Musical auditory hallucinations caused by a brainstem lesion

A man with left-sided deafness developed right-sided hearing loss after hypertensive hemorrhage at the right pontine tegmentum and began to experience ipsilateral musical hallucinations. Two weeks later, the right hearing returned, and the hallucinations disappeared. Auditory hallucinations due to brainstem lesions may be musical in nature and associated with hearing loss.     

Fluid and crystallized intelligence and broad perceptual factors among 11 to 12 year olds.

Gave a battery of 36 visual and auditory tests to 113 primary school children. Second-order analysis of the data yielded 2 well-defined factors representing Fluid (Gf) and Crystallized (Gc) Intelligence and 2 perceptual factors corresponding to General Visualization (Gv) and General Auditory Function (Ga). Perceptual factors were not clearly separated from broad intellective factors at this age level. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tone sequences with conflicting fundamental pitch and timbre changes are heard differently by musicians and nonmusicians.

An Auditory Ambiguity Test (AAT) was taken twice by nonmusicians, musical amateurs, and professional musicians. The AAT comprised different tone pairs, presented in both within-pair orders, in which overtone spectra rising in pitch were associated with missing fundamental frequencies (F0) falling in pitch, and vice versa. The F0 interval ranged from 2 to 9 semitones. The participants were instructed to decide whether the perceived pitch went up or down; no information was provided on the ambiguity of the stimuli. The majority of professionals classified the pitch changes according to F0, even at the smallest interval. By contrast, most nonmusicians classified according to the overtone spectra, except in the case of the largest interval. Amateurs ranged in between. A plausible explanation for the systematic group differences is that musical practice systematically shifted the perceptual focus from spectral toward missing-F0 pitch, although alternative explanations such as different genetic dispositions of musicians and nonmusicians cannot be ruled out. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relation between instrumental musical activity and cognitive aging.

Objective: Intensive repetitive musical practice can lead to bilateral cortical reorganization. However, whether musical sensorimotor and cognitive abilities transfer to nonmusical cognitive abilities that are maintained throughout the life span is unclear. In an attempt to identify modifiable lifestyle factors that may potentially enhance successful aging, we evaluated the association between musical instrumental participation and cognitive aging. Method: Seventy older healthy adults (ages 60–83) varying in musical activity completed a comprehensive neuropsychological battery. The groups (nonmusicians, low and high activity musicians) were matched on age, education, history of physical exercise, while musicians were matched on age of instrumental acquisition and formal years of musical training. Musicians were classified in the low (1–9 years) or high (>10 years) activity group based on years of musical experience throughout their life span. Results: The results of this preliminary study revealed that participants with at least 10 years of musical experience (high activity musicians) had better performance in nonverbal memory (η2 = .106), naming (η2 = .103), and executive processes (η2 = .131) in advanced age relative to nonmusicians. Several regression analyses evaluated how years of musical activity, age of acquisition, type of musical training, and other variables predicted cognitive performance. Conclusions: These correlational results suggest a strong predictive effect of high musical activity throughout the life span on preserved cognitive functioning in advanced age. A discussion of how musical participation may enhance cognitive aging is provided along with other alternative explanations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The development of auditory event related potentials in the rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta)

Auditory event related potentials were recorded from neonatal, 3-month, and 3-year old rhesus monkeys. Auditory brainstem evoked responses (ABRs) were reliably recorded at all ages. ABR latencies decreased with age. Age effects were greater the more centrally generated the wave. Wave I amplitude decreased with age, Wave II increased, and Wave IV remained about the same. Stimulus rate effects were greater in neonates than older monkeys. Stimulus frequency also affected the ABR, but not differentially as a function of age. Recording montage had a significant effect on the recorded waveform. Wave I tended to be larger in amplitude in horizontal recordings and front-back recordings, while the later waves were relatively more prominent in more vertical montages. Middle latency evoked responses and late potentials were less reliably recorded than the ABR. Their reproducibility improved with age. Auditory event related potentials are promising measures of auditory function for research requiring nonhuman primate models of the developing human.     

Speech perception test in Italian language for profoundly deaf children

Speech perception tests are an important part of procedures for diagnosing pre-verbal hearing loss. Merely establishing a child's hearing threshold with and without a hearing aid is not sufficient to ensure an adequate evaluation with a view to selecting cases suitable for cochlear implants because it fails to indicate the real benefit obtained from using a conventional hearing aid reliably. Speech perception tests have proved useful not only for patient selection, but also for subsequent evaluation of the efficacy of new hearing aids, such as tactile devices and cochlear implants. In clinical practice, the tests most commonly adopted with small children are: The Auditory Comprehension Test (ACT), Discrimination after Training (DAT), Monosyllable, Trochee, Spondee tests (MTS), Glendonald Auditory Screening Priocedure (GASP), Early Speech Perception Test (ESP), Rather than considering specific results achieved in individual cases, reference is generally made to the four speech perception classes proposed by Moog and Geers of the CID of St. Louis. The purpose of this classification, made on the results obtained with suitably differentiated tests according to the child's age and language ability, is to detect differences in perception of a spoken message in ideal listening conditions. To date, no italian language speech perception test has been designed to establish the assessment of speech perception level in children with profound hearing impairment. We attempted, therefore, to adapt the existing English tests to the Italian language taking into consideration the differences between the two languages. Our attention focused on the ESP test since it can be applied to even very small children (2 years old). The ESP is proposed in a standard version for hearing-impaired children over the age of 6 years and in a simplified version for younger children. The rationale we used for selecting Italian words reflect the rationale established for the original version, but the choice of single words follows different criteria from the original version. In fact, the two languages differ in important linguistic features so that the test can not be not adapted to the Italian language by simply translating the words involved. As currently there is no children's language dictionary in Italian arranged according to age bracket, we chose words used in children and in pre-school reading material.     

