Auditory Patterns Research Articles

The Levenshtein distance as a measure of mirror symmetry and homogeneity for binary digital patterns

Abstract. The complexity of a digital pattern, image, map, or sequence of symbols is a salient feature that finds numerous applications in a variety of domains of knowledge [1], [7], [10], [11]. Two features of patterns that form inherent components of pattern complexity, are mirror (reflection) symmetry and homogeneity [8], [9]. In the raster graphics representation mode, a pattern consists of a two-dimensional array (matrix) of elements (pixels, symbols). It is assumed here that the elements are binary-valued (black-white). With such a representation it is common to compute properties of 2-dimensional patterns, such as complexity, mirror-symmetry, and homogeneity, along the 1-dimensional rows, columns, and diagonals of the array [4]. In addition, within each row, mirror symmetries may be analysed either globally or locally [3]. A pattern that does not exhibit global mirror symmetry may still possess an abundant number of local mirror symmetries. Local symmetries permit graded measures of symmetry rather than all-or-nothing decisions. One powerful type of local symmetry is the sub-symmetry, a contiguous subset of elements of the pattern that is palindromic (has mirror symmetry). It has been shown empirically that the total number of sub-symmetries present in a pattern may serve as an excellent predictor of the perception of both visual pattern complexity [5], and auditory pattern complexity [6]. The present research project explores how two well-known measures of the distance between binary patterns and their inversions, correlate with sub-symmetries, as well as other measures of symmetry and homogeneity.

Preferred Cognitive Learning Patterns (VAK) Among Secondary Students Admitted to King Saud University and its Effect on their Academic Achievement in Physics

The aim of this study was to determine the preferred cognitive learning patterns among secondary students and their effect on their achievement in physics. To achieve the objective of the study, the researcher designed a scale of cognitive learning patterns (VAK) that consisted of (16) items, and after verifying its validity and reliability, it was applied to the sample of the study that consisted of (628) students randomly selected from the study population composed of secondary students admitted to King University Saud for the academic year 2017-2018. The results showed that there were statistically significant differences between the types of learning patterns preferred by students, that the majority of students preferred the visual pattern, followed by those who preferred the auditory pattern, while the kinesthetic pattern was the least favored by the students. The results also showed statistically significant differences in the learning patterns preferred by students attributed to the gender variable. It showed that males prefer the auditory pattern more than females, while females preferred the visual pattern more than males. There were no gender differences in their preference for the kinesthetic pattern. Moreover, Results related to the effect of the learning pattern on achievement showed a statistically significant effect of learning patterns on students’ achievement in physics. It showed that the students who preferred the kinesthetic pattern are those who had the highest academic achievements, followed by the students who preferred the visual pattern, while the students who preferred the audio pattern were the least achievable students. Based on these results, the study recommended that teachers should be encouraged to diversify the strategies and methods of university teaching to suit the learning styles preferred by their students, especially the new students, to motivate them to learn in the university environment and to provide the training needs and requirements necessary to enable them to take into consideration the individual differences among their students when they identify educational goals, content, methods, and strategies.

Pre-stimulus brain state predicts auditory pattern identification accuracy

Recent studies show that pre-stimulus band-specific power and phase in the electroencephalogram (EEG) can predict accuracy on tasks involving the detection of near-threshold stimuli. However, results in the auditory modality have been mixed, and few works have examined pre-stimulus features when more complex decisions are made (e.g. identifying supra-threshold sounds). Further, most auditory studies have used background sounds known to induce oscillatory EEG states, leaving it unclear whether phase predicts accuracy without such background sounds. To address this gap in knowledge, the present study examined pre-stimulus EEG as it relates to accuracy in a tone pattern identification task. On each trial, participants heard a triad of 40-ms sinusoidal tones (separated by 40-ms intervals), one of which was at a different frequency than the other two. Participants' task was to indicate the tone pattern (low-low-high, low-high-low, etc.). No background sounds were employed. Using a phase opposition measure based on inter-trial phase consistencies, pre-stimulus 7–10 Hz phase was found to differ between correct and incorrect trials ∼200 to 100 ms prior to tone-pattern onset. After sorting trials into bins based on phase, accuracy was found to be lowest at around π−+ relative to individuals’ most accurate phase bin. No significant effects were found for pre-stimulus power. In the context of the literature, findings suggest an important relationship between the complexity of task demands and pre-stimulus activity within the auditory domain. Results also raise interesting questions about the role of induced oscillatory states or rhythmic processing modes in obtaining pre-stimulus effects of phase in auditory tasks.

