Auditory Characteristics Research Articles

Auditory characteristics and disease progression trends of patients with common recessive deafness genes GJB2 and SLC26A4

Patients who aged≥6 years and had hearing loss due to GJB2 or SLC26A4 mutation from the Chinese Deafness Genome Project between January 2020 and December 2023 were included. A total of 43 patients with GJB2 mutation were detected, including 25 males and 18 females, with a mean age of (20.4±11.4) years. There were 20 patients with SLC26A4 mutation, including 9 males and 11 females, with a mean age of (15.7±9.1) years. The mean hearing threshold of GJB2 and SLC26A4 mutation patients was 54.1 (95%CI: 49.1-59.1) decibel hearing level (dB HL) and 66.1 (95%CI: 58.6-73.6) dB HL, respectively. The hearing threshold of GJB2 and SLC26A4 mutation patients increased at a rate of 0.21 (95%CI:-0.15-0.57) dB HL/year and 2.22 (95%CI: 1.46-2.99) dB HL/year, respectively. The current study indicates that patients with SLC26A4 mutation show a progressive trend of hearing decline with the increase of age.

Blue Space: Extracting the Sensory Characteristics of Waterscapes as a Potential Tool for Anxiety Mitigation.

Objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate if there is a physiological stress response to the visual and auditory characteristics of waterscapes. Background: Biophilic research suggests that the presence of water can reduce stress, reduce blood pressure, and increase circulation. However, water has largely been omitted from healthcare design due to concerns of cost, maintenance, waterborne pathogens, and contamination. Existing research has not yet provided a design methodology to incorporate the healing effects of water without the potential diseases, contamination, and maintenance issues associated with physical water. Given the current technological capabilities, the isolation of the auditory and visual sensory stimuli has potential to re-introduce the healing benefits of water into healthcare design. Methods: Participants were either exposed to a slow-moving or fast-moving waterscape for 20 minutes. Pre- and post-anxiety were measured using the State Trait Anxiety Scale in an online Qualtrics survey (118 participants) and through a salivary cortisol biomarker (in which 26 participants also partook). Results: The overall results demonstrate that the utilization of digital blue space was effective in reducing stress. There was no significant difference between the lake or waterfall environment in both salivary cortisol and state-trait anxiety measures. However, it is suggested that the slow and fast-moving waterscapes may be beneficial in different settings. Conclusion: Design recommendations are made regarding potential biophilic design in healthcare facilities. The utilization of sensory waterscapes can also provide a cost affordable, non-pharmacological, alternative for anxiety mitigation for patients and staff undergoing high-stress situations.

Musical protein: Mapping the time sequence of music onto the spatial architecture of proteins

Background and objectiveMusic, the ubiquitous language across human cultures, is traditionally considered as a form of art but has been linked to biomolecules in recent years. However, previous efforts have only been addressed on sonification of nucleic acids and proteins to produce so-called life music, the soundscape from the basic building blocks of life. In this study, we attempted to, for the first time, conduct a reverse operation of this process, i.e. conversion of music to protein (CoMtP). MethodsA novel notion termed musical protein (MP) –– the protein defined by music –– was proposed and, on this basis, we described a computational strategy to map the time sequence of music onto the spatial architecture of proteins, which considered that each note in the stave of a music (target) can be simply characterized by two acoustical quantities and that each residue in the primary sequence of a protein (hit) was represented by amino acid descriptors. ResultsA simulated annealing (SA) algorithm was applied to iteratively generate the best matched MP hit for a music target and structural bioinformatics was then used to model spatial advanced structure for the resulting MP. We also demonstrated that some small MPs derived from music segments may have potential biological functions, which, for example, can serve as antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) to inhibit clinical bacterial strains with moderate or high antibacterial potency. ConclusionsThis work may benefit many aspects; for example, it would open a door for the hearing-impaired persons to ‘listen’ music in a biological vision and could be a mean of exposing students to the concepts of biomolecules at an earlier age through the use of auditory characteristics. The CoMtP would also facilitate the rational design of proteins with biological and medicinal significance.

