High-pitched Sounds Research Articles

Effects of Minerva Orthosis on Larynx Height in Young, Healthy Volunteers.

Background:During speech, larynx is higher in the neck for high-pitched sounds and lower for low-pitched sounds. Patients with different problems in cervical and cervicothoracic spine use cervical orthosis to limit cervical motion. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of Minerva orthosis on larynx height in young, healthy volunteers.Subjects and methods:This study included 18 subjects. Acoustic measurement of frequency variability has been assessed in 3 brace conditions: (1) without brace, (2) with brace, and (3) 30 minutes after wearing the brace.Results:Several statistically significant differences were found in the comparison between Minerva and 30 minutes after Minerva.Conclusion:When planning cervical orthosis treatment, it is important to consider the reduction in larynx height that may result from bracing for those who are already at risk of developing dysphagia and dysphonia.

Cross-Sensory Correspondences: Heaviness is Dark and Low-Pitched.

Everyday language reveals how stimuli encoded in one sensory feature domain can possess qualities normally associated with a different domain (e.g., higher pitch sounds are bright, light in weight, sharp, and thin). Such cross-sensory associations appear to reflect crosstalk among aligned (corresponding) feature dimensions, including brightness, heaviness, and sharpness. Evidence for heaviness being one such dimension is very limited, with heaviness appearing primarily as a verbal associate of other feature contrasts (e.g., darker objects and lower pitch sounds are heavier than their opposites). Given the presumed bidirectionality of the crosstalk between corresponding dimensions, heaviness should itself induce the cross-sensory associations observed elsewhere, including with brightness and pitch. Taking care to dissociate effects arising from the size and mass of an object, this is confirmed. When hidden objects varying independently in size and mass are lifted, objects that feel heavier are judged to be darker and to make lower pitch sounds than objects feeling less heavy. These judgements track the changes in perceived heaviness induced by the size-weight illusion. The potential involvement of language, natural scene statistics, and Bayesian processes in correspondences, and the effects they induce, is considered.

How listeners recognise vowel sounds under highpass or lowpass filtering of vowel-specific frequency ranges

The present paper reports findings of two experiments on filtered sounds of the Standard German vowels /i-y-e-o-ɛ-a-o-u/ produced by a female speaker at two fundamental frequencies fo = 220 Hz and 659 Hz and a male speaker at fo = 131 Hz and 523 Hz. High-pitched sounds were included in order to account for a possible impact of the fo level on the perception of filtered vowel sounds. In the first experiment, the frequency region of the first formant of the sounds was highpass filtered, and in the second experiment, the frequency region of the second formant of the sounds was lowpass filtered. Vowel recognition of all sounds was investigated in a listening test. Results revealed shifts in the perceived vowel quality which varied across (i) vowel categories, (ii) fo , and (iii) filter cutoff frequencies. Details of the filter parameters and of the perceived vowel quality shifts are given in the paper and implications for the relationship between acoustic cues and vowel recognition are discussed.

Study on the principle of sound resonance in human whistling using physical models of a human vocal tract

The principle behind sound production in human whistling is relatively unknown. A good understanding of this principle would be beneficial to both trainer and trainee. Rayleigh identified whistling frequency as being determined by the mouth cavity and pointed out that earlier ideas that relate the sound-producing mechanism to the vibration of the lips are inaccurate. Wilson et al. reported that the human whistling resonant frequency is close to the Helmholtz resonant frequency, and through some physical-model-based experiments, they determined that the resonator can be excited by a flow through the smooth-edged orifices bounding the resonant cavity. Thus, the principles of whistling in terms of articulation have been reported to be based on the Helmholtz resonance. However, some whistlers can produce high-pitched sounds by blowing harder without changing the capacity of the resonance chamber, which is similar to a high-pitched sound produced by a wind instrument by air-column resonance. This work studies ...