Assessment of executive function in patients with mild traumatic brain injury

BACKGROUND: The nature of functional deficit after mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) defined by Glasgow Coma Score of 13-15 is not fully described. This study explored the sensitivity of several neuropsychological tests to identify sequelae of mild traumatic brain injury (TBI). METHODS: Eleven adult patients with mild TBI admitted to a Level 1 trauma center were studied. The battery of tests included the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children -Revised: Mazes Subtest, Trails A and B, the Boston Naming Test, The Multilingual Aphasia Examination: Controlled Oral Word Association Test, and the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task. RESULTS: Control subjects performed significantly better than patients with mild TBI on Trails A and B, the Controlled Oral Word Association Test, and Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task (subtests 2-4). No significant differences in performances between patients and controls was found for the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children -Revised: Mazes Subtest, Boston Naming Test, and Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task Subtest 1. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that tests of specific frontal lobe executive functions are valuable in diagnosing and monitoring recovery from mild TBI.     

Corpus d'extraits musicaux: indices relatifs à la familiarité, à l'age d'acquisition et aux évocations verbales.

Studied the degree of familiarity, the age of acquisition, and verbal associations with regard to 144 musical excerpts drawn from the repertory of tunes that is expected to be shared by all French-speaking Quebec university students. Human Ss: 60 normal male and female Canadian adults (aged 21–45 yrs) (university students) (Group 1). 60 normal male and female Canadian adults (aged 19–43 yrs) (university students) (Group 2). The excerpts were presented to all Ss in synthesized, monophonic recordings. Ss in Group 1 were asked to indicate their degree of familiarity with each excerpt and the age at which they learned the excerpt. Ss in Group 2 were asked to indicate whether the original tune was vocal or instrumental and to provide verbal associations for the excerpts. The degree of familiarity, developmental period of acquisition, frequency of verbal associations, and dominant verbal association were determined for each excerpt. (English abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dissociation of musical tonality and pitch memory from nonmusical cognitive abilities.

Replicated, validated, and extended measures of sensitivity to musical pitch and examined whether performance on tests of tonal structure and pitch memory was related to, or dissociated from, performance on tests of nonmusical cognitive skills (standardized tests of cognitive abstraction, vocabulary, and memory for digits and nonrepresentational figures). Factor analyses of data from 100 neurologically intact Ss (aged 18–40 yrs) revealed a dissociation between music and nonmusic variables, both for the full data set and a set for which the possible contribution of levels of music training was statistically removed. A 40-yr-old female with neurological impairment scored within the range of matched controls on nonmusic tests but much lower than controls on music tests. It is concluded that this study provides further evidence of a functional specificity for musical pitch abilities. Examples of melodies and chord progressions are appended. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Auditory fusion in children

"Auditory fusion" was defined in terms of a listener's ability to distinguish paired acoustic events from single acoustic events. Children from the ages of 3-12 years listened to 270 pairs of tones controlled for frequency, intensity, and duration. Stimuli consisted of numerous pairs of tone pulses, separated by interpulse intervals that varied systematically from 0 through 40 msec. Results indicate that (a) auditory fusion improves rapidly and in an orderly fashion between 3 and 8 years of age, (b) signal intensity affects the fusion point, and (c) stimulus frequency--253 hertz through 4,000 hertz, at 5-octave intervals--does not affect the fusion point.     

How localized are age-related effects on neuropsychological measures?

A battery of neuropsychological tests (e.g., Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Trail Making Test, Rey Auditory–Verbal Learning Test, Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Revised Block Design, Object Assembly, and Digit Symbol tests) was administered to 259 adults ages 18 to 94 who reported themselves to be in good to excellent health. Moderate age-related declines were apparent in performance measures that could be postulated to be sensitive to damage in frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes. However, correlation-based analyses revealed that the age-related influences on the different measures were not independent. Across all variables examined, an average of about 58% of the age-related variance in a given variable was shared with that in other variables. These results indicate that only a portion of the age-related influences on many commonly used neuropsychological measures is specific and potentially localized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dichotic listening performance, cognitive ability, and cerebral organization.