Interaction of sound-audition traits between eared insects and arthropodophagous bats: using a DNA approach to assess diet

Abstract Arthropod–bat interactions are often considered as a base model for studying factors underlying predator–prey coevolutionary processes. Bats developed ultrasonic echolocation to hunt, and in response some arthropods developed defense mechanisms such as ultrasonic hearing, allowing them to elude bat predators. The present study analyzes the feeding patterns of bats, focusing on sonic-auditory sensory mechanisms in predator–prey interactions. Next-generation DNA sequence data from fecal samples were used to analyze the diet of 17 bat species from Mexico. Arthropod prey taxa were classified according to their auditory traits, and echolocation data were recompiled from literature review. We: (i) classified arthropod families according to their hearing ability; (ii) estimated arthropod taxon richness and proportion in the diet of each bat species; and (iii) used multidimensional scaling, principal component analysis, and regression to analyze prey consumption patterns in relation to their auditory traits and in relation to echolocation characteristics of bats. Finally, we analyzed the relationship between foraging time and auditory characteristics of prey. Families with hearing organs correspond to the orders Lepidoptera and Orthoptera. We registered 20 families of Lepidoptera and 5 of Orthoptera—7 and 3 with hearing organs, respectively. Of these orders, families lacking ears were recorded in the diet of a few bat species. Our results support the allotonic frequency hypothesis predicting a difference in emission frequency intervals between predator and prey. However, we found that the consumption of earless moths is less frequent and is related to diurnal and twilight activity—hence, their consumption is limited to bat species foraging early. Results indicate bats feed on arthropod prey successfully despite the ultrasonic hearing ability of the prey. These results may be due to counteradaptations that allow maintenance of an asymmetric “arms race” between bats and eared insects that favors the predator.

A multi-level power grid enhanced identity authentication data management platform based on filtering algorithms

In response to the optimal extraction of DCT coefficients in facial images, the author proposes a DCT coefficient extraction method based on discriminant analysis. Based on the discriminant analysis of DCT coefficients, the DCT coefficients with high discriminant values are selected as features. Comparing the DPA based discrete cosine coefficient selection method proposed by the author with the traditional Zigzag discrete cosine coefficient selection method, experiments were conducted on the ORL face database and the Yale face database, respectively. The recognition performance on the ORL face database was higher than that on the Yale face database, as the facial image expression and lighting changes in the ORL database were relatively few, making it suitable for extracting key features. In response to the problem that the speech parameter MFCC is greatly affected by noise and can only reflect the static characteristics of speech, the author extracted gamma pass filtering cepstrum coefficients with human auditory characteristics and gamma pass sliding differential cepstrum coefficients that can reflect the dynamic characteristics of speech based on gamma tone filters and sliding differential cepstrum. In the NUST603 speech database, under pure background, the recognition rate based on GFSDCC features reached 89.88%, and the recognition effect based on GFCC features was 87.52%, which is 4.66% and 2.36% higher than that based on MFCC features. In noisy environments, the average recognition rates of speaker recognition systems based on GFCC and GFSDCC are 56.06% and 59.07%, while the average recognition rates of speaker recognition systems based on MFCC speech features are 53.89%, 2.17% and 5.18% higher, respectively. The gain in this recognition effect comes from the characteristics of the auditory model, as the Gammatone filter effectively reflects the noise resistance of the human auditory system.

Mining the Performance Characteristics of Yao Nationality Musical Instruments under Multivariate Statistical Analysis

Abstract In the context of the rapid development of modernization and urbanization, the inheritance and research of music and musical instruments by ethnic minorities are facing great challenges. It is, therefore, of enormous significance to uncover the performance characteristics of ethnic minority musical instruments. This paper focuses on four categories of Yao musical instruments, namely reed instruments, air-pipe instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. We mine the performance features of Yao musical instruments using MFCC feature extraction, perceptual linear prediction parameter extraction, and other methods. The performance of this paper’s algorithm is explored by comparing the detection and recognition accuracy of its algorithm with SVM on four types of musical instruments. The performance characteristics of Yao musical instruments are explored by analyzing the timbre characteristics, auditory characteristics, and beat statistics of the four instruments. This paper’s algorithm significantly outperforms the SVM algorithm in the recognition correct rate of four different types of musical instruments, with differences of 2.1905%, 7.1574%, 5.3758%, and 3.6962%, respectively. The extracted performance features of Yao music instruments reveal that reed instruments and air-pipe instruments have a superior timbral effect than wind instruments and percussion instruments. The sound of pneumatic instruments and wind instruments is the best when it comes to audibility, and the beats of reed instruments and wind instruments are the best among the four instruments.

