Binaural masking experiments using noise maskers with frequency‐dependent interaural phase differences. I: Influence of signal and masker duration

Stutterers and nonstutterers cancelled the auditory sensation evoked by bone-conducted sinusoidal signals. They accomplished this by appropriate phase and amplitude adjustments of simultaneously presented bilateral air-conducted signals of the same frequency. Criterion measures of interaural phase difference at the point of cancellation were obtained for seven frequencies. The mean interaural phase differences obtained by stutterers were consistently greater than those of the nonstutterers. Based on time-equivalent values of the mean interaural phase differences, the values for stutterers were approximately twice as great as for nonstutterers at 150, 300, and 1200 Hz. The mean interaural phase difference found to exist for stutterers at 150 Hz approximates the magnitude of phase shift of normally delayed air-conducted auditory feedback of speech sounds that serves to induce experimental blockage of phonation. This relationship, in view of other findings, offers credence to the idea that disturbance of laryngeal function effected by an anomalous audition-phonation control system could be a causative agent in stuttering.

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Frequency-dependent interaural delays in the medial superior olive: implications for interaural cochlear delays

Journal of Neurophysiology ◽

10.1152/jn.00131.2011 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 106 (4) ◽

pp. 1985-1999 ◽

Cited By ~ 36

Author(s):

Mitchell L. Day ◽

Malcolm N. Semple

Keyword(s):

Interaural Time Difference ◽

Superior Olivary Complex ◽

Medial Superior Olive ◽

Biophysical Parameters ◽

Tone Frequency ◽

Frequency Dependent ◽

Superior Olive ◽

Interaural Phase ◽

Cochlear Delays ◽

Delay Component

Neurons in the medial superior olive (MSO) are tuned to the interaural time difference (ITD) of sound arriving at the two ears. MSO neurons evoke a strongest response at their best delay (BD), at which the internal delay between bilateral inputs to MSO matches the external ITD. We performed extracellular recordings in the superior olivary complex of the anesthetized gerbil and found a majority of single units localized to the MSO to exhibit BDs that shifted with tone frequency. The relation of best interaural phase difference to tone frequency revealed nonlinearities in some MSO units and others with linear relations with characteristic phase between 0.4 and 0.6 cycles. The latter is usually associated with the interaction of ipsilateral excitation and contralateral inhibition, as in the lateral superior olive, yet all MSO units exhibited evidence of bilateral excitation. Interaural cochlear delays and phase-locked contralateral inhibition are two mechanisms of internal delay that have been suggested to create frequency-dependent delays. Best interaural phase-frequency relations were compared with a cross-correlation model of MSO that incorporated interaural cochlear delays and an additional frequency-independent delay component. The model with interaural cochlear delay fit phase-frequency relations exhibiting frequency-dependent delays with precision. Another model of MSO incorporating inhibition based on realistic biophysical parameters could not reproduce observed frequency-dependent delays.

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