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Normal-hearing (NH) listeners rely on two binaural cues, the interaural time (ITD) and level difference (ILD), for azimuthal sound localization. Cochlear-implant (CI) listeners, however, rely almost entirely on ILDs. One reason is that present-day clinical CI stimulation strategies do not convey salient ITD cues. But even when presenting ITDs under optimal conditions using a research interface, ITD sensitivity is lower in CI compared to NH listeners. Since it has recently been shown that NH listeners change their ITD/ILD weighting when only one of the cues is consistent with visual information, such reweighting might add to CI listeners’ low perceptual contribution of ITDs, given their daily exposure to reliable ILDs but unreliable ITDs. Six bilateral CI listeners completed a multi-day lateralization training visually reinforcing ITDs, flanked by a pre- and post-measurement of ITD/ILD weights without visual reinforcement. Using direct electric stimulation, we presented 100- and 300-pps pulse trains at a single interaurally place-matched electrode pair, conveying ITDs and ILDs in various spatially consistent and inconsistent combinations. The listeners’ task was to lateralize the stimuli in a virtual environment. Additionally, ITD and ILD thresholds were measured before and after training. For 100-pps stimuli, the lateralization training increased the contribution of ITDs slightly, but significantly. Thresholds were neither affected by the training nor correlated with weights. For 300-pps stimuli, ITD weights were lower and ITD thresholds larger, but there was no effect of training. On average across test sessions, adding azimuth-dependent ITDs to stimuli containing ILDs increased the extent of lateralization for both 100- and 300-pps stimuli. The results suggest that low-rate ITD cues, robustly encoded with future CI systems, may be better exploitable for sound localization after increasing their perceptual weight via training.

Bilateral cochlear implants (BI-CIs) or a CI for single-sided deafness (SSD-CI; one normally functioning acoustic ear) can partially restore spatial-hearing abilities, including sound localization and speech understanding in noise. For these populations, however, interaural place-of-stimulation mismatch can occur and thus diminish binaural sensitivity that relies on interaurally frequency-matched neurons. This study examined whether plasticity—reorganization of central neural pathways over time—can compensate for peripheral interaural place mismatch. We hypothesized differential plasticity across two systems: none for binaural processing but adaptation for pitch perception toward frequencies delivered by the specific electrodes. Interaural place mismatch was evaluated in 19 BI-CI and 23 SSD-CI human subjects (both sexes) using binaural processing (interaural-time-difference discrimination with simultaneous bilateral stimulation), pitch perception (pitch ranking for single electrodes or acoustic tones with sequential bilateral stimulation), and physical electrode-location estimates from computed-tomography (CT) scans. On average, CT scans revealed relatively little BI-CI interaural place mismatch (26° insertion-angle mismatch) but a relatively large SSD-CI mismatch, particularly at low frequencies (166° for an electrode tuned to 300 Hz, decreasing to 14° at 7000 Hz). For BI-CI subjects, the three metrics were in agreement because there was little mismatch. For SSD-CI subjects, binaural and CT measurements were in agreement, suggesting little binaural-system plasticity induced by mismatch. The pitch measurements disagreed with binaural and CT measurements, suggesting place-pitch plasticity or a procedural bias. These results suggest that reducing interaural place mismatch and potentially improving binaural processing by reprogramming the CI frequency allocation would be better done using CT-scan than pitch information.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTElectrode-array placement for cochlear implants (bionic prostheses that partially restore hearing) does not explicitly align neural representations of frequency information. The resulting interaural place-of-stimulation mismatch can diminish spatial-hearing abilities. In this study, adults with two cochlear implants showed reasonable interaural alignment, whereas those with one cochlear implant but normal hearing in the other ear often showed mismatch. In cases of mismatch, binaural sensitivity was best when the same cochlear locations were stimulated in both ears, suggesting that binaural brainstem pathways do not experience plasticity to compensate for mismatch. In contrast, interaurally pitch-matched electrodes deviated from cochlear-location estimates and did not optimize binaural sensitivity. Clinical correction of interaural place mismatch using binaural or computed-tomography (but not pitch) information may improve spatial-hearing benefits.

PurposeThis study examined the relationship between self-perceived hearing abilities and binaural speech-in-noise performance in young to middle-age adults with normal pure-tone hearing.MethodSixty-six adults with normal hearing (thresholds ≤ 25 dB HL at 250–8000 Hz) participated. Self-perceived hearing abilities were assessed using the Adult Auditory Performance Scale (AAPS). The AAPS provides a single global score of self-perceived hearing abilities and individual subscale scores for six listening conditions, namely, Quiet, Ideal, Noise, Multiple Inputs, Auditory Memory, and Auditory Attention. Binaural speech-in-noise performance was measured with the Listening in Spatialized Noise–Sentences Test (LiSN-S).ResultsResults revealed significant correlations between the AAPS and the LiSN-S. Listeners who scored higher on the AAPS (greater self-perceived hearing difficulty) performed poorer on the LiSN-S. The strongest correlations were observed between the AAPS Noise subscale score and the LiSN-S low- and high-cue conditions. Age was significantly correlated with both pure-tone hearing and the LiSN-S spatial advantage, with older participants exhibiting poorer thresholds and smaller spatial advantages. Pure-tone hearing was also significantly correlated with binaural speech-in-noise performance. Listeners with poorer thresholds performed poorer across multiple LiSN-S conditions. Linear regression revealed that a significant amount of the variance in LiSN-S performance was accounted for by pure-tone hearing as well as the AAPS global score and Noise subscale score.ConclusionsResults demonstrate a clear relationship between an individual's self-perceived hearing ability and their binaural speech-in-noise performance. In addition, minimal threshold elevation within the normal range and age (i.e., middle adulthood) had a negative impact on binaural speech-in-noise performance. The results support the inclusion of speech-in-noise testing for all patients, even those whose pure-tone hearing falls within the traditional normal range.

Audiological use of the 40 Hz-ASSR (auditory steady state responses) could be valuable for objectively estimating the frequency-specific threshold in adults undergoing an expertise examination for medicolegal and/or compensation purposes. The present prospective study was set up to clarify the relationship between the thresholds obtained by cortical evoked response audiometry (CERA) and by 40 Hz-ASSR, in the same ears, within a large homogeneous sample of 164 subjects (328 ears) with NIHL and well documented exposure to noise. All these subjects claimed financial compensation for occupational NIHL, and there was a suspicion of exaggeration of the reported NIHLs. ASSR thresholds show a good correlation with the CERA thresholds. However, a systematic shift is noticed, ASSR thresholds being on average (1–2 – 3 kHz) 4.38 dB lower (i.e. showing less hearing loss) than CERA thresholds. Moreover, the binaural multiple ASSR technique allows a considerable time gain when compared to the CERA.

Detection of transient changes in interaural correlation is based on the temporal precision of the central representations of acoustic signals. Whether schizophrenia impairs the temporal precision in the interaural correlation process is not clear. In both participants with schizophrenia and matched healthy-control participants, this study examined the detection of a break in interaural correlation (BIC, a change in interaural correlation from 1 to 0 and back to 1), including the longest interaural delay at which a BIC was just audible, representing the temporal extent of the primitive auditory memory (PAM). Moreover, BIC-induced electroencephalograms (EEGs) and the relationships between the early binaural psychoacoustic processing and higher cognitive functions, which were assessed by the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS), were examined. The results showed that compared to healthy controls, participants with schizophrenia exhibited poorer BIC detection, PAM and RBANS score. Both the BIC-detection accuracy and the PAM extent were correlated with the RBANS score. Moreover, participants with schizophrenia showed weaker BIC-induced N1-P2 amplitude which was correlated with both theta-band power and inter-trial phase coherence. These results suggested that schizophrenia impairs the temporal precision of the central representations of acoustic signals, affecting both interaural correlation processing and higher-order cognitions.

