Perceived Sound Quality Dimensions Influencing Frequency-Gain Shaping Preferences for Hearing Aid-Amplified Speech and Music.

Hearing aids are typically fitted using speech-based prescriptive formulae to make speech more intelligible. Individual preferences may vary from these prescriptions and may also vary with signal type. It is important to consider what motivates listener preferences and how those preferences can inform hearing aid processing so that assistive listening devices can best be tailored for hearing aid users.

Adaptation of the Connected Speech Test: Rerecording and Passage Equivalency.

Purpose The original Connected Speech Test (CST; Cox et al., 1987) is a well-regarded and often utilized speech perception test. The aim of this study was to develop a new version of the CST using a neutral North American accent and to assess the use of this updated CST on participants with normal hearing.

Audiological outcome measures with the BONEBRIDGE transcutaneous bone conduction hearing implant: impact of noise, reverberation and signal processing features.

To assess the performance of an active transcutaneous implantable-bone conduction device (TI-BCD), and to evaluate the benefit of device digital signal processing (DSP) features in challenging listening environments. Participants were tested at 1- and 3-month post-activation of the TI-BCD. At each session, aided and unaided phoneme perception was assessed using the Ling-6 test.

Using spatial release from masking to estimate the magnitude of the familiar-voice intelligibility benefit.

The ability to segregate simultaneous speech streams is crucial for successful communication. Recent studies have demonstrated that participants can report 10%-20% more words spoken by naturally familiar (e.g.

Spectral ripple discrimination in children with auditory processing disorder.

The purpose of this study was to examine developmental trends in spectral ripple discrimination (SRD) and to compare the performance of typically developing children to children with auditory processing disorder (APD). Cross-sectional study. Fifteen children with APD, as well as 17 typically developing children and 14 adults reporting no listening or academic difficulties participated.

Auditory Localization and Spatial Release From Masking in Children With Suspected Auditory Processing Disorder.

Objectives: We sought to investigate whether children referred to our audiology clinic with a complaint of listening difficulty, that is, suspected of auditory processing disorder (APD), have difficulties localizing sounds in noise and whether they have reduced benefit from spatial release from masking.

Design: Forty-seven typically hearing children in the age range of 7 to 17 years took part in the study. Twenty-one typically developing (TD) children served as controls, and the other 26 children, referred to our audiology clinic with listening problems, were the study group: suspected APD (sAPD).

Decoding auditory spatial and emotional information encoding using multivariate versus univariate techniques.

Emotion can have diverse effects on behaviour and perception, modulating function in some circumstances, and sometimes having little effect. Recently, it was identified that part of the heterogeneity of emotional effects could be due to a dissociable representation of emotion in dual pathway models of sensory processing. Our previous fMRI experiment using traditional univariate analyses showed that emotion modulated processing in the auditory 'what' but not 'where' processing pathway.

Extended bandwidth real-ear measurement accuracy and repeatability to 10 kHz.

Objective: Direct real-ear measurement to the 4-6 kHz range can be measured with suitable accuracy and repeatability. This study evaluates extended bandwidth measurement accuracy and repeatability using narrowband and wideband signal analysis.

Design: White noise was measured in female ear canals at four insertion depths using one-third and one-twenty-fourth octave band averaging.

Localization-in-noise and binaural medial olivocochlear functioning in children and young adults.

Children as young as 5 yr old localize sounds as accurately as adults in quiet in the frontal hemifield. However, children's ability to localize in noise and in the front/back (F/B) dimension are scantily studied. To address this, the first part of this study investigated localization-in-noise ability of children vs young adults in two maskers: broadband noise (BBN) and speech-babble (SB) at three signal-to-noise ratios: -12, -6, and 0 dB.

Task-switching effects for visual and auditory pro- and antisaccades: evidence for a task-set inertia.

The completion of an antisaccade delays the reaction time (RT) of a subsequent prosaccade; however, the converse switch does not influence RT. In accounting for this result, the task-set inertia hypothesis contends that antisaccades engender a persistent nonstandard task-set that delays the planning of a subsequent prosaccade. In contrast, the coordinate system transformation hypothesis asserts that the transformation required to construct a mirror-symmetrical target representation persistently inhibits prosaccade planning.

Vertical-plane sound localization with distorted spectral cues.

For human listeners, the primary cues for localization in the vertical plane are provided by the direction-dependent filtering of the pinnae, head, and upper body. Vertical-plane localization generally is accurate for broadband sounds, but when such sounds are presented at near-threshold levels or at high levels with short durations (<20 ms), the apparent location is biased toward the horizontal plane (i.e.

Sound localization in noise and sensitivity to spectral shape.

