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Results for “Auditory Perception”

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At least 163 records · Page 9Linked to original sources
PubMed1999

Auditory perception of walls via spectral variations in the ambient sound field.

Individuals with visual disabilities often use their hearing in order to maintain a line of travel parallel to walls, such as when walking down a hallway or along the side of a building. Previous studies established that this ability depends on the sense of hearing, but the specific acoustic information has not been investigated. The present paper describes a model of how sound pressure builds up within a meter or so in front of a wall, particularly in the low frequency end of the sound spectrum. This buildup of sound pressure is based on ambient or "background" sound, not self-produced sound such as footsteps. The model leads to a prediction that walls are detected by means of a spectral shift toward low frequencies. This prediction was tested in three experiments, in which sighted adults listened for such spectral shifts. In each experiment, a threshold value was obtained corresponding to the farthest simulated distance from a wall that could be detected. Threshold values were in good agreement with previous observations of the distance at which pedestrians can utilize acoustic information from walls. There was no evidence that simulated listener motion enhanced perception of walls. The model underlying these experiments implies that the term echolocation carries inappropriate connotations about the auditory processes that are involved in walking along walls. It is suggested that a more apt description is that pedestrians listen for spatial variations in the structure of the ambient sound field.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Auditory perception changes after reimplantation in a child cochlear implant user.

The ability to remove cochlear implants from children and subsequently reimplant a more complex device in the same ear was the concern of this single case study. A postlinguistically deafened child, J.L., received a single-channel cochlear implant 1 yr after contracting meningitis and suffering a profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. After 3 yr of successful implant use, J.L. suffered an internal coil failure. She was then explanted and reimplanted with a multichannel cochlear implant in the same ear. This case report details her speech perception skills with her single-channel cochlear implant, a vibrotactile aid, and a multichannel cochlear implant. Results from auditory perceptual measures suggest that the explantation/reimplantation process was technically feasible with no adverse effects on J.L.'s ability to utilize a more sophisticated device and to exceed her previous performance levels.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2002

Influence of benzodiazepines on auditory perception.

The aim of this study was to test for an influence of benzodiazepine (BZD) on various perceptual and/or cognitive auditory processes. Loudness, auditory selective attention, and the ability of subjects to form perceptual streams out of alternating tone sequences were tested. Nine subjects were tested before, 1, 3, 7, and 24 h after a single-dose oxazepam vs placebo administration in a crossover design. A sample of blood allows us to measure plasma oxazepam concentration. The results revealed a significant reduction in stream segregation expressed as d' scores 1 h after oxazepam intake in the test subjects. No significant change occurred across time in the same subjects when they were administrated a placebo in another session. Furthermore, oxazepam had no substantial and systematic influence either on auditory selective attention or on loudness perception. Altogether, these results suggest that the perceptual organization of sound sequences involves inhibitory neural mechanisms, which can be affected by BZDs. This outcome is consistent with existing models of auditory stream segregation and may be paralleled with earlier findings on the effect of BZDs on perceptual binding in the visual modality.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1999

A model of auditory perception as front end for automatic speech recognition.

A front end for automatic speech recognizers is proposed and evaluated which is based on a quantitative model of the "effective" peripheral auditory processing. The model simulates both spectral and temporal properties of sound processing in the auditory system which were found in psychoacoustical and physiological experiments. The robustness of the auditory-based representation of speech was evaluated in speaker-independent, isolated word recognition experiments in different types of additive noise. The results show a higher robustness of the auditory front end in noise, compared to common mel-scale cepstral feature extraction. In a second set of experiments, different processing stages of the auditory front end were modified to study their contribution to robust speech signal representation in detail. The adaptive compression stage which enhances temporal changes of the input signal appeared to be the most important processing stage towards robust speech representation in noise. Low-pass filtering of the fast fluctuating envelope in each frequency band further reduces the influence of noise in the auditory-based representation of speech.

Auditory Perception↗
PubMed2004

Bilateral cochlear implants: a way to optimize auditory perception abilities in deaf children?

OBJECTIVES: The Würzburg bilateral cochlear implant (CI) program was started with the aim to improve the patients' communicative abilities in complex listening situations. In this study, the auditory skills of children using bilateral cochlear implants were evaluated. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTINGS: Qualitative data based on free observations in the rehabilitation setup were collected in 39 bilaterally implanted children. A speech discrimination in noise test was performed in 18 of these children; lists of bisyllabic words were presented in noise at a signal to noise ratio (SNR) of +15 dB. RESULTS: Qualitative and quantitative data show clearly that bilateral CI improves the children's communicative behaviour, especially in complex listening situations. Children examined with the speech in noise test scored significantly better under the bilateral condition compared to the unilateral condition. Integration of the second implanted side and use of binaural information was observed to be easier and faster in children with a short time lag between both implants. CONCLUSIONS: To be able to obtain optimal benefit from bilateral cochlear implants, an intensive rehabilitation program is necessary. The important aspects of such a program are creating realistic expectations in older children before implantation; performing the first processor fitting of the second side with the first side switched on; and separate intensive training with the new system in order to balance out the hearing competence of the second CI with that of the first.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Deficits of non-verbal auditory perception in postlingually deaf humans using cochlear implants.

Temporal integration in the time domain of a few seconds was investigated with a subjective accentuation paradigm in 11 monochannel cochlear implant users, who showed auditory comprehension deficits. While listening to metronome beats generated at various frequencies, patients were asked to accentuate mentally every n-th beat and create an individual rhythmic pattern. The extent of temporal integration was defined as the duration of perceptual units consisting of subjectively grouped beats at particular metronome frequencies. The results indicate that there is reduced capacity for temporal integration in implant recipients, particularly for lower metronome frequencies, in comparison to normally hearing. These observations point to the coincidence of specific temporal processing disorders and deficits in auditory comprehension after cochlear implantation.

Acoustic Stimulation↗