Listen, Chat, and Remix: Text-Guided Soundscape Remixing for Enhanced Auditory Experience

Previous work has found that preschoolers with greater phonological awareness and larger lexicons, who speak more throughout the day, exhibit less intra-syllabic coarticulation in controlled speech production tasks. These findings suggest that both linguistic experience and speech-motor control are important predictors of spoken phonetic development. Still, it remains unclear how preschoolers' speech practice when they talk drives the development of coarticulation because children who talk more are likely to have both increased fine motor control and increased auditory feedback experience. Here, the potential effect of auditory feedback is studied by examining a population-children with cochlear implants (CIs)-which is naturally differing in auditory experience. The results show that (1) developmentally appropriate coarticulation improves with an increased hearing age but not chronological age; (2) children with CIs pattern coarticulatorily closer to their younger, hearing age-matched peers than chronological age-matched peers; and (3) the effects of speech practice on coarticulation, measured using naturalistic, at-home recordings of the children's speech production, only appear in the children with CIs after several years of hearing experience. Together, these results indicate a strong role of auditory feedback experience on coarticulation and suggest that parent-child communicative exchanges could stimulate children's own vocal output, which drives speech development.

The observation of other people’s actions recruits a network of areas including the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), the inferior parietal lobule (IPL), and posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG). These regions have been shown to be activated through both visual and auditory inputs. Intriguingly, previous studies found no engagement of IFG and IPL for deaf participants during non-linguistic action observation, leading to the proposal that auditory experience or sign language usage might shape the functionality of these areas. To understand which variables induce plastic changes in areas recruited during the processing of other people’s actions, we examined the effects of tasks (action understanding and passive viewing) and effectors (arm actions vs. leg actions), as well as sign language experience in a group of 12 congenitally deaf signers and 13 hearing participants. In Experiment 1, we found a stronger activation during an action recognition task in comparison to a low-level visual control task in IFG, IPL and pMTG in both deaf signers and hearing individuals, but no effect of auditory or sign language experience. In Experiment 2, we replicated the results of the first experiment using a passive viewing task. Together, our results provide robust evidence demonstrating that the response obtained in IFG, IPL, and pMTG during action recognition and passive viewing is not affected by auditory or sign language experience, adding further support for the supra-modal nature of these regions.

A four-day period of bimodality auditory and visual experience is sufficient to permit normal emergence of the map of auditory space in the guinea pig superior colliculus

The auditory space map in the superior colliculus of the guinea-pig requires for its normal emergence at 32 days after birth (DAB) bimodal, auditory and visual experience during a 4-day crucial period (26 - 30 DAB) (Withington-Wray et al., Neurosci. Lett., 116, 280 - 286, 1990d). The need for auditory experience has been proposed to be linked to the rapid changes in the cues for auditory localization brought about by head growth. Head growth is particularly rapid during the first postnatal month but continues more slowly until approximately 70 DAB. This suggests that sensory experience may be required beyond the initial crucial period to accommodate later growth. In this paper the role of auditory experience beyond the crucial period has been investigated. Deprivation of ordinary auditory experience was effected by placement of the animals in an environment in which continuous omnidirectional noise obscured the cues of sound direction. Animals deprived of auditory experience during the crucial period and then allowed normal experience showed limited ability to construct an auditory space map and the resulting map was less accurate than that found in normally reared animals. Auditory deprivation following normal experience during the crucial period caused a profound degradation, of both spatial tuning and topography, of auditory multi-unit receptive fields in the superior colliculus. The spatial tuning and topography of auditory fields from older animals (100 DAB) deprived of ordinary auditory cues for a 4-week period were normal. Thus, in the guinea-pig, susceptibility of the superior collicular space map to deprivation of auditory cues is limited by the age of the animal. The timing of the cessation of vulnerability may, in part, be due to the stabilization of directional cues affected by head growth.

