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Data in Brief Dec 2020The most complex interactions between human beings occur through speech, and often in the presence of background noise. Understanding speech in noisy environments...
The most complex interactions between human beings occur through speech, and often in the presence of background noise. Understanding speech in noisy environments requires the integrity of highly integrated and widespread auditory networks likely to be impacted by multiple sclerosis (MS) related neurogenic injury. Despite the impact auditory communication has on a person's ability to navigate the world, build relationships, and maintain employability; studies of speech-in-noise (SiN) perception in people with MS (pwMS) have been minimal to date. Thus, this paper presents a dataset related to the acquisition of pure-tone thresholds, SiN performance and questionnaire responses in age-matched controls and pwMS. Bilateral pure-tone hearing thresholds were obtained at frequencies of 250 hertz (Hz), 500 Hz, 750 Hz, 1000 Hz, 1500 Hz, 2000 Hz, 4000 Hz, 6000 Hz and 8000 Hz, and hearing thresholds were defined as the lowest level at which the tone was perceived 50% of the time. Thresholds at 500 Hz, 1000 Hz, 2000 Hz and 4000 Hz were used to calculate the four-tone average for each participant, and only those with a bilateral four tone average of ≤ 25 dB HL were included in the analysis. To investigate SiN performance in pwMS, pre-recorded Bamford-Kowal-Bench (BKB) sentences were presented binaurally through headphones at five signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) in two noise conditions: speech-weighted noise and multi-talker babble. Participants were required to verbally repeat each sentence they had just heard; or indicate their inability to do so. A 33-item questionnaire, based on validated inventories for specific adult clinical populations with abnormal auditory processing, was used to evaluate auditory processing in daily life for pwMS. For analysis, pwMS were grouped according to their Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) score as rated by a neurologist. PwMS with EDSS scores ≤ 1.5 were classified as 'mild' ( = 20); between 2 and 4.5 as 'moderate' ( = 16) and between 5 and 7 as 'advanced' ( = 10) and were compared to neurologically healthy controls ( = 38). The outcomes of the SiN task conducted in pwMS can be found in Iva et al., (2021). The present data has important implications for the timing and delivery of preparatory education to patients, family, and caregivers about communication abilities in pwMS. This dataset will also be valuable for the reuse/reanalysis required for future investigations into the clinical utility of SiN tasks to monitor disease progression.
PubMed: 33318987
DOI: 10.1016/j.dib.2020.106614 -
International Journal of Environmental... Apr 2023(1) Background: Poor sleep and fragmented sleep are associated with several chronic conditions. Tinnitus is an auditory symptom that often negatively combines with poor... (Observational Study)
Observational Study
(1) Background: Poor sleep and fragmented sleep are associated with several chronic conditions. Tinnitus is an auditory symptom that often negatively combines with poor sleep and has been associated with sleep impairment and sleep apnea. The relationship between tinnitus psychoacoustic characteristics and sleep is still poorly explored, notably for a particular subgroup of patients, for whom the perceived loudness of their tinnitus is highly modulated by sleep. (2) Methods: For this observational prospective study, 30 subjects with tinnitus were recruited, including 15 "sleep intermittent tinnitus" subjects, who had reported significant modulations of tinnitus loudness related to night sleep and naps, and a control group of 15 subjects displaying constant non-sleep-modulated tinnitus. The control group had matching age, gender, self-reported hearing loss grade and tinnitus impact on quality of life with the study group. All patients underwent a polysomnography (PSG) assessment for one complete night and then were asked to fill in a case report form, as well as a report of tinnitus loudness before and after the PSG. (3) Results: "Sleep Intermittent tinnitus" subjects had less Stage 3 sleep ( < 0.01), less Rapid-Eye Movement (REM) Sleep ( < 0.05) and more Stage 2 sleep ( < 0.05) in proportion and duration than subjects from the control group. In addition, in the "sleep Intermittent tinnitus" sample, a correlation was found between REM sleep duration and tinnitus overnight modulation ( < 0.05), as well as tinnitus impact on quality of life ( < 0.05). These correlations were not present in the control group. (4) Conclusions: This study suggests that among the tinnitus population, patients displaying sleep-modulated tinnitus have deteriorated sleep quality. Furthermore, REM sleep characteristics may play a role in overnight tinnitus modulation. Potential pathophysiological explanations accounting for this observation are hypothesized and discussed.
