Meaningless Sounds Research Articles

Electrical neuroimaging of memory discrimination based on single-trial multisensory learning

Multisensory experiences influence subsequent memory performance and brain responses. Studies have thus far concentrated on semantically congruent pairings, leaving unresolved the influence of stimulus pairing and memory sub-types. Here, we paired images with unique, meaningless sounds during a continuous recognition task to determine if purely episodic, single-trial multisensory experiences can incidentally impact subsequent visual object discrimination. Psychophysics and electrical neuroimaging analyses of visual evoked potentials (VEPs) compared responses to repeated images either paired or not with a meaningless sound during initial encounters. Recognition accuracy was significantly impaired for images initially presented as multisensory pairs and could not be explained in terms of differential attention or transfer of effects from encoding to retrieval. VEP modulations occurred at 100-130 ms and 270-310 ms and stemmed from topographic differences indicative of network configuration changes within the brain. Distributed source estimations localized the earlier effect to regions of the right posterior temporal gyrus (STG) and the later effect to regions of the middle temporal gyrus (MTG). Responses in these regions were stronger for images previously encountered as multisensory pairs. Only the later effect correlated with performance such that greater MTG activity in response to repeated visual stimuli was linked with greater performance decrements. The present findings suggest that brain networks involved in this discrimination may critically depend on whether multisensory events facilitate or impair later visual memory performance. More generally, the data support models whereby effects of multisensory interactions persist to incidentally affect subsequent behavior as well as visual processing during its initial stages.

Nonverbal sound processing in semantic dementia: A functional MRI study

Semantic dementia (SD) is a unique neurodegenerative syndrome accompanied by relatively selective loss of the meaning of objects and concepts. The brain mechanisms that underpin the syndrome have not been defined: a better understanding of these mechanisms would inform our understanding of both the organisation of the human semantic system and its vulnerability to neurodegenerative disease. In this fMRI study, we investigated brain correlates of sensory object processing in nine patients with SD compared with healthy control subjects, using the paradigm of nonverbal sound. Compared with healthy controls, patients with SD showed differential activation of cortical areas surrounding the superior temporal sulcus, both for perceptual processing of spectrotemporally complex but meaningless sounds and for semantic processing of environmental sound category (animal sounds versus tool sounds). Our findings suggest that defective processing of sound objects in SD spans pre-semantic perceptual processing and semantic category formation. This disease model illustrates that antero-lateral temporal cortical mechanisms are critical for representing and differentiating sound categories. The breakdown of these mechanisms constitutes a network-level functional signature of this neurodegenerative disease.

Electrical neuroimaging of memory discrimination based on single-trial multisensory learning

Multisensory experiences influence subsequent memory performance and brain responses. Studies have thus far concentrated on semantically congruent pairings, leaving unresolved the influence of stimulus pairing and memory sub-types. Here, we paired images with unique, meaningless sounds during a continuous recognition task to determine if purely episodic, single-trial multisensory experiences can incidentally impact subsequent visual object discrimination. Psychophysics and electrical neuroimaging analyses of visual evoked potentials (VEPs) compared responses to repeated images either paired or not with a meaningless sound during initial encounters. Recognition accuracy was significantly impaired for images initially presented as multisensory pairs and could not be explained in terms of differential attention or transfer of effects from encoding to retrieval. VEP modulations occurred at 100–130 and 270–310 ms and stemmed from topographic differences indicative of network configuration changes within the brain. Distributed source estimations localized the earlier effect to regions of the right posterior temporal gyrus (STG) and the later effect to regions of the middle temporal gyrus (MTG). Responses in these regions were stronger for images previously encountered as multisensory pairs. Only the later effect correlated with performance such that greater MTG activity in response to repeated visual stimuli was linked with greater performance decrements. The present findings suggest that brain networks involved in this discrimination may critically depend on whether multisensory events facilitate or impair later visual memory performance. More generally, the data support models whereby effects of multisensory interactions persist to incidentally affect subsequent behavior as well as visual processing during its initial stages.

Superior Temporal Activity for the Retrieval Process of Auditory-Word Associations

Previous neuroimaging studies have reported that learning multisensory associations involves the superior temporal regions (Tanabe et al, 2005). However, the neural mechanisms underlying the retrieval of multi-sensory associations were unclear. This functional MRI (fMRI) study investigated brain activations during the retrieval of multi-sensory associations. Eighteen right-handed college-aged Japanese participants learned associations between meaningless pictures and words (Vw), meaningless sounds and words (Aw), and meaningless sounds and visual words (W). During fMRI scanning, participants were presented with old and new words and were required to judge whether the words were included in the conditions of Vw, Aw, W or New. We found that the left superior temporal region showed greater activity during the retrieval of words learned in Aw than in Vw, whereas no region showed greater activity for the Vw condition versus the Aw condition (k > 10, p < .001, uncorrected). Taken together, the left superior tem...

