A Detection-Theoretic Analysis of Auditory Streaming and Its Relation to Auditory Masking

Research on hearing has long been challenged with understanding our exceptional ability to hear out individual sounds in a mixture (the so-called cocktail party problem). Two general approaches to the problem have been taken using sequences of tones as stimuli. The first has focused on our tendency to hear sequences, sufficiently separated in frequency, split into separate cohesive streams (auditory streaming). The second has focused on our ability to detect a change in one sequence, ignoring all others (auditory masking). The two phenomena are clearly related, but that relation has never been evaluated analytically. This article offers a detection-theoretic analysis of the relation between multitone streaming and masking that underscores the expected similarities and differences between these phenomena and the predicted outcome of experiments in each case. The key to establishing this relation is the function linking performance to the information divergence of the tone sequences, DKL (a measure of the statistical separation of their parameters). A strong prediction is that streaming and masking of tones will be a common function of DKL provided that the statistical properties of sequences are symmetric. Results of experiments are reported supporting this prediction.

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Clinically Paired Electrodes Are Often Not Perceived as Pitch Matched

For bilateral cochlear implant (CI) patients, electrodes that receive the same frequency allocation often stimulate locations in the left and right ear that do not yield the same perceived pitch, resulting in a pitch mismatch. This pitch mismatch may be related to degraded binaural abilities. Pitch mismatches have been found for some bilateral CI users and the goal of this study was to determine whether pitch mismatches are prevalent in bilateral CI patients, including those with extensive experience with bilateral CIs. To investigate this possibility, pitch matching was conducted with 16 bilateral CI patients. For 14 of the 16 participants, there was a significant difference between those electrodes in the left and right ear that yielded the same pitch and those that received the same frequency allocation in the participant’s clinical map. The results suggest that pitch mismatches are prevalent with bilateral CI users. The results also indicated that pitch mismatches persist even with extended bilateral CI experience. Such mismatches may reduce the benefits patients receive from bilateral CIs.

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A Detection-Theoretic Analysis of Auditory Streaming and Its Relation to Auditory Masking

Research on hearing has long been challenged with understanding our exceptional ability to hear out individual sounds in a mixture (the so-called cocktail party problem). Two general approaches to the problem have been taken using sequences of tones as stimuli. The first has focused on our tendency to hear sequences, sufficiently separated in frequency, split into separate cohesive streams (auditory streaming). The second has focused on our ability to detect a change in one sequence, ignoring all others (auditory masking). The two phenomena are clearly related, but that relation has never been evaluated analytically. This article offers a detection-theoretic analysis of the relation between multitone streaming and masking that underscores the expected similarities and differences between these phenomena and the predicted outcome of experiments in each case. The key to establishing this relation is the function linking performance to the information divergence of the tone sequences, DKL (a measure of the statistical separation of their parameters). A strong prediction is that streaming and masking of tones will be a common function of DKL provided that the statistical properties of sequences are symmetric. Results of experiments are reported supporting this prediction.

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Clinically Paired Electrodes Are Often Not Perceived as Pitch Matched

For bilateral cochlear implant (CI) patients, electrodes that receive the same frequency allocation often stimulate locations in the left and right ear that do not yield the same perceived pitch, resulting in a pitch mismatch. This pitch mismatch may be related to degraded binaural abilities. Pitch mismatches have been found for some bilateral CI users and the goal of this study was to determine whether pitch mismatches are prevalent in bilateral CI patients, including those with extensive experience with bilateral CIs. To investigate this possibility, pitch matching was conducted with 16 bilateral CI patients. For 14 of the 16 participants, there was a significant difference between those electrodes in the left and right ear that yielded the same pitch and those that received the same frequency allocation in the participant’s clinical map. The results suggest that pitch mismatches are prevalent with bilateral CI users. The results also indicated that pitch mismatches persist even with extended bilateral CI experience. Such mismatches may reduce the benefits patients receive from bilateral CIs.

