Similar to the visual dual-pathway model, neurophysiological studies in non-human primates have suggested that the dual-pathway model is also applicable for explaining auditory cortical processing, including the ventral "what" pathway for object identification and the dorsal "where" pathway for spatial localization. This review summarizes evidence from human neuroimaging studies supporting the dual-pathway model for auditory cortical processing in humans.
Animals ; Auditory Cortex ; anatomy & histology ; physiology ; Auditory Pathways ; anatomy & histology ; physiology ; Auditory Perception ; physiology ; Humans ; Macaca ; anatomy & histology ; physiology ; Models, Neurological ; Neurons ; physiology ; Pitch Discrimination ; physiology ; Sound Localization ; physiology ; Space Perception ; physiology

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The majority of tinnitus is classified not as objective, but as subjective tinnitus. The nature of tinnitus is different according to countries, cities, personal expression, but the objective assessment guideline for the diagnosis of subjective expression in tinnitus is not present in Korea. The aim of this study has been to compare subjective expressions with pitch in tinnitus and to find out whether we can predict tinnitus pitch by patient subjective expression. SUBJECTS AND METHOD: We reviewed the records of 633 patients (690 ears) with continuous tinnitus who performed questionnaires of tinnitus and audiologic study. In addition to standard audiometric tests, patients received tests for tinnitus pitch using pure tone stimuli and/ or narrow band noise. RESULTS: Among 50 onomatopoeia of tinnitus, [wi: ng] shows highest incidence (25.4%), followed by [s'oi: ](13.8%), [u: ng] (11.7%), [p'i: ](7.8%), and [tchi: ](5.4%). High pitches, especially 4 kHz (28.6%), 8 kHz (24.9%), were more frequently noted in tinnitus. With respect to the relationship between tinnitus pitch and onomatopoeia, [u: ng] shows highest incidence in low pitches, below 500 Hz, [wi: ng] in 1 kHz, and [s'oi: ] in 4 kHz, 8 kHz. In tinnitus pitch according to onomatopoeia, [wi: ng] had 4 kHz, 8 kHz, 1 kHz, [s'oi: ] had 4 kHz, 1 kHz, 8 kHz, [u: ng] had 125 Hz, 250 Hz, 500 Hz, [p'i: ] had 8 kHz, 4 kHz, 1 kHz, and [tchi: ] had 4 kHz, 8 kHz, more frequently in sequence. Dividing pitches into low, middle and high levels, [u: ng] had low pitches, [s'oi: ] had middle and high pitches, [p'i: ] and [tchi: ] had high pitches, but [wi: ng] was distributed evenly through low to high pitches. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that there was apparent relationship between subjective expression and pitch in tinnitus.
Diagnosis ; Humans ; Incidence ; Korea ; Noise ; Pitch Perception ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Tinnitus*

Cochlear Implantation ; Cochlear Implants ; Humans ; Music ; Pitch Perception

A cochlear implant (CI) is a kind of surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to a person who has severe to profound sensorineural hearing impairment. However, studies have shown that the performance in music perception for CI users has not been achieved to an ideal level. It is important to evaluate the ability to perceive music using well designed music perception test materials, in order to improve the quality of life for cochlear implant users. This paper reviewed the studies on assessing music perception ability for adult cochlear implant users from the existing literature.
Cochlear Implantation ; Cochlear Implants ; Humans ; Music ; Pitch Perception

With a high sound quality stimulated by the electrical device and a large inclusion in medical insurance, the number of cochlear implant recipients has been rapidly increased in Korea. Today, it is not surprising that early implanted young children with congenital deafness show a similar performance to their normal hearing peers in speech perception. However, the cochlear implant users still have a trouble to enjoy music. This review study aims to introduce briefly about acoustic components that required to perceive the music and understand a relationship between cochlear implantation and temporal fine structure. For the pediatric implant users who have less experience on acoustical sound features but are much familiar with the electrically stimulated sound, perceiving the music seems to be challengeable due to the lack of temporal fine resolution related to pitch and timbre among various components of music. Four representative test batteries for evaluating the recipients' ability of the music perception were mentioned and effective auditory music trainings were discussed with analysis of related investigations. Unlike hearing aids users who usually depend on fitting algorism for better music quality, the cochlear implant users need systematic training to improve their music perception ability. In conclusion, advancement of speech processing technology which can provide accurate information about the temporal fine structure of incoming music to the recipients needs to be developed. Also, a practical application of music training should be recommended as a part of auditory training for the cochlear implant users.
Acoustics ; Child ; Cochlear Implantation ; Cochlear Implants ; Deafness ; Hearing ; Hearing Aids ; Humans ; Insurance ; Korea ; Music ; Perception ; Pitch Perception ; Speech Perception

PURPOSE: Many studies have shown that subjects show a change of vocal fundamental frequency (F0) when phonating subjects hear their vocal pitch feedback shifted upward or downward. This study was performed to demonstrate whether vocal parameters [F0, intensity, jitter, shimmer, and noise to harmonic ratio (NHR)] in normal males respond to changes in frequency of pure tone masking. MATERIALS and METHODS: Twenty healthy male subjects participated in this study. Subjects vocalized /a/ vowel sounds while listening to a pitch- shift pure tone through headphones (upward pitch-shift in succession: 1kHz to 2kHz and 1kHz to 4kHz at 50dB or 80dB, respectively, downward pitch-shift in succession: 1kHz to 250Hz and 1kH to 500Hz at 50dB or 80dB, respectively). RESULTS: Vocal intensity, F0, was increased, whereas jitter was decreased as the pitch of pure tone was shifted upward. However, there was no correlation between shimmer and NHR with pitch-shift feedback for pure tones. Unlike vocal pitch- shift feedback in other studies, upward pitch-shift feedback of pure tones caused the vocal F0 and intensity to change in the same direction as pitch-shift. CONCLUSION: The results of this study demonstrated that auditory kinesthetic feedback is affected by pitch-shift in pure tone.
Acoustic Stimulation ; Adult ; *Feedback ; Humans ; Male ; Pitch Perception/*physiology ; Voice/*physiology