Sensory Learning: Rapid Extraction of Meaning from Noise

Recent studies show that humans can rapidly learn to differentiate originally meaningless sounds into long-lasting memories, illustrating the flexibility of sensory processes and raising important questions about how sensory memories are formed.

Rapid Formation of Robust Auditory Memories: Insights from Noise

Before a natural sound can be recognized, an auditory signature of its source must be learned through experience. Here we used random waveforms to probe the formation of new memories for arbitrary complex sounds. A behavioral measure was designed, based on the detection of repetitions embedded in noises up to 4 s long. Unbeknownst to listeners, some noise samples reoccurred randomly throughout an experimental block. Results showed that repeated exposure induced learning for otherwise totally unpredictable and meaningless sounds. The learning was unsupervised and resilient to interference from other task-relevant noises. When memories were formed, they emerged rapidly, performance became abruptly near-perfect, and multiple noises were remembered for several weeks. The acoustic transformations to which recall was tolerant suggest that the learned features were local in time. We propose that rapid sensory plasticity could explain how the auditory brain creates useful memories from the ever-changing, but sometimes repeating, acoustical world.

The sound-hand

Through clinical vignettes taken from the analytic treatment of an autistic child, the paper explores Bion' s notion of selected fact in relation to the post-Jungian theoretical speculation on the emergent mind. The issue of the subjectivity of the analyst is considered and explored in this light. A review of some neuroscience research contributions to a possible understanding of dialogue, empathy and rhythm is briefly described, particularly in terms of its potential usefulness for the psychoanalytic mind when working with autistic children. In general, the notions of ‘temporal shapes’ (Alvarez) and ‘sound-object’ (Maiello) provide support for the theoretical and clinical explorations of the issue of rhythmic interactions. Rhythmic sounds are distinguished from stereotypical and meaningless sounds produced by the analysand, whether or not they are accompanied by body movements, and their function of activating representations and amplifications in the analyst's mind is explored in the stage of treatment when the child does not yet speak. The Jungian concept of amplification is considered and revisited in this context.

Barbarian Encounters: Rethinking Barbarism in C. P. Cavafy's and J. M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians

Barbaric Encounters:Rethinking Barbarism in C. P. Cavafy'S And J. M. Coetzee'S Waiting For The Barbarians Maria Boletsi The reign of independent barbarism is now contracted to a narrow span; and the remnant of Calmucks or Uzbecks, whose forces may be almost numbered, cannot seriously excite the apprehensions of the great republic of Europe. Yet this apparent security should not tempt us to forget that new enemies and unknown dangers may possibly arise from some obscure people, scarcely visible in the map of the world. -Edward Gibbon1 Reflecting on the second half of the eighteenth century, Edward Gibbon points out in chapter 38 of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire that the barbarians, as they were known in Roman times, have disappeared. At the same time, he does not believe that the "republic of Europe"-the domain of civilization in Enlightenment thought-should rest assured. The barbarian threat to civilization is always there in "scarcely visible," "obscure people." The more invisible and obscure they are, the more they tantalize the civilized imagination. Their invisibility fosters the myth around them and enhances its threatening force. Barbarian enemies (or so the story goes) do not just wait to confront the troops of the civilized world on the battlefield. Their threat is that of invasion from the outside into domestic territory, which would violently disrupt a prosperous community and force civilization to return to a primitive, barbaric state. "" ["Waiting for the Barbarians"], a poem written in 1904 by the Greek Alexandrian poet Constantine Cavafy, [End Page 67] and J. M. Coetzee's novel with the exact same title in English (1980) both unravel around the anticipation of such an invasion, which never actually takes place.2 Barbarism and civilization are opposed and interdependent concepts. In this opposition, the notion of the barbarian operates as the constitutive outside of civilization and feeds the superiority of the civilized. In terms of its etymology, the ancient Greek word barbarian [] is supposed to imitate the incomprehensible mumblings of the language of foreign peoples, sounding like "bar-bar" (or, as we would say today, "bla bla"). As such, it has a double implication: on a first level, it signifies a lack of understanding on the part of the other, since the language of the other is perceived as meaningless sounds. At the same time, it suggests an unwillingness to understand the other's language and thus to make the encounter with the other a communicative occasion. Consequently, the term barbarian entails a collective construction of the other in a way that helps define the civilized subject itself-by specifying its negative limits. In this construction, the other is supposedly invalidated because it can never speak back and question its construction (its language would not be understood). The barbarian thus appears as an abjected outside, which, according to Judith Butler, is always inside the subject "as its own founding repudiation."3 The conditions according to which the pair civilization/barbarism has remained operational from its birth in ancient Greece until today have been under constant change. Nevertheless, despite the historically variable interrelationship between the two concepts and the changes in the semantic space that they occupy, such categories in history appear as ahistorical entities, operating in time but not themselves historicized.4 Within the foundationalist discourse of history, the oppositional pair civilization/barbarism is naturalized, posing as the way things have always been. The opposition becomes established in ancient Greece with the Persian Wars. As we see in Herodotus, the criterion for the opposition between Greeks and barbarians is not only linguistic but cultural differences as well-Greek democracy, freedom, and logos as principles and ways of life, as opposed to the decadent luxury, lax morality, servile manners, and despotism of the Persians. However, the connotation of savageness that we ascribe to the word today does not become standardized until the barbarian invasions of Rome.5 During the Enlightenment, thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Montesquieu, and others expressed their skepticism about the merits of civilization and invented the well-known image of the "noble savage," who is closer to nature and more pure than the decadent and corrupt "civilized" [End...

