Perceptual Cues Research Articles

Prelingually Deaf Children With Cochlear Implants Show Better Perception of Voice Cues and Speech in Competing Speech Than Postlingually Deaf Adults With Cochlear Implants.

Postlingually deaf adults with cochlear implants (CIs) have difficulties with perceiving differences in speakers' voice characteristics and benefit little from voice differences for the perception of speech in competing speech. However, not much is known yet about the perception and use of voice characteristics in prelingually deaf implanted children with CIs. Unlike CI adults, most CI children became deaf during the acquisition of language. Extensive neuroplastic changes during childhood could make CI children better at using the available acoustic cues than CI adults, or the lack of exposure to a normal acoustic speech signal could make it more difficult for them to learn which acoustic cues they should attend to. This study aimed to examine to what degree CI children can perceive voice cues and benefit from voice differences for perceiving speech in competing speech, comparing their abilities to those of normal-hearing (NH) children and CI adults. CI children's voice cue discrimination (experiment 1), voice gender categorization (experiment 2), and benefit from target-masker voice differences for perceiving speech in competing speech (experiment 3) were examined in three experiments. The main focus was on the perception of mean fundamental frequency (F0) and vocal-tract length (VTL), the primary acoustic cues related to speakers' anatomy and perceived voice characteristics, such as voice gender. CI children's F0 and VTL discrimination thresholds indicated lower sensitivity to differences compared with their NH-age-equivalent peers, but their mean discrimination thresholds of 5.92 semitones (st) for F0 and 4.10 st for VTL indicated higher sensitivity than postlingually deaf CI adults with mean thresholds of 9.19 st for F0 and 7.19 st for VTL. Furthermore, CI children's perceptual weighting of F0 and VTL cues for voice gender categorization closely resembled that of their NH-age-equivalent peers, in contrast with CI adults. Finally, CI children had more difficulties in perceiving speech in competing speech than their NH-age-equivalent peers, but they performed better than CI adults. Unlike CI adults, CI children showed a benefit from target-masker voice differences in F0 and VTL, similar to NH children. Although CI children's F0 and VTL voice discrimination scores were overall lower than those of NH children, their weighting of F0 and VTL cues for voice gender categorization and their benefit from target-masker differences in F0 and VTL resembled that of NH children. Together, these results suggest that prelingually deaf implanted CI children can effectively utilize spectrotemporally degraded F0 and VTL cues for voice and speech perception, generally outperforming postlingually deaf CI adults in comparable tasks. These findings underscore the presence of F0 and VTL cues in the CI signal to a certain degree and suggest other factors contributing to the perception challenges faced by CI adults.

The effect of second-language learning experience on Korean listeners’ use of pitch cues in the perception of Cantonese tones

Past studies have found that the linguistic experience of previously-acquired languages, such as one’s native-language (L1) and second-language (L2) learning experience, modulates the perception of novel sounds from a third language (L3). Lexical tone in L3 is a good case for testing the influence of L1 or L2, as listeners with varying language backgrounds may use different pitch cues (pitch contour or height) in tone perception. The present study focuses on L2 learners of Mandarin whose L1 variety is either Seoul Korean (SK), a non-tonal stressless language, or Gyeongsang Korean (GK), a tonal pitch-accent language. Intermediate-to-advanced SK-speaking and GK-speaking L2 learners of Mandarin were recruited as target groups, and naive listeners of respective L1 varieties were recruited as control groups. The participants completed an AX forced-choice tone discrimination task. Four Cantonese tones, one rising tone and three level tones, were used. Contour–level and level–level tonal contrasts were target tone pairs, allowing for testing the primary use of pitch contour and pitch height, respectively. The results showed that the two groups of naive listeners had greater accuracy in discriminating level–level than contour–level tonal contrasts. In contrast, L2 learners, independent of their L1 varieties, showed higher accuracy in discriminating contour–level than level–level tonal contrasts. The L2 learners’ perceptual pattern is consistent with Mandarin listeners, as reported in previous work. Taken together, the findings provide evidence for a possible developmental change in which Korean-speaking L2 learners might have a perceptual cue shift from pitch height to pitch contour through their L2 experience in Mandarin. The findings about the role of L2 proficiency in Mandarin further supported the effect of L2 experience on learners’ increased use of pitch contour.

A cognitive task analysis of final year nursing students' situation awareness in simulated deteriorating patient events: A mixed methods study.