Introduction: Central auditory processing refers to the efficiency and effectiveness with which the central nervous system uses auditory information: it may be altered in neurological disorders and brain injuries, such as strokes. However, despite evidence of probable alterations in the pediatric population, functional abilities and post-stroke limitations are still not well documented in the literature. Objective: To analyze the findings of the electrophysiological and behavioral evaluations of central auditory processing of children and adolescents diagnosed with stroke from a reference outpatient clinic, as well as to investigate possible associations with the variables: type and location of the stroke and age group. Methods: The present study is characterized as comparative cross-sectional. The sample, for convenience, included individuals aged 7–18 years divided into two groups: study group, composed of individuals with a diagnosis of stroke, and control group, composed of individuals with typical development. The evaluation consisted of the following procedures: anamnesis, basic audiological evaluation, behavioral evaluation of the auditory processing disorder (dichotic digit test, dichotic consonant-vowel, synthetic sentence identification/pediatric speech intelligibility, gaps in noise, pitch pattern sequence, masking level difference), and electrophysiological evaluation (P300 and mismatch negativity). Results: Nineteen children and adolescents were included in the study group. The control group was composed of 19 children and adolescents with typical development. In the comparison between the groups, a worse performance is observed for the study group in all the evaluated tests, behavioral and electrophysiological. In the behavioral evaluation of central auditory processing, there was a statistical difference for all tests, except for masking level difference and dichotic digit test, binaural separation step on the left. In the electrophysiological evaluation, there was a statistical difference in the latency of mismatch negativity and P300. No associations were found between the behavioral and electrophysiological findings and the location of the stroke and age group variables. Conclusion: Children and adolescents diagnosed with stroke present a worse performance in the electrophysiological and behavioral evaluations of central auditory processing when compared to a control group. Resumo Introdução: O processamento auditivo central refere-se à eficiência e eficácia com que o sisPotenciais evocados tema nervoso central usa informações auditivas e pode estar alterado em distúrbios neurológicos e lesões cerebrais, como acidentes vasculares cerebrais. No entanto, apesar das evidências de Distúrbios possíveis alterações na população pediátrica, as habilidades funcionais e as limitações pósperceptivos -acidente vascular cerebral ainda não estão bem documentadas na literatura. Objetivo: Analisar os achados das avaliações eletrofisiológicas e comportamentais do procesDoenças auditivas samento auditivo central de crianças e adolescentes diagnosticados com acidente vascular cerebral em um ambulatório de referência, bem como investigar possíveis associações com Criança as variáveis: tipo e localização do acidente vascular cerebral e faixa etária. Método: Estudo transversal comparativo. A amostra, por conveniência, incluiu indivíduos de 7 a 18 anos, divididos em dois grupos: grupo de estudo (GE), composto por indivíduos com diagnóstico de acidente vascular cerebral, e grupo controle (GC), composto por indivíduos com desenvolvimento típico. A avaliação consistiu nos seguintes procedimentos: anamnese, avaliação audiológica básica, avaliação comportamental do distúrbio de processamento auditivo (teste dichotic digit, dichotic consonant-vowel, synthetic sentence identification/pediatric speech intelligibility, gaps in noise, pitch pattern sequence, masking level difference) e avaliação eletrofisiológica (P300 e mismatch negativity -). Resultados: Dezenove crianças e adolescentes foram incluídos no GE. O GC foi composto por 19 crianças e adolescentes com desenvolvimento típico. Na comparação entre os grupos, observa-se pior desempenho para o GE em todos os testes avaliados, comportamentais e eletrofisiológicos. Na avaliação comportamental do processamento auditivo central, houve diferença estatística para todos os testes, exceto masking level difference e teste dichotic digit, na fase de separação binaural na orelha esquerda. Na avaliação eletrofisiológica, houve diferença estatística na latência do mismatch negativity e P300. Não foram encontradas associações entre os achados comportamentais e eletrofisiológicos e as variáveis localização do acidente vascular cerebral e faixa etária. Conclusão: Crianças e adolescentes diagnosticados com acidente vascular cerebral apresentam pior desempenho nas avaliações eletrofisiológicas e comportamentais do processamento auditivo central quando comparados a um grupo controle.

Recent evidences suggest that binaural vestibular stimulation affects tactile temporal processing. However, it remains difficult to determine the physiological mechanisms supporting the vestibular-somatosensory interactions observed during a TOJ task. Controlling the activation of the right or left vestibular system separately could allow to better understand the physiological bases of these findings and reconcile previous studies. The objective of the present study was to examine tactile temporal processing using a temporal order judgment task following selective stimulation of the right and left vestibular system with bi-thermal caloric vestibular stimulation (CVS). A total of 24 right-handed participants received bi-thermal CVS either in the right ear (n = 12) or the left ear (n = 12). Participants held vibrators in both hands which delivered a signal temporally separated by a variable asynchrony. Participants had to report the hand where the vibration was perceived first. The task was performed in three different CVS conditions: (1) baseline, (2) warm CVS, and (3) cold CVS. Analysis of the logistics curve parameters-just noticeable difference (JND) and point of subjective simultaneity (PSS)-for each participant in each CVS conditions revealed an increase in JND greater following warm CVS. A significant increase in JND following warm CVS was measured bilaterally. However, cold CVS increased JND only when CVS was applied in the left ear, but not in the right ear. Finally, no influence of CVS on PSS was observed.

Due to COVID 19, personal protective equipment (PPE) is now used in everyday life. Such PPE affects communication and perception. This paper provides an overview of the impact of PPE on Head Related Transfer Functions (HRTFs) and insertion loss. Spatial acoustic effects of common PPE on human hearing can be documented to improve and inform field worker safety and communication. After a general description of the measurement process and required tools, we focus on a few methods which contribute significantly to the accuracy and analysis of PPE-based HRTF data. The dedicated setup allows measuring a full 360-degree map in automated fashion. It includes a special ring setup with 25 speakers, and a precise turn table that is used to adjust the angle of the device under test with respect to the ring. Binaural measurements were performed on a set of common PPE items on a Head and Torso Simulator (HATS) system, including hard hats, safety glasses, hearing protection, and various face masks. An overview of the data is presented. © INTER-NOISE 2021 .All right reserved.

Understanding speech in noise is difficult for individuals with normal hearing and is even more so for individuals with hearing loss. Difficulty understanding speech in noise is one of the primary reasons people seek hearing assistance. Despite amplification, many hearing aid users still struggle to understand speech in noise. In response to this persistent problem, hearing aid manufacturers have invested significantly in developing new solutions. Any solution is not without its tradeoffs, and decisions must be made when optimizing and implementing them. Much of this happens behind the scenes, and casual observers fail to appreciate the nuances of developing new hearing aid technologies. The difficulty of communicating this information to clinicians may hinder the use or the fine-tuning of the various technologies available today. The purpose of this issue of Seminars in Hearing is to educate professionals and students in audiology, hearing science, and engineering about different approaches to combat problems related to environmental and wind noise using technologies that include classification, directional microphones, binaural signal processing, beamformers, motion sensors, and machine learning. To accomplish this purpose, some of the top researchers and engineers from the world's largest hearing aid manufacturers agreed to share their unique insights.

Directionality is the only hearing aid technology — in addition to amplification — proven to help hearing aid users hear better in noise. Hearing aid directionality has been documented to improve speech intelligibility in multiple laboratory studies. In contrast, real-world studies have shown a disconnect between the potential of the technology and what hearing aid users experience in their daily life. This article describes the real-world studies that inspired ReSound to take a different approach to applying directional microphone technology. This approach is based on the idea that hearing aid directionality can leverage natural binaural hearing and inherent listening strategies. The directional strategy includes three listening modes that will be explained. These are the Spatial Cue Preservation mode, the Binaural Listening mode, and the Speech Intelligibility mode. The strategy and the advantages it provides in terms of sound quality, spatial hearing, and improved signal-to-noise ratio with maintained awareness of surroundings are explained.

This study aimed to investigate the temporal processing and binaural interaction functions of central auditory processing tests according to the anatomical localizations of young and elderly individuals. It also sought to evaluate the relationships between the same individuals' central auditory processing tests.This observational and cross-sectional study included individuals with normal hearing between 18 and 30 and 60-75 years of age, who were referred to as the young group and the elderly group, respectively. The evaluation of the central auditory processing tests was completed using the frequency pattern test, duration pattern test, masking level difference test, and random gap detection test. Furthermore, speech discrimination and speech in noise scores were analyzed for both groups.Statistically significant differences were identified between the groups' scores for the speech in noise test, masking level difference test, random gap detection test, frequency pattern test, and duration pattern test (p0.05). A statistically significant relationship was observed between the age and the results of the central auditory processing tests (p0.05).When compared to younger individuals, elderly individuals presented with declined temporal sequences, temporal resolutions, and binaural interaction skills.