Why don't chimps talk and humans sing like canaries?

We focus on two problems with the evolutionary scenario proposed: (1) It bypasses the question of the origins of the communicative and semiotic features that make language distinct from, say, pleasant but meaningless sounds. (2) It does little to explain the absence of language in, for example, chimpanzees: Most of the selection pressures invoked apply just as strongly to chimps. We suggest how these problems could possibly be amended.

Gnostische theologie: Kennis van de onkenbare God Gnostic Theology: Knowledge of the Unknowable God

The Gnostics claimed for themselves a special knowledge of God. They believed that the creator of heaven and earth was not identical with the supreme deity. This article examines the language that the Gnostics used to speak about the supreme God. One of the most frequent expressions applied to God was ‘The One Who Is’ or ‘You Who Are’: we will ask about the possible origins of these expressions in Exodus 3:13-14 and Platonic philosophy. The language of negation was another way to speak about the unspeakable. To the same purpose, the Gnostics frequently resorted to symbols, puzzles, paradoxes, or even a series of virtually meaningless sounds.

Meaningful silence, meaningless sounds

This paper discusses the very general question of how syntactic features of individual languages relate to the universal set of syntactic features. It is pointed out that Chomsky’s approach (2001a) to this fundamental issue is paradoxical. On one hand he argues that language is uniform in the relevant sense (L-uniformity), but, on the other hand, he also assumes that languages make different selections of features from a universal feature set (L-selection). The paper argues strongly that L-uniformity is the only conceivable possibility. However, if that is correct, a great deal of what languages have is common is ‘silence’, that is, categories that are present in Narrow Syntax but silent in PF. In other words, language has innate elements and structures irrespective of whether or how they are overtly expressed. It follows that language variation is to a substantial extent ‘silence variation’, that is, much of it boils down to languages being explicit vs. silent about different (syntactically active) categories. This claim is coined as the Silence Principle, saying that any meaningful feature of language may be silent.

An ERD mapping study of the neurocognitive processes involved in the perceptual and semantic analysis of environmental sounds and words

The aim of this paper was to investigate and compare the EEG mechanisms underlying the perceptual and semantic processes involved in environmental and language sounds perception by manipulating the degree of identification of sounds and using the ERD (event-related desynchronization) method in healthy subjects. Four types of stimuli were analyzed: meaningful environmental sounds, meaningless sounds, words and non-words. We report many similarities in the ERDs and ERSs (event-related synchronizations) patterns among all stimuli, with: (i) similar time-course of ERDs and ERSs between meaningful environmental sounds and words, and between meaningless sounds and non-words; (ii) similar topography of the maximal ERDs for meaningful environmental sounds, words and non-words; and (iii) same right posterior ERSs for all four stimuli. However, differences were also observed: (i) in time-course, with earlier ERSs for meaningless than meaningful stimuli, whether environmental or verbal; and (ii) in topography, with ERDs predominating in left and right hemisphere channels for meaningful and meaningless environmental sounds, respectively; (iii) ERSs predominating in the left temporal channel for non-words and in the left posterior and right frontal channels for meaningless sounds. The results of this study suggest that meaningful stimuli involve greater and longer-lasting semantic processes than meaningless stimuli, while the occurrence of ERSs for the latter points to the possible involvement of an inhibitory processing of semantic representations. Finally, the findings concerning the comparison between verbal and non verbal stimuli suggest the involvement of left-lateralized phonological and semantic processes for the former, and more distributed neurocognitive processes in both hemispheres for the latter although with predominant left laterality for their semantic processing.