Topics: Humans; Sleep, REM; Quality of Life; Tinnitus; Prospective Studies; Sleep
PubMed: 37107791
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph20085509 -
International Journal of Environmental... Jan 2021We are on the cusp of a revolution in the aviation sector, driven by the significant progress in electric power and battery technologies, and autonomous systems. Several... (Review)
Review
We are on the cusp of a revolution in the aviation sector, driven by the significant progress in electric power and battery technologies, and autonomous systems. Several industry leaders and governmental agencies are currently investigating the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or "drones" as commonly known, for an ever-growing number of applications-from blue light services to parcel delivery and urban mobility. Undoubtedly, the operation of UAVs will lead to noise exposure, which has the potential to become a significant public health issue. This paper first describes the main acoustic and operational characteristics of UAVs, as an unconventional noise source compared to conventional civil aircraft. Gaps in the literature and the regulations on the noise metrics and acceptable noise levels are identified and discussed. The state-of-the-art evidence on human response to aircraft and other environmental noise sources is reviewed and its application for UAVs discussed. A methodological framework is proposed for building psychoacoustic knowledge, to inform systems and operations development to limit the noise impact on communities.
Topics: Aircraft; Aviation; Humans; Psychoacoustics
PubMed: 33466937
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph18020682 -
Trends in Hearing 2022We tested whether sensitivity to acoustic spectrotemporal modulations can be observed from reaction times for normal-hearing and impaired-hearing conditions. In a manual...
We tested whether sensitivity to acoustic spectrotemporal modulations can be observed from reaction times for normal-hearing and impaired-hearing conditions. In a manual reaction-time task, normal-hearing listeners had to detect the onset of a ripple (with density between 0-8 cycles/octave and a fixed modulation depth of 50%), that moved up or down the log-frequency axis at constant velocity (between 0-64 Hz), in an otherwise-unmodulated broadband white-noise. Spectral and temporal modulations elicited band-pass filtered sensitivity characteristics, with fastest detection rates around 1 cycle/oct and 32 Hz for normal-hearing conditions. These results closely resemble data from other studies that typically used the modulation-depth threshold as a sensitivity criterion. To simulate hearing-impairment, stimuli were processed with a 6-channel cochlear-implant vocoder, and a hearing-aid simulation that introduced separate spectral smearing and low-pass filtering. Reaction times were always much slower compared to normal hearing, especially for the highest spectral densities. Binaural performance was predicted well by the benchmark race model of binaural independence, which models statistical facilitation of independent monaural channels. For the impaired-hearing simulations this implied a "best-of-both-worlds" principle in which the listeners relied on the hearing-aid ear to detect spectral modulations, and on the cochlear-implant ear for temporal-modulation detection. Although singular-value decomposition indicated that the joint spectrotemporal sensitivity matrix could be largely reconstructed from independent temporal and spectral sensitivity functions, in line with time-spectrum separability, a substantial inseparable spectral-temporal interaction was present in all hearing conditions. These results suggest that the reaction-time task yields a valid and effective objective measure of acoustic spectrotemporal-modulation sensitivity.
Topics: Acoustic Stimulation; Auditory Threshold; Cochlear Implantation; Cochlear Implants; Hearing; Humans; Reaction Time; Speech Perception
PubMed: 36172759
DOI: 10.1177/23312165221127589 -
Frontiers in Neurology 2023The recognition of Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) as a distinct clinical condition that impacts hearing capacity and mental health has gained attention. Although... (Review)
Review
The recognition of Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) as a distinct clinical condition that impacts hearing capacity and mental health has gained attention. Although pure tone audiometry is the gold standard for assessing hearing, it inadequately reflects everyday hearing abilities, especially in challenging acoustic environments. Deficits in speech perception in noise, a key aspect of APD, have been linked to an increased risk of dementia. The World Health Organization emphasizes the need for evaluating central auditory function in cases of mild hearing loss and normal audiometry results. Specific questionnaires play a crucial role in documenting and quantifying the difficulties faced by individuals with APD. Validated questionnaires such as the Children's Auditory Processing Performance Scale, the Fisher's Auditory Problems Checklist, and the Auditory Processing Domains Questionnaire are available for children, while questionnaires for adults include items related to auditory functions associated with APD. This systematic review and meta-analysis identified six questionnaires used for screening and evaluating APD with a total of 783 participants across 12 studies. The questionnaires exhibited differences in domains evaluated, scoring methods, and evaluation of listening in quiet and noise. Meta-analysis results demonstrated that individuals with APD consistently exhibited worse scores compared to healthy controls across all questionnaires. Additionally, comparisons with clinical control groups showed varying results. The study highlights (i) the importance of standardized questionnaires in identifying and assessing APD, aiding in its diagnosis and management, and (ii) the need to use sub-scores as well as overall scores of questionnaires to elaborate on specific hearing and listening situations. There is a need to develop more APD specific questionnaires for the adult population as well as for more focused research on APD diagnosed individuals to further establish the validity and reliability of these questionnaires.