Sensory processing abnormalities are a hallmark of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In the auditory domain, hyper- and hypo-sensitivity to sound, reduced orientation to speech, and difficulty listening in noise are commonly reported. However, the etiology of these auditory processing abnormalities is poorly understood. In this preliminary study, multi-talker speech perception thresholds, otoacoustic emissions, electrophysiological responses, as well as standardized measures of intellectual ability, language, and adaptive function were measured in each individual subject with ASD and their age-matched controls. Speech perception was assessed by estimating target-to-masker ratios at 50% correct for speech targets (0° azimuth) presented with two spatially separated (±45° azimuth) simultaneous speech maskers. The electrophysiological battery used to characterize the transmission and representation of sound included: (1) a click-evoked supra-threshold auditory brainstem response, (2) an envelope following response recorded to a 400-ms-long 4 kHz pure tone carrier amplitude modulated at 100 Hz at two modulations depths (0 and -6 dB) and (3) a binaural evoked interaural phase difference threshold. Together, these measures provide a behavioral and physiological assay of auditory function and show the potential to further our understanding of the mechanisms underlying auditory abnormalities in individuals with ASD.

OBJECTIVE To review our hearing preservation rates and speech recognition outcomes in patients undergoing cochlear implantation with a recently developed lateral wall electrode. STUDY DESIGN Retrospective cohort study. METHODS Retrospective case series of all patients, both pediatric and adult, undergoing cochlear implantation with the Advanced Bionics Hifocus™ SlimJ electrode between December 2017 and January 2020. Main outcomes included hearing preservation rates using several definitions, speech recognition testing primarily through Arizona Biosciences (AzBio) and Consonant-Nucleus-Consonant (CNC) testing, intra- and postoperative complications. RESULTS Sixty-one ears underwent implantation with the new electrode. Hearing preservation rates were 13.0% to 36.0% depending on the definition used. Speech recognition testing showed significant increases from pre- to postoperative condition (Implant-only AzBio: 24.1 to 48.3, P = .004, binaural AzBio: 46.1 to 65.9, P = .002, Implant-only CNC: 9.7 to 35.1, P

Introduction: The pattern of brain waves in primary insomniacs is different from healthy subjects. Studies have shown that binaural beats can alter the pattern of brain waves in healthy individuals, but the efficacy of binaural beats in altering the pattern of brain waves in primary insomniacs has not yet been investigated. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of theta binaural beat on the absolute power of theta activity in primary insomniacs. Methods: This study was a randomized clinical trial with experimental and control groups. Primary insomniacs received theta binaural beats in the experimental group and white noise in the control group. Their brain waves were recorded by EEG for 25 minutes, the first 5 minutes without stimulus (1st block), 15 minutes after receiving stimulus (binaural beat or white noise), and the last 5 minutes without stimulus (5th block). Matlab software (R2019a), EEGLAB toolbox and SPSS-24 were used for data analysis. Results: The absolute power of theta activity in the experimental group was significantly higher in the last block comparing to the first block in all brain lobes (P< 0.05). The largest changes in theta activity were in temporal and parietal lobes, and the last one was in prefrontal lobe. In the control group, none of the brain lobes showed significant difference in the last block compared to the first block. Conclusion: Theta binaural beat can alter the absolute power of theta activity in primary insomniacs. The implications of the study are discussed.

Neuroscientific and clinical studies on auditory perception often use headphones to limit sound interference. In these conditions, sounds are perceived as internalized because they lack the sound-attributes that normally occur with a sound produced from a point in space around the listener. Without the spatial attention mechanisms that occur with localized sounds, auditory functional assessments could thus be underestimated. We hypothesize that adding virtually externalization and localization cues to sounds through headphones enhance sound discrimination in both healthy participants and patients with a disorder of consciousness (DOC). Hd-EEG was analyzed in 14 healthy participants and 18 patients while they listened to self-relevant and irrelevant stimuli in two forms: diotic (classic sound presentation with an “internalized” feeling) and convolved with a binaural room impulse response (to create an “externalized” feeling). Convolution enhanced the brains’ discriminative response as well as the processing of irrelevant sounds itself, in both healthy participants and DOC patients. For the healthy participants, these effects could be associated with enhanced activation of both the dorsal (where/how) and ventral (what) auditory streams, suggesting that spatial attributes support speech discrimination. Thus, virtually spatialized sounds might “call attention to the outside world” and improve the sensitivity of assessment of brain function in DOC patients.

Mismatch negativity (MMN) is an intensively studied event-related potential component that reflects pre-attentive auditory processing. Existing spatial MMN (sMMN) studies usually use loud-speakers in different locations or deliver sound with binaural localization cues through earphones to elicit MMN, which either was practically complicated or sounded unnatural to the subjects. In the present study, we generated head related transfer function (HRTF)-based spatial sounds and verified that the HRTF-based sounds retained the left and the right spatial localization cues. We further used them as deviants to elicit sMMN with conventional oddball paradigm. Results showed that sMMN was successfully elicited by the HRTF-based deviants in 18 of 21 healthy subjects in two separate sessions. Furthermore, the left deviants elicited higher sMMN amplitudes in the right hemisphere compared to the left hemisphere, while the right deviants elicited sMMN with similar amplitudes in both hemispheres, which supports a combination of contralateral and right-hemispheric dominance in spatial auditory information processing. In addition, the sMMN in response to the right deviants showed good test-retest reliability, while the sMMN in response to the left deviants had weak test-retest reliability. These findings implicate that HRTF-based sMMN could be a robust paradigm to investigate spatial localization and discrimination abilities.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to use variability on tests of basic auditory processing to allow identification of those tests that could be used clinically to describe functional hearing ability beyond the pure-tone audiogram and clinical speech-in-noise tests. Method Psychoacoustic tests implemented using the Portable Automated Rapid Testing system on a calibrated iPad were evaluated for nine young normal-hearing participants ( M age = 21.3, SD = 2.5) and seven hearing-impaired participants ( M age = 64.9, SD = 13.5). Participants completed 10 psychoacoustic subtests in a quiet room. Correlational analyses were used to compare performance on the psychoacoustic test battery with performance on a clinical speech-in-noise test and with the 4-frequency pure-tone average (4FreqPTA). Results Spectral processing ability was highly correlated with 4FreqPTA, and temporal processing ability showed minimal variability across the hearing-impaired group. Tests involving binaural processing captured variability across hearing-impaired listeners not associated with 4FreqPTA or speech-in-noise performance. Conclusions Tests that capture the ability to use binaural cues may add information to what current clinical protocols reveal about patients with auditory complaints. Further testing with a larger sample size is needed to confirm the need for binaural measurements and to develop normative data for clinical settings.

Summary Objective To determine whether an association exists between auditory skills and the reliability of judgments of the vocal deviation grade and the degrees of roughness and breathiness and to evaluate whether these skills are predictive of interrater reliability in auditory-perceptual evaluations. Methods The sample consisted of 20 speech-language pathology students without previous training in auditory-perceptual evaluation. The students underwent a basic audiological evaluation and a central auditory processing evaluation. They then participated in two auditory-perceptual evaluation sessions assessing the general grade (GG) and the degrees of roughness and breathiness of 44 samples of sustained vowel production with the presence or absence of dysphonia. For statistical analysis, the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and a beta regression model were used. Results A difference was found in the average ICCs of the GG parameter between listeners with high and low temporal resolution and binaural interaction skills. Temporal resolution skills and binaural interaction affected the ICC of listeners in the GG evaluation, reducing the likelihood of reliability by 2.8 and 3.6 times, respectively. Conclusion An association exists between temporal resolution skills and binaural interaction and the reliability of listeners in evaluations of vocal deviation severity. Listeners with low levels of these skills show less reliability in evaluations of the severity of vocal deviation. In addition, temporal resolution and binaural interaction are predictors and explain 42.7% of the variability in the reliability of evaluations of vocal deviation severity.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the role of auditory cues for spatial release from masking (SRM) in children with bilateral cochlear implants (BiCIs) and compare their performance with children with normal hearing (NH). To quantify the contribution to speech intelligibility benefits from individual auditory cues: head shadow, binaural redundancy, and interaural differences; as well as from multiple cues: SRM and binaural squelch. To assess SRM using a novel approach of adaptive target-masker angular separation, which provides a more functionally relevant assessment in realistic complex auditory environments. DESIGN: Children fitted with BiCIs (N=11) and with NH (N=18) were tested in virtual acoustic space (VAS) that was simulated using head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) measured from individual children with BiCIs behind the ear and from a standard head and torso simulator for all NH children. In Experiment I, by comparing speech reception thresholds (SRT) across four test conditions that varied in target-masker spatial separation (co-located vs. separated at 180-degree) and listening conditions (monaural vs. binaural/bilateral listening), intelligibility benefits were derived for individual auditory cues for SRM. In Experiment II, SRM was quantified using a novel measure to find the minimum angular separation (MAS) between the target and masker to achieve a fixed 20% intelligibility improvement. Target speech was fixed at either +90 or −90-degree azimuth on the side closer to the better ear (+90-degree for all NH children) and masker locations were adaptively varied. RESULTS: In Experiment I, children with BiCIs as a group had smaller intelligibility benefits from head shadow than NH children. No group difference was observed in benefits from binaural redundancy or interaural difference cues. In both groups of children, individuals who gained a larger benefit from interaural differences relied less on monaural head shadow, and vice versa. In Experiment II, all children with BiCIs demonstrated measurable MAS thresholds < 180-degree and on average larger than that from NH children. Eight of 11 children with BiCIs and all NH children had a MAS threshold < 90-degree, requiring interaural differences only to gain the target intelligibility benefit; whereas the other three children with BiCIs had a MAS between 120 and 137-degree, requiring monaural head shadow for SRM. CONCLUSIONS: When target and maskers were separated at 180-degree on opposing hemifields, children with BiCIs demonstrated greater intelligibility benefits from head shadow and interaural differences than previous literature showed with a smaller separation. Children with BiCIs demonstrated individual differences in using auditory cues for SRM. From the MAS thresholds, more than half of the children with BiCIs demonstrated robust access to interaural differences without needing additional monaural head shadow for SRM. Both experiments led to the conclusion that individualized fitting strategies in the bilateral devices may be warranted to maximize spatial hearing for children with BiCIs in complex auditory environments.