OBJECTIVE: To establish music reference values for normal-hearing (NH) person in China, in order to give convenience in clinical application. METHOD: The NH participant group included 39 subjects, of which 21 females and 18 males. Musical Sounds in Cochlear Implants test battery was used to assess the music perception ability for normal-hearing participants. RESULT: The median pitch difference NH participants could discriminate for string was 2.5 semitones and 0.5 for flute. The average scores of rhythm discrimination, melody discrimination, chord discrimination, instrument identification and instrument number detection test were 86.1% (SD = 11.2), 76.5% (SD = 11.1), 75.6% (SD = 11.4), 89.9% (SD = 13.0) and 74.1% (SD = 20.7), respectively. CONCLUSION The MuSIC test could be a test for music perception ability for China users and in further study the material that more suited for our culture should be added into it.
Adolescent ; Adult ; Auditory Perception ; Cochlear Implantation ; Cochlear Implants ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Music ; Pitch Perception ; Reference Values ; Young Adult

OBJECTIVETo assess the rhythmic and timbral perception ability in musical activities for postlingually deafened adult cochlear implant users.

METHODSTwelve normal-hearing and 12 adult cochlear implant users were recruited in this study. Rhythm discrimination, instrument identification, and instrument number detection measurements in Musical Sounds in Cochlear Implants (MuSIC) test battery were used to assess the rhythmic and timbral perception ability for both normal-hearing and cochlear implant users.

RESULTSCochlear implant subjects achieved 84.4% correct in rhythm discrimination test on average, which was not significantly different from the performance of normal-hearing subjects (85.1%) (t = 0.116, P > 0.05). The average score of instrument identification and instrument number detection test for cochlear implant subjects were 72.3% and 39.2%, respectively. The performance of cochlear implant subjects in both of two tests were significantly poorer than those of normal-hearing subjects with 88.3% and 73.5% correct, respectively (t = 2.498 and 4.673, P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONPostlingually deafened cochlear implant subjects, on average, performed significantly poorer in timbral perception tasks relative to normal hearing subjects, while close to the ability of normal hearing subjects in rhythmic perception.

Adolescent ; Adult ; Auditory Perception ; Case-Control Studies ; Cochlear Implantation ; Cochlear Implants ; Deafness ; rehabilitation ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Music ; Perception ; Periodicity ; Pitch Perception ; Young Adult

Recent studies have revealed temporal waveform envelope cues as a function of time having significant influence on tone recognition in continuous interleaved sampling (CIS) of cochlear implants. In this study, temporal cues of speech signal have been modulated so that to different tones have nearly the same temporal waveform envelope. The processing signal is named modulated signal. The modulated signals and original signals are processed through software emulations of cochlear-implant signal processors. The recognition score of the modulated signals and originals are compared. The result indicates that temporal cues have great influence on tone recognition, but spectral cues are the principal factor determining the identification of tones.
Acoustic Stimulation ; instrumentation ; Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Cochlear Implants ; Cues ; Deafness ; therapy ; Equipment Design ; Humans ; Pitch Perception ; physiology ; Speech Acoustics ; Speech Perception

OBJECTIVE: The present study was aimed to assess the ability of tone recognition performance for postlingually deafed cochlear implanted adults using no-duration tone test materials. METHOD: Sixteen cochlear implanted users have used their devices at least six months. Ten monosyllabic syllables were selected, and combined with four lexical tones which were made up of 40 tone tokens. Then, these original words were recorded using one adult male and one adult female native Beijing Mandarin speaker. The speakers were asked to record these 40 monosyllabic words multiple times, and the 80 tokens in which the durations of four tones in each monosyllabic word were within 5 ms precision were chosen as the original tone tokens. The subjects were asked to perform a four alternative forced-choice study and select the tone they had heard. RESULT: The mean score of lexical tone perception tasks for 16 cochlear implanted users is (70.7 ± 22.0)%, and Tone 4 was the easiest to perceive, while Tone 2 was the hardest for cochlear implanted subjects to perceive. Tone 1 was more often misperceived as Tone 2 relative to other tones. Tone 2 was more often misperceived as Tone 1 and 3. Tone 3 was more often misperceived as Tone 2. The tone perception performance was positively correlated with duration of hearing aid use. CONCLUSION Duration cues may impact on the ability of tone recognition performance for cochlear implant subjects, especially for tone 3. Due to the limited ability for cochlear implant subjects on pitch perception, tone l and tone 2, and tone 2 and tone 3 are most often confused with each other without duration cues. The experience of hearing aid use may benefit for postlingual deafness cochlear implant recipients on tone perception performance.
Adult ; Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Cochlear Implantation ; Cochlear Implants ; Female ; Hearing ; Hearing Aids ; Humans ; Language ; Male ; Pitch Perception ; Speech Perception ; Tongue