Pitch Task Research Articles

Comparison of Psychometric Functions Measured Using Remote Testing and Laboratory Testing.

The use of remote testing to collect behavioral data has been on the rise, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we present psychometric functions for a commonly used speech corpus obtained in remote testing and laboratory testing conditions on young normal hearing listeners in the presence of different types of maskers. Headphone use for the remote testing group was checked by supplementing procedures from prior literature using a Huggins pitch task. Results revealed no significant differences in the measured thresholds using the remote testing and laboratory testing conditions for all the three masker types. Also, the thresholds measured obtained in these two conditions were strongly correlated for a different group of young normal hearing listeners. Based on the results, excellent outcomes on auditory threshold measurements where the stimuli are presented both at levels lower than and above an individual's speech-recognition threshold can be obtained by remotely testing the listeners.

The Relationship Between Autism and Pitch Perception is Modulated by Cognitive Abilities

Previous studies reported mixed findings on autistic individuals’ pitch perception relative to neurotypical (NT) individuals. We investigated whether this may be partly due to individual differences in cognitive abilities by comparing their performance on various pitch perception tasks on a large sample (n = 164) of autistic and NT children and adults. Our findings revealed that: (i) autistic individuals either showed similar or worse performance than NT individuals on the pitch tasks; (ii) cognitive abilities were associated with some pitch task performance; and (iii) cognitive abilities modulated the relationship between autism diagnosis and pitch perception on some tasks. Our findings highlight the importance of taking an individual differences approach to understand the strengths and weaknesses of pitch processing in autism.

No Heightened Musical Pitch Weighting For Tone Language Speakers in Early Childhood

Numerous studies suggest that speakers of some tone languages show advantages in musical pitch processing compared to non-tone language speakers. A recent study in adults (Jasmin et al., 2021) suggests that in addition to heightened pitch sensitivity, tone language speakers weight pitch information more strongly than other auditory cues (amplitude, duration) in both linguistic and nonlinguistic settings compared to non-tone language speakers. The current study asks whether pitch upweighting is evident in early childhood. To test this, two groups of 3- to 5-year-old children—tone-language speakers (n = 48), a group previously shown to have a perceptual advantage in musical pitch tasks (Creel et al., 2018), and non-tone-language speakers (n = 48)—took part in a musical “word learning” task. Children associated two cartoon characters with two brief musical phrases differing in both musical instrument and contour. If tone language speakers weight pitch more strongly, cue conflict trials should show stronger pitch responding than for non-tone speakers. In contrast to both adult speakers’ stronger pitch weighting and child and adult pitch perception advantages, tone-language-speaking children did not show greater weighting of pitch information than non-tone-language speaking children. This suggests a slow developmental course for pitch reweighting, contrasting with apparent early emergence of pitch sensitivity.

Domain-specific hearing-in-noise performance is associated with absolute pitch proficiency

Recent evidence suggests that musicians may have an advantage over non-musicians in perceiving speech against noisy backgrounds. Previously, musicians have been compared as a homogenous group, despite demonstrated heterogeneity, which may contribute to discrepancies between studies. Here, we investigated whether “quasi”-absolute pitch (AP) proficiency, viewed as a general trait that varies across a spectrum, accounts for the musician advantage in hearing-in-noise (HIN) performance, irrespective of whether the streams are speech or musical sounds. A cohort of 12 non-musicians and 42 trained musicians stratified into high, medium, or low AP proficiency identified speech or melody targets masked in noise (speech-shaped, multi-talker, and multi-music) under four signal-to-noise ratios (0, − 3, − 6, and − 9 dB). Cognitive abilities associated with HIN benefits, including auditory working memory and use of visuo-spatial cues, were assessed. AP proficiency was verified against pitch adjustment and relative pitch tasks. We found a domain-specific effect on HIN perception: quasi-AP abilities were related to improved perception of melody but not speech targets in noise. The quasi-AP advantage extended to tonal working memory and the use of spatial cues, but only during melodic stream segregation. Overall, the results do not support the putative musician advantage in speech-in-noise perception, but suggest a quasi-AP advantage in perceiving music under noisy environments.

