Influences of auditory object formation on phonemic restoration

In phonemic restoration, intelligibility of interrupted speech is enhanced when noise fills the speech gaps. When the broadband envelope of missing speech amplitude modulates the intervening noise, intelligibility is even better. However, this phenomenon represents a perceptual failure: The amplitude modulation, a noise feature, is misattributed to the speech. Experiments explored whether object formation influences how information in the speech gaps is perceptually allocated. Experiment 1 replicates the finding that intelligibility is enhanced when speech-modulated noise rather than unmodulated noise is presented in the gaps. In Experiment 2, interrupted speech was presented diotically, but intervening noises were presented either diotically or with an interaural time difference leading in the right ear, causing the noises to be perceived to the side of the listener. When speech-modulated noise and speech are perceived from different directions, intelligibility is no longer enhanced by the modulation. However, perceived location has no effect for unmodulated noise, which contains no speech-derived information. Results suggest that enhancing object formation reduces misallocation of acoustic features across objects, and demonstrate that our ability to understand noisy speech depends on a cascade of interacting processes, including glimpsing sensory inputs, grouping sensory inputs into objects, and resolving ambiguity through top-down knowledge.     

Impacts of age on memory for auditory intensity

It is hypothesized that older listeners are more likely than younger listeners to be impaired when asked to make intensity judgments about target tones embedded in rapidly presented auditory sequences. This study examined this hypothesis by asking listeners ranging in age from 19 to 74?yr to make judgments of intensity based on narrowband noise bursts varying in frequency and intensity. In two experiments, listeners made intensity judgments of target bursts alone or embedded in sequences of bursts. In the first experiment, one of four fixed sequences was presented and had to be identified. In the second experiment, pre- or post-trial bursts acted as cues that identified the frequency of the target burst in the sequence. In both experiments, intensity discrimination thresholds for single bursts were good predictors of performance with sequences and were little affected by age. Significant negative relationships between age and accuracy were observed when single sequences had to be identified or a post-trial cue was used, but no age effects were apparent when a pre-trial cue was used. These data are interpreted as being consistent with previous suggestions that the aging process results in a decline in auditory memory capacity and/or internally generated selective attention.     

An investigation of the relation between sibilant production and somatosensory and auditory acuity

The relation between auditory acuity, somatosensory acuity and the magnitude of produced sibilant contrast was investigated with data from 18 participants. To measure auditory acuity, stimuli from a synthetic sibilant continuum ([s]-[?]) were used in a four-interval, two-alternative forced choice adaptive-staircase discrimination task. To measure somatosensory acuity, small plastic domes with grooves of different spacing were pressed against each participant's tongue tip and the participant was asked to identify one of four possible orientations of the grooves. Sibilant contrast magnitudes were estimated from productions of the words 'said,' 'shed,' 'sid,' and 'shid'. Multiple linear regression revealed a significant relation indicating that a combination of somatosensory and auditory acuity measures predicts produced acoustic contrast. When the participants were divided into high- and low-acuity groups based on their median somatosensory and auditory acuity measures, separate ANOVA analyses with sibilant contrast as the dependent variable yielded a significant main effect for each acuity group. These results provide evidence that sibilant productions have auditory as well as somatosensory goals and are consistent with prior results and the theoretical framework underlying the DIVA model of speech production.     

Place specificity of multiple auditory steady-state responses

Auditory steady-state responses (ASSRs) were elicited by simultaneously presenting multiple AM (amplitude-modulated) tones with carrier frequencies of 500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz and modulation frequencies of 77, 85, 93, and 102 Hz, respectively. Responses were also evoked by separately presenting single 500- or 2000-Hz AM tones. The objectives of this study were (i) to determine the cochlear place specificity of single and multiple ASSRs using high-pass noise masking and derived-band responses, and (ii) to determine if there were any differences between single- and multiple-stimulus conditions. For all carrier frequencies, derived-band ASSRs for 1-octave-wide derived bands ranging in center frequency from 0.25 to 8 kHz had maximum amplitudes within a 1/2 octave of the carrier frequency. For simultaneously presented AM tones of 500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz, bandwidths for the function of derived-band ASSR amplitude by derived-band center frequency were 476, 737, 1177, and 3039 Hz, respectively. There were no significant differences when compared to bandwidths of 486 and 1371 for ASSRs to AM tones of 500 or 2000 Hz presented separately. Results indicate that ASSRs to moderately intense stimuli (60 dB SPL) reflect activation of reasonably narrow cochlear regions, regardless of presenting AM tones simultaneously or separately.     

