Mechanisms Of Auditory Attention Research Articles

A Novel Penetration State Recognition Method Based on LSTM With Auditory Attention During Pulsed GTAW

Weld defect detection and control is of great significance for gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) process of aluminum alloy, and the recognition of penetration states based on acoustic signal has been a hot topic. However, previous studies have ignored that acoustic features have distinct effects on the penetration state. In this paper, inspired by the attention mechanism in the vision, a novel auditory attention model combining the attention mechanism with long short-term memory (LSTM) network for penetration state recognition has been proposed. First, the 15-dimensional informative features including 9-dimensional time-domain and 6-dimensional wavelet features related to the penetration state are extracted. Second, the auditory attention mechanism is explored and the attention-based LSTM including attention mechanism before LSTM(AT-LSTM) and attention after LSTM(LSTM-AT) are established, which are experimentally verified to show greater performance than other traditional methods with an average accuracy of 93.56% and 95.32%, respectively. Furthermore, the attention vectors are visualized to figure out the mechanism of auditory attention when different penetration occurs.

Intelligibility Improvement of Esophageal Speech Using Sequence-to-Sequence Voice Conversion with Auditory Attention

Laryngectomees are individuals whose larynx has been surgically removed, usually due to laryngeal cancer. The immediate consequence of this operation is that these individuals (laryngectomees) are unable to speak. Esophageal speech (ES) remains the preferred alternative speaking method for laryngectomees. However, compared to the laryngeal voice, ES is characterized by low intelligibility and poor quality due to chaotic fundamental frequency F0, specific noises, and low intensity. Our proposal to solve these problems is to take advantage of voice conversion as an effective way to improve speech quality and intelligibility. To this end, we propose in this work a novel esophageal–laryngeal voice conversion (VC) system based on a sequence-to-sequence (Seq2Seq) model combined with an auditory attention mechanism. The originality of the proposed framework is that it adopts an auditory attention technique in our model, which leads to more efficient and adaptive feature mapping. In addition, our VC system does not require the classical DTW alignment process during the learning phase, which avoids erroneous mappings and significantly reduces the computational time. Moreover, to preserve the identity of the target speaker, the excitation and phase coefficients are estimated by querying a binary search tree. In experiments, objective and subjective tests confirmed that the proposed approach performs better even in some difficult cases in terms of speech quality and intelligibility.

Brain perturbation to reveal causal contributions of executive networks to the mechanisms of auditory attention

Listeners face the challenge of understanding speech every day. A key cognitive strategy for parsing speech in noisy environments relies on auditory selective attention, which recruits a network of multiple cortical regions. Our recent studies identified at least two different neural mechanisms of auditory attention. Space-based attention engages alpha oscillations in the parietal cortex, which are thought to cause lateral suppression of streams in the ignored portion in space. In contrast, talker identity-based attention modulates beta oscillations in the temporal lobe, suggesting that a neural pitch prediction mechanism in the middle temporal gyrus (MTG) focuses attention to talker. Based on these findings, here we use a brain perturbation method to establish causal links between such oscillatory activity and control of different forms of auditory attention. We hypothesize that perturbing alpha oscillations in parietal cortex will impair spatial attention while perturbing beta oscillations in the MTG will impair speaker identity-based attention. Our ongoing study utilizes repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to induce such perturbations in the pre-determined regions of interests non-invasively and safely. This presentation will provide proof-of-concept data to validate the feasibility of this approach.

An Auditory Saliency Pooling-Based LSTM Model for Speech Intelligibility Classification

Speech intelligibility is a crucial element in oral communication that can be influenced by multiple elements, such as noise, channel characteristics, or speech disorders. In this paper, we address the task of speech intelligibility classification (SIC) in this last circumstance. Taking our previous works, a SIC system based on an attentional long short-term memory (LSTM) network, as a starting point, we deal with the problem of the inadequate learning of the attention weights due to training data scarcity. For overcoming this issue, the main contribution of this paper is a novel type of weighted pooling (WP) mechanism, called saliency pooling where the WP weights are not automatically learned during the training process of the network, but are obtained from an external source of information, the Kalinli’s auditory saliency model. In this way, it is intended to take advantage of the apparent symmetry between the human auditory attention mechanism and the attentional models integrated into deep learning networks. The developed systems are assessed on the UA-speech dataset that comprises speech uttered by subjects with several dysarthria levels. Results show that all the systems with saliency pooling significantly outperform a reference support vector machine (SVM)-based system and LSTM-based systems with mean pooling and attention pooling, suggesting that Kalinli’s saliency can be successfully incorporated into the LSTM architecture as an external cue for the estimation of the speech intelligibility level.