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE CREATIVE AND ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET COURSE FOR LANGUAGE-MAJORED UNDERGRADUATES AT VNU-ULIS: A NEEDS ANALYSIS

The Creative and Entrepreneurial Mindset course for students majored in languages has been designed to equip them with crucial employability competencies. In the present study, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from the the students and teachers of this course to empathize the learners’ needs of the course implementation. Specifically, a survey questionnaire was conducted online with 123 language students and 22 teachers, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 7 groups of students and 10 individual teachers. The results show that the majority of students and teachers agreed that the learners' needs were met to a certain extent. Consequently, some significant areas for improvements were recommended:regarding the course expected learning outcomes, there should be a greater focus on entrepreneurial mindset competencies; about the assessment, the reflective journal frequency and the final pitch task should be adjusted; in terms of the learning plan, more practical activities with better link with enterprises, in-class activities relevant to language majors, supplementary reading materials, and more appropriate facilities were proposed. Particularly, it was suggested that teachers could raise the students' awareness by applying Design Thinking to empathize learners and adjust teaching and learning activities accordingly.

The Contribution of Frequency Discrimination Ability to Auditory Temporal Patterning Tests in Children.

Purpose The Pitch Patterns Test (PPT) and the Duration Patterns Test (DPT) are clinical auditory processing tests that evaluate temporal patterning skills based on pitch (PPT) or duration (DPT) aspects of sound. Although temporal patterning tests are categorized under the temporal processing domain, successful performance on the PPT also relies on accurate pitch discrimination. However, the relationship between pitch discrimination ability and temporal patterning skills has not been thoroughly evaluated. This study examined the contribution of pitch discrimination ability to performance on temporal patterning in children through the use of a pitch discrimination task and the PPT. The DPT was also given as a control measure to assess temporal patterning with no pitch component. Method Thirty-two typically developing elementary school-age children (6;11-11;3 [years;months]) with normal hearing were given a series of three counterbalanced tasks: an adaptive psychophysical pitch discrimination task (difference limen for frequency [DLF]), the PPT, and the DPT. Results Correlational analysis revealed moderate correlations between DLF and PPT scores. After accounting for age, results of a linear regression analysis suggested that pitch discrimination accounts for a significant amount of variance in performance on the PPT. No significant correlation was found between DLF and DPT scores, supporting the hypothesis that the pitch task had no significant temporal patterning component contributing to the overall score. Discussion These findings indicate that pitch discrimination contributes significantly to performance on the PPT, but not the DPT, in a typically developing pediatric population. This is an important clinical consideration in both assessment and utilization of targeted therapy techniques for different clinical populations.

Cross-domain effect of pitch processing in lexical and melodic contexts reflected by non-musicians: An MEG study

The pitch processing of language and music is generally considered engaging overlapped neural correlates. Previous studies on musicians showed that the ability of pitch processing in music could be transferred to language. It is known that music training can facilitate neural processing of speech, however, the underlying neural mechanisms of pitch processing of language and music are not fully understood, especially in non-musicians. Using magnetoencephalography, we presented a pitch anomaly paradigm which consists of language/music phrases ending in either congruous or incongruous tones/pitches to non-musicians. We found the distinctive brain activity patterns in two groups with high and low musical pitch perceptual abilities. The brain-behavior results showed a positive correlation between the performance of musical pitch tasks and the activation of the left frontotemporal cortical regions elicited by lexical tones. Our results suggested that the cross-domain effect of language and music could be generalized to people without formal music training.

Determining the Underlying Relationship Between Swallowing and Maximum Vocal Pitch Elevation: A Preliminary Study of Their Hyoid Biomechanics in Healthy Adults.