OBJECTIVES Over the past decade, U.S. Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs audiologists have reported large numbers of relatively young adult patients who have normal to near-normal audiometric thresholds but who report difficulty understanding speech in noisy environments. Many of these service members also reported having experienced exposure to explosive blasts as part of their military service. Recent studies suggest that some blast-exposed patients with normal to near-normal-hearing thresholds not only have an awareness of increased hearing difficulties, but also poor performance on various auditory tasks (sound source localization, speech recognition in noise, binaural integration, gap detection in noise, etc.). The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of functional hearing and communication deficits (FHCD) among healthy Active-Duty service men and women with normal to near-normal audiometric thresholds. DESIGN To estimate the prevalence of such FHCD in the overall military population, performance of roughly 3400 Active-Duty service members with hearing thresholds mostly within the normal range were measured on 4 hearing tests and a brief 6-question survey to assess FHCD. Subjects were subdivided into 6 groups depending on the severity of the blast exposure (3 levels: none, far away, or close enough to feel heat or pressure) and hearing thresholds (2 levels: audiometric thresholds of 20 dB HL or better, slight elevation in 1 or more thresholds between 500 and 4000 Hz in either ear). RESULTS While the probability of having hearing difficulty was low (≈4.2%) for the overall population tested, that probability increased by 2 to 3 times if the service member was blast-exposed from a close distance or had slightly elevated hearing thresholds (>20 dB HL). Service members having both blast exposure and mildly elevated hearing thresholds exhibited up to 4 times higher risk for performing abnormally on auditory tasks and more than 5 times higher risk for reporting abnormally low ratings on the subjective questionnaire, compared with service members with no history of blast exposure and audiometric thresholds ≤20 dB HL. Blast-exposed listeners were roughly 2.5 times more likely to experience subjective or objective hearing deficits than those with no-blast history. CONCLUSIONS These elevated rates of abnormal performance suggest that roughly 33.6% of Active-Duty service members (or approximately 423,000) with normal to near-normal-hearing thresholds (i.e., H1 profile) are at some risk for FHCD, and about 5.7% (approximately 72,000) are at high risk, but are currently untested and undetected within the current fitness-for-duty standards. Service members identified as "at risk" for FHCD according to the metrics used in the present study, in spite of their excellent hearing thresholds, require further testing to determine whether they have sustained damage to peripheral and early-stage auditory processing (bottom-up processing), damage to cognitive processes for speech (top-down processing), or both. Understanding the extent of damage due to noise and blast exposures and the balance between bottom-up processing deficits and top-down deficits will likely lead to better therapeutic strategies.

Binaural beats have been used as a way of modifying cognition via auditory stimulation. A recent meta-analysis suggests that binaural beat stimulation can have a positive effect on attention (Garcia-Argibay et al., Psychologische Forschung 83:1124-1136, 2019a, Psychological Research Psychologische Forschung 83:357-372, 2019b), with the sample-weighted average effect size being about .58. This is an intriguing and potentially useful finding, both theoretically and practically. In this study, we focus on sustained attention. We delivered beta-frequency (16 Hz) binaural beat stimulation during a sustained attention task. In "Experiment 1", reaction times were faster under beat stimulation than control stimulation in a between-subjects design. However, the effect was modest in magnitude, and model comparisons using Bayes Factors were indiscriminate between including and excluding the effect from the model. We followed this initial experiment with two concurrently administered follow-up experiments. In "Experiment 2", we added thought probes to measure any changes in task engagement associated with binaural beat stimulation. "Experiment 2" revealed a different effect from "Experiment 1": participants in the binaural beat condition exhibited a shallower vigilance decrement. However, the beat stimulation did not affect the thought probes responses. Combining data across the two experiments indicated rather strong evidence against the hypothesis that beta-frequency binaural beats can augment sustained attention, either via a general speeding of responding or a mitigation of the vigilance decrement. Finally, in "Experiment 3", we investigated whether pupillary measures of arousal and/or task engagement would be affected by binaural beat stimulation. There was no evidence for such effects. Overall, we did not observe any consistent evidence that binaural beat stimulation can augment sustained attention or its subjective and physiological correlates.

The modified rhyme test [MRT; House, Williams, Hecker, and Kryter. (1965). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 37, 158–166] is a widely used test for measuring the intelligibility of communication systems [ANSI (2009). S3.2 (American National Standards Institute, New York)] but has never gained widespread acceptance as a clinical test of speech intelligibility for listeners who are hearing impaired (HI). In this study, a clinical version of the MRT consisting of two 80-word lists was developed and tested on 2394 service members with varying levels of hearing loss. The test used a factorial design incorporating two speech levels [70 and 78 dB sound pressure level (SPL)], two signal-to-noise ratios (+4 and −4 dB), and two binaural conditions (diotic and binaural). High-frequency emphasis reduced the impact of audibility for HI listeners, focusing the test on the distortion component of hearing loss. The results show that listeners with normal hearing (NH) obtained an average score of 80% correct on the MRT80 test. Listeners with a moderate hearing impairment scored an average of 70% correct. The overall level had little impact on performance for either NH or HI listeners. The results demonstrate that the MRT80 test could be a useful test to assess the distortion effects of hearing loss on speech intelligibility, particularly in cases where it is desirable to use a closed-set test for automatic administration.

For abruptly gated sound, interaural time difference (ITD) cues at onset carry greater perceptual weight than those following. This research explored how envelope shape influences such carrier ITD weighting. Experiment 1 assessed the perceived lateralization of a tonal binaural beat that transitioned through ITD (diotic envelope, mean carrier frequency of 500 Hz). Listeners' left/right lateralization judgments were compared to those for static-ITD tones. For an 8 Hz sinusoidally amplitude-modulated envelope, ITD cues 24 ms after onset well-predicted reported sidedness. For an equivalent-duration "abrupt" envelope, which was unmodulated besides 20-ms onset/offset ramps, reported sidedness corresponded to ITDs near onset (e.g., 6 ms). However, unlike for sinusoidal amplitude modulation, ITDs toward offset seemingly also influenced perceived sidedness. Experiment 2 adjusted the duration of the offset ramp (25-75 ms) and found evidence for such offset weighting only for the most abrupt ramp tested. In experiment 3, an ITD was imposed on a brief segment of otherwise diotic filtered noise. Listeners discriminated right- from left-leading ITDs. In sinusoidal amplitude modulation, thresholds were lowest when the ITD segment occurred during rising amplitude. For the abrupt envelope, the lowest thresholds were observed when the segment occurred at either onset or offset. These experiments demonstrate the influence of envelope profile on carrier ITD sensitivity.

Bilateral cochlear-implant (CI) users struggle to understand speech in noisy environments despite receiving some spatial-hearing benefits. One potential solution is to provide acoustic beamforming. A headphone-based experiment was conducted to compare speech understanding under natural CI listening conditions and for two non-adaptive beamformers, one single beam and one binaural, called “triple beam,” which provides an improved signal-to-noise ratio (beamforming benefit) and usable spatial cues by reintroducing interaural level differences. Speech reception thresholds (SRTs) for speech-on-speech masking were measured with target speech presented in front and two maskers in co-located or narrow/wide separations. Numerosity judgments and sound-localization performance also were measured. Natural spatial cues, single-beam, and triple-beam conditions were compared. For CI listeners, there was a negligible change in SRTs when comparing co-located to separated maskers for natural listening conditions. In contrast, there were 4.9- and 16.9-dB improvements in SRTs for the beamformer and 3.5- and 12.3-dB improvements for triple beam (narrow and wide separations). Similar results were found for normal-hearing listeners presented with vocoded stimuli. Single beam improved speech-on-speech masking performance but yielded poor sound localization. Triple beam improved speech-on-speech masking performance, albeit less than the single beam, and sound localization. Thus, triple beam was the most versatile across multiple spatial-hearing domains.