The aim of this study was to: (1) use cognitive task analysis to describe final year nursing students situation awareness in recognising, responding and escalating care of deteriorating patients in ward settings; and (2) make recommendations for training and practice. A mixed methods cognitive task analysis with a convergent triangulation design. Data collection involved observations of 33 final year nursing students in simulated deteriorating patient scenarios and retrospective cognitive interviews. A process tracing technique was applied to identify the cues to deterioration participants perceived; how cue perception altered as situational demands increased; the extent that participants made connections between perceived cues and reached a situational understanding; and the factors that influenced and constrained participants situation awareness. Qualitative and quantitative findings are woven together and presented using descriptive statistics, illustrative quotations and timeline extractions. The median cue perception was 65.4% and 57.6% in the medical and surgical scenarios, respectively. Perception was negatively influenced by incomplete vital sign monitoring as situations escalated; limited physical assessments; passive scanning behaviours; poor task automaticity; and excessive cognitive demands. Incomplete perception, poor cue integration and underdeveloped mental models influenced situational understanding. Escalation calls did not always accurately reflect situations and a reporting mindset was evident. Clinical exposure to deteriorating patients was described as variable and opportunistic. The study is reported in accordance with the Good Reporting of a Mixed Methods Study (GRAMMS) checklist. Patients and public were not involved in this research.

사동구문과 피동구문에서의 운율구조와 통사구조의 상호작용 II

The purpose of the paper is to conduct production and perception tests on the homomorphic causative/passive verb constructions in the dialect of the northern Gyeongsang province, to identify the productional and perceptual cues that speakers of the dialect differentiate the two constructions and to reveal the relationship between syntax and phonology (prosody). As a result, through production test, we confirm that speakers of the dialect of the northern Gyeong- sang province use the prosodic information to distinguish between causative and passive constructions that are indistinguishable syntactically. This could be identified by the phenomenon that the frequency value of the ‘root’ of a causative verb is produced higher than that of a passive verb, and that the maximum frequency value of the ‘affix’ of a passive verb is observed higher than that of a causative verb. This means that speakers of the dialect of the northern Gyeong- sang province ultimately rely on the prosody when they distinguish the difference between two syntactically indistinguishable constructions. In the meantime perception test produces slightly different results unlike our expectation in the a few causative verbs, but it generally shows the same results as our anticipation.

Reframing Implications of Social Presence in Asynchronous Online Learning

The impact of social presence on virtual learning experiences is of increased interest in educational research as teaching and learning transitions from traditional classrooms to online learning environments. Educators need to know more about how to design asynchronous learning experiences that will results in students’ abilities to infer the mental states of others and participate in social conflict monitoring through perceptions of various social cues, as occurs in non-virtual instruction. Findings in the study showed that students’ age and satisfaction with online learning were the two main variables shaping participants’ mental states in online learning environments. Participants who expressed that online learning was sometimes a satisfying experience were more likely to believe that instructors could not resolve social conflicts. Otherwise, participants with some asynchronous learning experience tended to believe that social conflicts could be resolved by instructors teaching ethical decision-making skills and presenting and discussing multiple points of view. The outcomes of this study emphasize how instructors can work toward building social, cognitive, and teaching presence in online learning environments and can inform future social presence research.

Normative ratings for the Kitchen and Food Sounds (KFS) database

Sounds are important sensory cues for food perception and acceptance. We developed and validated a large-scale database of kitchen and food sounds (180 stimuli) capturing different stages of preparing, cooking, serving, and/or consuming foods and beverages and sounds of packaging, kitchen utensils, and appliances. Each sound was evaluated across nine subjective evaluative dimensions (random order), including stimuli-related properties (e.g., valence, arousal) and food-related items (e.g., healthfulness, appetizingness) by a subsample of 51 to 64 participants (Mdn = 54; N = 332; 69.6% women, Mage = 27.46 years, SD = 10.20). Participants also identified each sound and rated how confident they were in such identification. Results show that, overall, participants could correctly identify the sound or at least recognize the general sound categories. The stimuli of the KFS database varied across different levels (low, moderate, high) of the evaluative dimensions under analysis, indicating good adequacy to a broad range of research purposes. The correlation analysis showed a high degree of association between evaluative dimensions. The sociodemographic characteristics of the sample had a limited influence on the stimuli evaluation. Still, some aspects related to food and cooking were associated with how the sounds are evaluated, suggesting that participants’ proficiency in the kitchen should be considered when planning studies with food sounds. Given its broad range of stimulus categories and evaluative dimensions, the KFS database (freely available at OSF) is suitable for different research domains, from fundamental (e.g., cognitive psychology, basic sensory science) to more applied research (e.g., marketing, consumer science).

