Auditory Preferences Research Articles

Social experiences shape song preference learning independently of developmental exposure to song.

Communication governs the formation and maintenance of social relationships. The interpretation of communication signals depends not only on the signal's content but also on a receiver's individual experience. Experiences throughout life may interact to affect behavioural plasticity, such that a lack of developmental sensory exposure could constrain adult learning, while salient adult social experiences could remedy developmental deficits. We investigated how experiences impact the formation and direction of female auditory preferences in the zebra finch. Zebra finches form long-lasting pair bonds and females learn preferences for their mate's vocalizations. We found that after 2 weeks of cohabitation with a male, females formed pair bonds and learned to prefer their partner's song regardless of whether they were reared with ('normally reared') or without ('song-naive') developmental exposure to song. In contrast, females that heard but did not physically interact with a male did not prefer his song. In addition, previous work has found that song-naive females do not show species-typical preferences for courtship song. We found that cohabitation with a male ameliorated this difference in preference. Thus, courtship and pair bonding, but not acoustic-only interactions, strongly influence preference learning regardless of rearing experience, and may dynamically drive auditory plasticity for recognition and preference.

Auditory Learner

Auditory Learner

Live evaluation of auditory preference for group conversations

Improving hearing-impaired people's ability to participate in conversations is important. To date, few outcome measures let us relate conversation success to hearing impairment and hearing-aid function. In a previous study, we developed the LEAP test (Smeds et al. 2021), where a test leader guided one participant through a set of listening scenarios, in which the participant compared two hearing-aid settings and reported the preferred setting. The current study extends the LEAP test to unsupervised group conversations. Nine groups of three participants held conversations sparked by so-called consensus questions. Two test scenarios were used: “business meeting” (where a projector created low-level background noise) and “dinner party” (where an ambisonics recording reproduced in 2-D was used as background). Two test paradigms were evaluated: direct comparisons, where participants toggled between the two hearing-aid settings during a conversation and then selected their preferred setting, and indirect comparisons, where one hearing-aid setting was used at the time and participants after each conversation rated how well the hearing aids worked in the current setting, and the preferred setting was determined by comparing the two ratings. The reliability of the two test paradigms was evaluated. At the time of the submission of this abstract, analyses are ongoing.

The role of task difficulty in directing selective attention in bobwhite quail (Colinus virginianus) neonates: A developmental test of the intersensory redundancy hypothesis.

The dynamics of selective attention necessarily influences the course of early perceptual development. The intersensory redundancy hypothesis proposes that in early development information presented redundantly across two or more senses selectively recruits attention to the amodal properties of an object or event. In contrast, information presented to a single sense enhances attention to modality-specific properties. The present study assessed the second of these predictions in neonatal bobwhite quail (Colinus virginianus), with a focus on the role of task difficulty in directing selective attention. In Experiment 1, we exposed quail chicks to unimodal auditory, nonredundant audiovisual, or redundant audiovisual presentations of a bobwhite maternal call paired with a pulsing light for 10min/h on the day following hatching. Chicks were subsequently individually tested 24h later for their unimodal auditory preference between the familiarized maternal call and the same call with pitch altered by two steps. Chicks from all experimental groups preferred the familiarized maternal call over the altered maternal call. In Experiment 2, we repeated the exposure conditions of Experiment 1, but presented a more difficult task by narrowing the pitch range between the two maternal calls during testing. Chicks in the unimodal auditory and nonredundant audiovisual conditions preferred the familiarized call, whereas chicks in the redundant audiovisual exposure group showed no detection of the pitch change. Our results indicate that early discrimination of pitch change is disrupted by intersensory redundancy under difficult but not easy task conditions. These findings, along with findings from human infants, highlight the role of task difficulty in shifting attentional selectivity and underscore the dynamic nature of neonatal attentional salience hierarchies.