The extent to which auditory experience can shape general auditory perceptual abilities is still under constant debate. Some studies show that specific auditory expertise may have a general effect on auditory perceptual abilities, while others show a more limited influence, exhibited only in a relatively narrow range associated with the area of expertise. The current study addresses this issue by examining experience-dependent enhancement in perceptual abilities in the auditory domain. Three experiments were performed. In the first experiment, 12 pop and rock musicians and 15 non-musicians were tested in frequency discrimination (DLF), intensity discrimination, spectrum discrimination (DLS), and time discrimination (DLT). Results showed significant superiority of the musician group only for the DLF and DLT tasks, illuminating enhanced perceptual skills in the key features of pop music, in which miniscule changes in amplitude and spectrum are not critical to performance. The next two experiments attempted to differentiate between generalization and specificity in the influence of auditory experience, by comparing subgroups of specialists. First, seven guitar players and eight percussionists were tested in the DLF and DLT tasks that were found superior for musicians. Results showed superior abilities on the DLF task for guitar players, though no difference between the groups in DLT, demonstrating some dependency of auditory learning on the specific area of expertise. Subsequently, a third experiment was conducted, testing a possible influence of vowel density in native language on auditory perceptual abilities. Ten native speakers of German (a language characterized by a dense vowel system of 14 vowels), and 10 native speakers of Hebrew (characterized by a sparse vowel system of five vowels), were tested in a formant discrimination task. This is the linguistic equivalent of a DLS task. Results showed that German speakers had superior formant discrimination, demonstrating highly specific effects for auditory linguistic experience as well. Overall, results suggest that auditory superiority is associated with the specific auditory exposure.

Although numerous studies have investigated the content of laboratory and home dream reports, surprisingly little is known about the prevalence of various sensory modes in dreams. 49 men and 115 women completed a battery of questionnaires and kept a home dream diary for two to three consecutive weeks. Retrospective responses to the questionnaire indicate that approximately 33% of men and 40% of women recalled having experienced sensations of smell or taste in their dreams. A total of 3372 dream reports were collected and scored for unambiguous references to auditory, olfactory, and gustatory experiences. Auditory experiences were reported in approximately 53% of all dream reports. Olfactory and gustatory sensations occurred in approximately 1% of all dream reports. A significantly greater percentage of women than men reported one or more dreams containing references to olfactory sensations. The results lend support to previous studies which have shown that a variety of sensory experiences, although relatively rare, can occur in dreams.

This study investigated gamers' auditory experiences as after effects of playing. This was done by classifying, quantifying, and analysing 192 experiences from 155 gamers collected from online videogame forums. The gamers' experiences were classified as: (i) involuntary auditory imagery (e.g., hearing the music, sounds or voices from the game), (ii) inner speech (e.g., completing phrases in the mind), (iii) auditory misperceptions (e.g., confusing real life sounds with videogame sounds), and (iv) multisensorial auditory experiences (e.g., hearing music while involuntary moving the fingers). Gamers heard auditory cues from the game in their heads, in their ears, but also coming from external sources. Occasionally, the vividness of the sound evoked thoughts and emotions that resulted in behaviours and copying strategies. The psychosocial implications of the gamers' auditory experiences are discussed. This study contributes to the understanding of the effects of auditory features in videogames, and to the phenomenology of non-volitional auditory experiences.

This study investigated gamers' auditory experiences as after effects of playing. This was done by classifying, quantifying, and analysing 192 experiences from 155 gamers collected from online videogame forums. The gamers' experiences were classified as: (i) involuntary auditory imagery (e.g., hearing the music, sounds or voices from the game), (ii) inner speech (e.g., completing phrases in the mind), (iii) auditory misperceptions (e.g., confusing real life sounds with videogame sounds), and (iv) multisensorial auditory experiences (e.g., hearing music while involuntary moving the fingers). Gamers heard auditory cues from the game in their heads, in their ears, but also coming from external sources. Occasionally, the vividness of the sound evoked thoughts and emotions that resulted in behaviours and copying strategies. The psychosocial implications of the gamers' auditory experiences are discussed. This study contributes to the understanding of the effects of auditory features in videogames, and to the phenomenology of non-volitional auditory experiences.

A Systematic Review of the experimental induction of auditory perceptual experiences

The study aims to develop an auditory experience evaluation questionnaire to improve metaverse environments’ presence and derive evaluation components considering the acoustic and auditory user experience (AUX) through a survey. After conducting a survey with a total of 232 participants, five evaluation components were extracted from auditory presence and AUX evaluation factors through principal component analysis (PCA) and reliability analysis (RA): ‘realistic auditory background’, ‘acoustic aesthetics’, ‘consideration of acoustic control and accessibility’, ‘auditory utility and minimalist design’, and ‘auditory consistency’. In particular, although AUX evaluation factors such as ‘ease of access to sound control’ have limitations in improving the sense of presence, negative factors of presence such as ‘distraction due to sound’ can be improved by utilizing AUX evaluation factors, so it is judged that the sense of presence in the metaverse environments can be improved by enhancing the auditory sense of presence and AUX evaluation factors according to the composition of the five evaluation components derived in the study. The study can be used as a basis for developing an auditory experience evaluation questionnaire for the metaverse platform, creating sound design guidelines, and identifying sound development priorities.