A model of co-saliency based audio attention

Inspired by biological perceptual characteristics in human auditory systems and the mechanisms of saliency detection, we study the relevance constraint between time-frequency characteristics of sound signals and the multiple spectrogram and propose a co-saliency detection method for multiple sound signals in this paper. Then, according to the auditory characteristics of the human ear, the distinctive saliency features from the acoustic channel and the image channel are fused. Finally, an auditory saliency map is obtained to complete the detection of significant sounds. The saliency features of the acoustic channel include the features calculated in the in the temporal and spectral domains of signal, which the temporal saliency features could be represented by the local maximum points in the Power Spectral Density (PSD) curve, and the spectral features could be represented by local maximum points in Mel Frequency Cepstrum Coefficient (MFCC) curve of sound signal. The saliency features of acoustic channel and cross-scale fusion with the contrast cue of spectrogram, whose result is more in line with the human auditory attention mechanism. Finally, combined with the corresponding cue which could reflect the distribution between multiple spectrograms, it could reflect the characteristics of global repeatability, and reflect high frequency of occurrence. Experimentally, the auditory Co-Saliency map verifies the accuracy and robustness of proposed method in this paper. It shows that the proposed method is superior to other traditional detection methods for auditory saliency, and can implement intelligent automatic detection to sound signals.

Whisper to Normal Speech Conversion Using Sequence-to-Sequence Mapping Model With Auditory Attention

Whispering is a special pronunciation style in which the vocal cords do not vibrate. Compared with voiced speech, whispering is noise-like because of the lack of a fundamental frequency. The energy of whispered speech is approximately 20 dB lower than that of voiced speech. Converting whispering into normal speech is an effective way to improve speech quality and/or intelligibility. In this paper, we propose a whisper-to-normal speech conversion method based on a sequence-to-sequence framework combined with an auditory attention mechanism. The proposed method does not require time aligning before conversion training, which makes it more applicable to real scenarios. In addition, the fundamental frequency is estimated from the mel frequency cepstral coefficients estimated by the proposed sequence-to-sequence framework. The voiced speech converted by the proposed method has appropriate length, which is determined adaptively by the proposed sequence-to-sequence model according to the source whispered speech. Experimental results show that the proposed sequence-to-sequence whisper-to-normal speech conversion method outperforms conventional DTW-based methods.

Computational modeling of environment deviant sound detection based on human auditory cognitive mechanism

Abstract One of the important aspects of our acoustic perceptual skills is auditory deviancy detection. This acoustic mechanism allowed human beings to percept the novel stimulate while regardless of the processes engaged in the focal task. A similar ability, imitating the above-mentioned human’s auditory awareness mechanism will greatly improve the efficiency of artificial perception in complex environment. In this paper, we propose a computational model to mimic such human auditory perception mechanism to verge on this goal. The prosed model consists of two modules: temporal deviancy detection and frequency saliency detection. Combining the information issued from each of the aforementioned modules, the proposed model generates the image indicator that identify the deviant salient-sound which elicit auditory attention shift. The sounds recorded from the real environment have been used for verifying the advantages of the proposed model. The results show that the proposed model is able to point out the deviant salient-sound in a mixture sound clip and shows an acceptable robustness and accuracy. Furthermore, a more comprehensive experiment is performed and illustrate that the proposed model could effectively simulate human auditory attention mechanism.

