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PubMed1994

Right frontotemporal activation by tonal memory in dyslexia, an O15 PET Study.

A prior study documented the failure of dyslexic men to activate left temporoparietal cortex during phonologic processing. Because of reports of an anomalous right planum temporale in developmental dyslexia, the functional implications of which are unknown, this study examined the ability of dyslexics to activate right temporal cortex. Regional cerebral blood flow was measured in 15 right-handed dyslexic men during rest and during a tonal memory task expected to activate right-sided cortex in controls. A matched control sample (n = 18) showed significant activation of several right frontotemporal regions as well as of left temporal cortex. In contrast, severely dyslexic men activated fewer right frontotemporal regions, while making many more errors than controls, but showed normal activation of left mid to anterior temporal cortex. These results support hypothesized underlying deficits in rapid temporal processing and possible involvement of right (in addition to left) temporal cortex in severe dyslexia.

Adult↗
PubMed1980

The maturation of frequency selectivity in C57BL/6J mice studied with auditory evoked response tuning curves.

The present study was designed to examine the ontogeny of frequency selectivity in the neonatal auditory system. Mice were tested between 12 and 65 days of age. At each age two measures of auditory sensitivity were made from cochlear nucleus evoked responses. Tone-burst evoked-response thresholds in the quiet were determined for frequencies between 1.0 and 39.0 kHz. A two-tone simultaneous masking procedure was then used to obtain evoked response tuning curves. The frequency selectivity of the tuning curves was quantified by calculating a Q ratio. The results show that tuning is poor in neonates but rapidly improves to adult-like levels within 5-16 days after the inception of auditory function. The data also indicate that the development of frequency selectivity varies directly with the maturation of threshold sensitivity.

Aging↗
PubMed1983

Some acoustic properties of neurones in the ferret inferior colliculus.

Single neurones in the central nucleus of the ferret inferior colliculus (ICC) were studied using extracellular recording. Responses to pure tone stimuli were analyzed to assess the frequency organization of the nucleus, the sensitivity and tuning properties of neurones and the effects of binaural sound presentation. Excitatory tuning curves had the characteristic shape found for neurones in the auditory systems of other species. Many ferret neurones were inhibited by stimulus frequencies on either side of the range producing excitatory responses. Sharpness of excitatory tuning was found to be comparable with that reported for the cat. Neurones having best frequencies in the range 4-15 kHz showed the greatest sensitivity. All electrode penetrations revealed a dorsal-to-ventral progression of neurones of increasing best frequency. Some neurones were classified according to the predominant type of input from each ear. Over 80% of these units were binaurally influenced. Nearly all cells received an excitatory input from the contralateral ear and about one-third of those units were excited by ipsilateral stimulation. The remainder showed either a simple inhibitory ipsilateral input or ipsilateral inhibition that was manifested as a suppression of the excitatory, contralateral response. These experiments demonstrate that the ferret may be a satisfactory alternative to other carnivores for studies of the auditory system.

Animals↗
PubMed1984

2-Deoxyglucose accumulation parallels extracellularly recorded spike activity in the avian auditory neostriatum.

In a combined 2-deoxyglucose (2-DG) and electrophysiological study, the congruence between metabolic activity and extracellularly recorded spike activity patterns has been examined in the auditory cortex analogue, field L, of chicks. Using tone stimuli we demonstrate a match of stripes of 2-DG labeling to electrode tracks yielding neurons with the same best frequency. Since 2-DG activity is thought to reflect chiefly input activity of neurons there appears to be a close input-output link for tone responses in field L.

Animals↗
PubMed1985

Tonotopic organization in the midbrain of a teleost fish.

Recordings from small clusters of units within the auditory midbrain of the Japanese carp, Cyprinus carpio, provide the first evidence for tonotopy within the teleost brain. These findings suggest that place mechanisms of frequency coding and tonotopy, previously thought to have evolved first in amphibians, may be general and ancient features of the vertebrate auditory system.

Animals↗
PubMed1985

Intracranial potentials correlated with an event-related potential, P300, in the cat.

Intracranial recordings of long-latency, event-related potentials were obtained from paralyzed, artificially respirated cats. A modified oddball paradigm was employed in which cats were presented with a randomized series of two tones, a 'frequent' 4 kHz stimulus and a 'rare' 1 kHz stimulus. A tail shock was administered 700 ms after onset of the rare tone. Under these circumstances the stimulus elicited a positive component at the vertex similar to the human P300. Intracranial potentials associated with the rare tone usually manifested components of greater amplitude than did potentials associated with the frequent tone. A positive component occurring in latency between 200 and 350 ms only accompanied the presentation of the rare stimulus. The P300 component, which was positive at the dura, appeared as a negative component within a few millimeters of the surface over a wide area of the marginal and suprasylvian gyri. Changing the probability of the rare stimulus resulted in a reduction in the amplitudes of both the intracranial negative component and the P300 recorded at the skull. Components of large amplitude associated with the rare stimulus were obtained from the region of the hippocampus. These components reversed polarity, sometimes more than once, as the electrode was advanced. Substantial latency differences were often observed between the P300 recorded at the skull and P300-like intracranial components associated with the rare stimulus. These results suggest that the cortices of the marginal and suprasylvian gyri and the hippocampal region contribute to the generation of the cat P300.

