scholarly journals Aberrant perceptual judgements on speech-relevant acoustic features in hallucination-prone individuals

Author(s):  
Julia Erb ◽  
Jens Kreitewolf ◽  
Ana P. Pinheiro ◽  
Jonas Obleser

AbstractHallucinations constitute an intriguing model of how percepts are generated and how perception can fail. Here, we investigate the hypothesis that an altered perceptual weighting of the spectro-temporal modulations that characterize speech contributes to the emergence of auditory verbal hallucinations. Healthy adults (N=168) varying in their predisposition for hallucinations had to choose the ‘more speech-like’ of two presented ambiguous sound textures and give a confidence judgement. Using psychophysical reverse correlation, we quantified the contribution of different acoustic features to a listener’s perceptual decisions. Higher hallucination proneness covaried with perceptual down-weighting of speech-typical, low-frequency acoustic energy while prioritising high frequencies. Remarkably, higher confidence judgements in single trials depended not only on acoustic evidence but also on an individual’s hallucination proneness and schizotypy score. In line with an account of altered perceptual priors and differential weighting of sensory evidence, these results show that hallucination-prone individuals exhibit qualitative and quantitative changes in their perception of the modulations typical for speech.Author summaryHallucinations -- that is, percepts in the absence of an external stimulus -- are prevalent in psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia, but also occur in the general population. To date it is unknown whether the emergence of hallucinations is rooted in an altered perception of sounds. Fusing the psychophysical technique of reverse correlation with concepts from computational psychiatry, this research reveals alterations of sensory processing in hallucination-prone adults. We show that the higher nonclinical adults’ predisposition to hallucinations, the more they prioritise the sound features atypical for speech such as higher frequencies. At the same time, they express higher confidence in their perceptual judgements. The present approach may contribute to improving early diagnosis and prevention strategies in individuals at risk for psychosis.

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Erb ◽  
Jens Kreitewolf ◽  
Ana P Pinheiro ◽  
Jonas Obleser

Abstract Hallucinations constitute an intriguing model of how percepts are generated and how perception can fail. Here, we investigate the hypothesis that an altered perceptual weighting of the spectro-temporal modulations that characterize speech contributes to the emergence of auditory verbal hallucinations. Healthy human adults (N = 168) varying in their predisposition to hallucinations had to choose the “more speech-like” of two presented ambiguous sound textures and give a confidence judgment. Using psychophysical reverse correlation, we quantified the contribution of different acoustic features to a listener’s perceptual decisions. Higher hallucination proneness covaried with perceptual down-weighting of speech-typical, low-frequency acoustic energy and prioritizing of high frequencies. Remarkably, higher confidence judgments in single trials depended not only on acoustic evidence but also on an individual’s hallucination proneness and schizotypy score. In line with an account of altered perceptual priors and differential weighting of sensory evidence, these results show that hallucination-prone individuals exhibit qualitative and quantitative changes in their perception of the modulations typical for speech.


2011 ◽  
Vol 680 ◽  
pp. 114-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
ZORANA ZERAVCIC ◽  
DETLEF LOHSE ◽  
WIM VAN SAARLOOS

In this paper the collective oscillations of a bubble cloud in an acoustic field are theoretically analysed with concepts and techniques of condensed matter physics. More specifically, we will calculate the eigenmodes and their excitabilities, eigenfrequencies, densities of states, responses, absorption and participation ratios to better understand the collective dynamics of coupled bubbles and address the question of possible localization of acoustic energy in the bubble cloud. The radial oscillations of the individual bubbles in the acoustic field are described by coupled linearized Rayleigh–Plesset equations. We explore the effects of viscous damping, distance between bubbles, polydispersity, geometric disorder, size of the bubbles and size of the cloud. For large enough clusters, the collective response is often very different from that of a typical mode, as the frequency response of each mode is sufficiently wide that many modes are excited when the cloud is driven by ultrasound. The reason is the strong effect of viscosity on the collective mode response, which is surprising, as viscous damping effects are small for single-bubble oscillations in water. Localization of acoustic energy is only found in the case of substantial bubble size polydispersity or geometric disorder. The lack of localization for a weak disorder is traced back to the long-range 1/r interaction potential between the individual bubbles. The results of the present paper are connected to recent experimental observations of collective bubble oscillations in a two-dimensional bubble cloud, where pronounced edge states and a pronounced low-frequency response had been observed, both consistent with the present theoretical findings. Finally, an outlook to future possible experiments is given.


