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The companion paper (Part I; Dragic et al., this issue),1 resolved an anomaly involving the acoustical properties of high alumina content glass optical fibers. In Part II, some attributes of alumina and silica polymorphs are considered and used to infer approximate pertinent properties of amorphous Al2O3 'glass.' An efficient computational method is used, based on a simple, self-consistent version of the Voigt- Reuss- Hill procedure. Applied to SiO2 polymorphs, it provides insights into the short-range ordering in 'amorphous' silica. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earcons, nonverbal sound feedback, have been used for electronic products to give appropriate feedback information for the selected user functions. This study evaluated earcon usability of a portable digital electronic product based on cognition time, error rate, and subjective feelings using 20 male and female subjects. For subjective evaluation, the study assessed various earcons by subjective impression of sounds using 7-point rating scales. For earcon usability performance, major user functions were used for the product with currently available earcons and for the product with the new earcons (suggested by this study), which considered perceptual characteristics, such as loudness and melody. Statistical results from the study indicated that the new earcons significantly reduced user error rates and therefore generally improved user performance on major functions, such as 'PLAY,' 'OFF,' 'STOP,' 'FF' (fast forward), and 'REW' (rewind). Subjective data results also showed that users were more satisfied with the new, melody-based sound feedback. Practical guidelines for sound feedback design of a small digital product are suggested. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phonological deficit theory of dyslexia assumes that degraded speech sound representations might hamper the acquisition of stable letter-speech sound associations necessary for learning to read. However, there is only scarce and mainly indirect evidence for this assumed letter-speech sound association problem. The present study aimed at clarifying the nature and the role of letter-speech sound association problems in dyslexia by analysing event-related potentials (ERP) of 11-year-old dyslexic children to speech sounds in isolation or combined with letters, which were presented either simultaneously with or 200 ms before the speech sounds. Recent studies with normal readers revealed that letters systematically modulated speech sound processing in an early (mismatch negativity or MMN) and late (Late Discriminatory Negativity or LDN) time-window. The amplitude of the MMN and LDN to speech sounds was enhanced when speech sounds were presented with letters. The dyslexic readers in the present study, however, did not exhibit any early influences of letters on speech sounds even after 4 years of reading instruction, indicating no automatic integration of letters and speech sounds. Interestingly, they revealed a systematic late effect of letters on speech sound processing, probably reflecting the mere association of letters and speech sounds. This pattern is strongly divergent from that observed in age-matched normal readers, who showed both early and late effects, but reminiscent of that observed in beginner normal readers in a previous study (). The finding that the quality of letter-speech sound processing is directly related to reading fluency urges further research into the role of audiovisual integration in the development of reading failure in dyslexia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acoustic surveys are widely used for describing bat occurrence and activity patterns and are increasingly important for addressing concerns for habitat management, wind energy, and disease on bat populations. Designing these surveys presents unique challenges, particularly when a probabilistic sample is required for drawing inference to un exampled areas. Sampling frame errors and other logistical constraints often require survey sites to be dropped from the sample and new sites added. Maintaining spatial balance and representativeness of the sample when these changes are made can be problematic. Spatially balanced sampling designs recently developed to support aquatic surveys along rivers provide solutions to a number of practical challenges faced by bat researchers and allow for sample site additions and deletions, support unequal-probability selection of sites, and provide an approximately unbiased local neighborhood-weighted variance estimator that is efficient for spatially structured populations such as is typical for bats. We implemented a spatially balanced design to survey canyon bat (Parastrellus hesperus) activity along a stream network. The spatially balanced design accommodated typical logistical challenges and yielded a 25% smaller estimated standard error for the mean activity level than the usual simple random sampling estimator. Spatially balanced designs have broad application to bat research and monitoring programs and will improve studies relying on model-based inference (e.g., occupancy models) by providing flexibility and protection against violations of the independence assumption, even if design-based estimators are not used. Our approach is scalable and can be used for pre- and post-construction surveys along wind turbine arrays and for regional monitoring programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We evaluated efficacy of sound as a deterrent for reducing deer (Odocoileus spp.)-vehicle collisions by observing behavioral responses of free-ranging white-tailed deer (O. virginianus) to pure-tone sounds within their documented range of hearing. Behavior of freeranging deer within 10 m of roadways was not altered in response to a moving automobile fitted with a sound-producing device and speakers that produced 5 sound treatments documented to be within the hearing range of white-tailed deer. Many commercially available, vehicle-mounted auditory deterrents (i.e., deer whistles) are purported to emit continuous pure-tone sounds similar to those we tested. However, our data suggest that deer whistles are likely not effective in altering deer behavior in a manner that would prevent deer-vehicle collisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For several modalities, it has been shown that the processing of sensory information generated by our own actions is attenuated relative to the processing of sensory information of externally generated stimuli. It has been proposed that the underlying mechanism builds predictions about the forthcoming sensory input and forwards them to the respective sensory processing levels. The present study investigated whether early auditory processing is suppressed by the