Hearing it right: Evidence of hemispheric lateralization in auditory imagery

An advantage of the right ear (REA) in auditory processing (especially for verbal content) has been firmly established in decades of behavioral, electrophysiological and neuroimaging research. The laterality of auditory imagery, however, has received little attention, despite its potential relevance for the understanding of auditory hallucinations and related phenomena. In Experiments 1–4 we find that right-handed participants required to imagine hearing a voice or a sound unilaterally show a strong population bias to localize the self-generated auditory image at their right ear, likely the result of left-hemispheric dominance in auditory processing. In Experiments 5–8 – by means of the same paradigm – it was also ascertained that the right-ear bias for hearing imagined voices depends just on auditory attention mechanisms, as biases due to other factors (i.e., lateralized movements) were controlled. These results, suggesting a central role of the left hemisphere in auditory imagery, demonstrate that brain asymmetries can drive strong lateral biases in mental imagery.

Electrophysiological evidence for altered visual, but not auditory, selective attention in adolescent cochlear implant users

ObjectiveSelective attention fundamentally alters sensory perception, but little is known about the functioning of attention in individuals who use a cochlear implant. This study aimed to investigate visual and auditory attention in adolescent cochlear implant users. MethodsEvent related potentials were used to investigate the influence of attention on visual and auditory evoked potentials in six cochlear implant users and age-matched normally-hearing children. Participants were presented with streams of alternating visual and auditory stimuli in an oddball paradigm: each modality contained frequently presented ‘standard’ and infrequent ‘deviant’ stimuli. Across different blocks attention was directed to either the visual or auditory modality. ResultsFor the visual stimuli attention boosted the early N1 potential, but this effect was larger for cochlear implant users. Attention was also associated with a later P3 component for the visual deviant stimulus, but there was no difference between groups in the later attention effects. For the auditory stimuli, attention was associated with a decrease in N1 latency as well as a robust P3 for the deviant tone. Importantly, there was no difference between groups in these auditory attention effects. ConclusionThe results suggest that basic mechanisms of auditory attention are largely normal in children who are proficient cochlear implant users, but that visual attention may be altered. Ultimately, a better understanding of how selective attention influences sensory perception in cochlear implant users will be important for optimising habilitation strategies.

Impaired Facilitatory Mechanisms of Auditory Attention After Damage of the Lateral Prefrontal Cortex.

There is growing evidence that auditory selective attention operates via distinct facilitatory and inhibitory mechanisms enabling selective enhancement and suppression of sound processing, respectively. The lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) plays a crucial role in the top-down control of selective attention. However, whether the LPFC controls facilitatory, inhibitory, or both attentional mechanisms is unclear. Facilitatory and inhibitory mechanisms were assessed, in patients with LPFC damage, by comparing event-related potentials (ERPs) to attended and ignored sounds with ERPs to these same sounds when attention was equally distributed to all sounds. In control subjects, we observed 2 late frontally distributed ERP components: a transient facilitatory component occurring from 150 to 250 ms after sound onset; and an inhibitory component onsetting at 250 ms. Only the facilitatory component was affected in patients with LPFC damage: this component was absent when attending to sounds delivered in the ear contralateral to the lesion, with the most prominent decreases observed over the damaged brain regions. These findings have 2 important implications: (i) they provide evidence for functionally distinct facilitatory and inhibitory mechanisms supporting late auditory selective attention; (ii) they show that the LPFC is involved in the control of the facilitatory mechanisms of auditory attention.

Brain Dynamics of Distractibility: Interaction Between Top-Down and Bottom-Up Mechanisms of Auditory Attention

Attention improves the processing of specific information while other stimuli are disregarded. A good balance between bottom-up (attentional capture by unexpected salient stimuli) and top-down (selection of relevant information) mechanisms is crucial to be both task-efficient and aware of our environment. Only few studies have explored how an isolated unexpected task-irrelevant stimulus outside the attention focus can disturb the top-down attention mechanisms necessary to the good performance of the ongoing task, and how these top-down mechanisms can modulate the bottom-up mechanisms of attentional capture triggered by an unexpected event. We recorded scalp electroencephalography in 18 young adults performing a new paradigm measuring distractibility and assessing both bottom-up and top-down attention mechanisms, at the same time. Increasing task load in top-down attention was found to reduce early processing of the distracting sound, but not bottom-up attentional capture mechanisms nor the behavioral distraction cost in reaction time. Moreover, the impact of bottom-up attentional capture by distracting sounds on target processing was revealed as a delayed latency of the N100 sensory response to target sounds mirroring increased reaction times. These results provide crucial information into how bottom-up and top-down mechanisms dynamically interact and compete in the human brain, i.e. on the precarious balance between voluntary attention and distraction.