Background Digits-in-noise (DIN) tests have become popular for hearing screening over the past 15 years. Several recent studies have highlighted the potential utility of DIN as a school-aged hearing test. However, age may influence test performance in children due to maturation. In addition, a new antiphasic stimulus paradigm has been introduced, allowing binaural intelligibility level difference (BILD) to be measured by using a combination of conventional diotic and antiphasic DIN. Purpose This study determined age-specific normative data for diotic and antiphasic DIN, and a derived measure, BILD, in children. A secondary aim evaluated the validity of DIN as a smartphone self-test in a subgroup of young children. Research Design A cross-sectional, quantitative design was used. Participants with confirmed normal audiometric hearing were tested with a diotic and antiphasic DIN. During the test, arrangements of three spoken digits were presented in noise via headphones at varying signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Researchers entered each three-digit spoken sequence repeated by the participant on a smartphone keypad. Study Sample Overall, 621 (428 male and 193 female) normal hearing children (bilateral pure tone threshold of ≤ 20 dB hearing level at 1, 2, and 4 kHz) ranging between the ages of 6 and 13 years were recruited. A subgroup of 7-year-olds (n = 30), complying with the same selection criteria, was selected to determine the validity of self-testing. Data Collection and Analysis DIN testing was completed via headphones coupled to a smartphone. Diotic and antiphasic DIN speech recognition thresholds (SRTs) were analyzed and compared for each age group. BILD was calculated through subtraction of antiphasic from diotic SRTs. Multiple linear regressions were run to determine the effect of age on SRT and BILD. In addition, piecewise linear regressions were fit across different age groups. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were used to determine differences between self- and facilitated tests. Results Age was a significant predictor, of both diotic and antiphasic DIN SRTs (p 0.05). Conclusions Increasing age was significantly associated with improved SRT and BILD using diotic and antiphasic DINs. DIN could be used as a smartphone self-test in young children from 7 years of age with appropriate quality control measures to avoid potential false positives.

OBJECTIVES: The digits-in-noise test (DIN) is a popular self-test measure that has traditionally been used to screen for hearing loss by providing either a pass or refer result. Standard approaches either tested each ear monaurally or used a binaural diotic version where identical digits and noise were presented simultaneously to both ears. Recently, a dichotic, antiphasic version was developed, increasing sensitivity of the DIN to unilateral or asymmetric sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) and conductive hearing loss (CHL). The purpose of this study was to determine predictors and normative ranges of the antiphasic and diotic DIN and to determine if a combination of diotic and antiphasic DIN could accurately categorize hearing into (1) normal, (2) bilateral SNHL, or (3) unilateral SNHL or CHL. DESIGN: The analytical sample consisted of 489 participants between the ages of 18 and 92 years with varying types, symmetry, and degrees of hearing loss. Degree and type of hearing loss were determined based on standard clinical four-frequency (0.5-4 kHz) pure-tone air and bone conduction threshold averages. The sample consisted of bilateral normal hearing (n = 293), bilateral SNHL (n = 172), unilateral SNHL (n = 42), and CHL (n = 32). All participants (n = 489) first completed an antiphasic DIN (digit stimuli 180° out-of-phase between ears), while 393 of the sample also completed a diotic DIN. Two procedures were assessed for their ability to categorize hearing into one of the three hearing groups. The first used a fixed antiphasic cutoff combined with a cutoff formed by a linear combination of antiphasic and diotic speech recognition threshold (SRT) or binaural intelligibility-level difference. RESULTS: Poorer ear pure-tone average was the strongest predictor of antiphasic DIN score, whereas better ear pure-tone average explained more of the variance in diotic SRT. The antiphasic DIN sensitivity and specificity was 90% and 84%, respectively, for detecting hearing loss, with outstanding area under the receiver operating characteristics values exceeding 0.93 to identify hearing loss in the poorer ear. The first fixed SRT cutoff procedure could categorize 75% of all participants correctly, while the second procedure increased correct categorization to 79%. False negative rates for both procedures were below 10%. CONCLUSIONS: A sequential antiphasic and diotic DIN could categorize hearing to a reasonable degree into three groups of (1) normal hearing; (2) bilateral SNHL; and (3) unilateral asymmetric SNHL or CHL. This type of approach could optimize care pathways using remote and contactless testing, by identifying unilateral SNHL and CHL as cases requiring medical referral. In contrast, bilateral SNHL cases could be referred directly to an audiologist, or nontraditional models like OTC hearing aids.

Normal-hearing (NH) listeners use frequency cues, such as fundamental frequency (voice pitch), to segregate sounds into discrete auditory streams. However, many hearing-impaired (HI) individuals have abnormally broad binaural pitch fusion which leads to fusion and averaging of the original monaural pitches into the same stream instead of segregating the two streams (Oh and Reiss, 2017) and may similarly lead to fusion and averaging of speech streams across ears. In this study, using dichotic speech stimuli, we examined the relationship between speech fusion and vowel identification. Dichotic vowel perception was measured in NH and HI listeners, with across-ear fundamental frequency differences varied. Synthetic vowels /i/, /u/, /a/, and /ae/ were generated with three fundamental frequencies (F(0)) of 106.9, 151.2, and 201.8 Hz and presented dichotically through headphones. For HI listeners, stimuli were shaped according to NAL-NL2 prescriptive targets. Although the dichotic vowels presented were always different across ears, listeners were not informed that there were no single vowel trials and could identify one vowel or two different vowels on each trial. When there was no F(0) difference between the ears, both NH and HI listeners were more likely to fuse the vowels and identify only one vowel. As ΔF(0) increased, NH listeners increased the percentage of two-vowel responses, but HI listeners were more likely to continue to fuse vowels even with large ΔF(0). Binaural tone fusion range was significantly correlated with vowel fusion rates in both NH and HI listeners. Confusion patterns with dichotic vowels differed from those seen with concurrent monaural vowels, suggesting different mechanisms behind the errors. Together, the findings suggest that broad fusion leads to spectral blending across ears, even for different ΔF(0), and may hinder the stream segregation and understanding of speech in the presence of competing talkers.

We aimed to evaluate the speech intelligibility benefit in noise provided by stapedotomy in the treatment of unilateral otosclerosis. We enrolled adults suffering from unilateral conductive hearing loss and followed them up until 9 months after surgery. The patients underwent a free field speech hearing evaluation using the French Matrix test before and after stapedotomy. Speech material was sent to the front of the patients (S0) and noise was presented either at the front (N0), or at the operated ear (N-90) or at the non-operated ear (N + 90). The speech intelligibility benefit in noise was assessed by comparing Squelch effect (SE), Head shadow effect (HS) and Binaural redundancy (BR) before and after surgery. SE was measured as the difference in speech reception thresholds (SRT) between S0N + 90 situations before and after surgery, HS as the difference in SRT between S0N + 90 and S0N-90 situations, and BR as the difference in SRT between S0N0 situations before and after surgery. In addition, two quality of life’s questionnaires were completed by patients to evaluate their discomfort. Among 25 patients, 19 were followed up during 9 months, 4 were excluded and 2 were lost for the following-up. Stapedotomy provided a restoration of SE of 3.7 dB SNR (p

Cochlear implant (CI) users with a prelingual onset of hearing loss show poor sensitivity to interaural time differences (ITDs), an important cue for sound localization and speech reception in noise. Similarly, neural ITD sensitivity in the inferior colliculus (IC) of neonatally-deafened animals is degraded compared with animals deafened as adults. Here, we show that chronic bilateral CI stimulation during development can partly reverse the effect of early-onset deafness on ITD sensitivity. The prevalence of ITD sensitive neurons was restored to the level of adult-deaf (AD) rabbits in the early-deaf rabbits of both sexes that received chronic stimulation and behavioral training with wearable bilateral sound processors during development. We also found a partial improvement in neural ITD sensitivity in the early-deaf and stimulated rabbits compared with unstimulated rabbits. In contrast, chronic CI stimulation did not improve temporal coding in early-deaf rabbits. The present study is the first report showing functional restoration of ITD sensitivity with CI stimulation in single neurons and highlights the importance of auditory experience during development on the maturation of binaural circuitry.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTAlthough cochlear implants (CI) are highly successful in providing speech reception in quiet for many profoundly deaf people, CI users still face difficulty in noisy everyday environment. This is partly because of their poor sensitivity to differences in the timing of sounds arriving at the two ears [interaural time differences (ITDs)], which help to identify where the sound is coming from. This problem is especially acute in those who lost hearing early in life. Here, we present the first report that sensitivity of auditory neurons to ITDs is restored by CI stimulation during development in an animal model of neonatal deafness. These findings highlight the importance of providing early binaural auditory experience with CIs in deaf children.

