Brief-Tone Frequency Discrimination by Children

1999 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 1061-1068 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nella C. Thompson ◽  
Jerry L. Cranford ◽  
Elmer Hoyer
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Inverse Relationship ◽  
Frequency Discrimination ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Experimental Task ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Tone Duration ◽  
Tone Frequency ◽  
Choice Procedure ◽  
Forced Choice Procedure

This study investigated maturational changes in children's ability to discriminate the frequency of short-duration tone pulses. Frequency difference limens (DLs) were measured for digitally generated 1000-Hz tones with pulse durations of 200, 50, and 20 ms using a two-alternative, two-interval, forced-choice procedure. Participants were 16 5-year-old children; 10 children each in the age categories of 7, 9, and 11 years; and a control group of 10 young adults. Eleven of the 5-year-old children were unable to learn the experimental task. All children in the three older groups and the adults successfully completed the study. The five 5-year-old children who completed the task performed similarly to the 7-year-old children. All groups of participants showed an inverse relationship between duration of the signal and the size of the DL. The DLs at all three tone durations were significantly larger for the 7-year-old children than they were for the older children and adults. There were no significant differences in DL size among the 9-year-old, 11-year-old, and adult subjects at any tone duration. These findings suggest that the sensory and/or cognitive skills required to discriminate the frequency of brief-duration tones may not reach maturity until after age 7 years.

scholarly journals Pure-Tone Frequency Discrimination in Preschoolers, Young School-Age Children, and Adults

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (9) ◽  
pp. 2440-2445
Author(s):  
Jane Rose ◽  
Mary Flaherty ◽  
Jenna Browning ◽  
Lori J. Leibold ◽  
Emily Buss
Keyword(s):  
Frequency Discrimination ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Published Data ◽  
School Age ◽  
Tone Frequency ◽  
Standard Frequency ◽  
Choice Procedure ◽  
Forced Choice Procedure ◽  
Improved Performance ◽  
Interval Observer

Purpose Published data indicate nearly adultlike frequency discrimination in infants but large child–adult differences for school-age children. This study evaluated the role that differences in measurement procedures and stimuli may have played in the apparent nonmonotonicity. Frequency discrimination was assessed in preschoolers, young school-age children, and adults using stimuli and procedures that have previously been used to test infants. Method Listeners were preschoolers (3–4 years), young school-age children (5–6 years), and adults (19–38 years). Performance was assessed using a single-interval, observer-based method and a continuous train of stimuli, similar to that previously used to evaluate infants. Testing was completed using 500- and 5000-Hz standard tones, fixed within a set of trials. Thresholds for frequency discrimination were obtained using an adaptive, two-down one-up procedure. Adults and most school-age children responded by raising their hands. An observer-based, conditioned-play response was used to test preschoolers and those school-age children for whom the hand-raise procedure was not effective for conditioning. Results Results suggest an effect of age and frequency on thresholds but no interaction between these 2 factors. A lower proportion of preschoolers completed training compared with young school-age children. For those children who completed training, however, thresholds did not improve significantly with age; both groups of children performed more poorly than adults. Performance was better for the 500-Hz standard frequency compared with the 5000-Hz standard frequency. Conclusions Thresholds for school-age children were broadly similar to those previously observed using a forced-choice procedure. Although there was a trend for improved performance with increasing age, no significant age effect was observed between preschoolers and school-age children. The practice of excluding participants based on failure to meet conditioning criteria in an observer-based task could contribute to the relatively good performance observed for preschoolers in this study and the adultlike performance previously observed in infants.

scholarly journals Factors Affecting Sensitivity to Frequency Change in School-Age Children and Adults

2014 ◽  
Vol 57 (5) ◽  
pp. 1972-1982 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Buss ◽  
Crystal N. Taylor ◽  
Lori J. Leibold
Keyword(s):  
Pure Tone ◽  
Musical Training ◽  
Frequency Discrimination ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Frequency Change ◽  
School Age ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Tone Frequency ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Temporal Cues