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A Detection-Theoretic Analysis of Auditory Streaming and Its Relation to Auditory Masking

Research on hearing has long been challenged with understanding our exceptional ability to hear out individual sounds in a mixture (the so-called cocktail party problem). Two general approaches to the problem have been taken using sequences of tones as stimuli. The first has focused on our tendency to hear sequences, sufficiently separated in frequency, split into separate cohesive streams (auditory streaming). The second has focused on our ability to detect a change in one sequence, ignoring all others (auditory masking). The two phenomena are clearly related, but that relation has never been evaluated analytically. This article offers a detection-theoretic analysis of the relation between multitone streaming and masking that underscores the expected similarities and differences between these phenomena and the predicted outcome of experiments in each case. The key to establishing this relation is the function linking performance to the information divergence of the tone sequences, DKL (a measure of the statistical separation of their parameters). A strong prediction is that streaming and masking of tones will be a common function of DKL provided that the statistical properties of sequences are symmetric. Results of experiments are reported supporting this prediction.

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Clinically Paired Electrodes Are Often Not Perceived as Pitch Matched

For bilateral cochlear implant (CI) patients, electrodes that receive the same frequency allocation often stimulate locations in the left and right ear that do not yield the same perceived pitch, resulting in a pitch mismatch. This pitch mismatch may be related to degraded binaural abilities. Pitch mismatches have been found for some bilateral CI users and the goal of this study was to determine whether pitch mismatches are prevalent in bilateral CI patients, including those with extensive experience with bilateral CIs. To investigate this possibility, pitch matching was conducted with 16 bilateral CI patients. For 14 of the 16 participants, there was a significant difference between those electrodes in the left and right ear that yielded the same pitch and those that received the same frequency allocation in the participant’s clinical map. The results suggest that pitch mismatches are prevalent with bilateral CI users. The results also indicated that pitch mismatches persist even with extended bilateral CI experience. Such mismatches may reduce the benefits patients receive from bilateral CIs.

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An image-processing based technique to obtain instantaneous horizontal walking and running speed

Publication date: Available online 16 September 2016
Source:Gait & Posture
Author(s): Akinori Nagano, Masahiro Fujimoto, Shoma Kudo, Ryosuke Akaguma
Walking and running speed is a fundamental parameter studied in a wide range of areas such as sport biomechanics, rehabilitation, health promotion of the elderly, etc. Given that walking or running speed is not constant even within a stride, instantaneous changes in the body motion need to be evaluated to better understand one’s performance. In this study, a new cost- and time- efficient methodology to determine instantaneous horizontal walking and running speed was developed. The newly developed method processes the movies taken with a (high-speed) camera. It consists of five sub-steps, which are performed in a serial order: (1) Subtraction of the background image, (2) filtering, (3) binarization and centroid determination, (4) transformation to the laboratory coordinate system and (5) differentiation. To test the accuracy of the newly developed method, the output (position and speed) was compared with the data obtained using motion capture. The average root mean squared (RMS) error (difference between the outputs of the newly developed method and motion capture) of position-time curves was 0.011m–0.033m. The average RMS error of speed-time curves was 0.054m/s–0.076m/s. It was shown that this new method produces accurate outputs of instantaneous walking and running speed.



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An image-processing based technique to obtain instantaneous horizontal walking and running speed