Population coding of time-varying sounds in the nonlemniscal inferior colliculus.

The inferior colliculus (IC) of the midbrain is important for complex sound processing, such as discriminating conspecific vocalizations and human speech. The IC's nonlemniscal, dorsal "shell" region is likely important for this process, as neurons in these layers project to higher-order thalamic nuclei that subsequently funnel acoustic signals to the amygdala and nonprimary auditory cortices, forebrain circuits important for vocalization coding in a variety of mammals, including humans. However, the extent to which shell IC neurons transmit acoustic features necessary to discern vocalizations is less clear, owing to the technical difficulty of recording from neurons in the IC's superficial layers via traditional approaches. Here, we use two-photon Ca2+ imaging in mice of either sex to test how shell IC neuron populations encode the rate and depth of amplitude modulation, important sound cues for speech perception. Most shell IC neurons were broadly tuned, with a low neurometric discrimination of amplitude modulation rate; only a subset was highly selective to specific modulation rates. Nevertheless, neural network classifier trained on fluorescence data from shell IC neuron populations accurately classified amplitude modulation rate, and decoding accuracy was only marginally reduced when highly tuned neurons were omitted from training data. Rather, classifier accuracy increased monotonically with the modulation depth of the training data, such that classifiers trained on full-depth modulated sounds had median decoding errors of ∼0.2 octaves. Thus, shell IC neurons may transmit time-varying signals via a population code, with perhaps limited reliance on the discriminative capacity of any individual neuron.NEW & NOTEWORTHY The IC's shell layers originate a "nonlemniscal" pathway important for perceiving vocalization sounds. However, prior studies suggest that individual shell IC neurons are broadly tuned and have high response thresholds, implying a limited reliability of efferent signals. Using Ca2+ imaging, we show that amplitude modulation is accurately represented in the population activity of shell IC neurons. Thus, downstream targets can read out sounds' temporal envelopes from distributed rate codes transmitted by populations of broadly tuned neurons.

Attentional Bias of Individuals with Social Anxiety towards Facial and Somatic Emotional Cues in a Holistic Manner.

Attentional bias towards threatening information is a crucial factor contributing to the development and persistence of social anxiety. However, the attentional bias towards threat information and the preferential processing pattern of emotional cues in individuals with social anxiety disorder during integrated facial and physical stimuli processing remain unclear. In this study, we employed a dot-probe paradigm to investigate the attentional bias towards integrated emotions (facial-body) among students with high and low levels of social anxiety (Experiment 1). Experiments 2 and 3 examined the attentional bias of socially anxious individuals when faced with conflicting emotional cues from faces or bodies in relation to integrated emotions. The data revealed that participants both high and low levels of social anxiety participants exhibited accelerated orienting and biased attention towards facial-body emotional processing. When there was inconsistency between emotional cues from faces or bodies and integrated emotions, higher levels of social anxiety were associated with increased vigilance towards threatening faces or bodies. These findings underscore that individuals with social anxiety possess an ability to rapidly capture threatening cues during the processing of facial-body emotional stimuli while also demonstrating a tendency to avoid relying solely on facial cues by compensating through bodily cues for emotion perception.

Changes in spatial self-consciousness elicit grid cell–like representation in the entorhinal cortex

Grid cells in the entorhinal cortex (EC) encode an individual's location in space, integrating both environmental and multisensory bodily cues. Notably, body-derived signals are also primary signals for the sense of self. While studies have demonstrated that continuous application of visuo-tactile bodily stimuli can induce perceptual shifts in self-location, it remains unexplored whether these illusory changes suffice to trigger grid cell-like representation (GCLR) within the EC, and how this compares to GCLR during conventional virtual navigation. To address this, we systematically induced illusory drifts in self-location toward controlled directions using visuo-tactile bodily stimulation, while maintaining the subjects' visual viewpoint fixed (absent conventional virtual navigation). Subsequently, we evaluated the corresponding GCLR in the EC through functional MRI analysis. Our results reveal that illusory changes in perceived self-location (independent of changes in environmental navigation cues) can indeed evoke entorhinal GCLR, correlating in strength with the magnitude of perceived self-location, and characterized by similar grid orientation as during conventional virtual navigation in the same virtual room. These data demonstrate that the same grid-like representation is recruited when navigating based on environmental, mainly visual cues, or when experiencing illusory forward drifts in self-location, driven by perceptual multisensory bodily cues.