Auditory user interface (AUI) or experience is the most representative domain of the emotional elements with a product that can give a user differentiated experience. Providing information through auditory sense, AUI is a very important element be-cause it renders esthetics, significance, and usefulness to its users, and unity and corporate identity to companies. If there is an AUI guideline to emotions that can be commonly applicable to products, refined user’s auditory experiences can be designed and provided based on it. In this respect, the present study has the purpose of developing an AUI guideline that can explain what sounds should be provided by a certain emotional concept of a product. To develop a guideline that can be applied widely, this study carried out an experiment on users, focusing on ‘beep’ sounds, which are often used for a product. A total of 21 sound samples were created and they were tested in 269 participants. The results demonstrated that emotion is closely related to the number of sounds and chords. More specifically speaking, emotion responded differently to chord types. In future, it is necessary to conduct a study to see the connection between each emotion and product functions agreeable to it as an advanced academic attempt.

Filtering auditory information according to its relevance is critical to elicit the appropriate behavioral response. The relevance of a sound is not carried by the sound itself but rather assigned by the brain based on previous experience to the same or similar sounds. Although in experimental settings, the effects of learning on sound processing are mostly studied in the context of extensive training, in real life the value and meaning of many sounds is learned without explicit feedback (implicit auditory learning). Up to date, it is not clear at which level of the auditory pathway previous experience starts to contribute to sound processing of incoming information. The inferior colliculus (IC), located in the midbrain, is the first auditory nucleus in the auditory pathway where inputs from all ascending and several descending auditory nuclei converge. Moreover, it also receives projections from multiple non-auditory areas, which suggests that it can be modulated by multiple factors. Here, using a combination of behavioral, electrophysiological and molecular tools, I tested the hypothesis that already at the level of the IC the sensory input is influenced by implicitly learned auditory associations.
\nTo manipulate the auditory experience of animals I used the Audiobox. The Audiobox is an automated testing chamber, where mice live 24 hours a day, allowing continuous monitoring of behavior. It consists of two compartments: a home cage and a sound - attenuated corner with water access, separated by a long corridor. To drink, mice needed to visit the corner and the individual visits were detected by a transponder previously implanted in each mouse. In a group of mice, every visit to the corner was paired with the presentation of tone pips of a specific frequency (exposed group). The control group consisted of mice that lived in the Audiobox, but were not exposed to sound in any compartment. In the exposed group, the sound was paired with a specific action in a specific area (visits to the corner), hence it was the group where an implicit association could develop. I characterized the evoked responses from multinunit activity in the IC by performing acute electrophysiological recordings in anesthetized mice. I found that, after 6-12 days of sound exposure, the amplitude of the tuning curves were higher than the control group, also there was a unspecific reorganization in frequency representation. There was also an expansion of the area that responded to the frequency used during behavior. These changes were not due to an increase in the overall excitation in the auditory pathway, since no changes in sound processing were found in the cochlear nucleus. It has been shown that collicular plasticity depends on cortical feedback. However, recordings in the IC while simultaneously inactivating the cortex revealed that no cortical feedback is needed for the maintenance of the observed changes. The electrophysiological changes were paralleled at a molecular level with an increase in the excitation/inhibition ratio in collicular synapses, as measured by immunolabeling of VGAT and Vglut2.
\n2. To test the effects of sound exposure alone, without implicit learning, I performed recordings in a group of animals that lived in the Audiobox, and were exposed to the same sound but in a random way. This group also showed plasticity in the IC, also in the form of tuning curves of larger amplitude. However these changes were more dominant in the dorsal cortex of the IC, an area that did not show plasticity in the exposed group. The shift in frequency representation was visible in this group but smaller than the induced in the exposed group. Additionally, it did not show an expansion of the area responsive to the exposed sound.
\nA key question is whether these plastics changes, induced by implicit learning, had an effect on subsequent behavioural responses or even learning. To test whether frequency discrimination at a behavioral level could be affected by the changes described in sound processing in the IC, I tested frequency discrimination acuity using pre-pulse inhibition of the acoustic startle response, whose expression strongly depends on the IC. Sound exposure decreased frequency discrimination acuity in the exposed group, but not in the random group, indicating that relevant sound exposure, unlike random, increased sound generalization. To test implicit auditory learning, I trained the animals in a two-tone discrimination sound, where the conditioned sound had been previously presented in a non-conditioned manner. The exposed group elicited latent inhibition, a delay in learning, while the random group learned the task within the first day, indicating that indeed, the exposed group had developed an association between the exposed sound and a neutral outcome, previous to conditioning. 
\nTogether, these results strongly support the idea of a correlation between long-term collicular plasticity of sound processing and two behavioral readouts of frequency discrimination, supporting the theory that the IC is a subcortical filter of current auditory information that is adjusted by previous auditory experience. Implicit auditory learning has been related to the developing of important communication processes such as the categorization of phonemes. The work of the present thesis offers an animal model to study the neuronal correlates of implicit auditory learning and, in combination with genetic models of neurodevelopmental diseases, can contribute to the better understanding of the neuronal deficits underlying higher cognitive processes such as speech acquisition.

