Evaluation of a Method for Determining Binaural Sensitivity to Temporal Fine Structure (TFS-AF Test) for Older Listeners With Normal and Impaired Low-Frequency Hearing.

The ability to process binaural temporal fine structure (TFS) information was assessed using the TFS-AF test (where AF stands for adaptive frequency) for 26 listeners aged 60 years or more with normal or elevated low-frequency audiometric thresholds. The test estimates the highest frequency at which a fixed interaural phase difference (IPD) of ϕ (varied here between 30° and 180°) can be discriminated from an IPD of 0°, with higher thresholds indicating better performance. A sensation level of 30 dB was used.

A Data-Driven Synthesis of Research Evidence for Domains of Hearing Loss, as Reported by Adults With Hearing Loss and Their Communication Partners.

A number of assessment tools exist to evaluate the impact of hearing loss, with little consensus among researchers as to either preference or psychometric adequacy. The item content of hearing loss assessment tools should seek to capture the impact of hearing loss on everyday life, but to date no one has synthesized the range of hearing loss complaints from the perspectives of the person with hearing loss and their communication partner. The current review aims to synthesize the evidence on person with hearing loss- and communication partner-reported complaints of hearing loss.

Predictive processing increases intelligibility of acoustically distorted speech: Behavioral and neural correlates.

Introduction: We examined which brain areas are involved in the comprehension of acoustically distorted speech using an experimental paradigm where the same distorted sentence can be perceived at different levels of intelligibility. This change in intelligibility occurs via a single intervening presentation of the intact version of the sentence, and the effect lasts at least on the order of minutes. Since the acoustic structure of the distorted stimulus is kept fixed and only intelligibility is varied, this allows one to study brain activity related to speech comprehension specifically.

Development of a method for determining binaural sensitivity to temporal fine structure.

Objective: To develop and evaluate a test of the ability to process binaural temporal-fine-structure (TFS) information. The test was intended to provide a graded measure of TFS sensitivity for all listeners.

Design: Sensitivity to TFS was assessed at a sensation level of 30 dB using the established TFS-LF test at centre frequencies of 250, 500 and 750 Hz, and using the new TFS-AF test, in which the interaural phase difference (IPD) was fixed and the frequency was adaptively varied.

Adaptive benefit of cross-modal plasticity following cochlear implantation in deaf adults.

It has been suggested that visual language is maladaptive for hearing restoration with a cochlear implant (CI) due to cross-modal recruitment of auditory brain regions. Rehabilitative guidelines therefore discourage the use of visual language. However, neuroscientific understanding of cross-modal plasticity following cochlear implantation has been restricted due to incompatibility between established neuroimaging techniques and the surgically implanted electronic and magnetic components of the CI.

Automatic Speech Recognition Predicts Speech Intelligibility and Comprehension for Listeners With Simulated Age-Related Hearing Loss.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to assess speech processing for listeners with simulated age-related hearing loss (ARHL) and to investigate whether the observed performance can be replicated using an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system. The long-term goal of this research is to develop a system that will assist audiologists/hearing-aid dispensers in the fine-tuning of hearing aids.

Method: Sixty young participants with normal hearing listened to speech materials mimicking the perceptual consequences of ARHL at different levels of severity.

Supramodal Enhancement of Auditory Perceptual and Cognitive Learning by Video Game Playing.

Medical rehabilitation involving behavioral training can produce highly successful outcomes, but those successes are obtained at the cost of long periods of often tedious training, reducing compliance. By contrast, arcade-style video games can be entertaining and highly motivating. We examine here the impact of video game play on contiguous perceptual training.

Spatial Processing Is Frequency Specific in Auditory Cortex But Not in the Midbrain.

The cochlea behaves like a bank of band-pass filters, segregating information into different frequency channels. Some aspects of perception reflect processing within individual channels, but others involve the integration of information across them. One instance of this is sound localization, which improves with increasing bandwidth.

Neural correlates of distraction and conflict resolution for nonverbal auditory events.

In everyday situations auditory selective attention requires listeners to suppress task-irrelevant stimuli and to resolve conflicting information in order to make appropriate goal-directed decisions. Traditionally, these two processes (i.e.

Different Measures of Auditory and Visual Stroop Interference and Their Relationship to Speech Intelligibility in Noise.

Inhibition-the ability to suppress goal-irrelevant information-is thought to be an important cognitive skill in many situations, including speech-in-noise (SiN) perception. One way to measure inhibition is by means of Stroop tasks, in which one stimulus dimension must be named while a second, more prepotent dimension is ignored. The to-be-ignored dimension may be relevant or irrelevant to the target dimension, and the inhibition measure-Stroop interference (SI)-is calculated as the reaction time difference between the relevant and irrelevant conditions.

Auditory compensation for head rotation is incomplete.

Hearing is confronted by a similar problem to vision when the observer moves. The image motion that is created remains ambiguous until the observer knows the velocity of eye and/or head. One way the visual system solves this problem is to use motor commands, proprioception, and vestibular information.

Histological Basis of Laminar MRI Patterns in High Resolution Images of Fixed Human Auditory Cortex.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of the auditory region of the temporal lobe would benefit from the availability of image contrast that allowed direct identification of the primary auditory cortex, as this region cannot be accurately located using gyral landmarks alone. Previous work has suggested that the primary area can be identified in magnetic resonance (MR) images because of its relatively high myelin content. However, MR images are also affected by the iron content of the tissue and in this study we sought to confirm that different MR image contrasts did correlate with the myelin content in the gray matter and were not primarily affected by iron content as is the case in the primary visual and somatosensory areas.