Purpose The factors affecting frequency discrimination in school-age children are poorly understood. The goal of the present study was to evaluate developmental effects related to memory for pitch and the utilization of temporal fine structure. Method Listeners were 5.1- to 13.6-year-olds and adults, all with normal hearing. A subgroup of children had musical training. The task was a 3-alternative forced choice in which listeners identified the interval with the higher frequency tone or the tone characterized by frequency modulation (FM). The standard was 500 or 5000 Hz, and the FM rate was either 2 or 20 Hz. Results Thresholds tended to be higher for younger children than for older children and adults for all conditions, although this age effect was smaller for FM detection than for pure-tone frequency discrimination. Neither standard frequency nor modulation rate affected the child/adult difference FM thresholds. Children with musical training performed better than their peers on pure-tone frequency discrimination at 500 Hz. Conclusions Testing frequency discrimination using a low-rate FM detection task may minimize effects related to cognitive factors like memory for pitch or training effects. Maturation of frequency discrimination does not appear to differ across conditions in which listeners are hypothesized to rely on temporal cues and place cues.

Discovery and Expository Methods in Teaching Visual Consonant and Word Identification

1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (5) ◽  
pp. 1180-1188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoinette T. Gesi ◽  
Dominic W. Massaro ◽  
Michael M. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Word Identification ◽  
Original Learning ◽  
Forced Choice ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Monosyllabic Word ◽  
Choice Procedure ◽  
Monosyllabic Words ◽  
Forced Choice Procedure ◽  
Optimal Approach ◽  
Methods Of Learning

An experiment was conducted to examine the processes involved in lipreading as well as to investigate an optimal approach to teaching lipreading skill. We compared discovery and expository methods of learning to lip-read. Twenty-six college students with normal hearing were trained over 3 days to lip-read consonant-vowel (CV) syllables. The training material consisted of a prerecorded videotape of four different talkers. The task was a forced-choice procedure with feedback. Subjects learned with training, but there was no difference between the two learning methods. As a retention measure, subjects returned 4 weeks later and repeated the training. There were significant savings of the original learning. Three weeks after the retention phase, subjects were tested with a 10-item forced-choice monosyllabic word task. Those subjects who had extensive training on CV syllables did no better on identifying the monosyllabic words than did a control group of 9 subjects with no training. Nevertheless, performance for all three groups (discovery, expository, and no training) improved during training in the word identification task.

Screening for haemorrhagic disorders in paediatric patients by means of a questionnaire

2009 ◽  
Vol 29 (S 01) ◽  
pp. S87-S89 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Music ◽  
M. Novak ◽  
B. Acham-Roschitz ◽  
W. Muntean
Keyword(s):  
Predictive Value ◽  
Laboratory Diagnosis ◽  
Von Willebrand Disease ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Mild Disease ◽  
History Of ◽  
Von Willebrand ◽  
Specific Symptoms ◽  
Infants And Young Children

SummaryAim: In children, screening for haemorrhagic disorders is further complicated by the fact that infants and young children with mild disease in many cases most likely will not have a significant history of easy bruising or bleeding making the efficacy of a questionnaire even more questionable. Patients, methods: We compared the questionnaires of a group of 88 children in whom a haemorrhagic disorder was ruled out by rigorous laboratory investigation to a group of 38 children with mild von Willebrand disease (VWD). Questionnaires about child, mother and father were obtained prior to the laboratory diagnosis on the occasion of routine preoperative screening. Results: 23/38 children with mild VWD showed at least one positive question in the questionnaire, while 21/88 without laboratory signs showed at least one positive question. There was a trend to more specific symptoms in older children. Three or more positive questions were found only in VWD patients, but only in a few of the control group. The question about menstrual bleeding in mothers did not differ significantly. Sensitivity of the questionnaire for a hemostatic disorder was 0.60, while specifity was 0.76. The negative predictive value was 0.82, but the positive predictive value was only 0.52. Conclusions: Our small study shows, that a questionnaire yields good results to exclude a haemostatic disorder, but is not a sensitive tool to identify such a disorder.

scholarly journals High Ripple-Density Resolution for Discriminating Between Rippled and Nonrippled Signals: Effect of Temporal Processing or Combination Products?