Sleep- and sleep deprivation-related changes of vertex auditory evoked potentials during the estrus cycle in female rats

The estrus cycle in female rodents has been shown to affect a variety of physiological functions. However, little is known about its presumably thorough effect on auditory processing during the sleep–wake cycle and sleep deprivation. Vertex auditory evoked potentials (vAEPs) were evoked by single click tone stimulation and recorded during different stages of the estrus cycle and sleep deprivation performed in metestrus and proestrus in female rats. vAEPs showed a strong sleep-dependency, with the largest amplitudes present during slow wave sleep while the smallest ones during wakefulness. Higher amplitudes and longer latencies were seen in the light phase during all vigilance stages. The largest amplitudes were found during proestrus (light phase) while the shortest latencies were seen during estrus (dark phase) compared to the 2nd day diestrus baseline. High-amplitude responses without latency changes were also seen during metestrus with increased homeostatic sleep drive. More intense and faster processing of auditory information during proestrus and estrus suggesting a more effective perception of relevant environmental cues presumably in preparation for sexual receptivity. A 4-h sleep deprivation resulted in more pronounced sleep recovery in metestrus compared to proestrus without difference in delta power replacement suggesting a better tolerance of sleep deprivation in proestrus. Sleep deprivation decreased neuronal excitability and responsiveness in a similar manner both during metestrus and proestrus, suggesting that the negative consequences of sleep deprivation on auditory processing may have a limited correlation with the estrus cycle stage.

A novel method for measuring perception of suprasegmental cues in speech

While the perception of segmental cues in speech has been extensively studied, evidence on the perception of suprasegmental cues is largely missing. A critical barrier in this area is the challenge in measuring listeners’ ability to perceive a combination of multiple acoustic cues. The classic paradigm of discrimination is limited by its heavy reliance on auditory short-term memory and a long testing time. This study aims at examining the utility of a novel measure that is potentially more efficient and offers a more fine-grained account of perception of suprasegmental cues. Built on the evidence that listeners can shadow and rapidly imitate speech cues faithfully, we use the degree of alignment between listeners’ rapid imitation of suprasegmental cues and that of the speech stimuli as an index of perception quality. This alignment is mathematically quantified by the dynamic time warping (DTW) method, which is modified to simultaneously account for both the intensity and the fundamental frequency sequences to render more reliable alignment results. Data to date provided rich information regarding individual differences in perception, and results obtained from rapid imitation showed improved utility over those from the discrimination. The theoretical and clinical implication of this work is also discussed.

Acoustic cues in perception of reduced speech

In conversational speech, sounds undergo reduction and deletion, which challenges listeners to decode reduced forms using various cues. Previous research argues for the predominance of acoustic cues in a study of listeners’ perception of reduced speech such as “he’s” vs. “he was”, which can both be realized [ɨz]. Analyzing data from a previous perception experiment (Warner et al., Brain Sci., 2022), this study explores what types of acoustic cues listeners use to process reduced speech. Ambiguous [ɨz] with low second formant (F2) or long duration might be perceived as past due to an additional consonant (/w/) and potential contractions (low F2 as a cue to /w/). Low F2 is expected to result in smaller Bark F2-F1 and larger Bark F3-F2. Current study tests whether the stimuli show acoustic differences in the predicted direction and whether the formant and duration measures correlate with listeners’ identification of tense. It was found that there are no significant acoustic differences between past and present forms due to reduction, but that listeners significantly associated smaller Bark F2-F1 with past tense in singular verbs and longer duration with past tense in plural verbs. This confirms listeners' use of the predicted acoustic cues in perceiving reduced speech.