Neuroanatomical Alterations in Tinnitus Assessed with Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

Previous studies of anatomical changes associated with tinnitus have provided inconsistent results, with some showing significant cortical and subcortical changes, while others have found effects due to hearing loss, but not tinnitus. In this study, we examined changes in brain anatomy associated with tinnitus using anatomical scans from 128 participants with tinnitus and hearing loss, tinnitus with clinically normal hearing, and non-tinnitus controls with clinically normal hearing. The groups were matched for hearing loss, age and gender.

On The (Un)importance of Working Memory in Speech-in-Noise Processing for Listeners with Normal Hearing Thresholds.

With the advent of cognitive hearing science, increased attention has been given to individual differences in cognitive functioning and their explanatory power in accounting for inter-listener variability in the processing of speech in noise (SiN). The psychological construct that has received much interest in recent years is working memory. Empirical evidence indeed confirms the association between WM capacity (WMC) and SiN identification in older hearing-impaired listeners.

A method to enhance the use of interaural time differences for cochlear implants in reverberant environments.

The ability of normal-hearing (NH) listeners to exploit interaural time difference (ITD) cues conveyed in the modulated envelopes of high-frequency sounds is poor compared to ITD cues transmitted in the temporal fine structure at low frequencies. Sensitivity to envelope ITDs is further degraded when envelopes become less steep, when modulation depth is reduced, and when envelopes become less similar between the ears, common factors when listening in reverberant environments. The vulnerability of envelope ITDs is particularly problematic for cochlear implant (CI) users, as they rely on information conveyed by slowly varying amplitude envelopes.

Effect of Contralateral Medial Olivocochlear Feedback on Perceptual Estimates of Cochlear Gain and Compression.

The active cochlear mechanism amplifies responses to low-intensity sounds, compresses the range of input sound intensities to a smaller output range, and increases cochlear frequency selectivity. The gain of the active mechanism can be modulated by the medial olivocochlear (MOC) efferent system, creating the possibility of top-down control at the earliest level of auditory processing. In humans, MOC function has mostly been measured by the suppression of otoacoustic emissions (OAEs), typically as a result of MOC activation by a contralateral elicitor sound.

Extracellular Recording of Neuronal Activity Combined with Microiontophoretic Application of Neuroactive Substances in Awake Mice.

Differences in the activity of neurotransmitters and neuromodulators, and consequently different neural responses, can be found between anesthetized and awake animals. Therefore, methods allowing the manipulation of synaptic systems in awake animals are required in order to determine the contribution of synaptic inputs to neuronal processing unaffected by anesthetics. Here, we present methodology for the construction of electrodes to simultaneously record extracellular neural activity and release multiple neuroactive substances at the vicinity of the recording sites in awake mice.

How Age and Linguistic Competence Affect Memory for Heard Information.

The short-term memory performance of a group of younger adults, for whom English was a second language (young EL2 listeners), was compared to that of younger and older adults for whom English was their first language (EL1 listeners). To-be-remembered words were presented in noise and in quiet. When presented in noise, the listening situation was adjusted to ensure that the likelihood of recognizing the individual words was comparable for all groups.

Only Behavioral But Not Self-Report Measures of Speech Perception Correlate with Cognitive Abilities.

Good speech perception and communication skills in everyday life are crucial for participation and well-being, and are therefore an overarching aim of auditory rehabilitation. Both behavioral and self-report measures can be used to assess these skills. However, correlations between behavioral and self-report speech perception measures are often low.

Relating approach-to-target and detection tasks in animal psychoacoustics.

Psychophysical experiments seek to measure the limits of perception. While straightforward in humans, in animals they are time consuming. Choosing an appropriate task and interpreting measurements can be challenging.

A Phenomenological Model of the Electrically Stimulated Auditory Nerve Fiber: Temporal and Biphasic Response Properties.

We present a phenomenological model of electrically stimulated auditory nerve fibers (ANFs). The model reproduces the probabilistic and temporal properties of the ANF response to both monophasic and biphasic stimuli, in isolation. The main contribution of the model lies in its ability to reproduce statistics of the ANF response (mean latency, jitter, and firing probability) under both monophasic and cathodic-anodic biphasic stimulation, without changing the model's parameters.

Auditory Discrimination Learning: Role of Working Memory.

Perceptual training is generally assumed to improve perception by modifying the encoding or decoding of sensory information. However, this assumption is incompatible with recent demonstrations that transfer of learning can be enhanced by across-trial variation of training stimuli or task. Here we present three lines of evidence from healthy adults in support of the idea that the enhanced transfer of auditory discrimination learning is mediated by working memory (WM).

Understanding the psychosocial experiences of adults with mild-moderate hearing loss: An application of Leventhal's self-regulatory model.

Objective: This study explored the psychosocial experiences of adults with hearing loss using the self-regulatory model as a theoretical framework. The primary components of the model, namely cognitive representations, emotional representations, and coping responses, were examined.

Design: Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted.

Modality-specificity of Selective Attention Networks.

Objective: To establish the modality specificity and generality of selective attention networks.

Method: Forty-eight young adults completed a battery of four auditory and visual selective attention tests based upon the Attention Network framework: the visual and auditory Attention Network Tests (vANT, aANT), the Test of Everyday Attention (TEA), and the Test of Attention in Listening (TAiL). These provided independent measures for auditory and visual alerting, orienting, and conflict resolution networks.