Black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) discriminate between naturally-ordered and scramble-ordered chick-a-dee calls and individual preference is related to rate of learning

Though many forms of animal communication are not reliant on the order in which components of signals are combined to be effective, there is evidence that order does matter for some communication systems. In the light of differential responding to calls of varying note-order observed in black-capped chickadees in the field, we set out to determine whether chickadees recognize syntactically-ordered and incorrectly-ordered chick-a-dee calls as separate and distinct conceptual categories using both an auditory preference task and go/no-go operant conditioning paradigm. Results show that chickadees spent more time on the perch that did not produce sound (i.e., silent perch) than on either of the acoustic perches (i.e., natural and scrambled order chick-a-dee call playback) and visited the perch associated with naturally-ordered calls more often than the perch associated with scrambled-order calls. Birds in both the True natural- and scrambled-order call groups continued to respond according to the contingencies that they learned in Discrimination training, indicating that black-capped chickadees are capable of perceiving and acting upon the categories of natural- versus scrambled-ordered calls.

Audio-Visual Analysis of Visitors’ Landscape Preference for City Parks: A Case Study from Zhangzhou, China

Soundscape perception is increasingly recognized as an important part of landscape preference and environmental experience. However, few studies have juxtaposed visual landscape preference and soundscape preference to compare their contributions to overall landscape preference. This paper aims to quantify and compare the contribution of audiovisual perception to visitors’ overall park landscape preference. The landscape preferences of visitors at seven sample sites in a city park were investigated through field questionnaires in three dimensions: visual landscape, acoustic landscape, and audiovisual landscape. The results showed that visitors’ visual landscape preference (VLP = 7.53) was generally higher than soundscape preference (SP = 7.08), while the influence of auditory preference (57%) on overall landscape preference (OLP) was found to be greater than that of visual preference (43%). The ratio of audio/visual contribution to the overall landscape preference decreased as the average sound level of the sample sites increased. Of all the population characteristics, only the educational level (sig = 0.034) could be used as an effective predictor of OLP (Impact coefficient = −0.103). In addition, older visitors rated OLP lower than young visitors, and females rated OLP lower than males. It was found that visual harmony, color richness, color contrast, plant coverage, and plant diversity were the main visual landscape attributes that influenced visitors’ visual preferences, while acoustic harmony, quietness, sound vitality, and acoustic richness were the main soundscape attributes that impacts visitors’ auditory preference. The results of this study may be useful for park landscape design and regeneration.

The Relationship between Learning Styles, Study Effort and English Language Proficiency in Chinese Middle Schools

Though disputed and deemed a neuromyth, many teachers are still convinced by the idea that identifying and later tailoring instructional strategies to individuals’ learning styles would enhance learning. This correlational study considers visual-auditory-kinaesthetic (VAK) preferences as a range instead of a category, and investigates the concept as applied to language learning, and the compensatory effects of study efforts exerted while learning a foreign language. The results showed that kinaesthetic preference was a poor predictor of English exam scores in contrast to visual and auditory preferences, and that effort played a significant role in predicting exam scores when combined with kinaesthetic preferences, suggesting a possibility that learners with kinaesthetic learning predispositions might have to compensate by working harder to attain higher language proficiency levels as compared to learners with visual or auditory learning preferences.

Auditory and sexual preferences for a father’s song can co-emerge in female Bengalese finches

Birdsong is an important communication signal used in mate choice. In some songbird species, only the males produce songs. While the females of those species do not sing, they are sensitive to inter- and intra-species song variations, and the song preferences of females depend on their developmental experiences and/or genetic predispositions. For example, in Bengalese finches and zebra finches, adult females prefer the song to which they were exposed early in life, such as the father's song. In the current study, we aimed to test whether the preference for the father's song, as reported in previous Bengalese finch studies, can be interpreted as a mating preference. For this purpose, the subjects were raised exclusively with their family until they became sexually mature and then tested as adults. We measured copulation solicitation displays during playbacks of the father's song vs. unfamiliar conspecific songs and found that across individuals, the father's song elicited more displays than other songs. In addition, we analyzed if a bird's response to a given song could be predicted by the level of similarity of that song to the father's song. Although the birds expressed more displays to songs with greater similarity to the father's song, the effect was not statistically significant. These results suggest that female Bengalese finches can develop a strong mating preference for the father's song if they are exclusively exposed to the father's song early in life. However, it is not clear if such a preference generalizes to other cases in which birds are exposed to multiple male songs during development. In order to fully elucidate the possible contribution of experience and genetic factors in the development of female song preference in this species, future studies will need more detailed manipulation and control of the rearing conditions, including cross-fostering.