Sensitivity to spectral and temporal cues in music with a cochlear implant in single-sided deaf listeners

Despite the poor sound quality with the cochlear implant (CI), single-sided deaf (SSD) CI users often prefer to listen to music with binaurally combined acoustic and electric hearing. The source of this binaural benefit is unclear. Is the benefit due to gross binaural restoration or synchronous temporal envelope information across ears? Does the detail of the spectral and/or temporal content in the CI ear matter? We investigated sources of binaural benefit for music quality in SSD-CI users by manipulating the input to the CI. Unprocessed music was presented to the acoustic-hearing ear. Experimental stimuli were delivered directly to the CI ear: unprocessed (same as everyday listening), reduced temporal modulations (using a sinewave vocoder to restrict the input to the CI), reduced spectral information (wideband noise modulated by the music temporal envelope), or wideband noise. Preliminary results suggest sensitivity to the spectral and temporal information delivered to the CI ear; however, this sensitivity was highly variable across participants. Binaural benefits were not observed when only temporal cues or white noise were presented to the CI ear. Manipulation of vocoders presented to the CI ear may be a promising approach to evaluate perception of spectral and temporal cues with the CI.

Perceptual weighting of acoustic cues to contrastive prosody for sentences in quiet and in noise

Prosody is used to mark important information in speech, yet despite this important role in everyday communication it is not a customary part of speech recognition testing in routine audiometry. Listeners might fail to perceive meaningful emphasis on a specific word signaled by prosodic cues despite repeating the words correctly. This study introduces a new paradigm for assessing perception of prosodic cues that are used to signify new/corrective information in a sentence. Stimuli consisted of spoken sentences where one word (in various sentence positions) was emphasized through acoustic modifications across the entire utterance, in a manner that corrected wrong information. Participants used a visual analog scale to mark the timing and degree of emphasis aligned with the target words. Perceptual data in this study are linked with acoustic measures of voice pitch contour, intensity, and duration to characterize how contrastive stress cues are recovered by listeners with and without cochlear implants, who are especially at risk for poorer pitch perception. Follow-up conditions used stimuli where acoustic cues (F0, duration, intensity) were manipulated independently to explore perceptual cue weighting, and the perseverance of these cues through background noise.

Visual cues influence prosody perception among individuals with cochlear implants

Understanding a talker’s intention conveyed through prosody is essential for successful speech communication. Although visual speech cues are typically characterized by lip movements, there are also visual gestures including head tilts and eyebrow raises that signal prosody. Listeners with cochlear implants (CIs) may rely on these visual cues to solidify their prosody perception and guard against misinterpretations, particularly because of their poor perception of voice pitch. This study used audio-visual recordings of sentences in which a talker sometimes focused one word to signify a change in meaning. After characterizing acoustic and visual prosody cues in this stimulus set, we made prosodically mismatched variants of the stimuli by transplanting prosodically focused audio onto broad focus (i.e., prosodically unfocused) video, and vice versa. Visual influences on prosody perception were measured using acoustic analysis of participant reproductions in a vocal mimicry task. Results show reproduction of F0 contour—a key acoustic marker of prosodic focus—is influenced by perception of visual prosody cues. Specifically, visual cues indicating a focused word led to higher peak F0 in vocal reproductions of that word in the sentence. These results underscore the importance of multisensory information in supporting prosody perception for listeners with hearing loss.

Unexpected findings from L2 speech research can help us understand how humans process vowels

Research on nonnative speakers’ vowel production and perception has provided us with a number of surprising insights on how learners cope with nonnative vowels. Three of these initially unexpected, yet later solidly replicated, findings will be presented: (1) A decline in intelligibility of nonnative vowels as general proficiency improves (when an increase in intelligibility will be expected), (2) the use of acoustic cues in L2 vowel perception that cannot be attributed to transfer from the native language, and that are nonfunctional in the L2, and (3) the maintenance from infant speech perception in adult cross-language vowel perception of a bias favoring peripheral vowels. This presentation will discuss implications of these findings for our understanding of how vowel categories coexist in the minds of multilinguals, and of universally (native-language independent) preferred ways of vowel perception.

Exploring perceptual segregation cues in polyphonic vocal music under normal and impaired hearing

Music plays an important role in the lives of many people, but its enjoyment can be compromised by hearing loss. Although the effects of hearing loss on speech are well-studied, its effects on music perception are less well-understood. This study examined normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners’ ability to hear out individual voices within polyphonic music, while varying the number of voices and the level of inharmonicity in each voice. We hypothesized that hearing loss would hinder listeners’ ability to distinguish voices in music due to impaired frequency selectivity and pitch perception but that inharmonicity would impact hearing-impaired listeners less, due to their reduced sensitivity to pitch discrepancies. MIDI-generated female vocal passages with one to five voices and different inharmonicity levels were presented in two tasks: estimating voice count (denumerability) and following a specific voice in the passage. Preliminary results indicate that hearing-impaired listeners struggle more with increasing voices than normal-hearing listeners but are less affected by inharmonicity. These outcomes align with our hypotheses, confirming that hearing loss leads to poorer overall performance and less sensitivity to inharmonicity. [Work supported by NIH grant R01DC005216.]

