Monthly Archives: September 2010
Voice and Fluency Changes as a Function of Speech Task and Deep Brain Stimulation
These findings suggest that voice and fluency are differentially affected by DBS treatment and that task conditions, interacting with subcortical functionality, influence motor speech performance.
Study links noise and stochastic resonance to higher cognitive functions and attention
Playing white noise in class can help inattentive children learn. Researchers writing in BioMed Central’s open access journal Behavioral and Brain Functions tested the effect of the meaningless random noise on a group of 51 schoolchildren, finding that although it hindered the ability of those who normally pay attention, it improved the memory of those that had difficulties in paying attention.
from The Medical News
Effects of noise and reverberation on speech perception and listening comprehension of children and adults in a classroom-like setting.
The effects of classroom noise and background speech on speech perception, measured by word-to-picture matching, and listening comprehension, measured by execution of oral instructions, were assessed in first- and third-grade children and adults in a classroom-like setting. For speech perception, in addition to noise, reverberation time (RT) was varied by conducting the experiment in two virtual classrooms with mean RT = 0.47 versus RT = 1.1 s. Children were more impaired than adults by background sounds in both speech perception and listening comprehension. Classroom noise evoked a reliable disruption in children΄s speech perception even under conditions of short reverberation. RT had no effect on speech perception in silence, but evoked a severe increase in the impairments due to background sounds in all age groups. For listening comprehension, impairments due to background sounds were found in the children, stronger for first- than for third-graders, whereas adults were unaffected. Compared to classroom noise, background speech had a smaller effect on speech perception, but a stronger effect on listening comprehension, remaining significant when speech perception was controlled. This indicates that background speech affects higher-order cognitive processes involved in children΄s comprehension. Children΄s ratings of the sound-induced disturbance were low overall and uncorrelated to the actual disruption, indicating that the children did not consciously realize the detrimental effects. The present results confirm earlier findings on the substantial impact of noise and reverberation on children΄s speech perception, and extend these to classroom-like environmental settings and listening demands closely resembling those faced by children at school.
from Noise & Health
Noise in open plan classrooms in primary schools: A review.
This paper presents a review of research carried out in the past 40 years into various aspects of noise in open plan classrooms. The emergence of open plan classroom design in response to progressive educational reforms is discussed. A limited amount of evidence of the effects of noise in open plan classrooms is presented. Surveys of both background and intrusive noise levels in open plan classrooms are summarized and compared. Differences between noise levels in open plan and enclosed classrooms are also considered. Recommended noise limits and acoustic design criteria for open plan classrooms are discussed, together with some current international standards. The paper concludes with a discussion of appropriate noise control measures to reduce noise and maximize speech intelligibility and speech privacy in open plan classrooms.
from Noise & Health
The role of working memory capacity in auditory distraction: A review.
The purpose of this paper was to review the current knowledge on individual differences in susceptibility to the effects of task-irrelevant sound on cognition. The literature indicates that at least two functionally different cognitive mechanisms underlie those differences; one is the efficiency by which people process the order between perceptually discrete sound events and the other is related to working memory capacity. The first mechanism seems to be involved only when disruption is a function of conflicting order processes, whereas the other mechanism is involved in a wider range of phenomena including those when attentional capture and conflicting semantic processes form the basis of disruption. Because of this, noise abatement interventions should first of all be directed towards people with low working memory capacity. Implications for theories of auditory distraction are discussed.
from Noise & Health
When cognition kicks in: Working memory and speech understanding in noise.
Perceptual load and cognitive load can be separately manipulated and dissociated in their effects on speech understanding in noise. The Ease of Language Understanding model assumes a theoretical position where perceptual task characteristics interact with the individual’s implicit capacities to extract the phonological elements of speech. Phonological precision and speed of lexical access are important determinants for listening in adverse conditions. If there are mismatches between the phonological elements perceived and phonological representations in long-term memory, explicit working memory (WM)-related capacities will be continually invoked to reconstruct and infer the contents of the ongoing discourse. Whether this induces a high cognitive load or not will in turn depend on the individual’s storage and processing capacities in WM. Data suggest that modulated noise maskers may serve as triggers for speech maskers and therefore induce a WM, explicit mode of processing. Individuals with high WM capacity benefit more than low WM-capacity individuals from fast amplitude compression at low or negative input speech-to-noise ratios. The general conclusion is that there is an overarching interaction between the focal purpose of processing in the primary listening task and the extent to which a secondary, distracting task taps into these processes.
from Noise & Health
2010 AAO-HNSF new research daily highlights: Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2010
Featuring more than 305 scientific research sessions, 594 posters, and several hundred instruction course hours for attendees, the annual meeting is a unique opportunity for journalists from around the world to cover breaking science and medical news. Reporters will have access to the latest research and clinical advances in the field of otolaryngology – head and neck surgery.
from EurekAlert.org
The effects of background white noise on memory performance in inattentive school children
Consistent with the model, our data show that cognitive performance can be moderated by external background white noise stimulation in a non-clinical group of inattentive participants. This finding needs replicating in a larger sample using more noise levels but if replicated has great practical applications by offering a non-invasive way to improve school results in children with attentional problems.