Acoustics for amplified music and a new, variable acoustics technology

Surveys among professional musicians and sound engineers reveal that a long reverberation time at low frequencies in halls during concerts of reinforced music such as pop and rock is a common cause for an unacceptable sounding event. Mid- and high-frequency sound is seldom a reason for lack of clarity and definition due to a 6 times higher absorption by audience compared to low frequencies, and a higher directivity of speakers at these frequencies. Lower frequency sounds are, within the genre of popular music, rhythmically very active and loud, and a long reverberation leads to a situation where the various notes and sounds including vocals cannot be clearly distinguished. This reverberant bass sound rumble often partially masks even the direct higher pitched sounds. A new technology of inflatable, thin plastic membranes presents a solution to this challenge of needed low-frequency control. It is equally suitable for multipurpose concert halls that need to adjust their acoustics by the push of a button and for halls and arenas that only occasionally present amplified music and need to be treated just for the event. The technology, permanently mounted, is being projected in various concert halls around the world and is being installed in the new Dubai Opera and the Sheik Jaber Al Ahmad Cultural Center, Kuwait during spring 2016. This paper presents the authors’ research of also large venues as well as the technology showing applications including on/off measurements of reverberation time versus frequency.

The stethoscope: celebration or cremation after 200 years?

The stethoscope: celebration or cremation after 200 years?

Aging and Hearing Health: The Life-course Approach

Sensory abilities decline with age. More than 5% of the world's population, approximately 360 million people, have disabling hearing loss. In adults, disabling hearing loss is defined by thresholds greater than 40 dBHL in the better hearing ear.Hearing disability is an important issue in geriatric medicine because it is associated with numerous health issues, including accelerated cognitive decline, depression, increased risk of dementia, poorer balance, falls, hospitalizations, and early mortality. There are also social implications, such as reduced communication function, social isolation, loss of autonomy, impaired driving ability, and financial decline. Furthermore, the onset of hearing loss is gradual and subtle, first affecting the detection of high-pitched sounds and with difficulty understanding speech in noisy but not in quiet environments. Consequently, delays in recognizing and seeking help for hearing difficulties are common. Age-related hearing loss has no known cure, and technologies (hearing aids, cochlear implants, and assistive devices) improve thresholds but do not restore hearing to normal. Therefore, health care for persons with hearing loss and people within their communication circles requires education and counseling (e.g., increasing knowledge, changing attitudes, and reducing stigma), behavior change (e.g., adapting communication strategies), and environmental modifications (e.g., reducing noise). In this article, we consider the causes, consequences, and magnitude of hearing loss from a life-course perspective. We examine the concept of "hearing health," how to achieve it, and implications for policy and practice.

Chatter Identification of Face Milling Operation via Time-Frequency and Fourier Analysis

Chatter is generally defined as self-generated vibrations from the interaction between tool and workpiece. It is the most critical vibration in machining operations and can decrease the surface quality and cause the premature tool wear. Chatter creates erroneous vibrations on the workpiece surface. However, even though the spatial response of chatter is still bounded, its frequency response would become unstably broadband, emitting high-pitched sounds. The deterioration in both time and frequency domains implies that chatter is a route-to-chaos process. To capture the time-frequency characteristics of chatter, instantaneous frequency is applied to extract the relevant force vibration of machining chatter, and the energy ratio approach is used to develop a discrete stability lobe diagram of a face-milling operation. The proposed method is validated by measuring the surface roughness of the workpiece.

Improved chirp group delay based algorithms with applications to vocal tract estimation and speech recognition

In this paper we propose two algorithms for estimating the vocal tract from the Fourier transform phase of a given speech segment. In the first approach, we find the zeros of the z-transform, reflect all outside-unit-circle zeros inside, and then compute the chirp group delay spectrum. This method eliminates many of the drawbacks in Bozkurt’s CGDGCI method, and is able to model well the spectral valleys present. In the case of high pitch sounds, the vocal tract estimate in the proposed method is corrupted by source oscillations. In the second approach, by casting the problem within the framework of Independent Component Analysis, we propose a method wherein these effects are considerably suppressed. ASR results on the TIMIT database using features derived from the first method are comparable to those obtained using MFCC features. Further improvement in the recognition accuracy (compared with the baseline MFCC) was obtained by using lattice combining technique, resulting in a Phone Error Rate of 17%. Also, by using our abilities to model spectral valleys well, we propose additional features that are able to distinguish the nasals /m/, /n/, and /ng/, which in turn lead to an increase in their recognition accuracy.