PubMed: 37621857
DOI: 10.3389/fneur.2023.1243170 -
Journal of Voice : Official Journal of... Nov 2019A limited number of experiments have investigated the perception of strain compared to the voice qualities of breathiness and roughness despite its widespread occurrence...
BACKGROUND
A limited number of experiments have investigated the perception of strain compared to the voice qualities of breathiness and roughness despite its widespread occurrence in patients who have hyperfunctional voice disorders, adductor spasmodic dysphonia, and vocal fold paralysis among others.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study is to determine the perceptual basis of strain through identification and exploration of acoustic and psychoacoustic measures.
METHODS
Twelve listeners evaluated the degree of strain for 28 dysphonic phonation samples on a five-point rating scale task. Computational estimates based on cepstrum, sharpness, and spectral moments (linear and transformed with auditory processing front-end) were correlated to the perceptual ratings.
RESULTS
Perceived strain was strongly correlated with cepstral peak prominence, sharpness, and a subset of the spectral metrics. Spectral energy distribution measures from the output of an auditory processing front-end (ie, excitation pattern and specific loudness pattern) accounted for 77-79% of the model variance for strained voices in combination with the cepstral measure.
CONCLUSIONS
Modeling the perception of strain using an auditory front-end prior to acoustic analysis provides better characterization of the perceptual ratings of strain, similar to our prior work on breathiness and roughness. Results also provide evidence that the sharpness model of Fastl and Zwicker (2007) is one of the strong predictors of strain perception.
Topics: Acoustics; Auditory Perception; Dysphonia; Humans; Judgment; Models, Theoretical; Observer Variation; Psychoacoustics; Severity of Illness Index; Sound Spectrography; Stress, Physiological; Voice Quality
PubMed: 30064717
DOI: 10.1016/j.jvoice.2018.06.005 -
Evidence-based Complementary and... 2021To explore the differences in clinical characteristics and psychoacoustic indexes of various traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndromes in patients with idiopathic...
OBJECTIVE
To explore the differences in clinical characteristics and psychoacoustic indexes of various traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndromes in patients with idiopathic tinnitus.
METHODS
312 patients with idiopathic tinnitus in our hospital from December 2017 to March 2020 were selected; divided into the wind evil invasion group ( = 61), the liver fire disturbance group ( = 69), the phlegm fire stagnation group ( = 42), the spleen and stomach weakness group ( = 48), and the kidney essence loss group ( = 92) according to the medical syndrome type and the detailed medical history; and clinical characteristics of patients in each group were compared.
RESULTS
The kidney essence loss group's age and course of disease were older and longer than those of other syndrome groups, and the wind evil invasion group's disease course was shorter than the liver fire disturbance, phlegm fire stagnation, and spleen and stomach weakness groups ( < 0.05). The PSQI score of all patients was higher than 7 points, but there was no obvious difference between the groups ( > 0.05). The SAS score of the liver fire disturbance and the phlegm-fire stagnation groups was higher than that of the wind evil invasion, the spleen and stomach weakness, and the kidney essence loss groups, and the SDS score of the spleen and stomach weakness and the kidney essence loss groups was higher than that of the wind evil invasion, the liver fire disturbance, and the phlegm and fire stagnation groups ( < 0.05). The kidney essence loss group's total hearing loss rate (92.39%) was higher than the other syndrome groups, and the wind evil invasion group's total hearing loss rate (8.19%) was lower than the other syndrome groups ( < 0.05); the low to medium frequency tone of tinnitus's rate in the wind evil invasion group, liver fire disturbance group, and phlegm fire stagnation group was higher than the spleen and stomach weakness group and the kidney essence loss group, but the high frequency tone of tinnitus's rate was opposite. The tinnitus loudness in these groups was higher than the spleen and stomach weakness and kidney essence loss group ( < 0.05).
CONCLUSION
In addition to the wind evil invasion type, most tinnitus patients may have different levels of psychological disorders. So, in the treatment of idiopathic tinnitus, in addition to the disease itself, paying more attention to the psychological status of the patient is one better therapeutic method. Besides, clinical characteristics and the psychoacoustic indexes of patients with idiopathic tinnitus have a certain correlation with the TCM syndromes.
PubMed: 34608396
DOI: 10.1155/2021/2446357 -
Trials May 2022Tinnitus is the result of aberrant neuronal activity. As a novel treatment form, neuromodulation is used to modify neuronal activity of brain areas involved in tinnitus...
Transcranial electric and acoustic stimulation for tinnitus: study protocol for a randomized double-blind controlled trial assessing the influence of combined transcranial random noise and acoustic stimulation on tinnitus loudness and distress.
BACKGROUND
Tinnitus is the result of aberrant neuronal activity. As a novel treatment form, neuromodulation is used to modify neuronal activity of brain areas involved in tinnitus generation. Among the different forms of electric stimulation, transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) has been shown to be a promising treatment option for tinnitus. In addition, recent studies indicate that the reduction in tinnitus can be more pronounced when different modalities of stimulation techniques are combined ("bimodal stimulation"). TRNS can be used in combination with acoustic stimulation (AS), a further treatment option recognized in the literature. The aim of the proposed study is to investigate whether simultaneous tRNS and AS improve levels of tinnitus loudness and distress.
METHODS
The intervention consists of bilateral high-definition tRNS (HD-tRNS) over the auditory cortex combined with the application of AS which is studied in a crossover design. The visits will be performed in 26 sessions. There will be 20 treatment sessions, divided into two blocks: active and sham HD-tRNS. Within the blocks, the interventions are divided into group A: HD-tRNS and AS, and group B: HD-tRNS alone. Furthermore, in addition to the assessments directly following the intervention sessions, there will be six extra sessions performed subsequently at the end of each block, after a period of some days (follow-ups 1 and 2) and a month after the last intervention (C). Primary outcome measures are analog scales for evaluation of subjective tinnitus loudness and distress, and the audiological measurement of minimum masking level (MML). Secondary outcome measures are brain activity as measured by electroencephalography and standardized questionnaires for evaluating tinnitus distress and severity.
DISCUSSION
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study which uses HD-tRNS combined with AS for tinnitus treatment. The crossover design permits the comparison between HD-tRNS active vs. sham and with vs. without AS. Thus, it will be possible to evaluate the efficacy of the combined approach to HD-tRNS alone. In addition, the use of different objective and subjective evaluations for tinnitus enable more reliable and valid results.
TRIAL REGISTRATION
Swiss Ethics Committee (BASEC-Nr. 2020-02027); Swiss Federal Complementary Database (kofam.ch: SNCTP000004051 ); and ClinicalTrials.gov (clinicaltrials.gov: NCT04551404 ).
Topics: Acoustic Stimulation; Double-Blind Method; Humans; Noise; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; Tinnitus; Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation
PubMed: 35590399
DOI: 10.1186/s13063-022-06253-5 -
The Journal of the Acoustical Society... Sep 2019Little is known about the nature or extent of everyday variability in voice quality. This paper describes a series of principal component analyses to explore within- and...
Little is known about the nature or extent of everyday variability in voice quality. This paper describes a series of principal component analyses to explore within- and between-talker acoustic variation and the extent to which they conform to expectations derived from current models of voice perception. Based on studies of faces and cognitive models of speaker recognition, the authors hypothesized that a few measures would be important across speakers, but that much of within-speaker variability would be idiosyncratic. Analyses used multiple sentence productions from 50 female and 50 male speakers of English, recorded over three days. Twenty-six acoustic variables from a psychoacoustic model of voice quality were measured every 5 ms on vowels and approximants. Across speakers the balance between higher harmonic amplitudes and inharmonic energy in the voice accounted for the most variance (females = 20%, males = 22%). Formant frequencies and their variability accounted for an additional 12% of variance across speakers. Remaining variance appeared largely idiosyncratic, suggesting that the speaker-specific voice space is different for different people. Results further showed that voice spaces for individuals and for the population of talkers have very similar acoustic structures. Implications for prototype models of voice perception and recognition are discussed.
Topics: Adult; Biological Variation, Individual; Biological Variation, Population; Female; Humans; Male; Phonetics; Psychoacoustics; Speech Acoustics; Voice
PubMed: 31590565
DOI: 10.1121/1.5125134