Antennal Sensitivity of Spotted Lanternflies, Lycorma delicatula: Differential Electrophysiological Responses of Males and Females to Compounds Derived from Host Plants and Conspecifics.

In herbivorous insects, antennae play a crucial role in chemical communication and orientation when locating host plants and mates. To evaluate antennal sensitivity in response to odor stimuli, electroantennography (EAG) has been a practical technique. In the current study of the invasive spotted lanternfly (SLF), Lycorma delicatula (Hemiptera: Fulgoridae), we evaluated and compared their antennal sensitivity to a series of volatile chemicals collected from their bodies, honeydew, and host plants. To do this, we exposed the antennae of SLF fourth-instar and adult males and females to individual chemicals at a fixed dose of 50 ng. Further, a series of dose-response tests were carried out within a range of 0.5 to 100 ng. Although the amplitude of antennal responses varied among stages and sexes, adult males generated the strongest antennal responses in both experiments. In dose-response experiments, increased doses of chemicals up to 50 ng revealed the saturation points except in adult females which required a higher dose (100 ng) to reveal the saturation point. Although EAG does not provide any information on behavioral responses, our results are consistent with the olfactory bioassays in previous publications in which adult males, not females, were attracted to natural volatiles of their conspecifics. EAG indicated a higher sensitivity of adult male antennae to odor stimuli, particularly conspecific volatiles, than female antennae and highlighted sexual differences in the perception of chemical cues in SLF.

Life in Suspension with Death: Biocultural Ontologies, Perceptual Cues, and Biomarkers forthe Tibetan Tukdam Postmortem Meditative State.

This article presents two cases from a collaborative study among Tibetan monastic populations in India on the postdeath meditative state called tukdam (thugs dam). Entered by advanced Tibetan Buddhist practitioners through a variety of different practices, this state provides an ontological frame that is investigated by two distinct intellectual traditions-the Tibetan Buddhist and medical tradition on one hand and the Euroamerican biomedical and scientific tradition on the other-using their respective means of inquiry. Through the investigation, the traditions enact two paradigms of the body at the time of death alongside attendant conceptualizations of what constitutes life itself. This work examines when epistemologies of these two traditions might converge, under what ontological contexts, and through which correlated indicators of evidence. In doing so, this work explores how these two intellectual traditions might answer how the time course and characteristics of physiological changes during the postmortem period might exhibit variation across individuals. Centrally, this piece presents an epistemological inquiry delineating the types of valid evidence that constitute exceptional processes post-clinical death and their potential ontological implications.

Advancing Auscultation Education: Signals Visualization as a Novel Tool for Enhancing Pathological Respiratory Sounds Detection

Abstract Introduction: Auscultation remains a pivotal diagnostic modality for various respiratory pathologies. To augment its clinical relevance, the continuous expansion of our understanding of pulmonary acoustics, coupled with the advancement of auscultation recording and analysis methodologies, is imperative. Material and methods: We investigated how the bimodal presentation of auscultatory signals (sound and visual cue perception) influences the subjective efficacy of pathological respiratory sound detection, which is a critical step in the development of a new auscultation tool. Recordings of pediatric breath sounds were presented in three different forms - audio only, visual representation only (spectrogram) or audiovisual (both together). The F1-score, sensitivity and specificity parameters were calculated and compared to the gold standard (GS). Subsequent to the detection experiment, participants completed a survey to subjectively assess the usability of spectrograms in the procedure. Results: Over 60% of all responders ranked the spectrogram as important (40.8%) or very important (21.1%). Moreover, 11.3% of all participants found this new form of presentation of auscultation results to be more useful than the evaluation of sound only. The addition of visual information did not statistically significantly change the evaluation of the sounds themselves, an observable trend implies that enhancing audio recordings with visualizations can enhance detection performance. This is evident in the 4 p.p. and 2 p.p. sensitivity increments for physicians and students, respectively, even without specialized visual training. Conclusions: Our research findings indicate that the integration of spectrograms with conventional auditory assessment, albeit based on observed trends and survey responses, presents a promising avenue for improving the precision and quality of medical education, as well as enhancing diagnosis and monitoring processes.