Effect of Environmental Sound Familiarity on Dynamic Neural Activation/Inhibition Patterns: An ERD Mapping Study

The aim of this study was to analyze the timing and topography of brain activity in relation to the cognitive processing of different types of auditory information. We specifically investigated the effects of familiarity on environmental sound identification, an issue which has been little studied with respect to cognitive processes, neural substrates, and time course of brain activity. To address this issue, we implemented and applied an electroencephalographic mapping method named event-related desynchronization, which allows one to assess the dynamics of neuronal activity with high temporal resolution (here, 125 ms); we used 19 recording electrodes with standard positioning. We designed an activation paradigm in which healthy subjects were asked to discriminate binaurally heard sounds belonging to one of two distinct categories, “familiar” (i.e., natural environmental sounds) or “unfamiliar” (i.e., altered environmental sounds). The sounds were selected according to strict preexperimental tests so that the former should engage greater semantic, and the latter greater structural, analysis, which we predicted to preferentially implicate left posterior and right brain regions, respectively. During the stimulations, significant desynchronizations (thought to reflect neuronal activations) were recorded over left hemisphere regions for familiar sounds and right temporofrontal regions for unfamiliar sounds, but with only few significant differences between the two sound categories and a common bilateral activation in the frontal regions. However, strongly significant differences between familiar and unfamiliar sounds occurred near the end of and following the stimulations, due to synchronizations (thought to reflect deactivations) which appeared over the left posterior regions, as well as the vertex and bilateral frontal cortex, only after unfamiliar sounds. These unexpected synchronizations after the unfamiliar stimuli may reflect an awareness of the unfamiliarity of such sounds, which may have induced an inhibition of semantic and episodic representations because the latter could not be associated with meaningless sounds.

Sapienization and Speech [and Comments and Reply

Middle Pleistocene erectus skulls differ from ours in fifteen discrete traits, primary among which are their smaller cranial capacities, flatter and more strongly constructed braincases, larger and more anteriorly projecting faces, and inflected mastoid processes. Back to 40,000 years ago all fossil hominids are of the sapiens desing, while all those clearly older show the erectus pattern. Except for their large brains, Neandertals are of the erectus type. The sapiens differences (many of them mal-adaptive in themselves) follow directly, for biomechanical reasons, from an elongation of the pharynx and indicate full development of speech as the delivery system for laguage. The archeological record at the same time showns a worldwide change of increased tool complexity, geographical localization of desings, and increased rate of change. Faster and easier transmission of information by the vocal medium would increase culture content and would facilitate building flexible social organizations. The final step in developing vocal language would be the phonemic priciple of using meaningless sounds in meaningful combinations. This invention would transform vocalizations from calls with fixed meanings into a more flexible and rapid form of communication. Phonemic speech would spread by diffusion because all erectus would be able to use it to some degree. All populations would then select for the same vocal anatomy and consequent cranial changes that best facilitate speech behavior. This accounts for the speed of transformation and the continuity of line traits through it.

The effects of stimulus characteristics, context, and personality factors on human response to aircraft noise

Current aircraft noise certification procedures are based upon psychophysical data derived from laboratory experiments in which test subjects responded to meaningless sounds (bands of noise) in an unrealistic sterile laboratory environment, while they were engaged in none of the normal activities which are typically interrupted by aircraft overflights. Over the past eight years, the authors have conducted a systematic study of the effects of stimulus characteristics (directionality, level and spectrum), contextual effects (activities engaged in during aircraft noise exposure and varying room illumination levels) and personality type of the test subjects. The results of the series of experiments show that all of these factors significantly effect human response to aircraft noise and suggest the need for more realistic research in order to improve noise certification procedures.

Acquisition and transfer of meaningful function by meaningless sounds.

Acquisition and transfer of meaningful function by meaningless sounds.

Perceptual constancy in complex sound identification.