Cross-sensory correspondences and symbolism in spoken and written language.

Lexical sound symbolism in language appears to exploit the feature associations embedded in cross-sensory correspondences. For example, words incorporating relatively high acoustic frequencies (i.e., front/close rather than back/open vowels) are deemed more appropriate as names for concepts associated with brightness, lightness in weight, sharpness, smallness, speed, and thinness, because higher pitched sounds appear to have these cross-sensory features. Correspondences also support prosodic sound symbolism. For example, speakers might raise the fundamental frequency of their voice to emphasize the smallness of the concept they are naming. The conceptual nature of correspondences and their functional bidirectionality indicate they should also support other types of symbolism, including a visual equivalent of prosodic sound symbolism. For example, the correspondence between auditory pitch and visual thinness predicts that a typeface with relatively thin letter strokes will reinforce a word's reference to a relatively high pitch sound (e.g., squeal). An initial rating study confirms that the thinness-thickness of a typeface's letter strokes accesses the same cross-sensory correspondences observed elsewhere. A series of speeded word classification experiments then confirms that the thinness-thickness of letter strokes can facilitate a reader's comprehension of the pitch of a sound named by a word (thinner letter strokes being appropriate for higher pitch sounds), as can the brightness of the text (e.g., white-on-gray text being appropriate for the names of higher pitch sounds). It is proposed that the elementary visual features of text are represented in the same conceptual system as word meaning, allowing cross-sensory correspondences to support visual symbolism in language. (PsycINFO Database Record

Grasping the sound: Auditory pitch influences size processing in motor planning.

Growing evidence shows that individuals consistently match auditory pitch with visual size. For instance, high-pitched sounds are perceptually associated with smaller visual stimuli, whereas low-pitched sounds with larger ones. The present study explores whether this crossmodal correspondence, reported so far for perceptual processing, also modulates motor planning. To address this issue, we carried out a series of kinematic experiments to verify whether actions implying size processing are affected by auditory pitch. Experiment 1 showed that grasping movements toward small/large objects were initiated faster in response to high/low pitches, respectively, thus extending previous findings in the literature to more complex motor behavior. Importantly, auditory pitch influenced the relative scaling of the hand preshaping, with high pitches associated with smaller grip aperture compared with low pitches. Notably, no effect of auditory pitch was found in case of pointing movements (no grasp implied, Experiment 2), as well as when auditory pitch was irrelevant to the programming of the grip aperture, that is, in case of grasping an object of uniform size (Experiment 3). Finally, auditory pitch influenced also symbolic manual gestures expressing "small" and "large" concepts (Experiment 4). In sum, our results are novel in revealing the impact of auditory pitch on motor planning when size processing is required, and shed light on the role of auditory information in driving actions.

Which Direction Is up for a High Pitch?

Low- and high-pitched sounds are perceptually associated with low and high visuospatial elevations, respectively. The spatial properties of this association are not well understood. Here we report two experiments that investigated whether low and high tones can be used as spatial cues to upright for self-orientation and identified the spatial frame(s) of reference used in perceptually binding auditory pitch to visuospatial 'up' and 'down'. In experiment 1, participants' perceptual upright (PU) was measured while lying on their right side with and without high- and low-pitched sounds played through speakers above their left ear and below their right ear. The sounds were ineffective in moving the perceived upright from a direction intermediate between the body and gravity towards the direction indicated by the sounds. In experiment 2, we measured the biasing effects of ascending and descending tones played through headphones on ambiguous vertical or horizontal visual motion created by combining gratings drifting in opposite directions while participants either sat upright or laid on their right side. Ascending and descending tones biased the interpretation of ambiguous motion along both the gravitational vertical and the long-axis of the body with the strongest effect along the body axis. The combination of these two effects showed that axis of maximum effect of sound corresponded approximately to the direction of the perceptual upright, compatible with the idea that 'high' and 'low' sounds are defined along this axis.

