants named pictures and discriminated tones. In Experiment 1, pictures were named after cloze sentences; the durations of the word-production stages of lemma and phonological word-form selection were manipulated with high- and low-constraint cloze sentences and high- and low-frequency-name pictures, respectively. In Experiment 2, pictures were presented with simultaneous distractor words; the durations of lemma and phoneme selection were manipulated with conceptually and phonologically related distractors. All manipulations, except the phoneme-selection manipulation, delayed tone-discrimination responses as much as picture-naming responses. These results suggest that early word-production stages--lemma and phonological word-form selection--are subject to a central processing bottleneck, whereas the later stage--phoneme selection--is not.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

P300 from identical twins.

The P300 component was obtained from ten pairs of identical twins and matched control subjects with an auditory discrimination task. The event-related brain potentials (ERPs) from the identical twins were strikingly similar in amplitude and latency compared to control subject pairs. The data suggest that individual variations in ERP waveform morphology are determined by the structure of the neurophysiological mechanisms responsible for P300 generation.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

The distinctness of speakers' /s/-/S/ contrast is related to their auditory discrimination and use of an articulatory saturation effect.

This study examines individual differences in producing the sibilant contrast in American English and the relation of those differences to 2 speaker characteristics: (a) use of a quantal biomechanical effect (called a "saturation effect") in producing the sibilants and (b) performance on a test of sibilant discrimination. Twenty participants produced the sibilants /s/ and /S/ in normal-, clear-, and fast-speaking conditions. The degree to which the participants used a saturation effect in producing /s/ and /S/ was assessed with a custom-made sensor that measured contact of the underside of the tongue tip with the lower alveolar ridge; such contact normally occurs during the production of /s/ but not /S/. The acuteness of the participants' discrimination of the sibilant contrast was measured using the ABX paradigm and synthesized sibilants. Differences among speakers in the degree of acoustic contrast between /s/ and /S/ that they produced proved related to differences among them in their use of contact contrastively and in their discriminative performance. The most distinct sibilant productions were obtained from participants who used contact in producing /s/ but not /S/ and who had high discrimination scores. The participants who did not use contact differentially when producing the 2 sibilants and who also discriminated the synthetic sibilants less well produced the least distinct sibilant contrasts. Intermediate degrees of sibilant contrast were found with participants who used contact differentially or discriminated well. These findings are compatible with a model of speech motor planning in which goals for phonemic speech movements are in somatosensory and auditory spaces.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Behavioral auditory function after transection of crossed olivo-cochlear bundle in the cat. IV. Study on pure-tone frequency discrimination.

The present report describes the frequency discrimination capability of the cat based on behavioral auditory measurements in conjunction with transection of the crossed olivo-cochlear bundle at the floor of the fourth ventricle. Using the repetitive method, cats were trained to respond to frequency differences from 8000 Hz. For the measurement of the frequency discrimination threshold, instead of using the descending method, the cats were trained to detect the absolute change in the frequency. With the given experimental paradigm, the average pre- and post-operative frequency discrimination thresholds were 114.3 Hz and 133.6 Hz in experimentals, and 128.3 Hz and 140.0 Hz in shams. Differences between the two groups were minimal and may simply represent functional biological variance.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1994

Heart rate and sustained attention during childhood: age changes in anticipatory heart rate, primary bradycardia, and respiratory sinus arrhythmia.

This study examined age changes in three aspects of heart rate responsivity elicited in an auditory oddball task; anticipatory heart rate change, primary bradycardia, and respiratory sinus arrhythmia. Three age groups (5-, 7-, and 9-year-old boys) were presented with series of target (15%) and standard (85%) tones. The results were consistent with the findings reported previously in the adult literature. Heart rate decreased in anticipation of the target tone. The morphology of anticipatory deceleration was somewhat different for the 5-year-olds compared to the older children. Stimuli presented during the early part of the cardiac cycle induced added deceleration, but this primary bradycardia did not differ between age groups. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia did not discriminate between age groups but was suppressed during the performance of the oddball task relative to base level. It was concluded that these three aspects of heart rate responsivity show developmental constancy rather than change.

Arousal↗
PubMed2006

Spectral-peak selection in spectral-shape discrimination by normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners.