互联网时代语音识别基本问题

Speech recognition technology has reached its highly mature period after half a century of development. In this paper, we first summarize the development of statistical theory and methods of speech recognition, and then introduce the excellent performance of deep neural networks in the tasks of acoustic modeling, language modeling, multilingual acoustic sharing and semantic classification. Deep neural networks performance advances arouse our great interest. By reviewing the pushing effects on deep neural networks of human-like auditory information processing, we realized that the combination of them will promote the further development of speech recognition. In turn, the deep neural network technology for speech recognition will promote the human-like auditory information processing technology as well. Subsequent development of speech recognition technology focuses on the design of the networks structure and the training algorithms of deep neural networks that make it better fit our auditory systems. Finally, we briefly analyze the feasibility of human-like anti-noise processing and human-like auditory attention mechanism implemented by deep neural networks.

The role of paying attention to sounds in soundscape perception

It has been stated frequently that the soundscape as perceived and appraised by the user of a space, extends beyond the physical stimulus. We argue that, when introducing to human-factor in analyzing a sonic environment, the sounds that people hear play an important role. This holds in particular for rather quiet and infrequent disturbance of park soundscapes. Auditory attention mechanisms are essential in the process. Attention can be drawn by saliency elements such as changes in time and frequency, but it can also be outward oriented and voluntary. These mechanisms could explain the special role of natural sounds in distracting attention from mechanical background hum in a park environment. These theoretical concepts have now been implemented in measuring equipment that allows estimating how often particular sounds will be heard by a human listener. The methodology includes biologically inspired feature extraction, learning based on co-occurrence of features and saliency, attention focusing, and inhibition of return. Extension to binaural measurements increasing the unmasking effect is also discussed.

Dissociation of facilitatory and inhibitory auditory attention mechanisms after lateral prefrontal lesions in humans

Event Abstract Back to Event Dissociation of facilitatory and inhibitory auditory attention mechanisms after lateral prefrontal lesions in humans Aurélie Bidet-Caulet1*, Kelly G. Buchanan2, Humsini Viswanath2, Jessica Black2, Donatella Scabini2, Frédérique Bonnet-Brilhault3 and Robert T. Knight2, 4 1 Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, INSERM U1028, CNRS UMR 5292, University Lyon 1, France 2 Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California at Berkeley, United States 3 UMR INSERM U930, Université François-Rabelais de Tours, CHRU de Tours, France 4 Department of Psychology, University of California at Berkeley, United States The lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) has been shown to be involved in executive control of goal-directed behaviour, including attention. More recently, some studies have provided evidence that selective attention relies on distinct facilitatory and inhibitory mechanisms. To better dissociate these facilitatory and inhibitory mechanisms, we investigated the role of the LPFC in auditory selective attention. We added to a classic dichotic paradigm a control condition in which attention was equally distributed to all sounds. Participants heard standard and deviant sounds in each ear, and had to detect deviants in the right or left ear, or binaural targets (neutral condition). We recorded scalp EEG signal in 9 patients with unilateral LPFC lesion and 9 matched control subjects. We compared event-related potentials (ERPs) to the same standard sounds when they were attended, ignored or in the neutral condition. In control subjects, we found that ERPs to attended sounds are enhanced from 150 ms to 250 ms relative to the neutral condition; whereas ERPs to ignored sounds are reduced from 250 ms up to 400 ms. Thus, consistent with our previous study in young healthy subjects, facilitatory mechanisms are recruited earlier than inhibitory processes. Moreover, in patients with unilateral LPFC lesions, we observed that the facilitatory component was reduced with the most prominent decreases over the lesioned hemisphere, whereas the inhibitory ERP component was not altered. These results show that the lateral PFC is specifically involved in the control of facilitatory mechanisms and not late inhibitory processes during auditory attention selection, providing evidence that independent facilitatory and inhibitory mechanisms support auditory selective attention. Funding: Supported by NINDS grants NS21135 and PO 40813. Keywords: Attention, EEG Conference: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI), Palma, Mallorca, Spain, 25 Sep - 29 Sep, 2011. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Poster Sessions: Neurophysiology of Cognition and Attention Citation: Bidet-Caulet A, Buchanan KG, Viswanath H, Black J, Scabini D, Bonnet-Brilhault F and Knight RT (2011). Dissociation of facilitatory and inhibitory auditory attention mechanisms after lateral prefrontal lesions in humans. Conference Abstract: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2011.207.00330 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 22 Nov 2011; Published Online: 28 Nov 2011. * Correspondence: Dr. Aurélie Bidet-Caulet, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, INSERM U1028, CNRS UMR 5292, University Lyon 1, Lyon, France, aurelie.bidet-caulet@inserm.fr Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Aurélie Bidet-Caulet Kelly G Buchanan Humsini Viswanath Jessica Black Donatella Scabini Frédérique Bonnet-Brilhault Robert T Knight Google Aurélie Bidet-Caulet Kelly G Buchanan Humsini Viswanath Jessica Black Donatella Scabini Frédérique Bonnet-Brilhault Robert T Knight Google Scholar Aurélie Bidet-Caulet Kelly G Buchanan Humsini Viswanath Jessica Black Donatella Scabini Frédérique Bonnet-Brilhault Robert T Knight PubMed Aurélie Bidet-Caulet Kelly G Buchanan Humsini Viswanath Jessica Black Donatella Scabini Frédérique Bonnet-Brilhault Robert T Knight Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

