Can You Hear Out the Melody? Testing Musical Scene Perception in Young Normal-Hearing and Older Hearing-Impaired Listeners

It is well known that hearing loss compromises auditory scene analysis abilities, as is usually manifested in difficulties of understanding speech in noise. Remarkably little is known about auditory scene analysis of hearing-impaired (HI) listeners when it comes to musical sounds. Specifically, it is unclear to which extent HI listeners are able to hear out a melody or an instrument from a musical mixture. Here, we tested a group of younger normal-hearing (yNH) and older HI (oHI) listeners with moderate hearing loss in their ability to match short melodies and instruments presented as part of mixtures. Four-tone sequences were used in conjunction with a simple musical accompaniment that acted as a masker (cello/piano dyads or spectrally matched noise). In each trial, a signal-masker mixture was presented, followed by two different versions of the signal alone. Listeners indicated which signal version was part of the mixture. Signal versions differed either in terms of the sequential order of the pitch sequence or in terms of timbre (flute vs. trumpet). Signal-to-masker thresholds were measured by varying the signal presentation level in an adaptive two-down/one-up procedure. We observed that thresholds of oHI listeners were elevated by on average 10 dB compared with that of yNH listeners. In contrast to yNH listeners, oHI listeners did not show evidence of listening in dips of the masker. Musical training of participants was associated with a lowering of thresholds. These results may indicate detrimental effects of hearing loss on central aspects of musical scene perception.

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A Comparison of Auditory Perception in Hearing-Impaired and Normal-Hearing Listeners: An Auditory Scene Analysis Study

Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal ◽

10.5812/ircmj.9477 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 15 (11) ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Arash Bayat ◽

Mohammad Farhadi ◽

Akram Pourbakht ◽

Hamed Sadjedi ◽

Hesam Emamdjomeh ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Auditory Perception ◽

Auditory Scene Analysis ◽

Normal Hearing ◽

Hearing Impaired ◽

Scene Analysis ◽

Analysis Study ◽

Auditory Scene

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Interindividual variability in auditory scene analysis revealed by confidence judgements

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2016.0107 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 372 (1714) ◽

pp. 20160107 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

C. Pelofi ◽

V. de Gardelle ◽

P. Egré ◽

D. Pressnitzer

Keyword(s):

Musical Training ◽

Reaction Times ◽

Auditory Scene Analysis ◽

Scene Analysis ◽

Perceptual Awareness ◽

Stimulus Ambiguity ◽

Auditory Scene ◽

Ambiguous Case ◽

Auditory Scenes ◽

Pitch Shift

Because musicians are trained to discern sounds within complex acoustic scenes, such as an orchestra playing, it has been hypothesized that musicianship improves general auditory scene analysis abilities. Here, we compared musicians and non-musicians in a behavioural paradigm using ambiguous stimuli, combining performance, reaction times and confidence measures. We used ‘Shepard tones’, for which listeners may report either an upward or a downward pitch shift for the same ambiguous tone pair. Musicians and non-musicians performed similarly on the pitch-shift direction task. In particular, both groups were at chance for the ambiguous case. However, groups differed in their reaction times and judgements of confidence. Musicians responded to the ambiguous case with long reaction times and low confidence, whereas non-musicians responded with fast reaction times and maximal confidence. In a subsequent experiment, non-musicians displayed reduced confidence for the ambiguous case when pure-tone components of the Shepard complex were made easier to discern. The results suggest an effect of musical training on scene analysis: we speculate that musicians were more likely to discern components within complex auditory scenes, perhaps because of enhanced attentional resolution, and thus discovered the ambiguity. For untrained listeners, stimulus ambiguity was not available to perceptual awareness. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Auditory and visual scene analysis’.

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Auditory and Musical Development

The Oxford Handbook of Developmental Psychology, Vol. 1 ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199958450.013.0011 ◽

2013 ◽

pp. 309-337 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Laurel J. Trainor ◽

Chao He

Keyword(s):

Auditory Perception ◽

Brain Research ◽

Musical Training ◽

Auditory Scene Analysis ◽

Scene Analysis ◽

Musical Structure ◽

Rhythmic Structure ◽

Musical Development ◽

Young Infants ◽

Auditory Scene

The development of auditory perception is examined in relation to (1) identity and location of objects (auditory scene analysis) and (2) musical structure and meaning. Behavioral and brain research converges to indicate that some capacity to process the frequency, pitch, intensity, timbre, location, and timing of sounds is present very early in development, although there is a protracted experience-driven period of plasticity, with adult levels of maturity typically not reached until well in to childhood. Young infants are also able to process aspects of musical structure. At the same time, enculturation to the specific melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic structure of the musical system of a person’s culture depends on the considerable exposure to that musical system experienced by all members of the culture, and intensive musical training affects the speed and degree of that enculturation.

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Tracking Musical Voices in Bach's The Art of the Fugue: Timbral Heterogeneity Differentially Affects Younger Normal-Hearing Listeners and Older Hearing-Aid Users

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.608684 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Kai Siedenburg ◽

Kirsten Goldmann ◽

Steven van de Par

Keyword(s):

Hearing Aids ◽

Music Perception ◽

Hearing Aid ◽

Auditory Scene Analysis ◽

Normal Hearing ◽

Scene Analysis ◽

Superior Performance ◽

Auditory Scene ◽

Two Factors

Auditory scene analysis is an elementary aspect of music perception, yet only little research has scrutinized auditory scene analysis under realistic musical conditions with diverse samples of listeners. This study probed the ability of younger normal-hearing listeners and older hearing-aid users in tracking individual musical voices or lines in JS Bach's The Art of the Fugue. Five-second excerpts with homogeneous or heterogenous instrumentation of 2–4 musical voices were presented from spatially separated loudspeakers and preceded by a short cue for signaling the target voice. Listeners tracked the cued voice and detected whether an amplitude modulation was imposed on the cued voice or a distractor voice. Results indicated superior performance of young normal-hearing listeners compared to older hearing-aid users. Performance was generally better in conditions with fewer voices. For young normal-hearing listeners, there was interaction between the number of voices and the instrumentation: performance degraded less drastically with an increase in the number of voices for timbrally heterogeneous mixtures compared to homogeneous mixtures. Older hearing-aid users generally showed smaller effects of the number of voices and instrumentation, but no interaction between the two factors. Moreover, tracking performance of older hearing aid users did not differ when these participants did or did not wear hearing aids. These results shed light on the role of timbral differentiation in musical scene analysis and suggest reduced musical scene analysis abilities of older hearing-impaired listeners in a realistic musical scenario.

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Perception of Auditory Distance in Normal-Hearing and Moderate-to-Profound Hearing-Impaired Listeners

Trends in Hearing ◽

10.1177/2331216519887615 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 23 ◽

pp. 233121651988761 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Gilles Courtois ◽

Vincent Grimaldi ◽

Hervé Lissek ◽

Philippe Estoppey ◽

Eleftheria Georganti

Keyword(s):

Hearing Loss ◽

Hearing Aids ◽

Normal Hearing ◽

Hearing Impaired ◽

Spatial Cues ◽

Linear Amplification ◽

Profound Hearing Loss ◽

Wireless Microphone ◽

Auditory Distance ◽

Non Linear

The auditory system allows the estimation of the distance to sound-emitting objects using multiple spatial cues. In virtual acoustics over headphones, a prerequisite to render auditory distance impression is sound externalization, which denotes the perception of synthesized stimuli outside of the head. Prior studies have found that listeners with mild-to-moderate hearing loss are able to perceive auditory distance and are sensitive to externalization. However, this ability may be degraded by certain factors, such as non-linear amplification in hearing aids or the use of a remote wireless microphone. In this study, 10 normal-hearing and 20 moderate-to-profound hearing-impaired listeners were instructed to estimate the distance of stimuli processed with different methods yielding various perceived auditory distances in the vicinity of the listeners. Two different configurations of non-linear amplification were implemented, and a novel feature aiming to restore a sense of distance in wireless microphone systems was tested. The results showed that the hearing-impaired listeners, even those with a profound hearing loss, were able to discriminate nearby and far sounds that were equalized in level. Their perception of auditory distance was however more contracted than in normal-hearing listeners. Non-linear amplification was found to distort the original spatial cues, but no adverse effect on the ratings of auditory distance was evident. Finally, it was shown that the novel feature was successful in allowing the hearing-impaired participants to perceive externalized sounds with wireless microphone systems.

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