Spectral-shape discrimination thresholds were measured in the presence and absence of noise to determine whether normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners rely primarily on spectral peaks in the excitation pattern when discriminating between stimuli with different spectral shapes. Standard stimuli were the sum of 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 20, or 30 equal-amplitude tones with frequencies fixed between 200 and 4000 Hz. Signal stimuli were generated by increasing and decreasing the levels of every other standard component. The function relating the spectral-shape discrimination threshold to the number of components (N) showed an initial decrease in threshold with increasing N and then an increase in threshold when the number of components reached 10 and 6, for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners, respectively. The presence of a 50-dB SPL/Hz noise led to a 1.7 dB increase in threshold for normal-hearing listeners and a 3.5 dB increase for hearing-impaired listeners. Multichannel modeling and the relatively small influence of noise suggest that both normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners rely on the peaks in the excitation pattern for spectral-shape discrimination. The greater influence of noise in the data from hearing-impaired listeners is attributed to a poorer representation of spectral peaks.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1991

Differential sensitivity to vowel continua in Old World monkeys (Macaca) and humans.

Previous studies indicate that monkey pure tone frequency discrimination is quantitatively and qualitatively very different from that of humans: Monkey DLs at 1.0 and 2.0 kHz are up to 20 times larger than human DLs, and monkeys DLs increase as sensation level increases, in contrast to human DLs [Sinnott et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 78, 1977-1985 (1985); Sinnott et al., J. Comp. Psychol. 101, 126-131 (1987)]. These results led to an hypothesis that monkey frequency discrimination is more dependent upon "rate" coding than is that of humans. The present study compared monkey and human DLs for formant frequency changes along three synthetic vowel continua /I-i/, /ae-epsilon/, and /a-v/. Here, monkey DLs for formants near 1.0 and 2.0 kHz (32-48 Hz) were only about two to three times larger than human DLs (11-21 Hz), and both monkeys and humans exhibited relatively similar, flat sensation level functions. Taken together, these data indicate that monkey and human frequency discrimination is more similar in the case of a complex vowel stimulus than in the case of a simple pure tone stimulus. Results are discussed in relation to "rate" versus "temporal" coding of tones and vowels in the auditory system.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

Profile analysis and comodulation detection differences using narrow bands of noise and their relation to comodulation masking release.

Experiment 1 examined the ability to compare relative level across frequency (profile analysis) for stimuli that were dynamically varying over time. The task was to detect an increment in level of a narrow band of noise (the target) in the presence or absence (reference condition) of four flanking bands (FBs). The envelopes of the FBs were either the same as that of the target (correlated condition), independent of that of the target but the same as each other (co-uncorrelated condition), or all independent (all-uncorrelated condition). The overall level of the stimuli was either fixed or randomly varied from one stimulus to the next. The results showed that subjects can make effective use of spectral-shape cues even for stimuli whose amplitudes vary markedly over time. In the correlated condition, the threshold for detecting an increment in the level of the target band was decreased (relative to the reference condition) both when the overall level was fixed and when it was varied randomly from stimulus to stimulus. In the uncorrelated conditions, the FBs did not lead to better performance when the overall level was fixed; rather they produced a small interference effect. When the overall level was randomized, the presence of uncorrelated FBs produced thresholds that decreased with increasing bandwidth and, for a bandwidth of 64 Hz, produced an improvement in performance (relative to the reference condition) that was almost as large as that produced by the correlated FBs. It seems that the more rapid fluctuations in the wider bands of noise were smoothed by the auditory system, enabling information about the long-term spectral shape to be extracted effectively. Experiment 2 used similar stimuli, but the task was to detect the target, rather than to discriminate its level. Detection thresholds in the presence of FBs were lowest in the co-uncorrelated condition, higher in the correlated condition, and highest in the all-uncorrelated condition. Thus the presence of correlated FBs improved discrimination thresholds in the profile analysis task, but impaired performance in the detection task. Reasons for the discrepancy between the effects of correlated FBs in the two tasks are discussed in the context of the cues available to the listener.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Music and learning-induced cortical plasticity.

Auditory stimuli are encoded by frequency-tuned neurons in the auditory cortex. There are a number of tonotopic maps, indicating that there are multiple representations, as in a mosaic. However, the cortical organization is not fixed due to the brain's capacity to adapt to current requirements of the environment. Several experiments on cerebral cortical organization in musicians demonstrate an astonishing plasticity. We used the MEG technique in a number of studies to investigate the changes that occur in the human auditory cortex when a skill is acquired, such as when learning to play a musical instrument. We found enlarged cortical representation of tones of the musical scale as compared to pure tones in skilled musicians. Enlargement was correlated with the age at which musicians began to practice. We also investigated cortical representations for notes of different timbre (violin and trumpet) and found that they are enhanced in violinists and trumpeters, preferentially for the timbre of the instrument on which the musician was trained. In recent studies we extended these findings in three ways. First, we show that we can use MEG to measure the effects of relatively short-term laboratory training involving learning to perceive virtual instead of spectral pitch and that the switch to perceiving virtual pitch is manifested in the gamma band frequency. Second, we show that there is cross-modal plasticity in that when the lips of trumpet players are stimulated (trumpet players assess their auditory performance by monitoring the position and pressure of their lips touching the mouthpiece of their instrument) at the same time as a trumpet tone, activation in the somatosensory cortex is increased more than it is during the sum of the separate lip and trumpet tone stimulation. Third, we show that musicians' automatic encoding and discrimination of pitch contour and interval information in melodies are specifically enhanced compared to those in nonmusicians in that musicians show larger functional mismatch negativity (MMNm) responses to occasional changes in melodic contour or interval, but that the two groups show similar MMNm responses to changes in the frequency of a pure tone.