The configuration of lizard ears, where sound can reach both surfaces of the eardrums, produces a strongly directional ear, but the subsequent processing of sound direction by the auditory pathway is unknown. We report here on directional responses from the first stage, the auditory nerve. We used laser vibrometry to measure eardrum responses in Tokay geckos and in the same animals recorded 117 auditory nerve single fiber responses to free-field sound from radially distributed speakers. Responses from all fibers showed strongly lateralized activity at all frequencies, with an ovoidal directivity that resembled the eardrum directivity. Geckos are vocal and showed pronounced nerve fiber directionality to components of the call. To estimate the accuracy with which a gecko could discriminate between sound sources, we computed the Fisher information (FI) for each neuron. FI was highest just contralateral to the midline, front and back. Thus, the auditory nerve could provide a population code for sound source direction, and geckos should have a high capacity to differentiate between midline sound sources. In brain, binaural comparisons, for example, by IE (ipsilateral excitatory, contralateral inhibitory) neurons, should sharpen the lateralized responses and extend the dynamic range of directionality. NEW & NOTEWORTHY In mammals, the two ears are unconnected pressure receivers, and sound direction is computed from binaural interactions in the brain, but in lizards, the eardrums interact acoustically, producing a strongly directional response. We show strongly lateralized responses from gecko auditory nerve fibers to directional sound stimulation and high Fisher information on either side of the midline. Thus, already the auditory nerve provides a population code for sound source direction in the gecko.

Frequency selectivity in the amplitude modulation (AM) domain has been demonstrated using both simultaneous AM masking and forward AM masking. This has been explained using the concept of a modulation filter bank (MFB). Here, we assessed whether the MFB occurs before or after the point of binaural interaction in the auditory pathway by using forward masking in the AM domain in an ipsilateral condition (masker AM and signal AM applied to the left ear with an unmodulated carrier in the right ear) and a contralateral condition (masker AM applied to the right ear and signal AM applied to the left ear). The carrier frequency was 8 kHz, the signal AM frequency, fs, was 40 or 80 Hz, and the masker AM frequency ranged from 0.25 to 4 times fs. Contralateral forward AM masking did occur, but it was smaller than ipsilateral AM masking. Tuning in the AM domain was slightly sharper for ipsilateral than for contralateral masking, perhaps reflecting confusion of the signal and masker AM in the ipsilateral condition when their AM frequencies were the same. The results suggest that there might be an MFB both before and after the point in the auditory pathway where binaural interaction occurs.

The course of diseases associated with movement disorders violates the possibility of independent existence of the individual and is accompanied by the formation of symptoms of increased anxiety, depression and catastrophizing. Over the last years, in addition to psychopharmacological drugs, non-drug methods have been actively included in the complex of treatment and rehabilitation for this patients’ group allowing them to influence the patient’s psyche by neuro-biological activation of sanogenesis links. Aim. To study the possibility of using resonance-acoustic vibration (PRAV) programs in the “relaxation” mode when organizing psychological support for patients with movement disorders in the course of medical rehabilitation. Materials and methods. The study included 93 patients with movement disorders of two nosological groups: movement disorders against the stroke (n=57) and motor disorders against the degenerative-dystrophic diseases of large joints and spine of large joints and spine (n=36), undergoing a standard inpatient course of medical rehabilitation. Results. The dynamics of the emotional state, the intensity of the pain syndrome, characteristics of the cognitive sphere (memory, attention) as a result of psychological correction using PRAV were analyzed. The positive effect of the inclusion of the binaural beats complex in the psychological correction of the patients with impaired motor functions state of health as well as an indifferent response to the attempt to correct memory and attention were determined. Conclusion. It testifies that the application of the method is appropriate in correcting the emotional state, general well-being, overcoming fear of movement and is not effective for pain and recovery of cognitive functions.

Auditory neural impairment is a key clinical feature of Friedreich’s Ataxia (FRDA). We aimed to characterize the phenotypical spectrum of the auditory impairment in FRDA in order to facilitate early identification and timely management of auditory impairment in FRDA patients and to explore the relationship between the severity of auditory impairment with genetic variables (the expansion size of GAA trinucleotide repeats, GAA1 and GAA2), when controlled for variables such as disease duration, severity of the disease and cognitive status. Twenty-seven patients with genetically confirmed FRDA underwent baseline audiological assessment (pure-tone audiometry, otoacoustic emissions, auditory brainstem response). Twenty of these patients had additional psychophysical auditory processing evaluation including an auditory temporal processing test (gaps in noise test) and a binaural speech perception test that assesses spatial processing (Listening in Spatialized Noise-Sentences Test). Auditory spatial and auditory temporal processing ability were significantly associated with the repeat length of GAA1. Patients with GAA1 greater than 500 repeats had more severe auditory temporal and spatial processing deficits, leading to poorer speech perception. Furthermore, the spatial processing ability was strongly correlated with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) score. To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate an association between genotype and auditory spatial processing phenotype in patients with FRDA. Auditory temporal processing, neural sound conduction, spatial processing and speech perception were more severely affected in patients with GAA1 greater than 500 repeats. The results of our study may indicate that auditory deprivation plays a role in the development of mild cognitive impairment in FRDA patients.

This paper introduces and evaluates a speech signal manipulation scheme that generates transient speech induced binaural beats (SBBs). These SBBs can only be perceived when different signals are presented dichotically (to both ears). Event-related potentials were recorded in 22 normal-hearing subjects. Dichotic stimulus presentation reliably evoked auditory late responses (ALRs) in all subjects using such manipulated signals. As control measurements, diotic stimulation modalities were presented to confirm that the ALRs were not evoked by the speech signal itself or that the signal manipulation scheme created audible artifacts. Since diotic measurements evoked no ALRs, responses from dichotic stimulation are a pure correlate of binaural interaction. While there are several auditory stimuli (mostly modulated sinusoids or noise) that share this characteristic, none of them are based on running speech. Because SBBs can be added to any arbitrary speech signal, they could easily be combined with psychoacoustic tests, for example speech reception thresholds, adding an objective measure of binaural interaction.

Binaural hearing is the ability of the human auditory system to integrate information received from both ears simultaneously. Binaural hearing is fundamental in understanding speech in noisy backgrounds. Any disfunction in one or both ears could cause a disruption in the processing mechanism. Auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) are electrical potentials evoked by externally presented auditory stimuli from any part of the auditory system. A non-invasive technology, electroencephalography (EEG) is used for the monitoring of AEPs. The research aims to identify the best suited electrode positions through correlation analysis and analyse the AEP signals from the selected electrodes in order to detect binaural sensitivity of the human brain. The study evaluates the time-averaged EEG responses of normal hearing subjects to auditory stimuli. The stimuli used for the study are 500 Hz Blackman windowed pure tones, presented in either homophasic (the same phase in both ears) or antiphasic (180-degree phase difference between the two ears) conditions. The study focuses on understanding the effect of phase reversal of auditory stimuli, an under interaural time difference (ITD) cue, on the middle latency response (MLR) region of the AEPs. A correlation analysis was carried out between the eight different locations and as a result, Cz and Pz electrode positions were selected as the best suited positions for further analysis. The selected electrode signals were further processed in the time domain and frequency domain analysis. In the time domain analysis, it was found that Cz electrode for eight subjects out of nine and Pz electrode for seven subjects out of nine, had the larger area under signal curve obtained in the antiphasic condition than in the homophasic signals. Frequency domain analysis showed that the frequency bands 20 to 25Hz and 25 to 30Hz had the most energy when elicited by antiphasic stimuli than by homophasic stimuli. The findings of this study can be further utilised for the detection of binaural processing in a human brain.

