Abstract
BackgroundThe ability to separate two interleaved melodies is an important factor in music appreciation. This ability is greatly reduced in people with hearing impairment, contributing to difficulties in music appreciation. The aim of this study was to assess whether visual cues, musical training or musical context could have an effect on this ability, and potentially improve music appreciation for the hearing impaired.MethodsMusicians (N = 18) and non-musicians (N = 19) were asked to rate the difficulty of segregating a four-note repeating melody from interleaved random distracter notes. Visual cues were provided on half the blocks, and two musical contexts were tested, with the overlap between melody and distracter notes either gradually increasing or decreasing.ConclusionsVisual cues, musical training, and musical context all affected the difficulty of extracting the melody from a background of interleaved random distracter notes. Visual cues were effective in reducing the difficulty of segregating the melody from distracter notes, even in individuals with no musical training. These results are consistent with theories that indicate an important role for central (top-down) processes in auditory streaming mechanisms, and suggest that visual cues may help the hearing-impaired enjoy music.
Highlights
Music often contains multiple ‘‘streams’’–a number of melodic lines for instance–either played on the same or separate instruments
In order to enjoy music, listeners must be able to perceptually separate and group auditory streams. This ability is called auditory stream segregation, and is based partly on perceptual differences between the streams [1,2,3]. These perceptual cues are degraded by hearing loss [4] and hearing devices such the cochlear implant [5,6,7,8], leading to poor auditory stream segregation [9,10,11,12,13], and adding to the already problematic issue of music appreciation for CI users
A complicating factor in defining groups based on a single measure is the great variety of activities that can contribute to musical training–using a single measure may not capture the extent of musical training accurately for all individuals
Summary
Music often contains multiple ‘‘streams’’–a number of melodic lines for instance–either played on the same or separate instruments. In order to enjoy music, listeners must be able to perceptually separate and group auditory streams This ability is called auditory stream segregation, and is based partly on perceptual differences (such as pitch and timbre) between the streams [1,2,3]. Recent research [14,15] has emphasised the fact that as well as relying on these ‘‘bottom-up’’ signals from the peripheral auditory system, successful stream segregation involves more ‘‘top-down’’ or feedback processes These top-down effects can be guided by processes such as memory, expectation or attention. Visual cues [16] and training in music [17] have both been found to improve the ability to segregate simple sounds from auditory backgrounds Such top-down effects might help hearing-impaired listeners to restore their ability to perceptually isolate a melodic line from a complex musical sequence. The aim of this study was to assess whether visual cues, musical training or musical context could have an effect on this ability, and potentially improve music appreciation for the hearing impaired
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