Effects of auditory frequency-shifts on zero and below-zero SCR habituation

The purpose of the present experiment was to test a procedure for the measurement of effects of zero- and below-zero habituation (BZH) on responding to frequency shifts in auditory stimuli. The present procedure avoided some of the drawbacks of other procedures, that is, long duration, ambiguity in the definition of BZH, and inadequate control procedures. Two groups received 18 stimulus presentations each; group 1 received first a tone of 1000 Hz 12 times, then 1400 Hz (test stimulus 1) 3 times, and 1850 Hz (test stimulus 2) 3 times. Group 2 received the same stimuli, but 3, 12, and 3 times, respectively. The procedure had the advantages of short duration of the experiment, zero habituation and BZH were operationally defined (as 3 and 12 stimulus presentations, respectively), and there were adequate control conditions since a control group that did not receive stimulus change on the relevant trial was employed. The results showed no effects of stimulus shifts on responding to the test stimuli. Group 2 responded significantly less than group 1 across trials, though, and this may be explained by an inhibitory process elicited by changes in weak stimulation during the habituation process.     

Extraversion, attention, and habituation of the auditory evoked response

Short-term changes in the auditory evoked response to low-frequency tones (0.5 kHz, 80 dB) were examined for independent groups of introverts and extraverts under attend and ignore conditions. Introverts displayed greater N1-P2 amplitude than extraverts to the first stimulus in a four-stimulus train. The N1-P2 amplitude differences between introverts and extraverts could not be attributed to differences between the groups in either habituation or attention processes. Overall, the effect is indicative of the introverts' enhanced sensitivity to physical stimulation.     

Pitch and pitch change interact in auditory displays

Designing auditory displays requires understanding how different attributes of sound are processed. Operators must often listen to a particular stimulus dimension and make control actions contingent on the auditory information. Three experiments used a selective-listening paradigm to examine interactions between auditory dimensions. Participants were instructed to attend to either relative pitch or direction of pitch change of dynamic stimuli. With vertically arranged keypress responses, reactions to both dimensions showed stimulus-response compatibility effects, indicating that pitch is treated spatially. Direction of pitch change affected responses to pitch; level of pitch more strongly affected responses to pitch change. To reduce deleterious effects of irrelevant pitch information, auditory display designers can restrict the pitch range used to display dynamic data.     

A habituation account of change detection in same/different judgments

We investigated the basis of change detection in a short-term priming task. In two experiments, participants were asked to indicate whether or not a target word was the same as a previously presented cue. Data from an experiment measuring magnetoencephalography failed to find different patterns for “same” and “different” responses, consistent with the claim that both arise from a common neural source, with response magnitude defining the difference between immediate novelty versus familiarity. In a behavioral experiment, we tested and confirmed the predictions of a habituation account of these judgments by comparing conditions in which the target, the cue, or neither was primed by its presentation in the previous trial. As predicted, cue-primed trials had faster response times, and target-primed trials had slower response times relative to the neither-primed baseline. These results were obtained irrespective of response repetition and stimulus–response contingencies. The behavioral and brain activity data support the view that detection of change drives performance in these tasks and that the underlying mechanism is neuronal habituation.     

Working memory capacity modulates habituation rate: Evidence from a cross-modal auditory distraction paradigm

Habituation of the orienting response is a pivotal part of selective attention, and previous research has related working memory capacity (WMC) to attention control. Against this background, the purpose of this study was to investigate whether individual differences in WMC contribute to habituation rate. The participants categorized visual targets across six blocks of trials. Each target was preceded either by a standard sound or, on rare trials, by a deviant. The magnitude of the deviation effect (i.e., prolonged response time when the deviant was presented) was relatively large in the beginning but attenuated toward the end. There was no relationship between WMC and the deviation effect at the beginning, but there was at the end, and greater WMC was associated with greater habituation. These results indicate that high memory ability increases habituation rate, and they support theories proposing a role for cognitive control in habituation and in some forms of auditory distraction.     

Neonatal auditory evoked responses are related to perinatal maternal anxiety

Maternal stress and anxiety during pregnancy are related to negative developmental outcomes for offspring, both physiological and psychological, from the fetal period through early adolescence. This robust relationship is likely to be partly explained by alterations in fetal neurodevelopmental programming, calling for further examination of neurophysiologically-based cognitive markers that may be related to the altered structure–function relationships that contribute to these negative developmental outcomes. The current investigation examined the relationship between perinatal maternal anxiety and neonatal auditory evoked responses (AERs) to mother and stranger voices. Results indicated that neonates of low-anxiety mothers displayed more negative frontal slow wave amplitudes in response to their mother’s voice compared to a female stranger’s voice, while neonates of high-anxiety mothers showed the opposite pattern. These findings suggest that neonates of perinatally anxious mothers may demonstrate neurophysiologically-based differences in attentional allocation. This could represent one pathway to the negative psychological outcomes seen throughout development in offspring of anxious mothers.     

