Monaural and binaural masking release with speech-like stimuli.

The relevance of comodulation and interaural phase difference for speech perception is still unclear. We used speech-like stimuli to link spectro-temporal properties of formants with masking release. The stimuli comprised a tone and three masker bands centered at formant frequencies F1, F2, and F3 derived from a consonant-vowel.

Evaluation of a Fast Method to Measure High-Frequency Audiometry Based on Bayesian Learning.

This study aimed to assess the validity of a high-frequency audiometry tool based on Bayesian learning to provide a reliable, repeatable, automatic, and fast test to clinics. The study involved 85 people (138 ears) who had their high-frequency thresholds measured with three tests: standard audiometry (SA), alternative forced choice (AFC)-based algorithm, and Bayesian active (BA) learning-based algorithm. The results showed median differences within ±5 dB up to 10 kHz when comparing the BA with the other two tests, and median differences within ±10 dB at higher frequencies.

Intensity discrimination and neural representation of a masked tone in the presence of three types of masking release.

Introduction: Hearing ability is usually evaluated by assessing the lowest detectable intensity of a target sound, commonly referred to as a detection threshold. Detection thresholds of a masked signal are dependent on various auditory cues, such as the comodulation of the masking noise, interaural differences in phase, and temporal context. However, considering that communication in everyday life happens at sound intensities well above the detection threshold, the relevance of these cues for communication in complex acoustical environments is unclear.

Categorization of tinnitus listeners with a focus on cochlear synaptopathy.

Tinnitus is a complex and not yet fully understood phenomenon. Often the treatments provided are effective only for subgroups of sufferers. We are presently not able to predict benefit with the currently available diagnostic tools and analysis methods.

Potential Destructive Binaural Interaction Effects in Auditory Steady-State Response Measurements.

An aided sound-field auditory steady-state response (ASSR) has the potential to be used to objectively validate hearing-aid (HA) fittings in clinics. Each aided ear should ideally be tested independently, but it is suspected that binaural testing may be used by clinics to reduce test time. This study simulates dichotic ASSR sound-field conditions to examine the risk of making false judgments due to unchecked binaural effects.

On the use of envelope following responses to estimate peripheral level compression in the auditory system.

Individual estimates of cochlear compression may provide complementary information to traditional audiometric hearing thresholds in disentangling different types of peripheral cochlear damage. Here we investigated the use of the slope of envelope following response (EFR) magnitude-level functions obtained from four simultaneously presented amplitude modulated tones with modulation frequencies of 80-100 Hz as a proxy of peripheral level compression. Compression estimates in individual normal hearing (NH) listeners were consistent with previously reported group-averaged compression estimates based on psychoacoustical and distortion-product oto-acoustic emission (DPOAE) measures in human listeners.

Perceptual Weighting of Binaural Lateralization Cues across Frequency Bands.

The auditory system uses interaural time and level differences (ITD and ILD) as cues to localize and lateralize sounds. The availability of ITDs and ILDs in the auditory system is limited by neural phase-locking and by the head size, respectively. Although the frequency-specific limitations are well known, the relative contribution of ITDs and ILDs in individual frequency bands in broadband stimuli is unknown.

Effect of the Relative Timing between Same-Polarity Pulses on Thresholds and Loudness in Cochlear Implant Users.

The effect of the relative timing between pairs of same-polarity monophasic pulses has been studied extensively in single-neuron animal studies and has revealed fundamental properties of the neurons. For human cochlear implant listeners, the requirement to use charge-balanced stimulation and the typical use of symmetric, biphasic pulses limits such measures, because currents of opposite polarities interact at the level of the neural membrane. Here, we propose a paradigm to study same-polarity summation of currents while keeping the stimulation charge-balanced within a short time window.

Supra-threshold perception and neural representation of tones presented in noise in conditions of masking release.

The neural representation and perceptual salience of tonal signals presented in different noise maskers were investigated. The properties of the maskers and signals were varied such that they produced different amounts of either monaural masking release, binaural masking release, or a combination of both. The signals were then presented at different levels above their corresponding masked thresholds and auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) were measured.

Investigating the Effect of Cochlear Synaptopathy on Envelope Following Responses Using a Model of the Auditory Nerve.

The healthy auditory system enables communication in challenging situations with high levels of background noise. Yet, despite normal sensitivity to pure tones, many listeners complain about having difficulties in such situations. Recent animal studies demonstrated that noise overexposure that produces temporary threshold shifts can cause the loss of auditory nerve (AN) fiber synapses (i.

The search for noise-induced cochlear synaptopathy in humans: Mission impossible?

Animal studies demonstrate that noise exposure can permanently damage the synapses between inner hair cells and auditory nerve fibers, even when outer hair cells are intact and there is no clinically relevant permanent threshold shift. Synaptopathy disrupts the afferent connection between the cochlea and the central auditory system and is predicted to impair speech understanding in noisy environments and potentially result in tinnitus and/or hyperacusis. While cochlear synaptopathy has been demonstrated in numerous experimental animal models, synaptopathy can only be confirmed through post-mortem temporal bone analysis, making it difficult to study in living humans.

Effects of the relative timing of opposite-polarity pulses on loudness for cochlear implant listeners.

The symmetric biphasic pulses used in contemporary cochlear implants (CIs) consist of both cathodic and anodic currents, which may stimulate different sites on spiral ganglion neurons and, potentially, interact with each other. The effect on the order of anodic and cathodic stimulation on loudness at short inter-pulse intervals (IPIs; 0-800 s) is investigated. Pairs of opposite-polarity pseudomonophasic (PS) pulses were used and the amplitude of each pulse was manipulated independently.

A framework for computational modelling of interaural time difference discrimination of normal and hearing-impaired listeners.

Different computational models have been developed to study the interaural time difference (ITD) perception. However, only few have used a physiologically inspired architecture to study ITD discrimination. Furthermore, they do not include aspects of hearing impairment.

Effects of Hearing Loss and Fast-Acting Compression on Amplitude Modulation Perception and Speech Intelligibility.

Objective: The purpose was to investigate the effects of hearing-loss and fast-acting compression on speech intelligibility and two measures of temporal modulation sensitivity.

Design: Twelve adults with normal hearing (NH) and 16 adults with mild to moderately severe sensorineural hearing loss were tested. Amplitude modulation detection and modulation-depth discrimination (MDD) thresholds with sinusoidal carriers of 1 or 5 kHz and modulators in the range from 8 to 256 Hz were used as measures of temporal modulation sensitivity.

Linear combination of auditory steady-state responses evoked by co-modulated tones.

Up to medium intensities and in the 80-100-Hz region, the auditory steady-state response (ASSR) to a multi-tone carrier is commonly considered to be a linear sum of the dipoles from each tone specific ASSR generator. Here, this hypothesis was investigated when a unique modulation frequency is used for all carrier components. Listeners were presented with a co-modulated dual-frequency carrier (1 and 4 kHz), from which the modulator starting phase Φ of the 1-kHz component was systematically varied.

Can place-specific cochlear dispersion be represented by auditory steady-state responses?

The present study investigated to what extent properties of local cochlear dispersion can be objectively assessed through auditory steady-state responses (ASSR). The hypothesis was that stimuli compensating for the phase response at a particular cochlear location generate a maximally modulated basilar membrane (BM) response at that BM position, due to the large "within-channel" synchrony of activity. This would lead, in turn, to a larger ASSR amplitude than other stimuli of corresponding intensity and bandwidth.

The differential production cross section of the [Formula: see text](1020) meson in [Formula: see text] = 7 TeV [Formula: see text] collisions measured with the ATLAS detector.

A measurement is presented of the [Formula: see text] production cross section at [Formula: see text] = 7 TeV using [Formula: see text] collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 383 [Formula: see text], collected with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. Selection of [Formula: see text](1020) mesons is based on the identification of charged kaons by their energy loss in the pixel detector. The differential cross section is measured as a function of the transverse momentum, [Formula: see text], and rapidity, [Formula: see text], of the [Formula: see text](1020) meson in the fiducial region 500 [Formula: see text] 1200 MeV, [Formula: see text] 0.

Objective measures of binaural masking level differences and comodulation masking release based on late auditory evoked potentials.

The audibility of important sounds is often hampered due to the presence of other masking sounds. The present study investigates if a correlate of the audibility of a tone masked by noise is found in late auditory evoked potentials measured from human listeners. The audibility of the target sound at a fixed physical intensity is varied by introducing auditory cues of (i) interaural target signal phase disparity and (ii) coherent masker level fluctuations in different frequency regions.

Can comodulation masking release occur when frequency changes could promote perceptual segregation of the on-frequency and flanking bands?

A common characteristic of natural sounds is that the level fluctuations in different frequency regions are coherent. The ability of the auditory system to use this comodulation is shown when a sinusoidal signal is masked by a masker centred at the signal frequency (on-frequency masker, OFM) and one or more off-frequency components, commonly referred to as flanking bands (FBs). In general, the threshold of the signal masked by comodulated masker components is lower than when masked by masker components with uncorrelated envelopes or in the presence of the OFM only.

Observation of associated near-side and away-side long-range correlations in sqrt[s(NN)]=5.02 TeV proton-lead collisions with the ATLAS detector.

Two-particle correlations in relative azimuthal angle (Δø) and pseudorapidity (Δη) are measured in sqrt[s(NN)] = 5.02 TeV p+Pb collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements are performed using approximately 1 μb(-1) of data as a function of transverse momentum (p(T)) and the transverse energy (ΣE(T)(Pb)) summed over 3.

Measurement of Z boson production in Pb-Pb collisions at sqrt[s(NN)]=2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector.

The ATLAS experiment has observed 1995 Z boson candidates in data corresponding to 0.15  nb(-1) of integrated luminosity obtained in the 2011 LHC Pb+Pb run at sqrt[s(NN)]=2.76  TeV.

Search for dark matter candidates and large extra dimensions in events with a photon and missing transverse momentum in pp collision data at sqrt[s]=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector.

Results of a search for new phenomena in events with an energetic photon and large missing transverse momentum in proton-proton collisions at sqrt[s] = 7 TeV are reported. Data collected by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 fb(-1) are used.

Search for magnetic monopoles in sqrt[s]=7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector.

This Letter presents a search for magnetic monopoles with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider using an integrated luminosity of 2.0  fb(-1) of pp collisions recorded at a center-of-mass energy of sqrt[s]=7  TeV. No event is found in the signal region, leading to an upper limit on the production cross section at 95% confidence level of 1.

Improved luminosity determination in collisions at [Formula: see text] using the ATLAS detector at the LHC.

The luminosity calibration for the ATLAS detector at the LHC during collisions at [Formula: see text] in 2010 and 2011 is presented. Evaluation of the luminosity scale is performed using several luminosity-sensitive detectors, and comparisons are made of the long-term stability and accuracy of this calibration applied to the collisions at [Formula: see text]. A luminosity uncertainty of [Formula: see text] is obtained for the 47 pb of data delivered to ATLAS in 2010, and an uncertainty of [Formula: see text] is obtained for the 5.