The Effect of Sensory Stimuli With a Familiar Voice and Patient’s Auditory Preferences on the Level of Consciousness of Brain Injury Patients Admitted to Intensive Care Units

Background & Aims: Most patients with brain injury experience coma based on the severity of the lesion. One of the complications that threaten patients with coma in intensive care units is the risk of sensory deprivation. Frequent sensory stimulation can be helpful in rehabilitation and increasing the level of consciousness of these patients. This study aimed to determine the effect of sensory stimuli with a familiar sound and patient’s auditory preferences on the level of consciousness of patients in coma admitted to intensive care units in selected hospitals in Ahvaz City, Iran. Materials & Methods: The present study is quasi-experimental that was performed on 45 patients admitted to the intensive care unit of selected hospitals in Ahvaz City in 2021. Sampling was performed for six months. The patients who met the inclusion criteria were divided into two intervention groups and one control group by the permutation randomization method. For patients of the first group (hearing stimulation with a familiar voice) and the second group (auditory stimulation with the patient’s preference voice), recorded sound was played with a tape recorder for 15 minutes for 3 days twice a day (6 times in total) at 10 AM and 3 PM. Routine care and sounds were provided for the control group. The level of patients’ consciousness in three groups was measured by GCS scale 15 minutes before and 15 minutes after the intervention. Results: The study results showed that the mean level of consciousness of the auditory preferences and familiar voice groups after the intervention was significantly higher than that in the control group (P<0.05). But there was no significant difference between the two groups of auditory preferences and familiar voice (P>0.05). Conclusion: Considering that the effect of a familiar voice and auditory preferences has been more than unfamiliar sound, it is recommended to provide a program of auditory stimulation with familiar voices and auditory preferences for comatose patients in intensive care units.

Precise Topology of Adjacent Domain-General and Sensory-Biased Regions in the Human Brain.

Recent functional MRI studies identified sensory-biased regions across much of the association cortices and cerebellum. However, their anatomical relationship to multiple-demand (MD) regions, characterized as domain-general due to their coactivation during multiple cognitive demands, remains unclear. For a better anatomical delineation, we used multimodal MRI techniques of the Human Connectome Project to scan subjects performing visual and auditory versions of a working memory (WM) task. The contrast between hard and easy WM showed strong domain generality, with essentially identical patterns of cortical, subcortical, and cerebellar MD activity for visual and auditory materials. In contrast, modality preferences were shown by contrasting easy WM with baseline; most MD regions showed visual preference while immediately adjacent to cortical MD regions, there were interleaved regions of both visual and auditory preference. The results may exemplify a general motif whereby domain-specific regions feed information into and out of an adjacent, integrative MD core.

Live Evaluation of Auditory Preference, a Laboratory Test for Evaluating Auditory Preference.

Many laboratory tests are performed under unrealistic conditions. Tasks, such as repeating words or sentences, are performed in simple loudspeaker setups. Currently, many research groups focus on realistic audiovisual laboratory setups. Fewer groups focus on the tasks performed during testing. A semicontrolled laboratory test method focusing on the tasks performed, the Live Evaluation of Auditory Preference (LEAP) was evaluated. LEAP is developed to evaluate hearing-instrument performance in test scenarios that represent everyday listening situations. LEAP was evaluated in a feasibility study. The method comprises conversations between a test participant and one or two test leaders, enabling evaluation of the test participant's own voice. The method allows for visual cues (when relevant) and introduce social pressure to participate in the conversation. In addition, other everyday listening tasks, such as watching television (TV) and listening to radio, are included. In this study, LEAP was used to assess preference for two hearing aid settings using paired comparisons. Nineteen experienced hearing aid users (13 females and 6 males; mean age 74 years), participated in the study. LEAP was performed at three visits to the laboratory. In addition, participants conducted a field trial where the two hearing aid programs were compared using Ecological Momentary Assessments (EMA). During LEAP testing, six mandatory test cases were used, representing commonly occurring everyday listening situations. Individual test cases were also included, selected from individually experienced listening situations during the field trial. Within- and between-session reliability of the LEAP test was investigated. Validity was investigated by comparing the LEAP and the EMA results. For the current signal-processing evaluation, the test was judged to have acceptable reliability and validity. The inclusion of individually selected test cases increased the representativeness of the LEAP test, but it did not substantially alter the results in the current study. LEAP in its current implementation seems suitable for investigating signal-processing preference in the laboratory in a way that is indicative of everyday preference. The LEAP method represents one step forward in bringing the real world into the laboratory.