Purpose Deficiencies in swallowing (aspiration) and in maximum vocal pitch elevation have been shown to correlate in dysphagia. However, the underlying mechanisms that may explain this relationship are not known. In this study, we compare hyoid kinematics between swallowing and maximum vocal pitch elevation in healthy adults. Method Ten young (M = 21 ± 1.33 years) and eight older (M = 72.85 ± 5.59 years) healthy adults completed trials of maximum vocal pitch elevation (vowels /a/ and /i/) and swallowing (thin liquid and pudding) under videofluoroscopy. Superior and anterior hyoid excursions were obtained using kinematic analysis. Two-way analyses of variance and Spearman rho correlations were used to examine differences and relationships between swallowing and maximum pitch elevation biomechanics. Results Superior hyoid excursion was significantly greater for liquid swallows compared to pitch elevation tasks (/a/ and /i/; p = .002; Cohen's d = 1.28; p = .0179, Cohen's d = 1.03, respectively) and for pudding swallows compared to pitch tasks (p = .000, Cohen's d = 1.64; p = .001, Cohen's d = 1.38, respectively). Anterior hyoid excursion was not significantly different between the two functions, but was overall reduced in the older group (p = .0231, Cohen's d = .90). Furthermore, there was a moderate positive correlation between the degree of superior excursion during liquid swallows and maximum pitch elevation for both vowels (r s = .601, p = .001; r s = .524, p = .003) in young adults, and between the degree of anterior excursion during liquid swallows and pitch elevation for both vowels (r s = .688, p = .001; r s = .530, p = .008) in older adults. Conclusions Swallowing and maximum pitch elevation require similar anterior, but not superior, hyoid excursion in healthy adults. Differential correlations between the two tasks for each age group may be associated with age-related muscle changes. We provide evidence of partially shared biomechanics between swallowing and maximum pitch elevation.

Dual-Axis Manual Control: Performance Degradation, Axis Asymmetry, Crossfeed, and Intermittency

Vehicle control tasks require simultaneous control of multiple degrees-of-freedom. Most multi-axis human-control modeling is limited to the modeling of multiple fully independent single axes. This paper contributes to the understanding of multi-axis control behavior and draws a more realistic and complete picture of dual-axis manual control. A human-in-the-loop experiment was performed to study four distinctive phenomena that can occur in multi-axis control: performance degradation, axis asymmetry, crossfeed, and intermittency. In a simulator, three conditions were tested in the presence and absence of physical motion: the full dual-axis control task, single-axis roll task, and single-axis pitch task. Controlled element dynamics, stick dynamics, and forcing functions were equal in all cases. Results show that performance is worse in dual-axis tasks. Performance in roll axis is consistently worse than pitch, thereby proving axis asymmetry. Physical motion improves the performance and stability of the system. The application of independent forcing function signals in both controlled axes resulted in the detection of crossfeed in dual-axis tasks from spectral analysis. Using a novel extended Fourier coefficient method, the identified crossfeed dynamics can explain up to 20% of the measured control inputs and improves modeling accuracy by up to 5%. Dual-axis control behavior is less accurately modeled with linear time-invariant models and is more intermittent.

Hierarchical deficits in auditory information processing in schizophrenia

Deficits in auditory processing contribute significantly to impaired functional outcome in schizophrenia (SZ), but mediating factors remain under investigation. Here we evaluated two hierarchical components of early auditory processing: pitch-change detection (i.e. identifying if 2 tones have “same” or “different” pitch), which is preferentially associated with early auditory cortex, and serial pitch-pattern detection (i.e. identifying if 3 tones have “same” or “different” pitch, and, if “different”, which one differed from the others), which depends also on auditory association regions.Deficits in pitch-change detection deficits in SZ have been widely reported and correlated with higher auditory disturbances such as Auditory Emotion Recognition (AER). Deficits in serial pitch-pattern discrimination have been less studied. Here, we investigated both pitch perception components, along with integrity of AER in SZ patients vs. controls using behavioral paradigms. We hypothesized that the deficits could be viewed as hierarchically organized in SZ, with deficits in low-level function propagating sequentially through subsequent levels of processing.Participants included 27 SZ and 40 controls. The magnitude of the deficits in SZ participants was large in both the pitch-change (d = 1.15) and serial pitch-pattern tasks (d = 1.21) with no significant differential task effect. The effect size of the AER deficits was extremely large (d = 2.82). In the SZ group, performance in both pitch tasks correlated significantly with impaired AER performance. However, a mediation analysis showed that serial pitch-pattern detection mediated the relationship between simpler pitch-change detection and AER in patients.Findings are consistent with hierarchical models of cognitive dysfunction in SZ with deficits in early information processing contributing to higher level impairments. Furthermore, findings are consistent with recent neurophysiological results suggesting similar level impairments for processing of simple vs. more complex tonal dysfunction in SZ.