Pspan: A New Tool for Assessing Pitch Temporal Processing and Patterning Capacity.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether merging the clinical pitch pattern test procedure with psychoacoustic adaptive methods would create a new tool feasible to capture individual differences in pitch temporal processing and patterning capacity of children and adults. Method Sixty-six individuals, young children (ages 10-12 years, n = 22), older children (ages 13-15 years, n = 23), and adults (ages 18-33 years, n = 21), were recruited and assigned to subgroups based on reported duration (years) of instrumental music instruction. Additional background information was collected in order to assess if the pitch temporal processing and patterning span developed, the Pspan, was sensitive to individual differences across participants. Results The evaluation of the Pspan task as a scale indicated good parallel reliability across runs assessed by Cronbach's alpha, and scores were normally distributed. Between-subjects analysis of variance indicated main effects for both age groups and music groups recruited for the study. A multiple regression analysis with the Pspan scores as the dependent variable found that 3 measures of music instruction, age in years, and paternal education were predictive of enhanced temporal processing and patterning capacity for pitch input. Conclusions The outcomes suggest that the Pspan task is a time-efficient data collection tool that is sensitive to the duration of instrumental music instruction, maturation, and paternal education. In addition, results indicate that the task is sensitive to age-related auditory temporal processing and patterning performance changes during adolescence when children are 10-15 years old.

Lessons learned from signal-detection-theory-oriented studies of the processing of auditory patterns

One extension of Fechner’s (1860) methods by which the influence of sensory stimuli on human observers could be quantified in physical units, sometimes termed a psychophysics was Stevens (1938) theory and methodology of perceived magnitude estimation that attempted to bridge the gap between sensation and perception. A more far-reaching second extension began in 1954, when Peterson, Birdsall, and Fox applied statistical decision theory to the recovery of physical signals embedded in background noise and Tanner, Green, and Swets applied those principles to develop a new psychophysical methodology. What became known as “signal detection theory” provided methods of determining the capacity of systems to detect, discriminate, or recognize physical stimuli, a second psychophysics. The two alternatives to Fechner represent complimentary approaches to a single set of phenomena, one of which can be characterized as the study of sensory capabilities and the other of response proclivities. The two require entierly different methods of measurement and address fundamentally different questions. Both are of practical and theoretical importance. Levels of stimulus uncertainty and the type and duration of experience with stimuli can have profound influences on measurements of both types. Examples of these effects for complex sounds, both speech and nonspeech, will be presented.

Auditory sequence perception in common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus)

One of the essential linguistic and musical faculties of humans is the ability to recognize the structure of sound configurations and to extract words and melodies from continuous sound sequences. However, monkeys’ ability to process the temporal structure of sounds is controversial. Here, to investigate whether monkeys can analyze the temporal structure of auditory patterns, two common marmosets were trained to discriminate auditory patterns in three experiments. In Experiment 1, the marmosets were able to discriminate trains of either 0.5- or 2-kHz tones repeated in either 50- or 200-ms intervals. However, the marmosets were not able to discriminate ABAB from AABB patterns consisting of A (0.5-kHz/50-ms pulse) and B (2-kHz/200-ms pulse) elements in Experiment 2, and A (0.5-kHz/50-ms pulse) and B (0.5-kHz/200-ms pulse) [or A (0.5-kHz/200-ms pulse) and B (2-kHz/200-ms pulse)] in Experiment 3. Consequently, the results indicated that the marmosets could not perceive tonal structures in terms of the temporal configuration of discrete sounds, whereas they could recognize the acoustic features of the stimuli. The present findings were supported by cognitive and brain studies that indicated a limited ability to process sound sequences. However, more studies are needed to confirm the ability of auditory sequence perception in common marmosets.