Individual differences exist in sound localization performance even for normal-hearing listeners. Some of these differences might be related to acoustical differences in localization cues carried by the head related transfer functions (HRTF). Recent data suggest that individual differences in sound localization performance could also have a perceptual origin.

Emotion modulates activity in the 'what' but not 'where' auditory processing pathway.

Auditory cortices can be separated into dissociable processing pathways similar to those observed in the visual domain. Emotional stimuli elicit enhanced neural activation within sensory cortices when compared to neutral stimuli. This effect is particularly notable in the ventral visual stream.

Evaluation of Speech Intelligibility and Sound Localization Abilities with Hearing Aids Using Binaural Wireless Technology.

Wireless synchronization of the digital signal processing (DSP) features between two hearing aids in a bilateral hearing aid fitting is a fairly new technology. This technology is expected to preserve the differences in time and intensity between the two ears by co-ordinating the bilateral DSP features such as multichannel compression, noise reduction, and adaptive directionality. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the benefits of wireless communication as implemented in two commercially available hearing aids.

Spatial sensitivity of neurons in the anterior, posterior, and primary fields of cat auditory cortex.

We assessed the spatial-tuning properties of units in the cat's anterior auditory field (AAF) and compared them with those observed previously in the primary (A1) and posterior auditory fields (PAF). Multi-channel, silicon-substrate probes were used to record single- and multi-unit activity from the right hemispheres of alpha-chloralose-anesthetized cats. Spatial tuning was assessed using broadband noise bursts that varied in azimuth or elevation.

Binaural weighting of monaural spectral cues for sound localization.

For human listeners, cues for vertical-plane localization are provided by direction-dependent pinna filtering. This study quantified listeners' weighting of the spectral cues from each ear as a function of stimulus lateral angle, interaural time difference (ITD), and interaural level difference (ILD). Subjects indicated the apparent position of headphone-presented noise bursts synthesized in virtual auditory space.

Spatial sensitivity in the dorsal zone (area DZ) of cat auditory cortex.

We compared the spatial sensitivity of neural responses in three areas of cat auditory cortex: primary auditory cortex (A1), the posterior auditory field (PAF), and the dorsal zone (DZ). Stimuli were 80-ms pure tones or broadband noise bursts varying in free-field azimuth (in the horizontal plane) or elevation (in the vertical median plane), presented at levels 20-40 dB above units' thresholds. We recorded extracellular spike activity simultaneously from 16 to 32 sites in one or two areas of alpha-chloralose-anesthetized cats.

Human sound localization at near-threshold levels.

Physiological studies of spatial hearing show that the spatial receptive fields of cortical neurons typically are narrow at near-threshold levels, broadening at moderate levels. The apparent loss of neuronal spatial selectivity at increasing sound levels conflicts with the accurate performance of human subjects localizing at moderate sound levels. In the present study, human sound localization was evaluated across a wide range of sensation levels, extending down to the detection threshold.

Vertical-plane sound localization probed with ripple-spectrum noise.

Ripple-spectrum stimuli were used to investigate the scale of spectral detail used by listeners in interpreting spectral cues for vertical-plane localization. In three experiments, free-field localization judgments were obtained for 250-ms, 0.6-16-kHz noise bursts with log-ripple spectra that varied in ripple density, peak-to-trough depth, and phase.

Spatial sensitivity in field PAF of cat auditory cortex.

We compared the spatial tuning properties of neurons in two fields [primary auditory cortex (A1) and posterior auditory field (PAF)] of cat auditory cortex. Broadband noise bursts of 80-ms duration were presented from loudspeakers throughout 360 degrees in the horizontal plane (azimuth) or 260 degrees in the vertical median plane (elevation). Sound levels varied from 20 to 40 dB above units' thresholds.

Listener weighting of cues for lateral angle: the duplex theory of sound localization revisited.

The virtual auditory space technique was used to quantify the relative strengths of interaural time difference (ITD), interaural level difference (ILD), and spectral cues in determining the perceived lateral angle of wideband, low-pass, and high-pass noise bursts. Listeners reported the apparent locations of virtual targets that were presented over headphones and filtered with listeners' own directional transfer functions. The stimuli were manipulated by delaying or attenuating the signal to one ear (by up to 600 micros or 20 dB) or by altering the spectral cues at one or both ears.

Cortical neurons that localize sounds.

Efforts to locate a cortical map of auditory space generally have proven unsuccessful. At moderate sound levels, cortical neurons generally show large or unbounded spatial receptive fields. Within those large receptive fields, however, changes in sound location result in systematic changes in the temporal firing patterns such that single-neuron firing patterns can signal the locations of sound sources throughout as much as 360 degrees of auditory space.