2017 ◽  
Vol 264 ◽  
pp. 84-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ming Yuan ◽  
Ziping Cao ◽  
Jun Luo ◽  
Jinya Zhang ◽  
Cheng Chang

Low frequency passive towed array sonar is an essential component in a torpedo detection system for surface ships. Compact towed arrays are used for torpedo detection and they will be towed at higher towing speeds compared to conventional towed array sonars used for surveillance. Presence of non-acoustic noise in towed array sensors at higher towing speeds degrades torpedo detection capability at lower frequencies. High wavenumber mechanical vibrations are induced in the array by vortex shedding associated with hydrodynamic flow over the array body and cable scope. These vibrations are known to couple into the hydrophone array as nonacoustic noise sources and can impair acoustic detection performance, particularly in the forward end fire direction. Lengthy mechanical vibration isolation modules can isolate vibration induced noise in towed arrays, but this is not recommended in a towed array which is towed at high speeds as it will increase the drag and system complexity. An algorithm for decomposing acoustic and non-acoustic components of signals received at sensor level using well known frequency-wavenumber transform (F-K transform) is presented here. Frequency-wavenumber diagrams can be used for differentiating between acoustic and non-acoustic signals. An area of V shape is identified within the F-K spectrum where acoustic energy is confined. Energy outside this V will highlight non-acoustic energy. Enhanced simultaneous spatio-temporal and spatio-amplitude detection is possible with this algorithm. Performance of this algorithm is validated through simulation and experimental data.


2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 025035 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaole Wang ◽  
Jiajie Xu ◽  
Jingjing Ding ◽  
Chunyu Zhao ◽  
Zhenyu Huang

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (5) ◽  
pp. 3295-3303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiao Tan ◽  
Danfeng Zhang ◽  
Keshab Parajuli ◽  
Sanjina Upadhyay ◽  
Yuji Jiang ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Vol 283 ◽  
pp. 02003
Author(s):  
Jun Zhu ◽  
Hanhao Zhu ◽  
Jun Tang ◽  
Guangxue Zheng

Targeted at the issue of extremely low-frequency (<100Hz) acoustic propagation in complex shallow elastic bottom environments. The influence law of different complex elastic bottoms on the acoustic signal propagation at very low frequency by acoustic energy flux has been analyzed with the simulation, which is based on the finite element method. The elastic bottoms which have been studied are the shallow horizontal elastic bottom, and the up-sloping and the down-sloping elastic bottom. The results show that the acoustic signal propagating in the up-sloping and down-sloping elastic bottom environments is more complex than that propagating in the horizontal elastic bottom, and the acoustic energy leaking into those elastic bottoms has very different influence on the acoustic signal propagation, especially in the up-sloping bottom.