Publication date: Available online 16 September 2016
Source:Gait & Posture
Author(s): Akinori Nagano, Masahiro Fujimoto, Shoma Kudo, Ryosuke Akaguma
Walking and running speed is a fundamental parameter studied in a wide range of areas such as sport biomechanics, rehabilitation, health promotion of the elderly, etc. Given that walking or running speed is not constant even within a stride, instantaneous changes in the body motion need to be evaluated to better understand one’s performance. In this study, a new cost- and time- efficient methodology to determine instantaneous horizontal walking and running speed was developed. The newly developed method processes the movies taken with a (high-speed) camera. It consists of five sub-steps, which are performed in a serial order: (1) Subtraction of the background image, (2) filtering, (3) binarization and centroid determination, (4) transformation to the laboratory coordinate system and (5) differentiation. To test the accuracy of the newly developed method, the output (position and speed) was compared with the data obtained using motion capture. The average root mean squared (RMS) error (difference between the outputs of the newly developed method and motion capture) of position-time curves was 0.011m–0.033m. The average RMS error of speed-time curves was 0.054m/s–0.076m/s. It was shown that this new method produces accurate outputs of instantaneous walking and running speed.



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An image-processing based technique to obtain instantaneous horizontal walking and running speed

Publication date: Available online 16 September 2016
Source:Gait & Posture
Author(s): Akinori Nagano, Masahiro Fujimoto, Shoma Kudo, Ryosuke Akaguma
Walking and running speed is a fundamental parameter studied in a wide range of areas such as sport biomechanics, rehabilitation, health promotion of the elderly, etc. Given that walking or running speed is not constant even within a stride, instantaneous changes in the body motion need to be evaluated to better understand one’s performance. In this study, a new cost- and time- efficient methodology to determine instantaneous horizontal walking and running speed was developed. The newly developed method processes the movies taken with a (high-speed) camera. It consists of five sub-steps, which are performed in a serial order: (1) Subtraction of the background image, (2) filtering, (3) binarization and centroid determination, (4) transformation to the laboratory coordinate system and (5) differentiation. To test the accuracy of the newly developed method, the output (position and speed) was compared with the data obtained using motion capture. The average root mean squared (RMS) error (difference between the outputs of the newly developed method and motion capture) of position-time curves was 0.011m–0.033m. The average RMS error of speed-time curves was 0.054m/s–0.076m/s. It was shown that this new method produces accurate outputs of instantaneous walking and running speed.



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A Mixed-Methods Study of Patient Views on Reflux Symptoms and Medication Routines

Publication date: Available online 16 September 2016
Source:Journal of Voice
Author(s): Jessica M. Pisegna, Sky Yang, Audrey Purcell, Alix Rubio
ObjectivesGastroesophageal reflux disease is a chronic disorder often accompanied by laryngopharyngeal reflux. Speech-language pathologists are tasked with treating these patients with voice, dysphagia, and/or reflux therapy. This study investigated patient-reported reasons for reduced compliance with recommended reflux treatment and the top symptoms in patients with reflux, dysphagia, and voice symptoms.Study DesignThis study used a cross-sectional qualitative and quantitative mixed-methods design to identify and describe patients' reflux symptoms and reflux medication routines.MethodsFifty-one patients completed a face-to-face, semistructured interview, a questionnaire, and the Reflux Symptom Index (RSI). Interview transcripts were coded by authors for concepts in two cycles.ResultsDuring the 51 interviews, the top four reported symptoms were heartburn (n = 17), mucous (n = 11), dysphagia, and globus (n = 10). Further, 62.7% (n = 32/51) described an incorrect routine in taking their proton pump inhibitor (PPI): taking it with other pills, taking it with food/drink, and uncertainty about which pill is for reflux. RSI scores were moderately correlated with patient-reported reflux severity (r = 0.62, P < 0.0001, r² = 0.34). Correct compliance with PPI timing was not enough to significantly lower RSI scores more than those who did not comply (an average RSI of 20.0 vs. 25.9, P = 0.1252).ConclusionsLiterature has not described the most relevant reflux-related symptoms and why PPI compliance is notoriously poor, from the patients' perspective. The results of this study confirm that PPI compliance is poor, and the reasons for poor compliance could have been prevented with patient education. Even when PPI compliance was adequate, symptoms like globus, mucous, voice dysfunction, and dysphagia persisted. Other interventions such as evidence-based diet and behavioral changes should be a part of voice/dysphagia/reflux therapy.



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