Concurrent minimum audible angle: a re-examination of the concept of auditory spatial acuity

Minimum audible angle was measured for simultaneous acoustic events. Localization of concurrent events was found to be a direct function of the spectral differences between the events, the angle between the sources, and the location of the sources within the field defined by the subject. In the latter case, the m.a.a. was smallest with sources placed symmetrically about the listener's median plane and maximal at the extreme lateral portions. Post-hoc tests were completed which indicate that the spectral limits for concurrent localization is dependent both upon the angular separation of the sources and the position within the field as defined by the locus of the subject. The functions obtained approach the values reported by Mills [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 30, 237-246(1958)] as the temporal overlap between the concurrent events decreased. The present results suggest that a single localization function may exist with the optimal performance observed with fully successive stimuli and poorest performance in the condition involving simultaneous events. The implications of these results are discussed.     

Dissociation of pitch from timbre in auditory short-term memory

In three experiments, untrained listeners made same/different judgments on pairs of pure or complex tones with periods that eventually differed by +/- 4%. On each trial, the two test tones were separated by 4.3 s, during which other tones (I) were heard but had to be ignored. The period (p) of the first test tone was randomly selected between 1/600 and 1/300 s. The period of each I tone was randomly selected among four possible values, close to p (+/- 3% or 6% apart) in some conditions, and remote from p in other conditions. In addition, from condition to condition, the spectral content of the I tones was varied independently of their periods: The I tones could have the same harmonic content as the test tones, or a very different harmonic content. Subjects' performances were much better when the periods of the I tones were remote from p than when they were close to p, as expected from previous findings by D. Deutsch [e.g., Science 175, 1020-1022 (1972)]. But, more importantly, the relation between the spectral contents of the I tones and the test tones had, by itself, practically no effect on performance. Thus performance was affected by the pitches of the I tones, but not by their timbres. These results suggest that pitch is processed independently of timbre in auditory short-term memory.     

Single excitation multiple image RARE (SEMI-RARE): ultra-fast imaging of static and flowing systems

This paper describes the development and application of a new rapid, full k-space acquisition imaging pulse sequence based on the rapid acquisition with relaxation enhancement (RARE) methodology. We have termed this pulse sequence single excitation multiple image RARE (SEMI-RARE). We demonstrate the application of SEMI-RARE to the visualisation of a static liquid phantom and it is shown that up to 120 images can be acquired from a single excitation. By exploiting the inherent relaxation and diffusion contrast within the series of images, the SEMI-RARE provides an ultra-fast method for characterising the spatial distribution of chemical species and phases within complex systems. The pulse sequence is then applied to the study of single- and two-phase flow in a single narrow tube of inner diameter 2.9mm. In particular, it is shown that 8 two-dimensional slice-selective images for two-phase bubble-train flow in a single tube can be acquired from a single excitation at effective echo-times of 37, 109, 181, 253, 325, 397, 469, and 541ms. The visualisation enables the determination of gas/liquid bubble sizes and velocities during two-phase flow. We also report the first direct evidence, obtained from magnetic resonance measurements, of liquid re-circulation zones associated with bubble-train flow. The robustness of the SEMI-RARE technique makes it an attractive fast imaging technique for the study of multi-phase flow phenomena, which are often characterised by large variations in magnetic susceptibility, and are of widespread interest in chemical engineering.     

Non-linear laws of echoic memory and auditory change detection in humans

Background  

The detection of any abrupt change in the environment is important to survival. Since memory of preceding sensory conditions is necessary for detecting changes, such a change-detection system relates closely to the memory system. Here we used an auditory change-related N1 subcomponent (change-N1) of event-related brain potentials to investigate cortical mechanisms underlying change detection and echoic memory.     

基于物理混沌的混合图像加密系统研究

初步实现了基于物理混沌的混沌和数据加密标准算法级联的混合图像加密系统,基于该系统研究了级联加密与单级加密的抗统计分析能力,以及不可预测性强弱不同的混沌信号在该系统中应用时密文特性的不同.这种利用物理混沌不可预测性的混合加密系统,不存在确定的明文密文映射关系,而且密文统计特性也应优于(或大致相当)其他加密系统.数值结果支持这一结论,同时表明不可预测性较强的混沌系统其加密产生的密文相关性较弱.     

系统非对称性及记忆性对布朗马达输运行为的影响

在对分数阶布朗马达输运现象研究的基础上,引入了描述系统势场对称性的参数(简称对称性参数),并详细分析了该参数及记忆性参数(分数阶阶数)对粒子输运状态的影响.仿真结果表明,分数阶阶数和对称性参数的共同作用会使得布朗粒子形成定向输运反向流,反向后达到最大平均流速所对应的阶数与外加驱动力频率无关联,但会随对称性参数的增加而单调递增.     