Ensemble Feature Selection for Age Estimation from Speech

The voice signal carries a wide range of data about the speaker, including their physical characteristics, feelings, and level of health. There are several uses for the estimate of these physical characteristics from the speech in forensics, security, surveillance, marketing, and customer service. The primary goal of this research is to identify the auditory characteristics that aid in estimating a speaker’s age. To this end, an ensemble feature selection model is proposed that selects the best features from a baseline acoustic feature vector for age estimation from speech. Using a feature vector that covers various spectral, temporal, and prosodic aspects of speech, an ensemble-based automatic feature selection is performed by, first calculating the feature importance or ranks based on individual feature selection methods, then voting is applied to the resulting feature ranks to attain the top-ranked subset by all feature selection methods. The proposed method is evaluated on the TIMIT dataset and achieved a mean absolute error (MAE) of 5.58 years and 5.12 years for male and female age estimation. Index Terms— Age Estimation, Feature Selection, Ensemble Selection, TIMIT dataset.

The effect of tennis batting sound on anxiety: a randomized controlled trial and basic acoustic analysis.

To investigate the potential role of the unique sound of tennis in alleviating anxiety. Previous research has consistently shown that exercise can mitigate anxiety, primarily attributed to the impact of increased physical activity on hormonal and neurostructural changes. However, in daily life we find that one of the reasons people are drawn to tennis is its distinctive sound. In this study, we specifically examined the influence of this sound on anxiety. In a randomized controlled experiment involving 96 participants reporting chronic anxiety (n1 = n2 = 48), we found that the control group exhibited an average reduction of 0.00156 in anxiety scores 4 weeks before and after the study. On the other hand, the experimental group, exposed to tennis stroke sound stimuli, showed an average reduction of 0.02896 in anxiety scores after 4 weeks, with some individuals even experiencing a decrease from anxiety to mild anxiety. Furthermore, the analysis of sound data revealed that the sound of tennis exhibited a pleasing timbre, with the primary sound frequencies ranging from 100 to 2,800 Hz. The rhythm of the sound had an average interval of approximately 1.758″ (± 0.41), corresponding to speed of approximately 93.6 km/h. The sound exhibited a steady rhythm, orderly variations in pitch, and a soothing timbre. This study confirms that the sound of tennis alone contributes to anxiety relief, attributed to its suitable loudness, steady rhythm, and orderly variations in pitch, all of which align with human auditory characteristics. This indicates that a considerable portion of the anxiety-alleviating effects of tennis attributed to its comforting sound.

Frequency dependent emotional responses to sound: A cross-modal analysis of electroencephalogram band power and emotion perception

Enabling machines to comprehend human emotions serves as the motivating factor for our research. This effort significantly contributes to advancing emotion recognition and human-computer interaction. Our study explores the fundamental associations between emotional responses and auditory characteristics, with a primary focus on frequency. To achieve this, we conducted a two-stage perception test, aiming to identify the interplay between EEG band power and dominant emotion class as a function of frequency. Musical notes, ranging between 110 Hz and 973 Hz, served as our stimuli. During the first stage, we collected participants' EEG data, categorized it into distinct energy bands (Alpha (α), Beta (β), Delta (δ), Theta (θ), and Gamma (γ)), and analyzed band power and ratios. In the subsequent stage, we had participants evaluate their emotional responses to each stimulus. Our results from this two-stage perception test suggest that an increased tangent of the α / β band power ratio corresponds to Low-Arousal emotions, while a diminishing tangent correlates with High-Arousal emotions. Furthermore, we observed a crossover point for four primary emotions within the 417–440 Hz frequency range. This finding supports the hypothesis that the 432–440 Hz range is emotionally neutral.