Animals↗
PubMed1986

Afferent and efferent innervation patterns of the superior olivary nucleus of the leopard frog.

An HRP study of the frog's superior olivary nucleus (SON) revealed that it (1) receives reciprocal tonotopic projections from dorsal medullary nuclei and principal nuclei of the torus semicircularis (TS) bilaterally; (2) receives bilateral projections from caudalis nuclei and brainstem reticular nuclei, and unilateral projections from the ipsilateral ventral tegmental nuclei and the contralateral SON; (3) is reciprocally connected with the ipsilateral laminar and magnocellular nuclei of the TS, dorsal tegmental nuclei and the posterior thalamic nucleus; (4) projects directly to the ipsilateral central thalamic nucleus.

Animals↗
PubMed1986

Classical conditioning rapidly induces specific changes in frequency receptive fields of single neurons in secondary and ventral ectosylvian auditory cortical fields.

To determine if learning-induced changes in the response of auditory cortical neurons to a conditioned stimulus (CS) reflect general changes in cellular excitability or alterations in signal processing that are specific to that stimulus, we determined frequency receptive fields (FRFs) of single neurons in secondary and ventral ectosylvian auditory fields of the cat during classical conditioning. Associative changes in FRFs of most cells were specific to the frequency of the CS, established rapidly and reversed by extinction. Thus, learning causes specific changes in cortical processing of sounds whose significance is acquired.

Animals↗
PubMed1990

Aesthetic preference and syntactic prototypicality in music: 'tis the gift to be simple.

In the dominant aesthetic theory, composers are said to use unpredictable events to tease the listener, and make music optimally challenging and therefore aesthetically pleasing. We tested this claim that events optimally discrepant from a schema will be most pleasing. Experts and novices evaluated harmonic progressions at seven levels of syntactic prototypicality. Four results emerged: (1) even novices were extremely sensitive to syntactic atypicality; (2) all subjects found atypical progressions more interesting and complex; (3) novices and undergraduate music students preferred harmonic prototypes, contrary to most aesthetic theories; (4) only music graduate students preferred atypical progressions. We discuss the striking sensitivity of novices to harmonic syntax. We describe differences between an aesthetic theory based on information and uncertainty, and one based on schemas and schema divergence. We also consider the tonal conservatism of most subjects. This conservatism constrains aesthetic theories, and may have implications for music's stylistic evolution.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Microstructural musical linguistics: composers' pulses are liked most by the best musicians.

Western music is a combination of notated structure plus microstructure. Composers' pulses, as precise microstructural functions, were tested with five groups of subjects of graded musical proficiency: (1) 10 famous artists including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Yehudi Menuhin, Paul Badura-Skoda and others; (2) 14 Julliard School of Music graduate students; (3) 19 Manhattan School of Music graduate students; (4) 51 Australian conservatory students; and (5) 41 non-music students (total, 135 subjects). Composers' pulses consist of combined amplitude and timing warps specific to each composer--the composer's pulse matrix. Each subject listened to and scored 40 versions of 10 short music examples (not selected by the author) of eight bars each, composed by Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn and Schubert, performed by computer, in which composers' pulses, as developed by Clynes (1983, 1985a,b, 1986, 1987), were incorporated in a two-level hierarchic pulse configuration, and interchanged. Each example was heard with the pulses of those four composers in turn, in quasi-random sequence, one performance thus incorporating the "right" pulse and three the "wrong" ones. Results show dramatically that the greater the musical proficiency, the more marked the preference for the "right" pulse (p < .0001). Non-musicians as a group showed a similar tendency of preference, but typically to a considerably less pronounced degree. Further studies suggest that longer excerpts (32 bars) and repeated hearing would help non-musicians also to better understand composers' pulses. A theory of music as a double stream is introduced. The results suggest that the composers' pulse matrices posited by Clynes as a first approximation are in fact appropriately meaningful. Brain function aspects of the meaningful discrimination of such tiny time differences are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

When prosody fails to cue syntactic structure: 9-month-olds' sensitivity to phonological versus syntactic phrases.