Silence is Golden: Auditory Preferences in Zoo-housed Gorillas

ABSTRACT Enrichment is presented to improve the welfare of captive animals but sound is frequently presented with the assumption that it is enriching without assessing individuals’ preferences. Typically, presented sounds are unnatural and animals are unable to choose which sounds they can listen to or escape them. We examined preferences of three zoo-housed gorillas for six categories of sound. The gorillas selected unique icons on a computer touchscreen that initiated brief samples of silence, white noise, nature, animal, percussion, and electronic instrumental sounds. Following training, gorillas selected each sound paired with silence (Phase 2), each sound paired with each other sound (Phase 3), and one sound among all other sound categories (Phase 4). Initially, a single sound was associated with each icon, but additional exemplars of the category were added in phases 5–8. Preferences were generally stable and one gorilla showed a strong preference for silence. Although there were individual differences, a surprising general preference for unnatural over natural sounds was revealed. These results indicate the importance of assessing preferences for individuals before introducing auditory stimulation in captive habitats.

Dopamine in the songbird auditory cortex shapes auditory preference

Vocal communication signals can provide listeners with information about the signaler and elicit motivated responses. Auditory cortical and mesolimbic reward circuits are often considered to have distinct roles in these processes, with auditory cortical circuits responsible for detecting and discriminating sounds and mesolimbic circuits responsible for ascribing salience and modulating preference for those sounds. Here, we investigated whether dopamine within auditory cortical circuits themselves can shape the incentive salience of a vocal signal. Female zebra finches demonstrate natural preferences for vocal signals produced by males ("songs"), and we found that brief pairing of passive song playback with pharmacological dopamine manipulations in the secondary auditory cortex significantly altered song preferences. In particular, pairing passive song playback with retrodialysis of dopamine agonists into the auditory cortex enhanced preferences for less-preferred songs. Plasticity of song preferences by dopamine persisted for at least 1week and was mediated by D1 receptors. In contrast, song preferences were not shaped by norepinephrine. In line with this, while we found that the ventral tegmental area, substantia nigra pars compacta, and locus coeruleus all project to the secondary auditory cortex, only dopamine-producing neurons in the ventral tegmental area differentially responded to preferred versus less-preferred songs. In contrast, norepinephrine neurons in the locus coeruleus increased expression of activity-dependent neural markers for both preferred and less-preferred songs. These data suggest that dopamine acting directly in sensory-processing areas can shape the incentive salience of communication signals.

Are learning preferences really a myth? Exploring the mapping between study approaches and mode of learning preferences

This article tested for the presence of the conversion effect in the mapping related to the strength of students’ preferences for receiving information in a visual, auditory, read/write or kinaesthetic modality and the study approaches they adopt when taking notes in class, learning new concepts and revising for exams. The results indicated that the conversion effect is not ubiquitous but is context specific and only present when students seek to learn a new concept and revise for exams. It was present for students with strong visual and read/write preferences but only when attempting to learn a new concept. It was also present for students with a strong auditory preference when revising for exams, while these students preferred to learn a new concept by reading about it. However, the conversion effect did not emerge with kinaesthetic-leaning students in any of the contexts studied, while these students were significantly more likely to utilise auditory input when learning a new concept. Overall, the findings suggest that traditional educational approaches such as lectures and tutorials can be effective in supporting the learning for diverse student groups.

Face and voice perception: Monkey see, monkey hear

Primate brains contain specialized areas for perceiving social cues. New research shows that only some of these areas integrate visual faces with auditory voices.

Assessing the influence of individual factors on visual and auditory preference for rural landscape: the case of Chengdu, China

The fast pace of work life has resulted in increased attention toward the rural landscape. Most research on rural landscapes has focused on visual preferences based on public consensus, but in-depth studies assessing a broad range of individual factors influencing visual and auditory preferences are still lacking. This study assessed the influence of 6 social/demographic/health factors and 7 visit-related factors on the preference for 11 visual and auditory elements of rural environments. Visit-related factors had a more significant impact on landscape preference than social/demographical/health factors. Length of stay was the most important factor, associated with 5 visual elements and 4 sounds. Females and older people showed greater preference for biological sounds. Thus, it is necessary to pay attention to the influence of individual factors on landscape preference and strengthen the support of rural internal and external environment to people’s needs to provide more rich and satisfying experiences in rural areas.