Planning research of whale sound detection system

In maritime countries such as the United States and European countries, studies on cetacean resource distribution, vocalization characteristics, auditory characteristics, and habitat environment are actively being conducted in order to permanently preserve cetacean resources. It is necessary to establish a real-time buoy-type marine life observation system for the surrounding waters of the Korean Peninsula, and the components of the real-time buoy-type marine life observation system that can observe the underwater acoustic environment require a line-type underwater acoustic sensor, a large-capacity file real-time transmission system, and a high-capacity battery. Planning contents for the development of the whale sound detection system include realizing scientific whale tourism by combining marine science technology (MT + ICT), presenting a plan for constructing a real-time buoy-type observation system for whales based on ICT, and presenting an analysis algorithm for identifying whale ecology through observation and analysis of radioactive sound characteristics and acoustic characteristics of whales in real time. These research results can be developed as new tourism contents in the southeast sea of Korea, contribute to expanding the base of whale-watching tourism business, and provide information on migratory routes and resource distribution by identifying the sonic characteristics of cetaceans.

Age-related asymmetry in left-right ears of sound lateralization with respect to four different rise times.

An experimental investigation was conducted to elucidate the auditory characteristics of the older adult population. The study involved 24 older adult and 24 young participants, with the aim of exploring their horizontal lateralization ability. This was achieved by presenting 1-kHz pure tones to the participants' right and left ears while introducing interaural time differences (ITDs). We examined the impact of four rise times (2, 5, 20, and 50 ms) on the onset of the test sound. The findings revealed that older adult participants exhibited lower levels of lateralization than young participants. Moreover, both older adult and young participants demonstrated diminished recognition of the onset portion as the rise time increased. Of particular significance was the conspicuous presence of a right ear advantage (REA) among young participants as the rise time was extended (statistically significant between the left and right ears at the 1% level, considering an ITD of 0.8 ms and a rise time of 50 ms). In contrast, older adult participants did not exhibit REA, even with a prolonged rise time (not significant at the 5% level at the same condition). These results indicate that the REA is not only present in language, as previously observed, but also extends to a pure tone in young participants. The older adult participants exhibited reduced performance in both left-and right-ear sound recognition. The influence of hearing threshold and preferred ear on sound lateralization performance was minimal. Therefore, it can be inferred that factors other than hearing threshold or preferred ear contribute to the presence of REA in young participants or its decline with age. The central and/or corpus callosum functions may also contribute to this phenomenon.

Behavioural Analysis of Dogs’ Response to Threatening and Neutral Conspecific Video Stimuli

Dogs’ displacement behaviours and some facial expressions have been suggested to function as appeasement signals, reducing the occurrences of aggressive interactions. The present study had the objectives of using naturalistic videos, including their auditory stimuli, to expose a population of dogs to a standardised conflict (threatening dog) and non-conflict (neutral dog) situation and to measure the occurrence of displacement behaviours and facial expressions under the two conditions. Video stimuli were recorded in an ecologically valid situation: two different female pet dogs barking at a stranger dog passing by (threatening behaviour) or panting for thermoregulation (neutral behaviour). Video stimuli were then paired either with their natural sound or an artificial one (pink noise) matching the auditory characteristics. Fifty-six dogs were exposed repeatedly to the threatening and neutral stimuli paired with the natural or artificial sound. Regardless of the paired auditory stimuli, dogs looked significantly more at the threatening than the neutral videos (χ2(56, 1) = 138.867, p < 0.001). They kept their ears forward more in the threatening condition whereas ears were rotated more in the neutral condition. Contrary to the hypotheses, displacement behaviours of sniffing, yawning, blinking, lip-wiping (the tongue wipes the lips from the mouth midpoint to the mouth corner), and nose-licking were expressed more in the neutral than the threatening condition. The dogs tested showed socially relevant cues, suggesting that the experimental paradigm is a promising method to study dogs’ intraspecific communication. Results suggest that displacement behaviours are not used as appeasement signals to interrupt an aggressive encounter but rather in potentially ambiguous contexts where the behaviour of the social partner is difficult to predict.