top-down influences of such an internal forward model mechanism. To this end, we compared auditory middle latency responses (MLRs) and evoked 40-Hz responses elicited by self-initiated sounds with those elicited by externally initiated but otherwise identical sounds. In the self-initiated condition, the amplitudes of the Pa (27–33 ms relative to sound onset) and Nb (40–46 ms) components of the MLRs were significantly attenuated when compared to the responses elicited by click sounds presented in the externally initiated condition. Similarly, the evoked activity in the 40-Hz and adjacent frequency bands was attenuated. Considering that previous research revealed subcortical and auditory cortex contributions to MLRs and 40-Hz responses, our results support the existence of auditory suppression effects with self-initiated sounds on temporally and structurally early auditory processing levels. This attenuation in the processing of self-initiated sounds most probably contributes to the optimal processing of concurrent external acoustic events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Basic research in psychoacoustics and its applications are discussed. Psychophysical laws should be robust in order to be used for practical purposes. The importance of the development and use of appropriate psychophysical methods in relation to the present study is introduced. When laboratory findings are applied to real-life situations, there are various problems that have to be considered. It is necessary to control for complicated variables, to cover a wide area of stimuli, from static stimuli to dynamic stimuli, and to take into consideration the effects of cognitive factors and ecological validity. Using the loudness of non-steady-state sounds as an example, the process from basic psychoacoustic research to its practical applications is introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To examine the acoustic features of crying demonstrated by infants whose older sibling died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and compare these features to a nonrisk group of infants. Methods: Pain-induced crying episodes were collected from a group of healthy term (HT) infants and siblings of SIDS infants. One complete crying episode was obtained from each infant and analyzed acoustically with regard to durational and spectral features. Results: The cries of SIDS siblings were found to be significantly higher in pitch and reflected hyperadductory vocal fold vibratory behaviour compared to the HT group. There were no group differences with regard to durational features of crying. Conclusions: The laryngeal behaviour of infant crying, as inferred via acoustic analyses, differs between HT infants and siblings of SIDS infants. Accordingly, acoustic features of infant crying may serve as an additional diagnostic marker in the identification of children who may be at risk for SIDS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For speaker conversion with spectral conversion using GMM, a method is proposed for adding information relating to prosody to the characteristic values and improving conversion precision. In conventional spectral conversion using GMM, only the unaltered spectral parameters are used as input information. However, the voice spectrum is generally related to the closeness of the base frequencies during speech, and therefore, improvement in the quality of the converted voice can be expected with the consideration of prosodic information at the time of conversion. Thus, a method is proposed for spectrum conversion with good precision which assumes the application to actual synthesis by rule, and performs GMM training using the prosodic information of the conversion source and conversion target. Also, the proposed spectrum conversion is applied to speech conversion in a voice synthesis framework. At this time, a method is proposed for preparing triphone joint vectors to ensure training data of a greater number of prosodic conditions using a parallel corpus. A physical evaluation using the cepstrum distance indicates that the use of prosodic information is effective in improving the precision of spectrum conversion. An auditory evaluation was performed of voice quality and speech characteristics after conversion with a conventional method and the proposed method, and indicated that the proposed method is effective in an auditory sense as well. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Comp Jpn, 38(10): 12–20, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/scj.20667 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the properties of sound field transfer functions that change with the sound source distance (SSD), by measuring reverberant room impulse responses from a point of view of the phase characteristics. We analyzed the propagation phase (PP) according to the SSD in a reverberant field that R. Lyon investigated, by using a narrow-band linear regression analysis of the impulse responses and considered the relation to the zero distribution of the transfer function. As a result, we clarified that the SSD information is included in the phase frequency characteristics of the minimum-phase component and the variances from the PP. The distance from the source where the PP could be observed corresponds to the coherent field based on the wave theory or the critical distance defined by the energy ratio of direct to reverberation sound. Therefore, the field where the PP could be observed in the minimum-phase component of the transfer function can be treated as the direct sound field. In addition, we also present that the reverberation phase (RP) separated and extracted along with PP from the phase frequency characteristics is according to the estimated value from the number of non-minimum-phase zeros. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn Pt 3, 90(4): 1–8, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ecjc.20293 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details a study which aims to assess fifth-graders' perception of sound and to compare the Learning Cycle teaching approach with textbook/demonstration method of instruction. Subjects' view of sound waves; Personal constructivist epistemology; Interactive phases included in the Learning Cycle approach; Comparison of the student-centered Learning Cycle approach to didactic teaching methods.

The article discusses research being done on the origins of masking down to the stages of electromechanical processing in the cochlea. It references the study "Masking of Sounds by a Background Noise: Cochlear Mechanical Correlates," by A. Recio-Spinoso and N. P. Cooper published in the 2013 issue of "The Journal of Physiology." The study revealed that nonlinear neural phenomena produced by the interaction of noise and tones have their origins in the basilar membrane.