Toward the mechanisms of auditory attention

Since the earliest studies of auditory cortex, it has been clear that an animal’s behavioral or attentional state can play a crucial role in shaping the response characteristics of single neurons. Much of what has been learned about attention has been made using human and animal models, but little is known about the cellular and synaptic mechanisms by which attentional modulation of neuronal responses occurs. The use of rodent experimental models allows us to exploit the full armamentarium of modern cellular and molecular neuroscience techniques. Here we present our program for studying auditory attention, specifically for development of rodent models of attention and finding the neural correlates of attention.

Attentional capacity for processing concurrent stimuli is larger across sensory modalities than within a modality

One finding in attention research is that visual and auditory attention mechanisms are linked together. Such a link would predict a central, amodal capacity limit in processing visual and auditory stimuli. Here we show that this is not the case. Letter streams were accompanied by asynchronously presented streams of auditory, visual, and audiovisual objects. Either the letter streams or the visual, auditory, or audiovisual parts of the object streams were attended. Attending to various aspects of the objects resulted in modulations of the letter-stream-elicited steady-state evoked potentials (SSVEPs). SSVEPs were larger when auditory objects were attended than when either visual objects alone or when auditory and visual object stimuli were attended together. SSVEP amplitudes were the same in the latter conditions, indicating that attentional capacity between modalities is larger than attentional capacity within one and the same modality.

Multiple mechanisms of auditory attention

Selective attention limits processing so we can handle the vast amount of information that we encounter daily. Actively selecting a subset of sensory information has been shown to bias response properties of neurons within sensory cortices, generally seen as an enhancement of the neural activity associated with the attended stimuli. This talk will present another type of attention effect on neural activity, affecting the representation of sequential sounds in memory. Event-related brain potentials were used to identify the timing of various cognitive processes, the subjects’ perception of the sounds, and to assess the stages at which attention interacted with sensory input in perception. In one study, attention modified the grouping and storage of sequential sounds, reflected by the absence or presence of specific ERP components. In another study neural representations were biased by stimulus-driven factors without attentional control. In a third study, attention increased accuracy for discriminating stimulus information but did not change the way the information was organized in auditory memory. These results indicate that there is more than one mechanism of auditory attention operating at different processing stages depending on the listeners task, and supports the view that attention interacts with stimulus-driven processes to facilitate behavioral goals. [Research supported by NIH.]

INTERFERENCE FACTORS IN DELAYED RESPONSE IN MONKEYS AFTER REMOVAL OF FRONTAL LOBES

INTERFERENCE FACTORS IN DELAYED RESPONSE IN MONKEYS AFTER REMOVAL OF FRONTAL LOBES