The familiar-melody advantage in auditory perceptual development: Parallels between spoken language acquisition and general auditory perception.

How do learners build up auditory pattern knowledge? Findings from children's spoken word learning suggest more robust auditory representations for highly familiar words than for newly learned words. This argues against spoken language learning as a process of simply acquiring a fixed set of speech sound categories, suggesting instead that specific words may be the relevant units. More generally, one might state this as the specific-learning hypothesis-that acquiring sound pattern knowledge involves learning specific patterns, rather than abstract pattern components. To understand the nature of human language knowledge, it is important to determine whether this specific learning reflects processes unique to spoken language learning or instead reflects more general auditory-learning processes. To investigate whether the specific-learning hypothesis extends to auditory pattern learning more generally, the present study tested the perceptual processing of familiar melodies versus carefully matched unfamiliar melodies. Children performed better at both audiovisual mapping (Exp. 1) and same-different auditory discrimination (Exp. 2) when hearing familiar melodies than when hearing unfamiliar melodies. This is consistent with the specific-learning hypothesis and with exemplar-style general-auditory accounts of pattern learning, although alternative explanations are possible.

Disentangling Neural Synchronization and Sustained Neural Activity in the Processing of Auditory Temporal Patterns.

Disentangling Neural Synchronization and Sustained Neural Activity in the Processing of Auditory Temporal Patterns.

Melody Processing Characterizes Functional Neuroanatomy in the Aging Brain.

The functional neuroanatomical mechanisms underpinning cognition in the normal older brain remain poorly defined, but have important implications for understanding the neurobiology of aging and the impact of neurodegenerative diseases. Auditory processing is an attractive model system for addressing these issues. Here, we used fMRI of melody processing to investigate auditory pattern processing in normal older individuals. We manipulated the temporal (rhythmic) structure and familiarity of melodies in a passive listening, ‘sparse’ fMRI protocol. A distributed cortico-subcortical network was activated by auditory stimulation compared with silence; and within this network, we identified separable signatures of anisochrony processing in bilateral posterior superior temporal lobes; melodic familiarity in bilateral anterior temporal and inferior frontal cortices; and melodic novelty in bilateral temporal and left parietal cortices. Left planum temporale emerged as a ‘hub’ region functionally partitioned for processing different melody dimensions. Activation of Heschl’s gyrus by auditory stimulation correlated with the integrity of underlying cortical tissue architecture, measured using multi-parameter mapping. Our findings delineate neural substrates for analyzing perceptual and semantic properties of melodies in normal aging. Melody (auditory pattern) processing may be a useful candidate paradigm for assessing cerebral networks in the older brain and potentially, in neurodegenerative diseases of later life.

Hierarchical timescales of statistical learning revealed by mismatch negativity to auditory pattern deviations