The aim of the study was to discover whether there are perceptual constancies between classes of complex sounds, even though the acoustic information is very different. Listeners were asked to identify sounds consisting of vowels, musical instrument tones and meaningless buzz sounds, presented at three different fundamental frequencies (octave shifts), and at three signal‐to‐noise differentials. The sounds were numbered but not named. The vowels had voice‐like quality in mid‐octave (110 Hz); the musical tones sounded music‐like at the highest octave (220 Hz); at the lowest octave (55 Hz) both music and vowels were physically meaningless; the meaningless buzz sounds had no greater relevance in one octave than any other. These buzz sounds could be distinguished from each other by differing harmonic patterns. It was found that, in the absence of masking noise, the vowels were better identified in mid‐octave than were the musical and meaningless sounds. The musical sounds were not better identified than the others in high octave. The meaningless sounds were unexpectedly easier to identify in the low octave. They generally withstood thermal noise masking well, but not buzz masking, compared with the musical and vowel sounds. It was more difficult to identify musical and vowel sounds during thermal noise masking than during buzz masking. It would seem the fixed‐ratio hypothesis is not applicable to vowel (formant) sounds within the octaves tested. It may be used, however, to explain the constancy of identification for sounds which depend on harmonic patterning.

Contrasting Behavior of Right and Left Hemisphere-Damaged Patients on a Discriminative and a Semantic Task of Auditory Recognition

One hundred and one patients with unilateral hemispheric illness (41 right, 60 left hemisphere-damaged patients) and 49 control patients without cerebral lesions were given two non-verbal auditory recognition tasks, of which one (the Meaningless Sounds Discrimination Test) was intended to test the ability to discriminate the exact acoustic pattern of sounds, while the other (the Meaningful Sounds Identification Test) was intended to test the ability to identify the exact meaning of sounds. Patients were also given tests of visual discrimination (the Profile-Front Face Test), auditory verbal comprehension (the Token Test) and vigilance (simple visual reaction times). It was found that the right hemisphere-damaged patients were specifically impaired on the Meaningless Sounds Test, while the left hemisphere-damaged were specifically impaired on the Meaningful Sounds Test. This “double dissociation” was found to be highly significant. The Meaningless Sounds Test behaved like the visual discrimination test with respect to the side of the lesion, but, unlike this, it was not sensitive to the presence of homonimous visual field defects. Variations of vigilance apparently had no differential influence on the auditory recognition performances. Impairment on the Meaningful Sounds Test in left hemisoheredamaged patients was confined to aphasics and was highly correlated with the severity of the auditory verbal comprehension defect. Patients whose auditory recognition defect was strictly confined to either the Meaningless or the Meaningful Sounds Test were singled out. All 8 patients in the former group suffered from lesions of the right hemisphere and all 22 patients in the latter group suffered from lesions of the left hemisphere and aphasia. The former were significantly more impaired than the latter on the visual discrimination task, while the reverse occurred with tasks implying the semantic decoding of visual stimuli and with Weigl’s test of conceptual thought. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Perceiving steady state vowel, musical, and meaningless sounds.

A different group of six young Royal Navy enlisted men listened two periods a day for a week to each of three tests, made up of nine different complex steady state sounds. On one test all nine soun...

Affective Tone of Test Option Choice as a Deviant Response

While the evidence is slender, there appear to be modal response patterns which reflect a characteristic affective tone under appropriate stimulus conditions for certain deviant groups. Thus, some groups of Ss seem to show a preponderance of responses, such as true, like, etc., which are positive in affective tone. Other groups exhibit opposite tendencies in a preference for false, dislike, etc. Certain personality tests, because of the option form they employ, often provide opportunities for the appearance of such affective response sets or biases. Cottle and Powell (1951), for example, demonstrated that answering all of the MMPI items produced a profile with high scores on the scales for the psychotic triad while marking all the items produced high scores on the neurotic triad. Similarly, Barnes (1956a, b) has shown that atypical true answers . on the MMPI are associated with psychotic states while atypical false answers are associated with neurotic states. In still another study, Barnes (1955) noted that in responding to the Perceptual Reaction Test (Berg, Hunt, & Barnes, 1949), psychotic patients generally prefer the option like much, while normal .Ss prefer li&e slightly, and Ss with character disorders prefer dislike much. Asch (1958) has offered additional evidence for the significance of response affective tone in his finding that negative responses were associated with maladjustment. While his evidence is more on the qualitative side, Adams (1959) has observed that normal and schizophrenic Ss revealed affective differences in their reaction to meaningless sounds. Normal