According to prosodic bootstrapping accounts of syntax acquisition, language learners use the correlation between syntactic boundaries and prosodic changes (e.g., pausing, vowel lengthening, large increases or decreases in fundamental frequency) to cue the presence and arrangement of syntactic constituents. However, recent linguistic accounts suggest that prosody does not directly reflect syntactic structure but rather is governed by independent prosodic units such as phonological phrases. To examine the implications of this view for the prosodic bootstrapping hypothesis, infants in Experiment 1 were presented with sentences in which pauses were inserted either between the subject noun phrase (NP) and verb or after the verb. Half of the infants heard sentences with lexical NP subjects, in which prosodic structure is consistent with syntactic structure. The other half heard sentences with pronoun subjects, in which prosodic structure does not mirror syntactic structure. In a preferential listening paradigm, infants in the lexical NP condition listened longer to materials containing pauses between the subject and verb, the main syntactic constituents. However, in the pronoun NP condition, infants showed no difference in listening times for the two pause locations. To determine if other sentence types containing pronoun subjects potentially provide information about the syntactic constituency of these elements, infants in Experiment 2 heard yes-no questions with pronoun subjects, in which the prosodic structure reflects the constituency of the subject. Infants listened longer when pauses were inserted between the subject and verb than after the verb. Taken together, our results suggest that the prosodic information in an individual sentence is not always sufficient to assign a syntactic structure. Rather, learners must engage in active inferential processes, using cross-sentence comparisons and other types of information to arrive at the correct syntactic representation.

Arousal↗
PubMed1981

The effects of frontal cortex lesions on event-related potentials during auditory selective attention.

We compared electrophysiological indices of auditory selective attention in control subjects and in patients with unilateral lesions of the dorsolateral frontal lobes. In control subjects, ERPs following attended tones showed an enhanced negativity from 80 to 500 msec post-stimulus which had a different topographic distribution than the N120. Lesions of the frontal lobes reduced the attention-related negativity and impaired behavioral performance. The ERP reductions were equivalent in recordings obtained from electrodes placed over the damaged and intact cortex. A difference was noted between left and right frontal groups as a function of ear of delivery of the stimuli. Patients with left frontal lesions showed reduced attention effects following tones presented to either ear. Patients with right frontal lesions showed intact attention effects to right ear tones, but no attention-related negativity to left ear tones. When the left and right frontal groups were considered together, tones in ignored channels produced larger responses when presented to the ear contralateral to damaged cortex. These results underline the important role of the frontal lobes in processes of selective attention. Although the endogenous negativity produced in selective attention tasks does not appear to originate in dorsolateral frontal cortex, the frontal lobes exhibit a modulating influence upon it. In addition, the endogenous attention related negativity and exogenous N120 components apparently arise from different neural generators.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Relation between voice profile ratings and aerodynamic and acoustic parameters.

The present study sought to examine the relation between Wilson Voice Profile ratings and certain aerodynamic and acoustic variables. Subjects in this study were 20 adults with voice disorders and five adults with no voice disorders. A series of stepwise multiple correlations were used. The variance in perceptual ratings accounted for by aerodynamic and acoustic variables included in the present study ranged from 29% for tension ratings of connected speech to 81% for pitch ratings of connected speech for the female speakers. It is clear from the present findings that ratings on the Wilson Voice Profile are only partially accounted for by the variables included in the present study.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

A comparison of the speech acceptability of good and excellent esophageal and tracheoesophageal speakers.

Thirteen esophageal speakers (8 male, 5 female) and 12 tracheoesophageal (t-e) speakers (7 male, 5 female) were placed into eight groups based on gender, voice type, and speaking proficiency (excellent or good). Audio recordings of each speaker reading the Rainbow Passage (Fairbanks, 1960) were made. The resultant samples were judged for acceptability of speech by 25 naive listeners trained in use of a five-point equal-appearing-interval scale. An analysis of variance of the listener data indicated that speaker proficiency but not voice type had a significant effect on judgments of acceptability, indicating that the listeners perceived no difference in the acceptability of esophageal and t-e speech.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Effects of sound frequency on behavioral and cardiac orienting in newborn and five-month-old infants.

Alert newborn and 5-month-old infants' responsivity to variations in spectral composition of a rattle sound was examined. Each child received four stimulus conditions: low-, mid-, and high-frequency bandpass-filtered rattles and an unfiltered broadband rattle. Stimuli were played through a single loudspeaker laterally positioned, and head orientation and cardiac responses to sound were recorded. Compared to other stimuli, the low-frequency sound elicited less head turning in both age groups, with this effect exaggerated in younger infants. Head orientation toward the mid-frequency, high-frequency, and broadband stimuli did not differ with age. For all conditions, latency and duration of newborns' head turning was longer than that of 5-month-olds. Newborns responded with cardiac deceleration only on trials when they failed to turn. When head turns occurred, an acceleratory cardiac response was obtained. Five-month-olds responded with reliable cardiac deceleration irrespective of head turning toward the sound. Heart rate change did not vary as a function of frequency at either age, suggesting that all stimuli were equally effective in eliciting the infant's attention.

Arousal↗