Brain Recovery, Speech Improvement Can Occur After a Stroke
Newswise — The world’s largest study using neuroimaging of stroke patients struggling to regain ability to communicate finds that brain cells outside the damaged area can take on new roles.
Dr. Julius Fridriksson, a researcher at the University of South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public Health, said the findings offer hope to patients of “chronic stroke,” characterized by the death of cells in a specific area of the brain. The damage results in long-term or permanent disability.
from Newswise.com
Effects of degraded sensory input on memory for speech: Behavioral data and a test of biologically constrained computational models
Poor hearing acuity reduces memory for spoken words, even when the words are presented with enough clarity for correct recognition. An “effortful hypothesis” suggests that the perceptual effort needed for recognition draws from resources that would otherwise be available for encoding the word in memory. To assess this hypothesis, we conducted a behavioral task requiring immediate free recall of word-lists, some of which contained an acoustically masked word that was just above perceptual threshold. Results show that masking a word reduces the recall of that word and words prior to it, as well as weakening the linking associations between the masked and prior words. In contrast, recall probabilities of words following the masked word are not affected. To account for this effect we conducted computational simulations testing two classes of models: associative linking models and short-term memory buffer models. Only a model that integrated both contextual linking and buffer components matched all of the effects of masking observed in our behavioral data. In this Linking-Buffer model, the masked word disrupts a short-term memory buffer, causing associative links of words in the buffer to be weakened, affecting memory for the masked word and the word prior to it, while allowing links of words following the masked word to be spared. We suggest that these data account for the so-called “effortful hypothesis”, where distorted input has a detrimental impact on prior information stored in short-term memory.
from Brain Research
Congenital conductive hearing loss and multiple synostosis syndrome with analysis of temporal bone CT scan findings
We present the case of a mother and four children displaying signs of Multiple Synostosis Syndrome (SYNS1) associated with conductive hearing loss. The intra-familial phenotypic variation is due to variable penetrance, which is typical of this syndrome. The child with the most significant hearing loss showed lucency of the otic capsule on temporal bone CT. There is no evidence of this phenomenon associated with SYNS1 in the literature. CT scanning can diagnose certain ossicular chain abnormalities, removing the need for tympanotomy under general anaesthetic. Syndromic hearing loss is progressive and should be monitored where appropriate.
from the International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology
Case report: An approach to the patient with reading difficulties in the primary care setting
A 79-year old right-handed gentleman was admitted to hospital with a right homonymous quandrantanopia associated with pure alexia (alexia without agraphia). His computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging revealed an ischemic stroke in the left occipital region. Etiological investigations were unrevealing and the cause of his stroke remains unclear. The alexia was characterized by covert letter-by-letter reading with word length effect accompanied by phonological sound spelling errors and a mild visual anomia. While formal language and reading assessments exist (i.e., by a speech–language pathologist), these are not always widely available or are difficult to administer by a physician in a primary care setting. The purpose of the present paper is to describe an informal bedside approach to the patient presenting with reading difficulties with the goal of identifying patients with alexia for formal language assessment and rehabilitation.
from the Journal of Neurolinguistics
Language Barriers May Play Role in Health Care Disparities, Study Finds
The findings, which currently appear online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, suggest that patient-provider language barriers play a role in health-care disparities, and that providers should promote the importance of CRC screening to non-English speaking patients.
from ScienceDaily.com
Cognitive and psychosocial features in childhood and juvenile MS
Our findings confirm the importance of systematic assessment of cognitive and psychosocial issues in children and teens with MS. The progressive nature of the cognitive difficulties emphasizes the need for developing effective treatment strategies.
from Neurology
The effects of blurred vision on auditory-visual speech perception in younger and older adults
Speech understanding is improved when the observer can both see and hear the talker. This study compared the effects of reduced visual acuity on auditory-visual (AV) speech-recognition in noise among younger and older adults. Two groups of participants performed a closed-set sentence-recognition task in one auditory-alone (A-alone) condition and under three AV conditions: normal visual acuity (6/6), and with blurred vision to simulate a 6/30 and 6/60 visual impairment. The results showed that (1) the addition of visual speech cues improved speech-perception relative to the A-alone condition, (2) under the AV conditions, performance declined as the amount of blurring increased, (3) even under the AV condition that simulated a visual acuity of 6/60, the speech recognition scores were significantly higher than those obtained under the A-alone condition, and (4) generally, younger adults obtained higher scores than older adults under all conditions. Our results demonstrate the benefits of visual cues to enhance speech understanding even when visual acuity is not optimal.
from the International Journal of Audiology