Measuring Musical Rhythm Similarity: Further Experiments with the Many-to-Many Minimum-Weight Matching Distance

Musical rhythms are represented as sequences of symbols. The sequences may be composed of binary symbols denoting either silent or monophonic sounded pulses, or ternary symbols denoting silent pulses and two types of sounded pulses made up of low-pitched (dum) and high-pitched (tak) sounds. Experiments are described that compare the effectiveness of the many-to-many minimum-weight matching between two sequences to serve as a measure of similarity that correlates well with human judgements of rhythm similarity. This measure is also compared to the often used edit distance and to the one-to-one minimum-weight matching. New results are reported from experiments performed with three widely different datasets of real- world and artificially generated musical rhythms (including Afro-Cuban rhythms), and compared with results previously reported with a dataset of Middle Eastern dum-tak rhythms.

Multistage decision-based heart sound delineation method for automated analysis of heart sounds and murmurs.

A robust multistage decision-based heart sound delineation (MDHSD) method is presented for automatically determining the boundaries and peaks of heart sounds (S1, S2, S3, and S4), systolic, and diastolic murmurs (early, mid, and late) and high-pitched sounds (HPSs) of the phonocardiogram (PCG) signal. The proposed MDHSD method consists of the Gaussian kernels based signal decomposition (GSDs) and multistage decision-based delineation (MDBD). The GSD algorithm first removes the low-frequency (LF) artefacts and then decomposes the filtered signal into two subsignals: the LF sound part (S1, S2, S3, and S4) and the high-frequency sound part (murmurs and HPSs). The MDBD algorithm consists of absolute envelope extraction, adaptive thresholding, and fiducial point determination. The accuracy and robustness of the proposed method is evaluated using various types of normal and pathological PCG signals. Results show that the method achieves an average sensitivity of 98.22%, positive predictivity of 97.46%, and overall accuracy of 95.78%. The method yields maximum average delineation errors of 4.52 and 4.14 ms for determining the start-point and end-point of sounds. The proposed multistage delineation algorithm is capable of improving the delineation accuracy under time-varying amplitudes of heart sounds and various types of murmurs. The proposed method has significant potential applications in heart sounds and murmurs classification systems.

GUMLEAF PLAYING COMPETITIONS

The author considers a tension present in the different performance styles of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal contestants in gumleaf playing competitions. Drawing from extensive research throughout the decade, she 'animates' the scene through detailed explanations of gum leaf playing styles and the history that has· brought them to existence. (gum/leafplaying remains an identifiably Australian activity. A leafist places his/her instrument against the lips and blows air across it; the precise method and the quality of mid to high-pitched sounds produced varies markedly depending on the leafist's expertise and the species of eucalyptus selected.)

Vocal Ecosystems Beyond Pedagogy: Working With Challenges

Knowledge of vocal improvised music, whether demonstrated by high or low obscure pitch sounds, the beating of the chest while making music sounds, vocal pitch matching or vocal animation with or without the use of technology, has paved the way for a steady stream of vocal artists through the years, each dedicated to vocal exploration. While jazz vocal improvisation appears on the surface to involve few or no rules, it is a form of communication between artist and listener, where the artist adheres to a set of rules or principles. Here the jazz improviser is treated as part of an ecosystem, a concept in the biological sciences that comprises a set of interacting organisms and environments in a particular place. Within the jazz vocal improvisational ecosystem there are various roles, approaches and activities. What follows is a description showing how the analogy with biological ecosystems can be applied to a ‘vocal ecology’, how this viewpoint may also aid the improvising jazz vocalist in artistic expression and considerations for the vocalist with vocal difficulties in communication.