CONSTRUCTION OF WOMEN IDENTITY: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS IN INDIAN MADE CARTOON SERIES

Gender stereotypes are significantly shaped by the media. Children will develop the same attitude if they constantly watch these forms of stereotypical content. So, it’s must to analyse the content of children programs, especially in television animation programs. This essay analyses how women are portrayed in Indian animated Television series. Here, using the critical discourse analysis method, it analyzed what the characters stand for, how they are shown, and their significance in the series. The study was carried out by employing Gramsci's hegemony theory. Through Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse method, three episodes of five Indian made cartoon series are studied. The physical appearance of protagonist and antagonist women, the cultural identity of the major female roles, the discourse of and about women, as well as visual and auditory characteristics of women, are all studied in this research.

Facial Emotion Song Recommender System

Sometimes, it is very difficult for someone to determine whether a person wants to hear a particular music from the vast array of available choices. So, this paper has proposed a new concept of playing music that is based on the emotion of the user. The primary goal of the music recommendation system which is proposed in this paper is to offer customers recommendations that match their tastes. The most current view of the paper involves manually playing the jukebox, using wearable computers, or classifying based on auditory characteristics. Understanding the user's present emotional or mental state may result from analysing the user's facialexpression and emotions. One area is having a great possibility to provide the audience, with a vast variety of options that are based on their preferences and music and video. In this paper, the primary goal is to show a playlist of songs on any particular music application (YouTube/Spotify) based on each person’s mood. Several images of the user are collected at that precise moment using a camera with the user's consent. To determine a person's mood, these photos go through a thorough testing andtraining process. For this, the deep learning technique called CNN is used to categorize various emotions. After this, based on the trained model, the various emotions are categorized and based on this the music playlist is generated.

Prevalence and Auditory Characteristics of Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder in Adult Population with Sensory Neural Hearing Loss: A Hospital Based Study in South India.

Auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder (ANSD) is a heterogenous group of disorder characterized by abnormalities in auditory brainstem responses (ABR) with preserved otoacoustic emissions and/or cochlear microphonics. The aim of the study is to estimate the prevalence and evaluate the audiological characteristics of ANSD in adult population with sensory neural hearing loss. A prospective study was conducted on the adult population (≥ 18 years) attending ENT outpatients clinic at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, Chennai. All patients reported to the department with auditory and vestibular symptoms underwent case history, otoscopic examination, and routine audiological evaluation (pure tone audiometry, speech audiometry and immittance audiometry). Patients with indications of ANSD in case history and routine audiological evaluation were further evaluated using distortion product otoacoustic emissions and ABR. A total of 8682 adult population was evaluated during the period of 2017 to 2018. Out of 8682 patients, 1343 (15.46%) of them had sensory neural hearing loss of varying degrees. Out of 1343 adults with sensory neural hearing loss, 24 (1.78%) adults were diagnosed as ANSD. The prevalence of ANSD in adult population with sensory neural hearing loss in our study is 1.32% per 1000 adults. The clinical characteristics of ANSD shows impairment in speech perception irrespective of degree of hearing loss, preserved cochlear functions and abnormal ABR. Hence ANSD is not a rare clinical finding in adults with sensory neural hearing loss, but its prevalence was estimated to be lower in Indian population. Often young females are affected causing significant impairment in speech perception and disability.

Оптимизм и пессимизм в образах будущего в современном российском кинематографе

The article is devoted to the analysis of Russian films in order to identify optimism and pessimism about the prospects of the future in them. As a methodological basis, we applied our own methodology for the study of feature films. Its application made it possible to consider not only the content (plot) of films, but also their visual range, to focus on the color, light and auditory characteristics of the film. In conclusion, a conclusion was made about the dominance of pessimism in the images of the future in contemporary Russian cinema.

Controllable acoustic deterrent based on the warning signals generated by nonel detonators

Acoustic deterrents are a practical strategy to mitigate the impact of underwater noise on marine mammals. However, their safety and effectiveness are still debatable. This study proposes a controllable acoustic deterrence method to protect marine mammals threatened by underwater blasting noise. The method creates strong-randomness warning signals using nonel detonators and establishes an escape time for animals protected. Combining the BELLHOP ray-based acoustic model with the marine environmental parameters and animals' auditory characteristics, we built a prediction model to establish a link between the acoustic fields and the adjustable source parameters, and provide a Risk zone and Deterrent zone for animals. The simulation and experimental results demonstrated that the root mean squared error between the simulated and measured sound pressure spectral density levels did not exceed 4.5 dB and the coefficient of determination remained at approximately 0.8, indicating that the new deterrent is an effective method with good controllable performances.