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 233121652110101
Author(s):  
Dmitry I. Nechaev ◽  
Olga N. Milekhina ◽  
Marina S. Tomozova ◽  
Alexander Y. Supin
Keyword(s):  
Low Frequency ◽  
Noise Signal ◽  
Density Variation ◽  
Choice Procedure ◽  
Masker Level ◽  
Reference Signals ◽  
Forced Choice Procedure ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Density Resolution

The goal of the study was to investigate the role of combination products in the higher ripple-density resolution estimates obtained by discrimination between a spectrally rippled and a nonrippled noise signal than that obtained by discrimination between two rippled signals. To attain this goal, a noise band was used to mask the frequency band of expected low-frequency combination products. A three-alternative forced-choice procedure with adaptive ripple-density variation was used. The mean background (unmasked) ripple-density resolution was 9.8 ripples/oct for rippled reference signals and 21.8 ripples/oct for nonrippled reference signals. Low-frequency maskers reduced the ripple-density resolution. For masker levels from −10 to 10 dB re. signal, the ripple-density resolution for nonrippled reference signals was approximately twice as high as that for rippled reference signals. At a masker level as high as 20 dB re. signal, the ripple-density resolution decreased in both discrimination tasks. This result leads to the conclusion that low-frequency combination products are not responsible for the task-dependent difference in ripple-density resolution estimates.

Computerized Cognitive Training with Learning Disabled Students: A Pilot Study

1992 ◽  
Vol 71 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1347-1356 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Talbot ◽  
M. Pépin ◽  
M. Loranger
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Training Program ◽  
Cognitive Training ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Mental Arithmetic ◽  
Learning Disabled ◽  
Skills Development ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Disabled Students ◽  
Computerized Cognitive Training

The effects of practicing computerized exercises in class by 59 learning disabled students who received an 8-hr. training program, 30 min. per week, were evaluated. Six exercises designed to facilitate basic cognitive skills development were used. Twelve subjects were assigned to a control group without any form of intervention. Covariance analysis (pretest scores used as covariates) showed a significant effect of training on mental arithmetic. These results suggest that practicing a computerized exercise of mental arithmetic can facilitate the automatization of basic arithmetic skills (addition, subtraction, and multiplication). The nature, progress, and evaluation of such types of intervention are discussed.

Do Monkeys and Young Children Understand Exclusive “Or” Relations? A Commentary on Ferrigno et al. (2021)

2021 ◽  
pp. 095679762110246
Author(s):  
Shalini Gautam ◽  
Thomas Suddendorf ◽  
Jonathan Redshaw
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Response Pattern ◽  
Compelling Evidence ◽  
Experimental Task ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Disjunctive Syllogism ◽  
Identical Response ◽  
Exclusive Or

Ferrigno et al. (2021) claim to provide evidence that monkeys can reason through the disjunctive syllogism (given A or B, not A, therefore B) and conclude that monkeys therefore understand logical “or” relations. Yet their data fail to provide evidence that the baboons they tested understood the exclusive “or” relations in the experimental task. For two mutually exclusive possibilities—A or B—the monkeys appeared to infer that B was true when A was shown to be false, but they failed to infer that B was false when A was shown to be true. In our own research, we recently found an identical response pattern in 2.5- to 4-year-old children, whereas 5-year-olds demonstrated that they could make both inferences. The monkeys’ and younger children’s responses are instead consistent with an incorrect understanding of A and B as having an inclusive “or” relation. Only the older children provided compelling evidence of representing the exclusive “or” relation between A and B.