The effects of ethnicity, musicianship, and tone language experience on pitch perception.

Language and music are intertwined: music training can facilitate language abilities, and language experiences can also help with some music tasks. Possible language-music transfer effects are explored in two experiments in this study. In Experiment 1, we tested native Mandarin, Korean, and English speakers on a pitch discrimination task with two types of sounds: speech sounds and fundamental frequency (F0) patterns derived from speech sounds. To control for factors that might influence participants' performance, we included cognitive ability tasks testing memory and intelligence. In addition, two music skill tasks were used to examine general transfer effects from language to music. Prior studies showing that tone language speakers have an advantage on pitch tasks have been taken as support for three alternative hypotheses: specific transfer effects, general transfer effects, and an ethnicity effect. In Experiment 1, musicians outperformed non-musicians on both speech and F0 sounds, suggesting a music-to-language transfer effect. Korean and Mandarin speakers performed similarly, and they both outperformed English speakers, providing some evidence for an ethnicity effect. Alternatively, this could be due to population selection bias. In Experiment 2, we recruited Chinese Americans approximating the native English speakers' language background to further test the ethnicity effect. Chinese Americans, regardless of their tone language experiences, performed similarly to their non-Asian American counterparts in all tasks. Therefore, although this study provides additional evidence of transfer effects across music and language, it casts doubt on the contribution of ethnicity to differences observed in pitch perception and general music abilities.

Diversity in pitch perception revealed by task dependence.

Pitch conveys critical information in speech, music, and other natural sounds, and is conventionally defined as the perceptual correlate of a sound's fundamental frequency (F0). Although pitch is widely assumed to be subserved by a single F0 estimation process, real-world pitch tasks vary enormously, raising the possibility of underlying mechanistic diversity. To probe pitch mechanisms we conducted a battery of pitch-related music and speech tasks using conventional harmonic sounds and inharmonic sounds whose frequencies lack a common F0. Some pitch-related abilities – those relying on musical interval or voice recognition – were strongly impaired by inharmonicity, suggesting a reliance on F0. However, other tasks, including those dependent on pitch contours in speech and music, were unaffected by inharmonicity, suggesting a mechanism that tracks the frequency spectrum rather than the F0. The results suggest that pitch perception is mediated by several different mechanisms, only some of which conform to traditional notions of pitch.

Diminished neural resources allocation to time processing in Autism Spectrum Disorders.

BackgroundInterval timing, the ability to judge the duration of short events, has been shown to be compromised in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Timing abilities are ubiquitous and underlie behaviours as varied as sensory integration, motor coordination or communication. It has been suggested that atypical temporal processing in ASD could contribute to some of the disorder's symptoms, in particular motor clumsiness and difficulties in social interaction and communication. Recent behavioural investigations have suggested that interval timing in ASD is characterised by intact sensitivity but reduced precision in duration judgements.MethodsIn this study we investigated the processing of duration as compared to pitch in a group of high-functioning individuals with ASD using magnetoencephalography (MEG). 18 adolescents and adults with ASD and 18 age- and IQ-matched typically-developing control (TDC) individuals compared two consecutive tones according to their duration or pitch in separate experimental blocks. The analysis was carried out exclusively on physically identical stimuli (500 Hz tones lasting 600 ms), which served, according to instruction, as standard or probe in a Duration or Pitch task respectively.ResultsOur results suggest that compared to TDC individuals, individuals with ASD are less able to predict the duration of the standard tone accurately, affecting the sensitivity of the comparison process. In addition, contrary to TDC individuals who allocate resources at different times depending on the nature of the task (pitch or duration discrimination), individuals with ASD seem to engage less resources for the Duration task than for the Pitch task regardless of the context. Although individuals with ASD showed top-down adaptation to the context of the task, this neuronal strategy reflects a bias in the readiness to perform different types of tasks, and in particular a diminished allocation of resources to duration processing which could have cascading effect on learning and development of other cognitive functions.

