Training the Aging Brain to Understand Rapid Speech
The University of Maryland studied neural plasticity in auditory aging, including a focus on training to improve temporal processing.
Tag: Speech
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Singular Hearing Launches HeardThat App for IPhone
For those with hearing loss, noisy environments like shops and restaurant patios can make it nearly impossible to hold conversations. HeardThat “turns iPhones into powerful hearing assistive devices to make voices more clear.”
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Real-Ear Measurement is Not Just for Verification
Verification of a hearing aid (or hearing protection) fitting is an obvious usage, but it can be quite instructive about some general acoustic principles.
Background Noise Hinders Children’s Ability to Learn Words
A new study has found that background noise in the home or at school makes it more difficult for toddlers to learn new words. The study also found that providing additional language cues may help young children overcome the effects of noisy environments.
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New Discovery on How Inner Ear Works
Researchers have found that the parts of the inner ear that process speech and music seem to work differently than other parts of the inner ear. Using technology designed for examining the eye, they measured the inner ear response to sound without having to open the surrounding bone structures.
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Back to Basics: Hearing: Is It 7 dB, 3 dB or 0 dB?
Marshall Chasin, AuD, discusses the Minimal Audible Field (MAF), or the softest sound that normal-hearing people can hear in the normal diffuse sound field at 1000 Hz, and explains why sometimes less is more.
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Songbirds Learn Melody the Way Humans Imprint Language
For humans, learning a first language can be considered somewhat effortless. We start learning from our parents before we can even remember, and the words and sounds are imprinted in our memory at an early age. Songbirds do the same thing, a new study from Japan reveals.
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Back to Basics: Frequency Compression Is for Speech, Not Music
Frequency compression can be useful to avoid dead regions in the cochlea for speech, but this does not follow for music. The difference is that in damaged regions—typically in the higher frequencies—speech has a “continuous” spectrum, whereas music is always a “discrete” or “line” spectrum regardless of frequency.
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How Music Rocks a Baby’s Responses to Speech
A study from the University of Washington (UW) has shown that play sessions with music improved 9-month-old babies’ brain processing of both music and new speech sounds, supporting the importance of early experiences in music programs.
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Brain Waves Must Synchronize to Understand Speech
Neuroscience researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) in Switzerland have confirmed that speech produces an electrical activity in neuronal circuits that can be measured in the form of cortical oscillations, or brain waves. Their study confirms the significance of certain brain waves and how they must synchronize to decipher spoken language.
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Brain Study Explores Gift of Perfect Pitch
Neuroscientists researching the neuronal basis of perfect pitch or “absolute pitch” have discovered this rare gift may be due to a functional link between the brain’s auditory cortex and frontal lobe.
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Vanderbilt Researchers Find Associations Between Grammar and Musical Rhythm
Vanderbilt University researchers have found that a child’s capacity for understanding musical rhythm is related to the capacity for understanding grammar.
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The High Notes of Musicians Earplugs
High-fidelity hearing protectors preserve the sound quality of music and voices, and are the best choice for most musicians’ hearing protection needs.
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Music Benefits Across Lifespan: Enhanced Processing of Speech in Noise
Intriguing research continues to focus on music, the brain, and music’s potential in honing auditory acuity, including speech-in-noise performance and the enhancement of listening abilities. Drs Nina Kraus and Samira Anderson explain why these exciting findings may have big implications for auditory training and aural rehabilitation.
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Young Baby Brains Rehearse Sounds
Infants can tell the difference between sounds of all languages until about 8 months of age when their brains start to focus only on the sounds they hear around them.
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Finding Thoughts in Speech
For the first time, neuroscientists have discovered how different thoughts are reflected in neuronal activity during natural conversations.
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Study Shows Infants Benefit from Implants with More Frequency Sounds
Results suggest that 6-month-old infants need less distortion and more frequency information than older children and adults to discriminate speech.
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CROS Your Heart: Renewed Hope for People with Asymmetric Hearing Losses
In selecting a CROS system, it is important to understand how the CROS system is designed to ensure the highest sound quality and SNR for as many situations as possible. This paper summarizes the current audiological thinking in the treatment of asymmetrical hearing loss.
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