The amplitude of mismatch negativity (MMN) elicited following an unexpected sound reflects a pattern-violation signal that will increase with estimated precision. Precision is inversely related to environmental variance, and should be higher the longer that current regularities have been stable. However, MMN amplitude can be impacted by initial learning such that the relative probability of sounds when first encountered distorts the precision estimates later associated with those sounds. The present study tested the hypothesis that MMN to a pattern violation would be differentially sensitive to both local and global patterning within a sequence, depending on whether the sound was common or rare at sequence onset. Sound sequences consisted of two levels of nested regularity: (1) two tones alternated probabilities as the local standard (p = .875) and deviant (p = .125), and (2) these alternations occurred regularly across four blocks of 2.4 min (stable components) or twelve blocks of 0.8 min (unstable components). Sequences were delivered first in an unstable-stable (“increasing-stability”) and next a stable-unstable (“decreasing-stability”) structure, both inducing a violation to the regular block length at the transition between components. MMN to the tone initially heard as a common repeating standard when later heard as a deviant was not affected by stability of either local (tone probabilities) or global (block length) patterns, reaching equivalent amplitude in all components. In contrast, MMN amplitude to the tone initially heard as deviant was significantly impacted by both local and global pattern stability. MMN amplitude was larger in stable than unstable blocks only if they were heard first (decreasing-stability sequence), and was significantly smaller in both stable and unstable block types after a violation of regular block length. Results are interpreted as local MMN amplitude being “weighted down” by decreased precision in the global structure, but only for the first deviant encountered.

Late negative response revealed language-specific processing of word-level prosodic phonology in the adult brain

Native speakers develop specialized neural architectures in the processing of auditory patterns found in their language. However, little is known about the neural basis of language-specific processing of phonological patterns beyond the syllable level. The current event-related potential (ERP) study investigated cortical processing of native vs. nonnative prosodic phonology in a disyllabic context. The participants were 18 normal native Chinese-speaking adults who had at least six years of English-as-a-second-language course work in school. The speech stimuli included disyllabic nonsense words spoken in Chinese and in English, which were matched in syllabic structure and digitally edited for matching in overall duration and intensity. The control nonspeech stimuli were hummed versions of the speech stimuli, which preserved the acoustic prosodic features but not the phonetic content. The ERP data were obtained with a passive listening paradigm, showing an enhanced late negative response (LNR) for the native vs. nonnative comparison in the speech condition but not in the nonspeech condition. These results provided the initial evidence that the LNR component can reflect language-specific differences in prosodic phonology beyond auditory processing of the critical acoustic cues at the supra-syllabic level.Native speakers develop specialized neural architectures in the processing of auditory patterns found in their language. However, little is known about the neural basis of language-specific processing of phonological patterns beyond the syllable level. The current event-related potential (ERP) study investigated cortical processing of native vs. nonnative prosodic phonology in a disyllabic context. The participants were 18 normal native Chinese-speaking adults who had at least six years of English-as-a-second-language course work in school. The speech stimuli included disyllabic nonsense words spoken in Chinese and in English, which were matched in syllabic structure and digitally edited for matching in overall duration and intensity. The control nonspeech stimuli were hummed versions of the speech stimuli, which preserved the acoustic prosodic features but not the phonetic content. The ERP data were obtained with a passive listening paradigm, showing an enhanced late negative response (LNR) for the nativ...

Use of transition and abstract rules by budgerigars in auditory pattern processing

Budgerigars, a small species of parrot, are open-ended vocal learners that produce a long, rambling warble song. Past work has shown that these birds are sensitive to changes in the order of their song elements but it is not clear what rules they may use to process changes in sounds sequences. Here, we used operant conditioning and psychophysical techniques to ask how budgerigars discriminate among patterned auditory sequences. In these experiments, auditory sequences of the form AAB, composed of pure tones or natural warble elements, were played to the bird as a repeating background until the bird pecked a key to initiate a trial. During a trial, either a target sequence played that differed from the background in the order of the elements or a sham trial occurred where there was no change. Results show that budgerigars use rules about the transitions between elements to detect targets. Further experiments using multiple background sequences show that the birds are also sensitive to the underlying abstract pattern of sounds (same-same-different). Thus, with their ability to attend to surface transition rules (phonology-like) and deeper abstract patterns (syntax-like), budgerigars are a useful vocal learning model for studying the neurobiology and evolution of language.