Controllability of multiple qubit systems

This paper explores the problem of manipulating multiple-qubit systems when only single-qubit operations or two-qubit-interactive operations are permitted. It is demonstrated that if there exist 2 directional control Hamiltonian for each individual qubit, and one interactive Hamiltonian for each pair of qubits, then multiple qubit systems are open-loop controllable. An important observation of physical interest is emphasized: when only single-qubit operations or two-qubit-interactive operations are permitted, only n(n+3)/2 control Hamilton may guarantee open-loop controllability of n qubit systems, and n(n+3) is, in the restricted sense, also the lower limit on the number of operators needed for controllability. At last, we demonstrate that an n-quantum-dot system is open-loop controllable even when only single-qubit operations or two-qubit-interactive operations are permitted.     

Effects of acoustical noise on annoyance, performance and fatigue during mental memory task

This paper describes the effects of meaningful and meaningless external acoustical noise, at various sound pressure level values, on participants during a mental task. That is, the authors focused on the psychological impression of `annoyance' caused by noise, and `performance' indicated by factors such as percentage of correct answers and reaction time. More specifically, the authors discussed how these two items depend on the sound pressure level value of noise, and how they change due to meaningful or meaningless noise. Moreover, the difference between subjective feelings of `fatigue' before and after the task, both with and without noise was considered. Furthermore, an investigation was made into how the above items change in the case of aural or visual task presentations. The task was the probe digit, which is a short-term memory task. As a result, the importance of reducing meaningful external noise at low sound pressure level values was shown.     

Response of multiple coupled dynamic systems

Analytical procedures are developed to investigate the nature of the response of multiple coupled dynamic systems. The dynamic systems are one-dimensional and are coupled at junctions. The spatial extents of the dynamic systems are determined by these junctions; a dynamic system terminates at these junctions. The junctions are characterized by assigning reflection and transmission coefficients at the terminal positions of the dynamic systems. In addition, a dynamic system is characterized by a single propagation wavenumber. The wavenumber may be complex, accounting for possible spatial attenuation and for distributed damping in the dynamic system. Further damping—edge damping—may be accounted for by assigning non-conservative coefficients at the junction. Quadratic forms describing the dynamics of multiple coupled dynamic systems are also presented and discussed. Relationship of such forms to the statistical energy analysis (SEA) of complex dynamic systems is touched upon. This paper is concerned chiefly with the development of analytical procedures. Examples of application of these procedures will be dealt with in subsequent publications.     

Optical image encryption based on coherent diffractive imaging using multiple wavelengths

Coherent diffractive imaging is an optical technique in which the information of an object is encoded in the diffraction intensity using a single-path wave propagation strategy. In recent years, coherent diffractive imaging has attracted much attention in many fields due to its marked advantages, such as robustness to vibration and the suitability for various wavelengths. In this paper, we propose to apply coherent diffractive imaging using multiple wavelengths for optical image encryption. A light wavelength is tuned during the encryption, and a series of diffraction intensity maps (i.e., ciphertexts) is sequentially recorded in the Fresnel domain. During image decryption, an iterative retrieval algorithm is further developed, and cryptosystem security and robustness of the proposed method are also analyzed. Numerical simulation results are presented to demonstrate feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Prediction of the two-tone suppression and intermodulation performance of auditory systems

Using a model based on subcritical Hopf amplifiers, closed form expressions are obtained for two-tone suppression and the third-order intermodulation performance of the human auditory system. The proposed model approximates the Hopf amplifier characteristic using Fourier-series expansion. The parameters of the Fourier-series approximation can be easily obtained without recourse to sophisticated curve-fitting techniques. The results are compared with previously reported observations.     

Optical fuzzy systems based on efficient implementation of a fuzzy associative memory

We propose efficient implementation of a fuzzy associative memory system based on a fuzzy-sets decomposition technique. The technique involves decomposing the input fuzzy sets of a fuzzy associative memory into orthogonal subsets so multiple fuzzy rules can be superimposed without loss of information. This technique can significantly reduce the optical hardware and computation needs of fuzzy associative memory systems.     

Cryptanalysis of a multi-chaotic systems based image cryptosystem

This paper is a cryptanalysis of a recently proposed multi-chaotic systems based image cryptosystem. The cryptosystem is composed of two shuffling stages parameterized by chaotically generated sequences. We propose and implement two different attacks which completely break this encryption scheme.