The influence of music on the perception of taste

The auditory characteristics of a musical composition can be matched in a congruent manner with the basic tastes affecting the way consumers perceive them. Based on this evidence, the present study was developed to extend the understanding of crossmodal interactions between gustatory and auditory stimuli—namely, the influence of music on sweet and sour basic tastes intensity. For this purpose, two musical compositions congruent with sweet and sour basic tastes were selected. The gustatory stimulus chosen was a real food (passion fruit mousse) having these two basic tastes. Sensory tests were performed upon a participants screening using basic tastes recognition tests and familiarization with the used scale. Each participant experienced the same dessert in three different conditions, in random order: i) control, in which the dessert was tasted in silence; ii) condition A, in which the dessert was tasted while listening to sweet music, that expectably would enhance the sweet taste and iii) condition B, in which the dessert was tasted while listening to sour music, that expectably would enhance the sour taste. Results demonstrated that the same dessert was perceived differently when participants were exposed to different auditory stimuli, validating the music's influence on the tasting experience. Furthermore, it was verified that crossmodal music-taste correspondences with the sour taste were stronger and showed a significant effect. Sweet music, by contrast, did not increase the sweet taste of the dessert. However, it decreased the intensity of sour taste, suggesting a different approach to crossmodal correspondences between music and taste.

Chinese striped-neck turtles vocalize underwater and show differences in peak frequency among different age and sex groups.

Turtle vocalizations play an important role throughout their lives by expressing individual information (position, emotion, or physiological status), reflecting mating preferences, and synchronizing incubation. The Chinese striped-neck turtle (Mauremys sinensis) is one of the most widely distributed freshwater turtles in China, whose wild population is critically endangered. However, its vocalization has not been studied, which can be the basis for behavioral and ecological studies. Five different sex-age groups of turtles were recorded underwater in a soundproof room. Cluster analysis and principal component analysis for classification of Chinese striped-neck turtle calls were unreasonable. The turtle calls were manually sought using visual and aural inspection of the recordings in Raven Pro 1.5 software and classified according to differences perceived through auditory inspection and the morphological characteristics of the spectrograms. The results of similarity analysis verified the reliability of manual classification. We compared the peak frequency of the calls among different age and sex groups. We identified ten M. sinensis call types, displayed their spectra and waveforms, and described their auditory characteristics. Most calls produced by the turtles were low-frequency. Some high-frequency call types, that are common in other turtle species were also produced. Similar to other turtles, the Chinese striped-neck turtle generates harmonic vocalizations. Courtship behaviors were observed when one of the call types occurred in the mixed-sex group. Adult females produced more high-frequency call types, and subadult males had higher vocalizations than other groups. These results provide a basis for future research on the function of vocalizations, field monitoring, and conservation of this species.

Aural Authenticity and Reality in Soundscape of VR Documentary

The documentary concept is a 'notoriously slippery eel,' or even the slipperiest one in the history of cinema (Kahana, 2016). With the involvement of virtual reality in the production of documentaries, the dialectic between virtuality and authenticity makes this concept even more elusive. Does documentary exist in VR films? When the spaces and mise-en-scène of the documentary are all artificially created through computing software, can it still be considered an authentic form of a documentary? How can this sub-genre of documentary continue to exist as a kind of proclaimed ‘non-fiction’ when the film is based entirely on fictional visual input? This paper aims to put the discussion on visual realities aside and provides a perspective for understanding how real auditory characteristics are built up in virtual environments (VE) of virtual reality documentaries. We develop this argument in three parts. In the first part, we define a virtual reality documentary and distinguish it from other virtual reality films based on Bill Nichols’s analysis of the boundary between traditional documentary and other types of films. Then, we describe the design and implementation of the aural simulation systems with HRTF (Head-Related Transfer Function) in virtual reality documentary sound design to illustrate how it could reproduce realistic physical hearing for viewers. In the final part, we explore the concept of ‘soundscape’ as it applies to VR documentaries, attempting to show that the sense of authenticity in the audition is related to generating the genius loci (spirit of place) of the viewers based on the case analysis of Anne Frank House VR. Such a spirit of place is embedded in the hearing experience of those who experienced it.