A neural circuit for song pattern recognition in the cricket brain

Acoustic communication is based on amplitude and frequency modulation of sound signals. Temporal features of the signal require processing by central auditory neurons, the brain circuits, however that detect temporal features are poorly understood. We show how five neurons in the brain of female field crickets form an auditory feature-detector circuit for the pulse pattern of the male calling song, and exhibit properties of a delay-line and coincidence-detection mechanism. The network receives its direct input from a single ascending auditory interneuron. An internal delay that matches the pulse period of the calling song is established by a non-spiking brain neuron. In response to a sound pulse, it generates a transient inhibition that triggers a delayed rebound depolarization. The direct input and the delayed responses converge in a coincidence detector neuron, which responds best to the pulse pattern of the species-specific calling song as the rebound activation of the non-spiking neuron coincides with the response of the ascending interneuron to the subsequent sound pulse. The output of the coincidence detector neuron is further processed by a feature detector neuron to suppress unselective responses and background activity. The circuit reveals principal mechanisms of sensory processing underlying the perception of temporal auditory patterns.

Predictive coding in auditory perception: challenges and unresolved questions.

Predictive coding is arguably the currently dominant theoretical framework for the study of perception. It has been employed to explain important auditory perceptual phenomena, and it has inspired theoretical, experimental and computational modelling efforts aimed at describing how the auditory system parses the complex sound input into meaningful units (auditory scene analysis). These efforts have uncovered some vital questions, addressing which could help to further specify predictive coding and clarify some of its basic assumptions. The goal of the current review is to motivate these questions and show how unresolved issues in explaining some auditory phenomena lead to general questions of the theoretical framework. We focus on experimental and computational modelling issues related to sequential grouping in auditory scene analysis (auditory pattern detection and bistable perception), as we believe that this is the research topic where predictive coding has the highest potential for advancing our understanding. In addition to specific questions, our analysis led us to identify three more general questions that require further clarification: (1) What exactly is meant by prediction in predictive coding? (2) What governs which generative models make the predictions? and (3) What (if it exists) is the correlate of perceptual experience within the predictive coding framework?

The Phase of Spontaneous Pre-stimulus EEG Oscillations Predicts Auditory Pattern Identification

The Phase of Spontaneous Pre-stimulus EEG Oscillations Predicts Auditory Pattern Identification

Effects of Auditory Patterns on Judged Displacements of an Occluded Moving Object

Using displays in which a moving disk disappeared behind an occluder, we examined whether an accompanying auditory rhythm influenced the perceived displacement of the disk during occlusion. We manipulated a baseline rhythm, comprising a relatively fast alternation of equal sound and pause durations. We had two different manipulations to create auditory sequences with a slower rhythm: either the pause durations or the sound durations were increased. In the trial, a disk moved at a constant speed, and at a certain point moved behind an occluder during which an auditory rhythm was played. Participants were instructed to track the occluded disk, and judge the expected position of the disk at the moment that the auditory rhythm ended by touching the judged position on a touch screen. We investigated the influence of the auditory rhythm, i.e., ratio of sound to pause duration, and the influence of auditory density, i.e., the number of sound onsets per time unit, on the judged distance. The results showed that the temporal characteristics affected the spatial judgments. Overall, we found that in the current paradigm relatively slow rhythms led to shorter judged distance as compared to relatively fast rhythms for both pause and sound variations. There was no main effect of auditory density on the judged distance of an expected visual event. That is, whereas the speed of the auditory rhythm appears crucial, the number of sound onsets per time unit as such, i.e., the auditory density, appears a much weaker factor.

Cortical networks for auditory detection with and without informational masking: Task effects and implications for conscious perception