Volitional Mechanisms Mediate the Cuing Effect of Pitch on Attention Orienting: The Influences of Perceptual Difficulty and Response Pressure

Our cognitive system tends to link auditory pitch with spatial location in a specific manner (ie high-pitched sounds are usually associated with an upper location, and low sounds are associated with a lower location). Recent studies have demonstrated that this cross-modality association biases the allocation of visual attention and affects performance despite the auditory stimuli being irrelevant to the behavioural task. There is, however, a discrepancy between studies in their interpretation of the underlying mechanisms. Whereas we have previously claimed that the pitch-location mapping is mediated by volitional shifts of attention (Chiou & Rich, 2012, Perception, 41: , 339-353), other researchers suggest that this cross-modal effect reflects automatic shifts of attention (Mossbridge, Grabowecky, & Suzuki, 2011, Cognition, 121: , 133-139). Here we report a series of three experiments examining the effects of perceptual and response-related pressure on the ability of nonpredictive pitch to bias visual attention. We compare it with two control cues: a predictive pitch that triggers voluntary attention shifts and a salient peripheral flash that evokes involuntary shifts. The results show that the effect of nonpredictive pitch is abolished by pressure at either perceptual or response levels. By contrast, the effects of the two control cues remain significant, demonstrating the robustness of informative and perceptually salient stimuli in directing attention. This distinction suggests that, in contexts of high perceptual demand and response pressure, cognitive resources are primarily engaged by the task-relevant stimuli, which effectively prevents uninformative pitch from orienting attention to its cross-modally associated location. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the link between pitch and location affects attentional deployment via volitional rather than automatic mechanisms.

AMTA Graduate Student Research Award

Background: Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) frequently have difficulty managing sustained and selective attention ( Burack, 1994 ; Chien et al., 2014 ). Since attention is a prerequisite to the development of higher cognitive functions such as learning and social skills, children with ASD need to address these deficits in order to obtain optimal benefits from therapeutic or educational interventions. Related Literature: Despite their attention problems, children with ASD demonstrate musical sensitivity and a perceptual preference for music, which may facilitate attention to music stimuli ( Blackstock, 1978 ; Thaut, 1987 ). In addition, high-functioning children with ASD have adequate or superior pitch perception compared to typically developing children ( Heaton, 2005 ). However, no published study has yet explored the relationship between specific musical elements, such as pitch range, and attention in children with ASD. Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of pitch range on sustained and selective attention in children with ASD. Methods: Twenty high-functioning children with ASD aged 7 to 14 years, including 17 males and 3 females, took part in this study. Each child individually completed the Music-Based Attention Assessment-Revised for Children (MAA-RC) (based on the MAA as designed by Jeong, 2011 ). The MAA-RC is a 36-item melodic contour identification test, including sustained and selective attention subtests. For each subtest, 18 melodic contours consisting of 3 notes each are heard in ascending, descending, and stationary directions. Half of the items are presented at a low pitch range (i.e., 220Hz to 523.55Hz), and the other half of the items are presented at a high pitch range (i.e., 1046.5Hz to 2637Hz) in a keyboard timbre via a laptop computer with speakers at a 65 dB level. During the selective attention subtest, the researcher presented a recorded continuous sound (i.e., water flowing) against each target melodic contour as an auditory distraction. In both attention subtests, participants listened to each melodic contour and identified the direction of the melody. After a demonstration and practice trials, participants first completed the sustained attention subtest, followed by the selective attention subtest. The task lasted approximately 30 minutes for each participant. Results: The descriptive results showed that participants in the sustained attention subtest achieved higher scores with a low pitch range (M = 8, SD = 0.97) than with a high pitch range (M = 6.8, SD = 1.91). In the selective attention subtest, participants also achieved higher scores with a low pitch range (M = 7.7, SD = 1.72) than with a high pitch range (M = 7.25, SD = 1.94). A series of paired samples t -tests demonstrated that children with ASD achieved significantly higher scores on the sustained attention subtest when listening to melodic contours at a low pitch range compared to melodic contours at a high pitch range ( t(19 ) = 3.479, p = .003). However, results showed no statistically significant difference between a low pitch range and a high pitch range ( t(19 ) = 1.041, p = .311) in the selective attention subtest. Conclusions: Statistically significant differences were found between high and low pitch ranges in the sustained attention subtest. The results from the present study demonstrated that high-functioning children with ASD were more attentive to low-pitched sounds rather than high-pitched sounds. Additionally, participants completed the MAA-RC with a high degree of accuracy. Implications for Clinical Practice: The fact that all participants successfully completed the MAA-RC indicates that high-functioning children with ASD can understand and complete a simple melodic contour identification task. Furthermore, Cronbach’s alpha for internal consistency of the MAA-RC was .86, indicating that simple music stimuli can be reliably used to assess attention in children with ASD. Additionally, results may provide basic evidence necessary for the development of music-based intervention using pitch range to promote sustained attention in children with ASD. Implications for Future Research: Future research should continue to explore the relationship between pitch range and attention in children with ASD using a larger sample size to increase test reliability and generalizability of results. Further studies could also compare the effect of pitch range on attention in children with ASD to typically developing children. In addition, increasing the number of items in both the sustained and selective attention subtests will further enhance test reliability and increase test item difficulty. For convergent validity, the MAA-RC should be compared to other non-music-based auditory attention assessments, such as the Auditory Continuous Performance Test (ACPT), which is designed to assess attention in children ( Keith, 1994 ).