Pre-encoding gamma-band activity during auditory working memory

Previous magnetoencephalography (MEG) studies have revealed gamma-band activity at sensors over parietal and fronto-temporal cortex during the delay phase of auditory spatial and non-spatial match-to-sample tasks, respectively. While this activity was interpreted as reflecting the memory maintenance of sound features, we noted that task-related activation differences might have been present already prior to the onset of the sample stimulus. The present study focused on the interval between a visual cue indicating which sound feature was to be memorized (lateralization or pitch) and sample sound presentation to test for task-related activation differences preceding stimulus encoding. MEG spectral activity was analyzed with cluster randomization tests (N = 15). Whereas there were no differences in frequencies below 40 Hz, gamma-band spectral amplitude (about 50–65 and 90–100 Hz) was higher for the lateralization than the pitch task. This activity was localized at right posterior and central sensors and present for several hundred ms after task cue offset. Activity at 50–65 Hz was also increased throughout the delay phase for the lateralization compared with the pitch task. Apparently cortical networks related to auditory spatial processing were activated after participants had been informed about the task.

Effects of Music and Tonal Language Experience on Relative Pitch Performance.

We examined the interaction between music and tone language experience as related to relative pitch processing by having participants judge the direction and magnitude of pitch changes in a relative pitch task. Participants' performance on this relative pitch task was assessed using the Cochran-Weiss-Shanteau (CWS) index of expertise, based on a ratio of discrimination over consistency in participants' relative pitch judgments. Testing took place in 2 separate sessions on different days to assess the effects of practice on participants' performance. Participants also completed the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA), an existing measure comprising subtests aimed at evaluating relative pitch processing abilities. Musicians outperformed nonmusicians on both the relative pitch task, as measured by the CWS index, and the MBEA, but tonal language speakers outperformed non-tonal language speakers only on the MBEA. A closer look at the discrimination and consistency component scores of the CWS index revealed that musicians were better at discriminating different pitches and more consistent in their assessments of the direction and magnitude of relative pitch change.

Examining pitch and numerical magnitude processing in congenital amusia: A quasi-experimental pilot study

ABSTRACTIntroduction: Congenital amusia is a developmental disorder associated with deficits in pitch height discrimination or in integrating pitch sequences into melodies. This quasi-experimental pilot study investigated whether there is an association between pitch and numerical processing deficits in congenital amusia. Since pitch height discrimination is considered a form of magnitude processing, we investigated whether individuals with amusia present an impairment in numerical magnitude processing, which would reflect damage to a generalized magnitude system. Alternatively, we investigated whether the numerical processing deficit would reflect a disconnection between nonsymbolic and symbolic number representations. Method: This study was conducted with 11 adult individuals with congenital amusia and a control comparison group of 6 typically developing individuals. Participants performed nonsymbolic and symbolic magnitude comparisons and number line tasks. Results were available from previous testing using the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA) and a pitch change detection task (PCD). Results: Compared to the controls, individuals with amusia exhibited no significant differences in their performance on both the number line and the nonsymbolic magnitude tasks. Nevertheless, they showed significantly worse performance on the symbolic magnitude task. Moreover, individuals with congenital amusia, who presented worse performance in the Meter subtest, also presented less precise nonsymbolic numerical representation. Conclusions: The relationship between meter and nonsymbolic numerical discrimination could indicate a general ratio processing deficit. The finding of preserved nonsymbolic numerical magnitude discrimination and mental number line representations, with impaired symbolic number processing, in individuals with congenital amusia indicates that (a) pitch height and numerical magnitude processing may not share common neural representations, and (b) in addition to pitch processing, individuals with amusia may present a deficit in accessing nonsymbolic numerical representations from symbolic representations. The symbolic access deficit could reflect a widespread impairment in the establishment of cortico-cortical connections between association areas.

