Age Differences in Voice Evaluation: From Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation to Social Interactions.

Purpose: The factors that influence the evaluation of voice in adulthood, as well as the consequences of such evaluation on social interactions, are not well understood. Here, we examined the effect of listeners' age and the effect of talker age, sex, and smoking status on the auditory-perceptual evaluation of voice, voice-related psychosocial attributions, and perceived speech tempo. We also examined the voice dimensions affecting the propensity to engage in social interactions.

The Moderating Effect of Frequent Singing on Voice Aging.

The effects of aging on voice production are well documented, including changes in loudness, pitch, and voice quality. However, one important and clinically relevant question that remains concerns the possibility that the aging of voice can be prevented or at least delayed through noninvasive methods. Indeed, discovering natural means to preserve the integrity of the human voice throughout aging could have a major impact on the quality of life of elderly adults.

Effects of age on the amplitude, frequency and perceived quality of voice.

The manner and extent to which voice amplitude and frequency control mechanisms change with age is not well understood. The related question of whether the assessment of one's own voice evolves with age, concomitant with the acoustical changes that the voice undergoes, also remains unanswered. In the present study, we characterized the aging of voice production mechanisms (amplitude, frequency), compared the aging voice in different experimental contexts (vowel utterance, connected speech) and examined the relationship between voice self-assessment and age-related voice acoustical changes.

Use of Virtual Reality Tools for Vestibular Disorders Rehabilitation: A Comprehensive Analysis.

Classical peripheral vestibular disorders rehabilitation is a long and costly process. While virtual reality settings have been repeatedly suggested to represent possible tools to help the rehabilitation process, no systematic study had been conducted so far. We systematically reviewed the current literature to analyze the published protocols documenting the use of virtual reality settings for peripheral vestibular disorders rehabilitation.

The neurobiology of speech perception decline in aging.

Speech perception difficulties are common among elderlies; yet the underlying neural mechanisms are still poorly understood. New empirical evidence suggesting that brain senescence may be an important contributor to these difficulties has challenged the traditional view that peripheral hearing loss was the main factor in the etiology of these difficulties. Here, we investigated the relationship between structural and functional brain senescence and speech perception skills in aging.

Internet addiction assessment tools: dimensional structure and methodological status.

Aims: Excessive internet use is becoming a concern, and some have proposed that it may involve addiction. We evaluated the dimensions assessed by, and psychometric properties of, a range of questionnaires purporting to assess internet addiction.

Methods: Fourteen questionnaires were identified purporting to assess internet addiction among adolescents and adults published between January 1993 and October 2011.

Looking Similar Promotes Group Stability in a Game-Based Virtual Community.

Objective: Online support groups are popular Web-based resources that provide tailored information and peer support through virtual communities and fulfill the users' needs for empowerment and belonging. However, the therapeutic potential of online support groups is at present limited by the lack of systematic research on the cognitive mechanisms underlying social group cohesion in virtual communities. We might increase the benefits of participation in online support groups if we gain more insight into the factors that promote long-term commitment to peer support.

Judgment of the humanness of an interlocutor is in the eye of the beholder.

Despite tremendous advances in artificial language synthesis, no machine has so far succeeded in deceiving a human. Most research focused on analyzing the behavior of "good" machine. We here choose an opposite strategy, by analyzing the behavior of "bad" humans, i.