G03 The Type Of Concurrent Task Affects Dual-task Performance In Huntington's Disease

Background Huntington’s disease (HD) is associated with difficulty in dual-tasking, which is performing two tasks at the same time. Aims We investigated whether different dual-tasks and levels of difficulty are affected in people with early HD. Methods/techniques Twelve HD participants and 12 controls performed four pairs of dual-tasks. Each task within each dual-task had easy and hard levels. Pair 1 was circle tracing with counting backward: participants traced a circle while viewing (easy) or not viewing their arm (hard), and counted backward in twos (easy) or threes (hard). Pair 2 was simple choice reaction time (CRT) with digit forward: participants viewed single letters and responded to two (easy) or four target letters (hard) while repeating 4 (easy) or 5 (hard) digits forward. Pair 3 was complex CRT with digit backward: participants viewed 3X3 matrices of Xs and Os. They responded whether 3 Xs (easy) or 3 Xs or 3 Os (hard) appeared in a row, while repeating 3 (easy) or 4 (hard) digits backward. Pair 4 was cancellation with auditory tasks. Participants circled the target letter O on a sheet with distractor letters: other letters (easy) or the letter Q (hard). Concurrently, they reported the number of high-pitched sounds from a series of high-pitched sounds (easy) or a combination of high- and low-pitched sounds (hard). We measured speed and accuracy. Results/outcome Participants with HD were slower and less accurate across all task conditions, compared to controls. Dual-tasks were performed slower and less accurately than single tasks; and harder levels slower and less accurately than easier levels. Differences reached statistical significance either in terms of speed or in terms of accuracy within each task pair. Conclusion Our findings suggest differential effects of dual-task performance on HD versus controls, and highlight the importance of considering different performance measures, as the relationship between HD and these measures may be different.

Spectroscopy of Sound Transmission in Solid Samples

These laboratory experiments are designed to familiarize students with concepts of spectroscopy by using sound waves. Topics covered in these experiments include the structure of nitinol alloys and polymer chain stiffness as a function of structure and temperature. Generally, substances that are stiffer or have higher symmetry at the molecular level transmit sound more effectively, and the higher pitched sounds that they produce upon impact can be heard and visually observed using a laptop microphone and SpectrumView freeware. This lab is designed for use in an introductory undergraduate chemistry course, although the techniques can be used for more and less advanced courses. Additional related classroom demonstrations are also presented.