Age Effects on Measures of Auditory Duration Discrimination

1994 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 662-670 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J. Fitzgibbons ◽  
Sandra Gordon-Salant
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Stimulus Frequency ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Duration Discrimination ◽  
Elderly Subjects ◽  
Hearing Sensitivity ◽  
Choice Procedure ◽  
Forced Choice Procedure ◽  
Tonal Stimuli ◽  
Young And Elderly Subjects

This study examined auditory temporal sensitivity in young adult and elderly listeners using psychophysical tasks that measured duration discrimination. Listeners in the experiments were divided into groups of young and elderly subjects with normal hearing sensitivity and with mild-to-moderate sloping sensorineural hearing loss. Temporal thresholds in all tasks were measured with an adaptive forced-choice procedure using tonal stimuli centered at 500 Hz and 4000 Hz. Difference limens for duration were measured for tone bursts (250 msec reference duration) and for silent intervals between tone bursts (250 msec and 6.4 msec reference durations). Results showed that the elderly listeners exhibited diminished duration discrimination for both tones and silent intervals when the reference duration was 250 msec. Hearing loss did not affect these results. Discrimination of the brief temporal gap (6.4 msec) was influenced by age and hearing loss, but these effects were not consistent across all listeners. Effects of stimulus frequency were not evident for most of the duration discrimination conditions.

scholarly journals Effects of an attachment-based intervention on the cortisol production of infants and toddlers in foster care

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 845-859 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Dozier ◽  
Elizabeth Peloso ◽  
Erin Lewis ◽  
Jean-Philippe Laurenceau ◽  
Seymour Levine
Keyword(s):  
Foster Care ◽  
Developmental Education ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Comparison Group ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Strange Situation ◽  
Initial Values ◽  
Children In Foster Care ◽  
Control Intervention ◽  
And Behavior

AbstractStudies with nonhuman primates and rodents, as well as with human children, have suggested that early separations from caregivers are often associated with changes in the functioning of the hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis. On the basis of these findings, we designed a relational intervention that was intended to normalize HPA functioning among children in foster care. This paper presents findings from a randomized clinical trial that assessed the effectiveness of a relational intervention (Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up [ABC]) with regard to HPA functioning. The ABC intervention was intended to enhance children's ability to regulate physiology and behavior. The control intervention (Developmental Education for Families) was intended to enhance children's cognitive skills. A comparison group of children who had never been in foster care was also included. Children's cortisol production was assessed upon arrival at the lab, and 15 and 30 min following the Strange Situation. Random effects analyses of variance were performed to assess differences in initial values and change between children in the two intervention groups. Children in the ABC intervention and comparison group children showed lower initial values of cortisol than children in the treatment control group, considering arrival at lab as initial values (p < .05). Groups did not differ significantly in change over time. These results suggest that the ABC intervention is effective in helping children regulate biology in ways more characteristic of children who have not experienced early adversity.

Perceptual Learning Is Specific to the Trained Structure of Information

2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (12) ◽  
pp. 2047-2060 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yamit Cohen ◽  
Luba Daikhin ◽  
Merav Ahissar
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Structure ◽  
Frequency Discrimination ◽  
Perceptual Task ◽  
Hierarchy Theory ◽  
Tone Frequency ◽  
Potential Cost ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Group A ◽  
Fixed Reference ◽  
Key Questions

What do we learn when we practice a simple perceptual task? Many studies have suggested that we learn to refine or better select the sensory representations of the task-relevant dimension. Here we show that learning is specific to the trained structural regularities. Specifically, when this structure is modified after training with a fixed temporal structure, performance regresses to pretraining levels, even when the trained stimuli and task are retained. This specificity raises key questions as to the importance of low-level sensory modifications in the learning process. We trained two groups of participants on a two-tone frequency discrimination task for several days. In one group, a fixed reference tone was consistently presented in the first interval (the second tone was higher or lower), and in the other group the same reference tone was consistently presented in the second interval. When following training, these temporal protocols were switched between groups, performance of both groups regressed to pretraining levels, and further training was needed to attain postlearning performance. ERP measures, taken before and after training, indicated that participants implicitly learned the temporal regularity of the protocol and formed an attentional template that matched the trained structure of information. These results are consistent with Reverse Hierarchy Theory, which posits that even the learning of simple perceptual tasks progresses in a top–down manner, hence can benefit from temporal regularities at the trial level, albeit at the potential cost that learning may be specific to these regularities.

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