Pitch strength and annoyance of acoustic analogs of flutter echo - a pilot study

The impetus for this pilot study was the observation of flutter echoes on the aisle of a church with a barrel-vaulted ceiling. When source and receiver height were comparable, the flutter echoes consisted of a 39-msec repeating pattern of three short pulses that persisted for reverberation times of up to 5 sec. The disruptive quality of these echoes perceptually was striking. It was hypothesized that the perception of a sequence of rapidly alternating periodicity pitches might be the source of this disruptive quality. A pilot study was conducted to assess the perceived pitch, pitch strength, and annoyance of isochronous and anisochronous synthetic pulse trains involving up to three different inter-pulse intervals per pattern. Intervals of the anisochronous pulse trains were controlled to create harmonic and inharmonic relationships among the intervals, which ranged from 5-20 msec. Twelve adult college students participated in the study remotely via videoconferencing due to social distancing requirements. A modified category scaling method was used. Participants positioned a slider on a graphical user interface to reflect their ratings of pitch strength and annoyance and used a slider to adjust the frequency of a reference tone for pitch matching. Results and implications for further research will be presented.

Effects of Visual and Auditory Feedback in Violin and Singing Voice Pitch Matching Tasks

Auditory-guided vocal learning is a mechanism that operates both in humans and other animal species making us capable to imitate arbitrary sounds. Both auditory memories and auditory feedback interact to guide vocal learning. This may explain why it is easier for humans to imitate the pitch of a human voice than the pitch of a synthesized sound. In this study, we compared the effects of two different feedback modalities in learning pitch-matching abilities using a synthesized pure tone in 47 participants with no prior music experience. Participants were divided into three groups: a feedback group (N = 15) receiving real-time visual feedback of their pitch as well as knowledge of results; an equal-timbre group (N = 17) receiving additional auditory feedback of the target note with a similar timbre to the instrument being used (i.e., violin or human voice); and a control group (N = 15) practicing without any feedback or knowledge of results. An additional fourth group of violin experts performed the same task for comparative purposes (N = 15). All groups were posteriorly evaluated in a transfer phase. Both experimental groups (i.e., the feedback and equal-timbre groups) improved their intonation abilities with the synthesized sound after receiving feedback. Participants from the equal-timber group seemed as capable as the feedback group of producing the required pitch with the voice after listening to the human voice, but not with the violin (although they also showed improvement). In addition, only participants receiving real-time visual feedback learned and retained in the transfer phase the mapping between the synthesized pitch and its correspondence with the produced vocal or violin pitch. It is suggested that both the effect of an objective external reward, together with the experience of exploring the pitch space with their instrument in an explicit manner, helped participants to understand how to control their pitch production, strengthening their schemas, and favoring retention.

Auditory evoked potential P300 characteristics in adults with and without idiopathic bilateral tinnitus

Background and Aim: Based on neurophysio­logical measurements, auditory and non-audi­tory pathways are involved in tinnitus. People who experience tinnitus may suffer from several problems such as attention disorder. The audi­tory evoked potential P300 is an endogenous response and depends on cognitive processes like attention. The purpose of this study was to compare the auditory P300 characteristics (amp­litude and latency) in adults with and without tinnitus. Methods: Participants were 20 adults with idio­pathic bilateral tinnitus with mean duration of 8.4 ± 4.73 months, and 20 healthy adults. The P300 was recorded using oddball paradigm con­sisted of two standard (1000 Hz) and target sti­muli (2000 Hz). To reduce eye blink during recording, all participants was instructed to look at and fixate on a dot sign located in front of them. The tinnitus handicap inventory (THI) was completed and pitch matching (PM) and loudness matching (LM) were measured in tinn­itus group. Results: P300 amplitude was lower at both Fz and Cz electrode placements in tinnitus patients compared to the normal group, but it was not statistically significant (p = 0.57). Tinnitus pati­ents had delayed latency at Fz and Cz, but this difference was not significant either psychomet­ric and psychoacoustic assessment had no statis­tically significant correlation with P300 ampli­tude and latency. Conclusion: It seems that P300 characteristics are not different between adults with and with­out idiopathic bilateral tinnitus, may be due to using low sample size. Keywords: Tinnitus; auditory evoked potential P300; attention

Effect of vocal versus piano doubling on children’s singing accuracy

Children’s singing development is an important part of the music classroom, where instruction is often assisted by the teacher’s voice or the piano. However, it is unknown whether children sing more accurately when doubled by another voice or instruments. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of doubling timbre on children’s singing accuracy. Third- and fourth-grade children ( N = 61) performed pitch matching and song singing tasks doubled by pre-recorded vocal and piano stimuli, counterbalanced to control for order effects. Performance when doubled by voice and doubled by piano was significantly and strongly correlated, r(59) = .81, p < .001. Children performed more accurately on the vocal doubling condition than the piano ( p = .002) on pitch matching tasks, but there was no significant difference on the song singing task.

Features of complex diagnostics of subjective ear noise

Tinnitus is one of the most common ENT complaints. The peculiarity of this disease is lack of objective measurements. It is hard to monitor evaluation of treatment results. The main reference points, such as the presence or absence of ear noise – are not sufficient to determine this pathology. Also, most of these patients have negative emotions connected with their ear noise. That is why the characteristics of tinnitus and its influence on the quality of life are very individual. Thus, it is advisable to distinguish two components of ear noise: noise itself, as a physical quantity that has amplitude and frequency parameters, and noise, as the main source of subjective suffering of the patient. To determine the characteristics of these two noise components, we used two diagnostic methods: standard noise measurement and a visually analog scale to assess the degree of discomfort caused by ear noise. In current study, we investigated interconnection between tinnitus intensity measured by tinnitus matching and data of visual-analog scale of subjective perception of tinnitus. We evaluated that severity of tinnitus intensity did not correlate with thresholds in tinnitus pitch matching. In addition, with the help of international questionnaire survey SCL-90-R we revealed correlation between subjective noise level and patient’s psycho-emotional condition.

When Audiences Become Performers and Speech Becomes Music: New Tools to Analyze Speech, Song, and Participation in Chinese Crosstalk

As a presentational performance in which two actors perform a scripted dialogue that includes several short vocal selections, Chinese crosstalk features animated exchanges between the actors while also inviting enthusiastic involvement from the audience in the form of cheering applause. Inspired by research on the musicality of spoken bouts between same-sex friends (Hawkins, 2014; Robledo Del Canto et al., 2016; Cross et al., 2016) the present study focuses on two selections in a crosstalk performance—looking at not only the vocal interactions between the actors, but also those between the actors and the audience. Using ELAN, a tool for analysis of video and audio, Praat acoustic analysis software, and R statistical software, the study reveals (1) long durations of audience responses, signifying the seminal importance of the audience as a third performing agent in Chinese crosstalk, (2) significant portions of the performance that demonstrate rhythmic entrainment between performers and audience members, and (3) highly significant examples of approximate pitch matching between the ending sounds of utterances and the initial sounds of subsequent responses in the final selection of the performance.