Background Dichotic listening occurs when one attends to different acoustical messages presented simultaneously to both ears. This is important for understanding speech in compromised listening situations, such as background noise. Deficits in dichotic listening can be remediated by participating in auditory training. We present two patients with binaural integration deficits who underwent dichotic interaural intensity difference (DIID) training. Purpose The purpose of this investigation is to demonstrate improvement of dichotic listening deficits following DIID training in neurological patients seen clinically for hearing issues. Research Design This was a case series utilizing a pre- and posttreatment design. Study Sample This case series utilized two female participants who demonstrated binaural integration deficits during an auditory processing evaluation. Intervention The participants underwent a pretraining auditory processing evaluation and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Participants then underwent 12, 30-minute DIID training sessions followed by posttreatment auditory processing evaluations and fMRI. Data Collection and Analysis Data was collected at the pretreatment appointment and then immediately following the completion of the training. Results Each patient demonstrated varying degrees of improvement on the posttreatment assessment. Case 1 showed significant improvement on the Speech-in-Noise-Revised (SPIN-R) test. fMRI showed changes in activation patterns following training. Case 2 demonstrated improved scores on the Dichotic Digits Test and SPIN-R and increased activation of the calcarine sulcus following training. Conclusion Dichotic training can be an efficacious treatment for binaural integration deficits and may show evidence of improving speech understanding in noise. This case series demonstrates a promising therapy to help patients improve auditory function by improving dichotic listening skills.

The difference in binaural benefit between bilateral cochlear implant (CI) users and normal hearing (NH) listeners has typically been attributed to CI sound coding strategies not encoding the acoustic fine structure (FS) interaural time differences (ITD). The Temporal Limits Encoder (TLE) strategy is proposed as a potential way of improving binaural hearing benefits for CI users in noisy situations. TLE works by downward-transposition of mid-frequency band-limited channel information and can theoretically provide FS-ITD cues. In this work, the effect of choice of lower limit of the modulator in TLE was examined by measuring performance on a word recognition task and computing the magnitude of binaural benefit in bilateral CI users. Performance listening with the TLE strategy was compared with the commonly used Advanced Combinational Encoder (ACE) CI sound coding strategy. Results showed that setting the lower limit to $\geq$ 200 Hz maintained word recognition performance comparable to that of ACE. While most CI listeners exhibited a large binaural benefit ( $\geq$ 6 dB) in at least one of the conditions tested, there was no systematic relationship between the lower limit of the modulator and performance. These results indicate that the TLE strategy has potential to improve binaural hearing abilities in CI users but further work is needed to understand how binaural benefit can be maximized.

The purpose of the study was to examine the subjective and objective potential advantage for speech understanding in noise achieved by cochlear implant (CI) recipients when using the autosensitivity control (ASC) input signal processing in combination with the adaptive dynamic range optimization (ADRO). Eighteen subjects (8 females, 10 males, mean age 17.7 &plusmn, 6.7) were enrolled in a prospective open blinded comparative study between the ASC + ADRO condition vs. the ADRO alone, 16 were sequential binaural and 2 were monoaural CI recipients. All patients had been wearing their CI for at least 3 years, had no additional disabilities, had an age-appropriate receptive and expressive language. Word recognition performances in noise (at signal-to-noise ratio +5 dB HL) were significantly better in the ADRO-alone condition than in the ADRO + ASC condition. (p = 0.03) These objective outcomes were in agreement with the subjective reports. No significant difference was found in quiet. Our results, apparently in contrast with other reports in the literature, suggest that the decision of adding the slow-acting automatic reduction in microphone sensitivity provided by ASC should be limited to selected CI recipients.

Background and Objective: Binaural hearing serves as an advantage in daily communication by facilitating better localization of sounds and perception of speech in the presence of noise. BIC of ABR has been used to understand the binaural representation of different stimuli, such as transient clicks, and complex signals, such as speech. The present study aimed to investigate the test-retest reliability of the binaural interaction component for click and speech evoked ABR. Methods: 30 individuals with normal hearing served as participants for the present study. ABR for click and speech stimuli (/da/) were recorded from these participants in monaural and binaural conditions. BIC was calculated using the formula: BIC = (L + R)- BI where, L + R is the sum of the left and right evoked potentials obtained with monaural stimulation, and BI is the response acquired from binaural stimulation. To investigate reliability, all the participants underwent three recording sessions. Session 1 and session 2 (intra-session) were carried out on the same day, separately. Whereas, session 3 (inter-session) was carried out after a minimum gap of 3 - 5 days after the first session. Intraclass correlation was used to investigate the test-retest reliability of click and speech evoked BIC across the three sessions. Results: The test-retest reliability for BICclick was found to be excellent for latency measures and fair to good for amplitude measures. BICspeech was found to be fair to good, except for BIC-3. Conclusion: The results of the present study indicate that the reliability of BICclick is better than that of BICspeech. These results suggest that the clinical utility of BICspeech should be exerted with caution.

Purpose Talkers often modify their speech when communicating with individuals who struggle to understand speech, such as listeners with hearing loss. This study evaluated the benefit of clear speech in school-age children and adults with normal hearing for speech-in-noise and speech-in-speech recognition. Method Masked sentence recognition thresholds were estimated for school-age children and adults using an adaptive procedure. In Experiment 1, the target and masker were summed and presented over a loudspeaker located directly in front of the listener. The masker was either speech-shaped noise or two-talker speech, and target sentences were produced using a clear or conversational speaking style. In Experiment 2, stimuli were presented over headphones. The two-talker speech masker was diotic (M 0 ). Clear and conversational target sentences were presented either in-phase (T 0 ) or out-of-phase (T π ) between the two ears. The M 0 T π condition introduces a segregation cue that was expected to improve performance. Results For speech presented over a single loudspeaker (Experiment 1), the clear-speech benefit was independent of age for the noise masker, but it increased with age for the two-talker masker. Similar age effects for the two-talker speech masker were seen under headphones with diotic presentation (M 0 T 0 ), but comparable clear-speech benefit as a function of age was observed with a binaural cue to facilitate segregation (M 0 T π ). Conclusions Consistent with prior research, children showed a robust clear-speech benefit for speech-in-noise recognition. Immaturity in the ability to segregate target from masker speech may limit young children's ability to benefit from clear-speech modifications for speech-in-speech recognition under some conditions. When provided with a cue that facilitates segregation, children as young as 4–7 years of age derived a clear-speech benefit in a two-talker masker that was similar to the benefit experienced by adults.

ObjectiveBinaural hearing is facilitated by neural interactions in the auditory pathway. Ageing results in impairment of localisation and listening in noisy situations without any significant hearing loss. The present study focused on comparing the binaural encoding of a speech stimulus at the subcortical level in middle-aged versus younger adults, based on speech-evoked auditory brainstem responses.MethodsThirty participants (15 young adults and 15 middle-aged adults) with normal hearing sensitivity (less than 15 dB HL) participated in the study. The speech-evoked auditory brainstem response was recorded monaurally and binaurally with a 40-ms /da/ stimulus. Fast Fourier transform analysis was utilised.ResultsAn independent sample t-test revealed a significant difference between the two groups in fundamental frequency (F0) amplitude recorded with binaural stimulation.ConclusionThe present study suggested that ageing results in degradation of F0 encoding, which is essential for the perception of speech in noise.

Spatial hearing allows animals to rapidly detect and localize auditory events in the surrounding environment. The auditory brainstem plays a central role in processing and extracting binaural spatial cues through microsecond-precise binaural integration, especially for detecting interaural time differences (ITDs) of low-frequency sounds at the medial superior olive (MSO). A series of mechanisms exist in the underlying neural circuits for preserving accurate action potential timing across multiple fibers, synapses and nuclei along this pathway. One of these is the myelination of afferent fibers that ensures reliable and temporally precise action potential propagation in the axon. There are several reports of fine-tuned myelination patterns in the MSO circuit, but how specifically myelination influences the precision of sound localization remains incompletely understood. Here we present a spiking neural network model of the auditory brainstem with myelinated axons to investigate whether different axon myelination thicknesses alter the sound localization process. Our model demonstrates that axon myelin thickness along the contralateral pathways can substantially modulate ITD detection. Furthermore, optimal ITD sensitivity is reached when the MSO receives contralateral inhibition via thicker myelinated axons compared to contralateral excitation, a result that is consistent with previously reported experimental observations. Our results suggest specific roles of axon myelination for extracting temporal dynamics in ITD perception, especially in the pathway of the contralateral inhibition.