Application of Quantitative Measures for Analysing Aircraft Handling Qualities

<p>The ease and precision with which pilot is able to handle the designated task determines the aircraft’s handling qualities. Accordingly, the most common methodology for determining aircraft’s handling qualities is through pilot opinions or through questionnaires. These subjective means of analysis is not reliable as the sole source of judgments. Quantitative metrics to analyse the task difficulty based on pilot’s performance, supplemented with subjective decision, can provide better insight into pilot workload levels and in turn the aircraft’s handling qualities. The application of few objective performance measurement techniques to flight data of a high performance fighter aircraft is discussed. Pilot/aircraft’s performance under different configurations is analysed. Analysis results show that pilots usually tend to give more priority to pitch axis in case of dual axis tracking task. And pilots are therefore more aggressive in accomplishing pitch axis tracking task than in roll. Workload assessments were also performed by comparing the results of single axis tracking experiments conducted using a high fidelity flight simulator with the flight data. It is seen that pilot’s aggressiveness levels in controlling the roll control inceptor is significantly less, with improved tracking accuracy when exercised as the primary task.</p><p><strong>Defence Science Journal, Vol. 66, No. 1, January 2016, pp. 03-10, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.66.9196</strong></p>

Human Crossfeed in Dual-Axis Manual Control with Motion Feedback

While many realistic manual control tasks require human operators to control multiple degrees-of-freedomsimultaneously, our understanding of such multi-axis manual control has not moved far beyond considering it simply as the control of multiple fully-independent axes. This investigation aims to further our understanding of multi-axis control by focusing on one phenomenon that is known to occur in such tasks: crossfeed. Crossfeed occurs when operators’ inputs in one controlled axis feed into another controlled degree-of-freedom, thereby affecting overall control performance. A human-in-the-loop experiment, in which operators performed a dual-axis aircraft roll and pitch tracking task with physical motion feedback, was conducted in the SIMONA Research Simulator at TU Delft. Three conditions were tested: the full dual-axis control task, supplemented with reference single-axis roll and pitch tasks. Through the use of independent target and disturbance forcing function signals in both controlled axes, we were able to detect the presence of crossfeed in this dual-axis task from spectral analysis. Furthermore, these signals facilitated the objective identification of the dynamics of the crossfeed contribution, in parallel with estimating operators visual and motion responses. The crossfeed dynamics were found to resemble the well-known dynamics of human operators’ visual responses. The crossfeed contribution was found to explain up to 20% of the measured control inputs, thereby indicating that crossfeed can be a factor of significance in multi-axis manual control.

The Effect of Pitch and Rhythm Difficulty on High School String Sight-Reading Performance

Reading music at sight is a complex skill, requiring the musician to perform pitch and rhythm simultaneously. Previous research has identified difficulty levels for pitch and rhythm skills for strings individually but not in combination. In this study, we sought to study possible relationships between pitch and rhythm tasks occurring concurrently. High school string players (N = 88) performed melodies with varying combinations of pitch and rhythm difficulty. Results indicated that pitch and rhythm skills retained their relative difficulty levels, regardless of the presence of other factors. Rhythmic success was related to pitch success. Rhythm accuracy without pitch success occurred least frequently. Pitch accuracy without rhythm success occurred most frequently. String players appeared to give priority to pitch over rhythm, performing pitch correctly at the expense of rhythmic accuracy. Implications for teaching include the necessity of emphasizing rhythmic continuity. Future research should explore the pitch and rhythm reading capabilities for other instrumentalists and string players with a vocal background, as well as exploring the ability to sight-read additional musical elements in conjunction with rhythm and pitch.

Absolute and relative pitch task performances in nonmusical undergraduate students

Absolute and relative pitch task performances in nonmusical undergraduate students