Auditory Cortex↗
PubMed1999

A quantitative analysis of behavioral selectivity for pulse rise-time in the gray treefrog, Hyla versicolor.

The selectivity of female phonotactic responses to synthetic advertisement calls was tested in choice situations. Preferences based on differences in the linear rise-time of synthetic pulses depended on intensity and carrier frequency. When the carrier frequency was 1.1 kHz, simulating the low-frequency peak in the advertisement call, females preferred alternatives with slower rise-time pulses that differed by 5 ms at playback levels of 75 dB SPL and higher. A rise-time difference of 10 ms was discriminated at 65 dB SPL. When the carrier frequency was 2.2 kHz, simulating the high-frequency peak in the call, females discriminated a 5-ms difference in rise-time only at 85 dB SPL. Females showed no preference when the difference was 10 ms at lower playback levels. The difference in the thresholds (about 15-20 dB) for discriminating differences in rise-time at the two carrier frequencies was greater than the difference in behavioral thresholds for these two frequencies (about 10 dB). This result suggests that rise-time discrimination can be mediated solely by the neural channel mainly tuned to the low-frequency peak in the call. Females probably assess differences in rise-time by comparing the first few pulses of each call rather than by averaging over the entire call.

Animal Communication↗
PubMed2006

Discrimination of depth of sinusoidal amplitude modulation with and without roved carrier levels.

Thresholds for the discrimination of the depth of sinusoidal amplitude modulation with a broadband noise carrier were measured for three listeners in a two-alternative, forced-choice task for modulation frequencies of 8, 32, and 128 Hz. Thresholds were measured with the spectrum level of the carrier fixed at 20 dB across all trials and, separately, with the carrier spectrum level roved randomly over a 20-dB range (10-30 dB) in each interval. Mean thresholds were equal or slightly lower (but not significantly so) for the fixed conditions relative to the roved conditions, and the differences between thresholds were too small to be explained by assuming that listeners compared instantaneous intensity at corresponding phases of the modulation cycle (for example, in the troughs). Rather, it appears that listeners discriminated modulation depth by extracting an estimate of the modulation depth within each interval that was independent of the overall level. Consequently, models of envelope extraction must include normalization of the envelope fluctuations to the envelope dc.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1990

Effect of simulated bilateral cochlear distortion on speech discrimination in normal subjects.

Bilateral sensorineural hearing loss may introduce grossly dissimilar cochlear distortion at the two ears, causing abnormal demands to be made upon the cortical analytical centres which normally receive congruent information. As a result, the prescription of binaural hearing aids may be a handicap rather than a help. In order to explore this possibility, 10 normal subjects were presented with simulated, dissimilar cochlear distortion at the two ears. Discrimination scores with binaural presentation were poorer than the best monaural score and there were clear indications that in the former, subjects selectively attended to one ear and neglected the other. In contrast, binaural presentation of the same simulated distortion resulted in a significant improvement, compared with the monaural discrimination score. Inability of the cortex to contend with discongruent speech input from the two ears may be a factor contributing to the rejection of binaural hearing aids in some individuals.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

Frequency discrimination by the fetus.

The ability to discriminate between acoustic signals of different frequencies is fundamental to the interpretation of auditory information and the development of language perception and production. The fact that the human fetus responds to sounds of different frequencies raises the question of whether the fetus is able to discriminate between them? To investigate whether the fetus has the ability to discriminate between different pure tone acoustic stimuli and different speech sounds the following study used an habituation paradigm and examined whether the fetus could discriminate between two pure tone acoustic stimuli, 250 Hz and 500 Hz, or two speech sounds, [ba] and [bi], at 27 and 35 weeks of gestational age. The results indicated that the fetus is capable of discriminating between the different sounds, i.e. 250 Hz and 500 Hz and [ba] and [bi] at 35 weeks of gestational age but less able at 27 weeks of gestational age. The implications of this for the development of the auditory system are discussed.

Acoustic Stimulation↗