Author(s):  
D. S. Li ◽  
L. Cheng ◽  
C. M. Gosselin

Active control of vibration and sound inside a structure-surrounded enclosure leads to many applications such as noise control inside vehicle cabins. Despite the extensive research carried out in the last two decades, ANVC technology is still in its infancy and has not yet been introduced massively in practical engineering applications. One of the problems to be resolved is that most of presently used techniques require the use of microphones inside the cavity, which is not practical in many situations. In addition, due to the coupling between the vibrating structure and the confined enclosure, demand for more robust control strategy is apparent. This paper tackles the aforementioned problem using a benchmark system in which only PVDF (Polymer polyvinylidene fluoride) sensors are used on the structural surface. A new method based on genetic algorithms is developed for sensor design. This design process ensures a proper consideration of the acoustic energy in the enclosure without the direct use of acoustic sensors inside the cavity. Roughly speaking, the sensor is designed to capture the most radiating motion of the structure via an automatic optimization process. In the proposed method, Genetic Algorithms and the least quadratic square optimal theory are organically combined together. For each configuration of error sensors, the amplitude of control forces, which can either be point forces or excitation generated by piezoceramic actuators, is first determined by minimizing the sum of the squared outputs of error sensors using the least quadratic square optimal theory. Then with the optimal amplitude of control forces, the acoustic potential energy of the sound cavity is computed and used as the evaluation criteria in the evolution process. Using Genetic Algorithms, the optimal configuration of the error sensors can be determined. A cylindrical shell with an internal floor partition is used as an example to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. To increase the computational efficiency, the structural surface is assumed to be covered with strip-typed PVDF sensors along both the circumferential and longitudinal directions. Both numerical and experimental results show the great effectiveness of the proposed GA-based design method. The sound reduction is achieved not only at the design frequency but also at most frequencies in the low frequency range. The proposed method demonstrates great merits in sensor design for complex structures.


2012 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuomas Eerola ◽  
Rafael Ferrer ◽  
Vinoo Alluri

considerable effort has been made towards understanding how acoustic and structural features contribute to emotional expression in music, but relatively little attention has been paid to the role of timbre in this process. Our aim was to investigate the role of timbre in the perception of affect dimensions in isolated musical sounds, by way of three behavioral experiments. In Experiment 1, participants evaluated perceived affects of 110 instrument sounds that were equal in duration, pitch, and dynamics using a three-dimensional affect model (valence, energy arousal, and tension arousal) and preference and emotional intensity. In Experiment 2, an emotional dissimilarity task was applied to a subset of the instrument sounds used in Experiment 1 to better reveal the underlying affect structure. In Experiment 3, the perceived affect dimensions as well as preference and intensity of a new set of 105 instrument sounds were rated by participants. These sounds were also uniform in pitch, duration, and playback dynamics but contained systematic manipulations in the dynamics of sound production, articulation, and ratio of high-frequency to low-frequency energy. The affect dimensions for all the experiments were then explained in terms of the three kinds of acoustic features extracted: spectral (e.g., ratio of high-frequency to low-frequency energy), temporal (e.g., attack slope), and spectro-temporal (e.g., spectral flux). High agreement among the participants' ratings across the experiments suggested that even isolated instrument sounds contain cues that indicate affective expression, and these are recognized as such by the listeners. A dominant portion (50-57%) of the two dimensions of affect (valence and energy arousal) could be predicted by linear combinations of few acoustic features such as ratio of high-frequency to low-frequency energy, attack slope, and spectral regularity. Links between these features and those observed in the vocal expression of affects and other sound phenomena are discussed.


1979 ◽  
Vol 91 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. S. Howe

This paper examines the energy conversion mechanisms which govern the emission of low frequency sound from an axisymmetric jet pipe of arbitrary nozzle contraction ratio in the case of low Mach number nozzle flow. The incident acoustic energy which escapes from the nozzle is partitioned between two distinct disturbances in the exterior fluid. The first of these is the free-space radiation, whose directivity is equivalent to that produced by monopole and dipole sources. Second, essentially incompressible vortex waves are excited by the shedding of vorticity from the nozzle lip, and may be associated with the large-scale instabilities of the jet. Two linearized theoretical models are discussed. One of these is an exact linear theory in which the boundary of the jet is treated as an unstable vortex sheet. The second assumes that the finite width of the mean shear layer of the real jet cannot be neglected. The analytical results are shown to compare favourably with recent attenuation measurements.


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