Objective. To increase the efficiency of the complex of therapeutic and rehabilitation measures in preparation for hip joint endoprosthetics. Materials and methods. 66 patients in whom it was planned to perform hip joint endoprosthetics took part in the research. They were divided into two groups. The main group (n = 32) included patients who underwent 5 binaural beats as a relaxation program. In the comparison group (n = 34) the patients received a standard set of measures to prepare for this operation. All patients were screened for depression and anxiety using the standardized hospital scale for anxiety and depression (HADS) before the study. We also recorded the initial levels of reactive and personality anxiety using the Spielberger Hanin test. We repeated the test in both groups after 7 days to evaluate the dynamics of the test. Results. The conducted research showed that in the main group on the background of binaural beating procedures, reactive (from 57.2 3.8 to 42.4 5.2 points, p = 0.014) and personal anxiety (from 58.9 4.1 to 44.7 3.8 points, p = 0.003) were significantly reduced. In addition, the application of binaural beats method resulted in a significant decrease of HADS alarm subscale indexes (p 0.001) in patients of the base group from 12.8 2.8 to 8.5 0.7 points. While patients in the comparison group had significantly less expressed decrease of this parameter from 11.7 3.1 to 10.9 1.6 points (p 0.01). On the HADS depression subscale there was also a marked decrease in the main group to 7.1 0.8 points, this value was statistically significantly lower (p = 0.011) than in the comparison group 10.2 1.2 points. Conclusion. The conducted research has shown that the use of the binaural beats method in the complex of measures to prepare patients for hip joint endoprosthetics helps to improve their psycho-emotional status. This is manifested by a decrease in personal and reactive anxiety in the Spielberger Hanin test, as well as the severity of depression and anxiety on the HADS scale. The advantages of the method are non-invasive and easy to use, and the disadvantages include the duration of the procedure and poorly studied mechanism of action.

Sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) causes an overall deficit in binaural hearing, including the abilities to localize sound sources, discriminate interaural time and level differences (ITDs and ILDs, respectively), and utilize binaural cues to aid signal detection and comprehension in noisy environments. Few studies have examined the effect of SNHL on binaural coding in the central auditory system, and those that have focused on age-related hearing loss. We induced hearing loss in male and female Dutch-belted rabbits via noise overexposure and compared unanesthetized single-unit responses of their inferior colliculi [hearing loss (HL) neurons] with those of unexposed rabbits. Sound-level thresholds of HL neurons to diotic noise were elevated by 75 dB, on average. Sensitivity of firing rates of HL neurons to the azimuth of a broadband noise stimulus was reduced, on average, but was confounded by differences in sound level with respect to detection threshold between groups. We independently manipulated ITD and ILD in virtual acoustic space and found directional sensitivity in binaurally sensitive HL neurons was entirely due to ILD sensitivity and no different than that for unexposed rabbits. However, ITD sensitivity was completely absent in binaurally sensitive HL neurons for noise stimuli both in virtual acoustic space and with ITDs extending to ±3 ms. HL neurons also had weaker spike-timing precision and slightly increased spontaneous rates. Overall, ILD sensitivity was uncompromised, whereas ITD sensitivity was completely lost, implying a specific inability to use information in the timing or correlation of acoustic noise waveforms between the two ears following severe SNHL. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Sensorineural hearing loss compromises perceptual abilities that arise from hearing with two ears, yet its effects on binaural aspects of neural responses are largely unknown. We found that, following severe hearing loss because of acoustic trauma, auditory midbrain neurons specifically lost the ability to encode time differences between the arrival of a broadband noise stimulus to the two ears, whereas the encoding of sound level differences between the two ears remained uncompromised.

OBJECTIVE Choice of electrode array (EA) design and differences in outcome are major concerns both to patients with single-sided deafness (SSD) and to surgeons before cochlear implant (CI) surgery. The present work investigates the effects of EA design on 1) insertion depths, and 2) audiological outcomes of SSD CI recipients. STUDY DESIGN Retrospective study. SETTING Tertiary academic center. PATIENTS Forty patients with acquired SSD matched according to duration of deafness MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:: Fourteen CI recipients were implanted with a perimodiolar electrode (cochlear perimodiolar [CPM]), 12 with a shorter lateral wall electrode (cochlear lateral wall [CLW]), and 14 with a longer lateral wall electrode array (medEl lateral wall [MLW]). Postoperative rotational tomography was evaluated to determine cochlear size and EA angle of insertion depth (AID). Binaural speech comprehension in noise (in three configuration presentations) and localization ability were assessed 12 months postoperatively with CI. RESULTS AID was significantly deeper in MLW (mean 527.94 degrees) compared with the CPM (mean 366.35 degrees) and CLW groups (mean 367.01 degrees). No significant difference in AID was seen between the CPM and CLW groups (difference 0.66 degrees). Cochlear sizes revealed no significant differences between any groups. All three groups showed significant improvement in head shadow effect (difference on average CPM: 6.3 dB SPL, CLW 5 dB SPL, and MLW 4.05 dB SPL) and localization ability at 12 months postoperatively (difference on average CPM: 19.72 degrees, CLW: 24 degrees, and MLW: 12.9 degrees). No significant difference in the extent of audiological benefit was observed between any groups. CONCLUSION No effect on binaural benefit was apparent from the selection of the three EA designs in SSD CI recipients. Further studies focusing on subjective results, sound quality, and music perception depending on EA design in SSD CI recipients are needed.

Objective The purpose of the present study was to investigate effective masking levels (EMLs) for bone conduction (BC) auditory brainstem response (ABR) testing in infants and adults. Early hearing detection and intervention programs aim to limit delays in identifying ear-specific type/degree of hearing loss in infants using the ABR. Ear-specific assessment poses challenges as sound delivered to one ear can travel across the skull and activate the contralateral cochlea. Wave V amplitude and latency measures ipsilateral and contralateral to the bone oscillator can be compared to isolate the test cochlea in some cases; however, when these findings are equivocal, clinical masking is required. This study aims to determine EMLs for ABRs elicited to 500- and 2000-Hz BC stimuli for normal-hearing infants (0 to 18 months) and adults. Design Participants were 21 adults (18 to 54 years) and 24 infants (5 to 47 weeks) with normal hearing. BC 500- and 2000-Hz brief tonal stimuli at intensities approximating normal levels were presented via a B-71 oscillator (infants: 20 dB nHL at 500 Hz and 30 dB nHL at 2000 Hz; adults: 500 and 2000 Hz at 20 and 30 dB nHL, respectively). White noise masking was presented binaurally via ER-3A earphones (22 to 82 dB SPL; 10-dB steps). The lowest level of masking to eliminate a BC response was deemed the EML. Results For stimuli presented at 20 dB nHL, adult mean (1 SD) EMLs for 500 and 2000 Hz were 65 (9) and 53 (6) dB SPL, respectively. Mean EMLs for infants were 80 (6) dB SPL for 500 Hz at 20 dB nHL and 64 (9) dB SPL for 2000 Hz at 30 dB nHL. Compared to adults, infants required approximately 13 dB more masking at 500 Hz but a similar amount of masking at 2000 Hz. Infants required 26 dB more masking at 500 versus 2000 Hz, whereas, adults required only 12 dB more masking. Conclusions Maximum binaural EMLs for infant BC responses elicited to 500 Hz at 20 dB nHL are 82 dB SPL, and for 2000 Hz at 30 and 40 dB nHL, respectively, are 72 and 82 dB SPL. Monaural masking levels for the nontest ear (assuming 10 dB of interaural attenuation) recommended clinically are as follows: (1) 500 Hz: 72 and 82 dB SPL at 20 and 30 dB nHL, respectively; and (2) 2000 Hz: 62, 72, and 82 dB SPL at 30, 40, and 50 dB nHL, respectively. Unsafe levels of white noise would be needed to effectively mask at greater stimulus levels.

The article discloses the practical side of the transdisciplinary approach in speech therapy work and rehabilitation of children with alalia. In diagnosing speech disorders, the author believes that the behavior of children with alalia is closely related to the physiological activity of the brain, that diagnosis of speech disorders based on EEG and neuropsychological methods, as well as knowledge of the insufficiency of individual brain structures, which is supported by data from electroencephalographic research, are important for speech therapists in complex rehabilitation. Binaural therapy (individual alpha balance correction program) was used for children after EEG diagnosis of their dominant alpha rhythm, which matched their dominant rhythm in the selected time interval.

Enhancing Audio Description is a research project that explores how sound design, first-person narration and binaural audio could be utilised to provide accessible versions of films for visually impaired audiences, presenting an alternative to current Audio Description practices. The present article explores such techniques in the context of the redesign of the short film 'Pearl', by discussing the creative process as well as evaluating the feedback supplied by visually impaired audiences. The research presented in this article demonstrates that the methods proposed by the Enhancing Audio Description project were as successful as traditional Audio Description in terms of providing information, enjoyment and accessibility to audiences, demonstrating that both practices can coexist and as a result cater for the different stylistic preferences of end users.