Neonatal auditory evoked responses are related to perinatal maternal anxiety

Maternal stress and anxiety during pregnancy are related to negative developmental outcomes for offspring, both physiological and psychological, from the fetal period through early adolescence. This robust relationship is likely to be partly explained by alterations in fetal neurodevelopmental programming, calling for further examination of neurophysiologically-based cognitive markers that may be related to the altered structure–function relationships that contribute to these negative developmental outcomes. The current investigation examined the relationship between perinatal maternal anxiety and neonatal auditory evoked responses (AERs) to mother and stranger voices. Results indicated that neonates of low-anxiety mothers displayed more negative frontal slow wave amplitudes in response to their mother’s voice compared to a female stranger’s voice, while neonates of high-anxiety mothers showed the opposite pattern. These findings suggest that neonates of perinatally anxious mothers may demonstrate neurophysiologically-based differences in attentional allocation. This could represent one pathway to the negative psychological outcomes seen throughout development in offspring of anxious mothers.     

听觉预测编码：对声音重复和变化的神经反应

预测编码被认为是脑与复杂环境交互的重要机制之一, 有效感知外界环境并对未来事件做出预测, 对个体生存有着至关重要的意义。人类大脑会基于感觉输入以迭代的方式持续优化表征外部环境的内部模型, 并不断预测接下来的感觉输入。以听觉模态为例, 人类及动物对声音重复和听觉变化的神经反应(如失匹配负波和刺激特异性适应)是大脑预测编码的重要体现, 表现为重复抑制和预测误差。结合人类和动物模型在此理论框架下开展跨物种研究将有助于加深我们对听觉加工, 甚至是大脑工作机制的认识。     

The "anxiety state" and its relation with rat models of memory and habituation.

Rats selected as "anxious", "nonanxious," or normal according to their behavior in an elevated plus maze were submitted to memory tasks and the densities of central benzodiazepine receptors in the amygdala and the hippocampus were studied. Anxious rats exibited better retention scores in the inhibitory avoidance task while nonanxious rats exibited worse retention scores in inhibitory and two-way active avoidance tasks compared to normal rats. No significant differences were detected in the retention scores for habituation to an open field. Nonanxious rats presented a lower benzodiazepine receptor density in the hippocampus but not in the amygdala compared to the other groups. These data suggest that the benzodiazepine receptors are involved in the effect of "anxiety" or emotional states on memory storage processes.     

The effects of context change on long-term habituation of the orienting response in humans

Four experiments examined the effects of context change (Experiments 1-3) and context extinction (Experiment 4) on long-term habituation of the skin conductance response. In all experiments, subjects received 15 presentations of a target stimulus in each of two sessions. In Experiment 1 (N=60) there was a 15-min interval between training and test sessions. This interval was extended to 24 hours in Experiments 2 (N=60) and 3 (N=60). The experimental treatment in each of these studies involved a change in context between the two training sessions. None of the experiments provided evidence of context dependency in measures of long-term habituation. In Experiment 4 (N=60) experimental subjects received a period of context extinction during which they remained in the laboratory environment between two series of habituation trials. Again, however, there was no evidence that long-term habituation was contextually mediated. Thus, the results fail uniformly to support theories that argue that long-term habituation is context-dependent.     

An evaluation of psychophysical models of auditory change perception

In many psychophysical experiments, the participant's task is to detect small changes along a given stimulus dimension or to identify the direction (e.g., upward vs. downward) of such changes. The results of these experiments are traditionally analyzed with a constant-variance Gaussian (CVG) model or a high-threshold (HT) model. Here, the authors demonstrate that for changes along three basic sound dimensions (frequency, intensity, and amplitude-modulation rate), such models cannot account for the observed relationship between detection thresholds and direction-identification thresholds. It is shown that two alternative models can account for this relationship. One of them is based on the idea of sensory quanta; the other assumes that small changes are detected on the basis of Poisson processes with low means. The predictions of these two models are then compared against receiver operating characteristics (ROCs) for the detection of changes in sound intensity. It is concluded that human listeners' perception of small and unidimensional acoustic changes is better described by a discrete-state Poisson model than by the more commonly used CVG model or by the less favored HT and quantum models.     

A low-cost solid state device for producing delayed auditory feedback

This paper presents a design for construction of a relatively low-cost solid state delayed auditory feedback device. The advantages of this unit are that it is reliable, flexible, easy to operate, and it does not require audio tape.