Hand preference for the visual and auditory modalities in humans

The sensory dominance effect refers to the phenomenon that one sensory modality more frequently receives preferential processing (and eventually dominates consciousness and behavior) over and above other modalities. On the other hand, hand dominance is an innate aspect of the human motor system. To investigate how the sensory dominance effect interacts with hand dominance, we applied the adapted Colavita paradigm and recruited a large cohort of healthy right-handed participants (n = 119). While the visual dominance effect in bimodal trials was observed for the whole group (n = 119), about half of the right-handers (48%) showed a visual preference, i.e., their dominant hand effect manifested in responding to the visual stimuli. By contrast, 39% of the right-handers exhibited an auditory preference, i.e., the dominant hand effect occurred for the auditory responses. The remaining participants (13%) did not show any dominant hand preference for either visual or auditory responses. For the first time, the current behavioral data revealed that human beings possess a characteristic and persistent preferential link between different sensory modalities and the dominant vs. non-dominant hand. Whenever this preferential link between the sensory and the motor system was adopted, one dominance effect peaks upon the other dominance effect’s best performance.

The Influence of Representational Formats and Learner Modality Preferences on Instructional Efficiency Using Interactive Video Tutorials

This study investigated how to create effective interactive video tutorials for learning computer-based tasks. The role of learner modality preferences was also considered. A 4 × 4 between-subjects factorial design was employed to examine the influence of instruction representational formats (noninteractive static, interactive static, interactive visual-only video with onscreen text, interactive video with audio narration) and learner modality preferences (visual, aural, read/write, multimodal) on instructional efficiency. Instructional efficiency was a combined effect of test performance and perceived cognitive load during learning. The results suggested that implementing interactivity into the video tutorials tended to increase transfer performance, and the role of modality preferences was related to learners’ perceived cognitive load. The significant interaction effect on transfer efficiency indicated: (a) the auditory preference tended to exhibit better transfer efficiency with the narrated video, and (b) the read/write preference tended to exhibit better transfer efficiency with both the noninteractive static format and the captioned video. This study highlighted the importance of considering individual differences in modality preferences, particularly that of auditory and read/write learners.

The effect of concert hall color on preference and auditory perception

Going to a concert involves both visual and auditory senses, which have been found to influence each other in many ways. The visual design of a concert hall contributes to the visual experience of seeing a concert, and color is one of the most obvious elements of the visual design. While some studies have reported that color affects vehicle loudness, the influence of concert hall color on the auditory experience of seeing a concert has been little-studied. In this study 30 volunteers evaluated loudness, reverberance, and their visual and auditory preference for multiple virtual reality scenes of a concert hall with various colors and with a music excerpt of various levels of gain and reverberation time. Results show that color has little or no effect on loudness and reverberance compared to changing gain or reverberation time. However, color does affect visual and auditory preference, and these are positively correlated and mutually influential. Of the five colors tested, red is the most-liked color for the selected concert hall, followed by neutral, blue, and yellow, while green is the least liked color. The color preference is related to the commonly used color styles of existing halls.

EXPLORING GLOBAL LANGUAGE AND BUSINESS SKILLS ACQUISITION IN MULTICULTURAL LEARNING IN COACTION OF MOTIVATION AND LEARNING STYLES

In the global scale, acquiring both global language and business core skills have become mandatory in order to develop and prepare international business major students for global leadership and challenges. The ability to acquire these skills in a multicultural learning is a challenge of multifaceted skill learning fueled by reciprocal functions of motivation factors and learning styles of diverse community of learners. This study aimed to explore the challenges of business academic coursework of one hundred business major students in view of influential motivation factors and learning styles exhibited in a classroom that is multicultural in composition. Results show that extrinsic motivation is the most influential underlying factor to acquire global language and a strong perception on communication skill implies the most important dimension in acquiring business competence. Visual and auditory preferences remain to be strengths of their learning strategies. Finally, a discourse of recommendations for educators is provided to fully utilize the collaboration of motivation factors and learning strategies towards continuous improvement and effectiveness of language and business skills acquisition in multicultural learning.