The aims of this study were to determine whether electrode discrimination by early-deafened subjects using the Cochlear Limited prosthesis varied at different locations on the electrode array, was influenced by the effects of auditory deprivation and experience with electric stimulation, and was related to speech perception. Difference limens for electrode discrimination were measured in 16 early-deafened subjects at three positions on the array: electrodes 18 (apical), 14 (mid), and 8 (basal). Electrodes were stimulated using random variations in current level to minimize the influence of loudness cues. Assessed were correlations between the difference limens, subject variables related to auditory deprivation (age at onset of deafness, duration of deafness, and age at implantation) and auditory experience (duration of implant use and the total time period of auditory experience), and speech perception scores from two closed-set and two open-set tests. The average difference limens across the three positions were less than two electrodes for 75% of subjects, with average limens between 2 and 6.5 electrodes for the remaining 25% of subjects. Significant differences across the three positions were found for 69% of subjects. The average limens and those at the basal position positively correlated with variables related to auditory deprivation, with larger limens for subjects implanted at a later age and with a longer duration of deafness. The average limens and those at the apical position negatively correlated with closed-set speech perception scores, with lower scores for subjects with larger limens, but not with open-set scores. Speech scores also negatively correlated with variables related to auditory deprivation. These findings showed that early-deafened subjects were generally successful in electrode discrimination although performance varied across the array for over half the subjects. Discrimination performance was influenced by the effects of auditory deprivation, and both electrode discrimination and variables related to auditory deprivation influenced closed-set speech perception.

Auditory experience, for a certain duration, is a prerequisite for tinnitus: lessons from subjects with unilateral tinnitus in the better-hearing ear.

Consciousness has a number of puzzling features. One such feature is its unity: the experiences (conscious states) that one has at a particular time seem to occur together in a certain way. I am currently enjoying visual experiences of my computer screen, auditory experiences of bird song, olfactory experiences of coffee, and tactile experiences of feeling the ground beneath my feet. Conjoined with these perceptual experiences are proprioceptive experiences, experiences of agency, affective and emotional experiences, and conscious thoughts of various kinds. A striking fact about these experiences is that they appear to be phenomenally unified. Take just two of them: the sound of bird-song and the smell of coffee. There is something it is like to have the auditory experience, there is something it is like to have the olfactory experience, and there is something it is like to have both the auditory and olfactory experience together. These two experiences occur as parts or components or aspects of a larger, more complex experience. And what holds of these two experiences seems to hold?at least in normal contexts?of all of one's simultaneous experiences: they seem to be subsumed by a single, maximal experience.2 We could think of this maximal experience as an experiential perspective on the world. What it is like to be me right now is (or involves) an extremely complex conscious state that subsumes various simpler experiences (seeing a computer screen, hearing bird-song, smelling coffee, and so on). I will follow recent literature in using the term 'co-consciousness' for the relation that the members of a set of conscious states bear to each other when they have a complex phenomenology (see Bayne and Chalmers 2003; Dainton 2000; Hurley 19^8; Lockwood 1989). We can illuminate co-consciousness by contrasting it with other unity relations that experiences can enter into. One such relation is co-ownership: