To investigate the common stereotype that homosexual males show pitch patterns that mirror those of heterosexual females.
Study Design
Static group comparison.
Method
Comparison of speaking fundamental frequency and pitch variation of 30 homosexual males, 56 heterosexual age-matched males, and 54 age-matched heterosexual females as demonstrated in a sample of read speech.
Results
In the homosexual males, average fundamental frequency and pitch variation were significantly higher than in the heterosexual males but also significantly lower than in the heterosexual females.
Conclusions
Results do not confirm the stereotype that gay male speech mirrors the patterns of women’s speech with respect to pitch characteristics. It would seem that the pitch patterns of gay male speakers constitute an example of sociophonetic variation. 相似文献
How do listeners manage to recognize words in an unfamiliar language? The physical continuity of the signal, in which real silent pauses between words are lacking, makes it a difficult task. However, there are multiple cues that can be exploited to localize word boundaries and to segment the acoustic signal. In the present study, word-stress was manipulated with statistical information and placed in different syllables within trisyllabic nonsense words to explore the result of the combination of the cues in an online word segmentation task.
Results
The behavioral results showed that words were segmented better when stress was placed on the final syllables than when it was placed on the middle or first syllable. The electrophysiological results showed an increase in the amplitude of the P2 component, which seemed to be sensitive to word-stress and its location within words.
Conclusion
The results demonstrated that listeners can integrate specific prosodic and distributional cues when segmenting speech. An ERP component related to word-stress cues was identified: stressed syllables elicited larger amplitudes in the P2 component than unstressed ones.
How does the brain repair obliterated speech and cope with acoustically ambivalent situations? A widely discussed possibility is to use top-down information for solving the ambiguity problem. In the case of speech, this may lead to a match of bottom-up sensory input with lexical expectations resulting in resonant states which are reflected in the induced gamma-band activity (GBA).
Methods
In the present EEG study, we compared the subject's pre-attentive GBA responses to obliterated speech segments presented after a series of correct words. The words were a minimal pair in German and differed with respect to the degree of specificity of segmental phonological information.
Results
The induced GBA was larger when the expected lexical information was phonologically fully specified compared to the underspecified condition. Thus, the degree of specificity of phonological information in the mental lexicon correlates with the intensity of the matching process of bottom-up sensory input with lexical information.
Conclusions
These results together with those of a behavioural control experiment support the notion of multi-level mechanisms involved in the repair of deficient speech. The delineated alignment of pre-existing knowledge with sensory input is in accordance with recent ideas about the role of internal forward models in speech perception.
Parkinson's disease, a prevalent neurodegenerative disease, is characterized by the reduction of dopaminergic neurons resulting in the loss of motor control, resting tremor, the formation of neuronal inclusions and ultimately premature death. Two inherited forms of PD have been linked to mutations in the α-synuclein and parkin genes. The parkin protein functions as an ubiquitin ligase targeting specific proteins for degradation. Expression of human α-synuclein in Drosophila neurons recapitulates the loss of motor control, the development of neuronal inclusions, degeneration of dopaminergic neurons and the ommatidial array to provide an excellent genetic model of PD.
Results
To investigate the role of parkin, we have generated transgenic Drosophila that conditionally express parkin under the control of the yeast UAS enhancer. While expression of parkin has little consequence, co-expression of parkin with α-synuclein in the dopaminergic neurons suppresses the α-synuclein-induced premature loss of climbing ability. In addition directed expression of parkin in the eye counteracts the α-synuclein-induced degeneration of the ommatidial array. These results show that parkin suppresses the PD-like symptoms observed in the α-synuclein-dependent Drosophila model of PD.
Conclusion
The highly conserved parkin E3 ubiquitin ligase can suppress the damaging effects of human α-synuclein. These results are consistent with a role for parkin in targeting α-synuclein to the proteasome. If this relationship is conserved in humans, this suggests that up-regulation of parkin should suppress α-synucleinopathic PD. The development of therapies that regulate parkin activity may be crucial in the treatment of PD.
How does the brain convert sounds and phonemes into comprehensible speech? In the present magnetoencephalographic study we examined the hypothesis that the coherence of electromagnetic oscillatory activity within and across brain areas indicates neurophysiological processes linked to speech comprehension.
Results
Amplitude-modulated (sinusoidal 41.5 Hz) auditory verbal and nonverbal stimuli served to drive steady-state oscillations in neural networks involved in speech comprehension. Stimuli were presented to 12 subjects in the following conditions (a) an incomprehensible string of words, (b) the same string of words after being introduced as a comprehensible sentence by proper articulation, and (c) nonverbal stimulations that included a 600-Hz tone, a scale, and a melody. Coherence, defined as correlated activation of magnetic steady state fields across brain areas and measured as simultaneous activation of current dipoles in source space (Minimum-Norm-Estimates), increased within left- temporal-posterior areas when the sound string was perceived as a comprehensible sentence. Intra-hemispheric coherence was larger within the left than the right hemisphere for the sentence (condition (b) relative to all other conditions), and tended to be larger within the right than the left hemisphere for nonverbal stimuli (condition (c), tone and melody relative to the other conditions), leading to a more pronounced hemispheric asymmetry for nonverbal than verbal material.
Conclusions
We conclude that coherent neuronal network activity may index encoding of verbal information on the sentence level and can be used as a tool to investigate auditory speech comprehension.
A detailed five-dimensional calculation of the Higgs-boson decay into two photons is performed in both the minimal and the custodially protected Randall–Sundrum (RS) model, where the Standard Model (SM) fields propagate in the bulk and the scalar sector lives on or near the IR brane. It is explicitly shown that the $R_\xi $ gauge invariance of the sum of diagrams involving bosonic fields in the SM also applies to the case of these RS scenarios. An exact expression for the $h\rightarrow \gamma \gamma $ amplitude in terms of the five-dimensional (5D) gauge-boson and fermion propagators is presented, which includes the full dependence on the Higgs-boson mass. Closed expressions for the 5D $W$-boson propagators in the minimal and the custodial RS model are derived, which are valid to all orders in $v^2/M_{\text {KK}}^2$. In contrast to the fermion case, the result for the bosonic contributions to the $h\rightarrow \gamma \gamma $ amplitude is insensitive to the details of the localization of the Higgs profile on or near the IR brane. The various RS predictions for the rate of the $pp\rightarrow h\rightarrow \gamma \gamma $ process are compared with the latest LHC data, and exclusion regions for the RS model parameters are derived. 相似文献
Spectrum is a fast Fourier transform-generated power spectrum extracted from the speech sample. It is reported to provide a quantitative acoustic index of the degree of glottal abduction and adduction in voices perceived to be breathy or pressed. In the present study, it was hypothesized that there would be abnormal reduction of higher harmonic amplitudes relative to the amplitude of the first harmonics in the subjects with vocal nodules and hence the present study was carried out.
Method
One hundred twenty participants were divided into clinical group and control group. They were instructed to phonate /a/ at their most comfortable pitch and loudness. Fourier transformation of the recorded acoustic signal was first performed to create a spectrum. Amplitudes were measured for the first and second harmonics (H1 and H2) as well as the harmonics at the first, second, and third formants (A1, A2, and A3) using the Computerized Speech Science Lab (Kay Pentax, Lincoln, NJ).
Results
There was a significant difference between the means of two groups for all the parameters, such as H1-H2, H1-A1, H1-A2, and H1-A3 at P < 0.05. The obtained results are discussed with respect to the underlying pathophysiology.
Conclusions
The present study investigated the vowel harmonic amplitude differences in persons with vocal nodules. The results revealed a significant difference between the two groups for the vowel harmonic amplitude differences. This particular measure could be used to track the changes following the vocal treatment. 相似文献
Statistical learning is a candidate for one of the basic prerequisites underlying the expeditious acquisition of spoken language. Infants from 8 months of age exhibit this form of learning to segment fluent speech into distinct words. To test the statistical learning skills at birth, we recorded event-related brain responses of sleeping neonates while they were listening to a stream of syllables containing statistical cues to word boundaries.
Results
We found evidence that sleeping neonates are able to automatically extract statistical properties of the speech input and thus detect the word boundaries in a continuous stream of syllables containing no morphological cues. Syllable-specific event-related brain responses found in two separate studies demonstrated that the neonatal brain treated the syllables differently according to their position within pseudowords.
Conclusion
These results demonstrate that neonates can efficiently learn transitional probabilities or frequencies of co-occurrence between different syllables, enabling them to detect word boundaries and in this way isolate single words out of fluent natural speech. The ability to adopt statistical structures from speech may play a fundamental role as one of the earliest prerequisites of language acquisition. 相似文献
The pathological changes in Parkinson disease begin in the brainstem; reach the limbic system and ultimately spread to the cerebral cortex. In Parkinson disease (PD) patients, we evaluated the alteration of cingulate fibers, which comprise part of the limbic system, by using diffusional kurtosis imaging (DKI).
Methods
Seventeen patients with PD and 15 age-matched healthy controls underwent DKI with a 3-T MR imager. Diffusion tensor tractography images of the anterior and posterior cingulum were generated. The mean kurtosis (MK) and conventional diffusion tensor parameters measured along the images in the anterior and posterior cingulum were compared between the groups. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was also performed to compare the diagnostic abilities of the MK and conventional diffusion tensor parameters.
Results
The MK and fractional anisotropy (FA) in the anterior cingulum were significantly lower in PD patients than in healthy controls. The area under the ROC curve was 0.912 for MK and 0.747 for FA in the anterior cingulum. MK in the anterior cingulum had the best diagnostic performance (mean cutoff, 0.967; sensitivity, 0.87; specificity, 0.94).
Conclusions
DKI can detect alterations of the anterior cingulum in PD patients more sensitively than can conventional diffusion tensor imaging. Use of DKI can be expected to improve the ability to diagnose PD. 相似文献
Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is controversial as a causative factor of head and neck cancers despite the relatively high frequency of HPV infection in extragenital organ cancers. We aimed to clarify whether HPV directly affects the oncogenesis and biologic behavior of glottis cancer (GC).
Methods
Paraffin block was obtained from 95 patients who were diagnosed as GC and 15 normal controls. HPV genotyping chip, real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used for identification of prevalence, phenotype, and physical status of HPV. We compared results with the clinicopathological parameters of GC patients.
Results
HPV was detected in 7.4% (7 of 95) of GC patients, whereas 0% (0 of 15) of controls. Of the HPV-positive tumors in GCs, HPV-16 was the single most common type and HPV-16 prevalence rate was 57.1% (4 of 7). Among the HPV-16 infected GCs, integration of HPV-16 was found only in one case (1 of 4). There was no significant difference in HPV prevalence between GC and controls and HPV had no significant relation with any clinicopathologic parameters of GC patients.
Conclusion
HPV infection may not be a causative factor in the oncogenesis and biologic behavior of GC. 相似文献
The departure point of the present paper is our effort to characterize and understand the spatiotemporal structure of articulatory patterns in speech. To do so, we removed segmental variation as much as possible while retaining the spoken act's stress and prosodic structure. Subjects produced two sentences from the "rainbow passage" using reiterant speech in which normal syllables were replaced by /ba/ or /ma/. This task was performed at two self-selected rates, conversational and fast. Infrared LEDs were placed on the jaw and lips and monitored using a modified SELSPOT optical tracking system. As expected, when pauses marking major syntactic boundaries were removed, a high degree of rhythmicity within rate was observed, characterized by well-defined periodicities and small coefficients of variation. When articulatory gestures were examined geometrically on the phase plane, the trajectories revealed a scaling relation between a gesture's peak velocity and displacement. Further quantitative analysis of articulator movement as a function of stress and speaking rate was indicative of a language-modulated dynamical system with linear stiffness and equilibrium (or rest) position as key control parameters. Preliminary modeling was consonant with this dynamical perspective which, importantly, does not require that time per se be a controlled variable. 相似文献
The ability of five profoundly hearing-impaired subjects to "track" connected speech and to make judgments about the intonation and stress in spoken sentences was evaluated under a variety of auditory-visual conditions. These included speechreading alone, speechreading plus speech (low-pass filtered at 4 kHz), and speechreading plus a tone whose frequency, intensity, and temporal characteristics were matched to the speaker's fundamental frequency (F0). In addition, several frequency transfer functions were applied to the normal F0 range resulting in new ranges that were both transposed and expanded with respect to the original F0 range. Three of the five subjects were able to use several of the tonal representations of F0 nearly as well as speech to improve their speechreading rates and to make appropriate judgments concerning sentence intonation and stress. The remaining two subjects greatly improved their identification performance for intonation and stress patterns when expanded F0 signals were presented alone (i.e., without speechreading), but had difficulty integrating visual and auditory information at the connected discourse level, despite intensive training in the connected discourse tracking procedure lasting from 27.8-33.8 h. 相似文献
By using a variational method of Pekar type, we investigate the effects of the hydrogen-like impurity and magnetic field on the electron’s probability density (PD) and oscillating frequency (OF) of a RbCl quantum pseudodot qubit. Numerical results indicate that (1) the PD oscillates periodically; (2) the crest of the PD will decrease with increasing the cyclotron frequencies and the Coulombic impurity potential strength; (3) as the cyclotron frequency of the magnetic field and the strength of the Coulombic impurity potential increases, PD’s peaks will occur more frequently; (4) besides, Figs. 1b and 2b clearly show that in a single period the PD will decrease with increasing the cyclotron frequency and the Coulombic impurity potential strength when \( t > 1.8\;\text{fs} \); whereas the changing law is just the opposite when \( t < 1.8\;\text{fs} \); (5) the OF is an aggrandizing function of the strength of the Coulombic impurity potential, whereas it is a decaying one of the cyclotron frequencies of the magnetic field. The coherence of qubit is crucial to the investigations of quantum information and quantum computation, where the electron’s PD, the OF and the coherence time are the physical quantities representing the properties of coherence. Our research results fine that by changing the cyclotron frequency of the magnetic field and the strength of the Coulombic impurity potential one can adjust the electron’s PD and the OF.
Fig. 1 The PD \( \text{Q}\left( {r,t} \right) \) versus the time \( t \) and the cyclotron frequency of the magnetic field \( \omega_{c} \) with \( \text{V}_{0} = 10.0\,\text{meV, r}_{0} = 1.0\,\text{nm, }\beta \text{ = 1.0}\,\text{meV} \cdot \text{nm} \) and \( x = y = z = 1.0\,\text{nm} \)
Fig. 2 The PD \( \text{Q}\left( {r,t} \right) \) versus the time \( t \) and strength of the Coulombic impurity potential \( \beta \) with \( \text{V}_{0} = 10.0\,\text{meV, r}_{0} = 1.0\,\text{nm,} \, \omega_{c} \text{ = 2.0}\, \times \text{10}^{13}\,\text{Hz} \) and \( x = y = z = 1.0\,\text{nm} \)
We investigated the relationship between central and peripheral corneal astigmatism in elderly patients.
Methods
Seventy-six eyes of 76 elderly subjects (mean age?=?72.6?±?3.0 years) were included in the study. Corneal shape was evaluated using the Pentacam HR (Oculus, Wetzlark, Germany), which is comprised of a rotating Scheimpflug camera and a short-wavelength slit light. The power distribution map was selected and corneal astigmatism was calculated using front K-Readings in zones centered on the pupil. Analyzed zones were 2.0–6.0 mm in diameter.
Results
Corneal astigmatism decreased as diameter increased, similar to what was observed in eyes with with-the-rule astigmatism and against-the-rule astigmatism (ANOVA, p?<?0.01). This effect was more pronounced in eyes with a large central corneal astigmatism (Spearman’s rank-correlation coefficient test, r?=?0.51, p?<?0.01). There was no change as to axis of corneal astigmatism (ANOVA, p?=?0.98).
Conclusion
These results suggest that the relationship between central and peripheral corneal astigmatism should be taken into consideration to optimize vision when astigmatic correction is needed.
Recent studies have shown that the human right-hemispheric auditory cortex is particularly sensitive to reduction in sound quality, with an increase in distortion resulting in an amplification of the auditory N1m response measured in the magnetoencephalography (MEG). Here, we examined whether this sensitivity is specific to the processing of acoustic properties of speech or whether it can be observed also in the processing of sounds with a simple spectral structure. We degraded speech stimuli (vowel /a/), complex non-speech stimuli (a composite of five sinusoidals), and sinusoidal tones by decreasing the amplitude resolution of the signal waveform. The amplitude resolution was impoverished by reducing the number of bits to represent the signal samples. Auditory evoked magnetic fields (AEFs) were measured in the left and right hemisphere of sixteen healthy subjects.
Results
We found that the AEF amplitudes increased significantly with stimulus distortion for all stimulus types, which indicates that the right-hemispheric N1m sensitivity is not related exclusively to degradation of acoustic properties of speech. In addition, the P1m and P2m responses were amplified with increasing distortion similarly in both hemispheres. The AEF latencies were not systematically affected by the distortion.
Conclusions
We propose that the increased activity of AEFs reflects cortical processing of acoustic properties common to both speech and non-speech stimuli. More specifically, the enhancement is most likely caused by spectral changes brought about by the decrease of amplitude resolution, in particular the introduction of periodic, signal-dependent distortion to the original sound. Converging evidence suggests that the observed AEF amplification could reflect cortical sensitivity to periodic sounds. 相似文献
The aims of this study were to examine cough triggers in individuals with chronic cough (CC), identify sensory symptoms consistent with central reflex sensitization (paresthesia and allotussia), and interpret this information in relation to sensory laryngeal neuropathy.
Study Design
Prospective observational study.
Methods
Patients (n = 53) with CC that was refractory to medical management based on the anatomic diagnostic protocol completed questionnaires regarding cough triggers, anxiety and depression, and factors contributing to laryngeal irritation such as vocal hygiene and laryngopharyngeal reflux.
Results
An abnormal sensation in the laryngeal area (laryngeal paresthesia) was present in 94% of people with refractory CC. Nontussive stimuli including phonation were frequent triggers for cough (allotussia), occurring in 71% of participants. Although tussive stimuli were significantly more potent than nontussive stimuli (P = 0.005), the relative clinical importance was not statistically different (P = 0.072). Most participants with refractory cough had poor vocal hygiene.
Conclusion
The sensory symptom changes that accompany CC suggest central reflex sensitization and include laryngeal paresthesia and allotussia. The results are consistent with cough as a sensory neuropathic disorder. 相似文献
To describe the laryngeal configuration and the voice of male patients diagnosed with unilateral vocal fold paralysis (UVFP) before and after medialization.
Methods
A retrospective study involving the collection of data from medical records of 142 patients diagnosed with UVFP from January 2003 to April 2009, submitted to auditory-perceptual assessment of voices and visual perception of laryngeal images before and after medialization.
Results
The study included data from 24 male patients, with an average of 60.7 years, who underwent three surgical medialization techniques (injection of hyaluronic acid, type I thyroplasty, and injection of Teflon). Before treatment, the position of the paralyzed vocal fold was seen to have a significant influence to the passing of the healthy vocal fold beyond the midline and on the overall degree of dysphonia. After treatment, the complete glottic closure; the free margin of the linear vocal fold; paralyzed vocal fold in the median position, reduction of hoarseness, roughness and breathiness (more frequently mild), and asthenia (more frequently normal and mild); tension and instability (more frequency normal); and a decrease in the overall degree of dysphonia were found to be significant.
Conclusion
The position of the paralyzed vocal fold influences the position of the healthy vocal fold in relation to the midline and the overall degree of dysphonia. All three treatments improved the glottic configuration and the voice of patients with UVFP. 相似文献
The morphological development of neurons is a very complex process involving both genetic and environmental components. Mathematical modelling and numerical simulation are valuable tools in helping us unravel particular aspects of how individual neurons grow their characteristic morphologies and eventually form appropriate networks with each other.
Methods
A variety of mathematical models that consider (1) neurite initiation (2) neurite elongation (3) axon pathfinding, and (4) neurite branching and dendritic shape formation are reviewed. The different mathematical techniques employed are also described.
Results
Some comparison of modelling results with experimental data is made. A critique of different modelling techniques is given, leading to a proposal for a unified modelling environment for models of neuronal development.
Conclusion
A unified mathematical and numerical simulation framework should lead to an expansion of work on models of neuronal development, as has occurred with compartmental models of neuronal electrical activity.
The use of a material made of bacterial cellulose with the aim of obtaining vocal fold medialization has not hitherto been fully investigated. Although the material has been tested in other animal models, the evaluation did not include the larynx; hence, situations, such as tissue reaction, material absorption, and extrusion, need to be addressed to evaluate its usefulness as a material for laryngeal reconstruction.
Objective
To evaluate the medialization, tissue response, and healing of rabbit vocal folds, after the implantation of a membrane of bacterial cellulose.
Study Design
Experimental study.
Methods
A total of 32 rabbits were used, two of which were used to check out the adequacy of the implant location. The animals were followed for 4 months and grouped according to follow-up times of 2, 4, and 16 weeks. All test animals received an implant of bacterial cellulose in one vocal fold and the injection of distilled water in the other, both performed by videoendoscopic cervicotomy. At the end of the follow-up, the presence of inflammatory and medial displacement was evaluated.
Results
No statistically significant difference in the inflammatory parameters between the study and control vocal folds or among follow-up times was found. All animals receiving cellulose presented medial displacement of vocal folds, and all retained this material at the implant site up to study endpoint.
Conclusion
Bacterial cellulose is a useful material for laryngeal medialization, showing no signs of rejection or absorption. 相似文献