Ambiguous and masked stimuli have been used to study conscious perception by comparing neural activity during different percepts of identical physical stimuli. One limitation of this approach is that it typically requires a reporting task that may engage neural processes beyond those required for conscious perception. Here, we explored potential fMRI correlates of auditory conscious perception with and without overt report. In experiment 1, regular tone patterns were presented as targets under informational masking, and participants reported their percepts on each trial. In experiment 2, regular tone patterns were presented without masking, while the uninformed participants (i) passively fixated, (ii) performed an orthogonal visual task, and (iii) reported trial-wise the presence of the auditory pattern as in experiment 1 (in fixed order). Under informational masking, target-pattern detection was associated with activity in auditory cortex, superior temporal sulcus, and a distributed fronto-parieto-insular network. Unmasked and task-irrelevant tone patterns elicited activity that overlapped with the network observed under informational masking in auditory cortex, the right superior temporal sulcus, and the ventral precentral sulcus in an ROI analysis. We therefore consider these structures candidate regions for a neural substrate of auditory conscious perception. In contrast, activity in the intraparietal sulcus, insula, and dorsal precentral sulcus were only observed for unmasked tone patterns when they were task relevant. These areas therefore appear more closely related to task performance or top-down attention rather than auditory conscious perception, per se.

Breaking Into the Mind: George A. Miller’s Early Work in the American Journal of Psychology

Abstract Reviewed here are the 9 scholarly articles written by George A. Miller for The American Journal of Psychology (AJP), all dated from 1944 to 1958. These articles include studies on discrimination, temporal judgments, auditory patterns, operant conditioning, animal behavior, verbal recall, and language structure. There are empirical and theoretical investigations and investigations combining both experiments and theory. Despite their breadth and the variety of subjects and procedures, all of the Miller studies in AJP can be viewed as following with behaviorist traditions rather than dealing with more complex cognition. During this time Miller’s view of psychology was changing; these studies, with their inventive methods, can also be seen as initial attempts to break into the mind, or to uncover and understand cognitive processes, in a way that had been discouraged by behaviorist traditions. The studies all also point to the need to consider the immediate contexts and long-term histories of the observer’s experiences, which implicate the broader statistical learning mechanism that is now considered to underlie human learning. The AJP articles reviewed here foreshadow the wide-ranging and profound influence Miller had on psychology and related fields of study. Miller has been described as a founder or pioneer of a number of fields, including psycholinguistics, mathematical psychology, applied psychology, cognitive science, and computational approaches to linguistic analysis. Because of his huge impact on so many areas and his eagerness to communicate psychology’s importance to others, Miller can be considered an ambassador of psychology to a wider audience.

Social touch interacts with infants’ learning of auditory patterns

Infants’ experiences are defined by the presence of concurrent streams of perceptual information in social environments. Touch from caregivers is an especially pervasive feature of early development. Using three lab experiments and a corpus of naturalistic caregiver-infant interactions, we examined the relevance of touch in supporting infants’ learning of structure in an altogether different modality: audition. In each experiment, infants listened to sequences of sine-wave tones following the same abstract pattern (e.g., ABA or ABB) while receiving time-locked touch sequences from an experimenter that provided either informative or uninformative cues to the pattern (e.g., knee-elbow-knee or knee-elbow-elbow). Results showed that intersensorily redundant touch supported infants’ learning of tone patterns, but learning varied depending on the typicality of touch sequences in infants’ lives. These findings suggest that infants track touch sequences from moment to moment and in aggregate from their caregivers, and use the intersensory redundancy provided by touch to discover patterns in their environment.

Selective entrainment of brain oscillations drives auditory perceptual organization

Perceptual sound organization supports our ability to make sense of the complex acoustic environment, to understand speech and to enjoy music. However, the neuronal mechanisms underlying the subjective experience of perceiving univocal auditory patterns that can be listened to, despite hearing all sounds in a scene, are poorly understood. We hereby investigated the manner in which competing sound organizations are simultaneously represented by specific brain activity patterns and the way attention and task demands prime the internal model generating the current percept. Using a selective attention task on ambiguous auditory stimulation coupled with EEG recordings, we found that the phase of low-frequency oscillatory activity dynamically tracks multiple sound organizations concurrently. However, whereas the representation of ignored sound patterns is circumscribed to auditory regions, large-scale oscillatory entrainment in auditory, sensory-motor and executive-control network areas reflects the active perceptual organization, thereby giving rise to the subjective experience of a unitary percept.