Explored linkages between dichotic listening performance, cognitive ability, and cerebral organization, addressing 3 main questions: (1) the relationship of sex, handedness, and familial sinistrality to auditory laterality and to selected aspects of cognitive performance; (2) the relationship between laterality and cognitive ability; and (3) the relationship between verbal and musical laterality. Two dichotic listening tests (one involving recognition of stop consonant-vowel syllables and the other, recognition of melodic patterns) were administered to 120 college students balanced for handedness, sex, and familial sinistrality. Ss also underwent psychometric tests. Results indicate an independence of verbal and nonverbal laterality effects and support a componential (modular) theory of brain organization rather than one of complementarity. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Auditory information processing during acute insulin-induced hypoglycaemia in non-diabetic human subjects

Acute insulin-induced hypoglycaemia impairs performance on tests of general mental ability in humans. It is recognized that different brain functions vary in their sensitivity to neuroglycopenia, but little is known about the effects of neuroglycopenia on specific brain processes. The effect of controlled hypoglycaemia on two aspects of auditory information processing (auditory temporal processing and simple auditory processing) was examined in a homogeneous group of 20 healthy non-diabetic human subjects. Auditory temporal processing (temporal order discrimination) and simple auditory processing (pitch discrimination, single-tone duration and single-tone loudness discrimination) tests were part of the Test of Basic Auditory Capabilities (TBAC). Two tests of general cognitive performance (Digit Symbol Substitution and Trail Making B) were included to provide a measure of general brain functioning during hypoglycaemia. Hypoglycaemia lead to a significant deterioration in auditory temporal processing (P < 0.01), and a deterioration in one of three tasks of simple auditory processing (discrimination of single-tone loudness, P < 0.05). Significant disruptions also occurred in both tests of general brain functioning. These results are congruent with other studies in human subjects, showing a disruptive effect of hypoglycaemia on visual information processing when examined under conditions of limited perceptual time, and they provide further evidence of the importance of sensory processing speed in basic perceptual and cognitive functions. The disruptive effect of moderate insulin-induced hypoglycaemia on auditory perception may have implications for insulin-treated diabetic humans exposed to this metabolic stress, because of the importance of hearing in everyday life.     

Experience-based attenuation of age-related differences in music cognition tasks.

Pianists of a wide experience and age range were tested on measures of musical memory and musical perceptual speed to better understand the effects of experience on age-cognition relations. Experience related attenuation might be in the form of an Age?×?Experience interaction or in the form of a "confounding" of age and experience such that positive age–experience relations offset negative age–cognition relations. It was predicted that the former, considered evidence for disuse interpretations of aging, would be likely to emerge in tasks with strong experience effects and strong age-related declines among inexperienced individuals. However, in no case were the interactions of age and experience on the memory or perceptual speed variables significant. There was, however, evidence that high levels of experience in the older participants partially attenuated the negative effects of age on the memory and perceptual speed tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Test-retest reliability of three aphasia tests: performance of non-brain-damaged older adults

This study was designed to assess the test-retest reliability of three aphasia tests. The Auditory Comprehension Test for Sentences (ACTS), the Boston Naming Test (BNT), and the Reading Comprehension Battery for Aphasia (RCBA) were administered on two separate occasions to 31 non-brain-damaged adults aged 50 to 76 years. The results showed acceptable score stability for all three aphasia tests. Sixty-eight percent of the time, older non-brain-damaged adults would be expected to score within 4.0% or less of the total number of test items on repeated testing.     

Tracking musical patterns using joint accent structure.

Joint Accent Structure (JAS) is a construct that uses temporal relationships between different accents in a melodic pattern as indices of its complexity. The present study examines the role of different JASs in real time, attending to simple musical events. 39 adults with or without musical training were told to selectively attend to and synchronize finger taps with accents in 2 experiments that examined attentional tracking to musical patterns having a concordant or discordant JAS. Results indicate that tapping was more variable with discordant than with concordant JAS patterns, both with respect to produced inter-accent time periods and with respect to the phase of taps relative to accent onsets. These findings are interpreted in terms of real time attending and its control by event time structure. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Monitoring and planning capacities in the acquisition of music performance skills.

Investigated changes in cognitive capacities that occur as musicians acquire performance skills. A study is presented of child pianists (aged 6–14 yrs) of beginning and intermediate skill levels who performed well-learned musical pieces. Computer-detected pitch errors in the performances provided evidence for skill-related increases in both monitoring and planning: Children with more musical training showed quicker detection and correction of errors, more anticipatory and less perseveratory behavior, and larger range of planning than children with less training. A study of adult musicians' (mean age 27 yrs) advanced performances, which showed heightened sensitivity to melody and repeated pitch structures is also reported. Results show that planning and monitoring capacities increased most during initial stages of musical skill acquisition, whereas sensitivity to musical structure increased across all skill levels. Lists of beginners, intermediates' and adults' musical pieces performed are appended. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Music-induced context preference following cocaine conditioning in rats.

Traditional models of drug-seeking behavior have shown that exposure to associated environmental cues can trigger relapse. These learned associations take place during repeated drug administration, resulting in conditioned reinforcement. Although considerable investigation has occurred regarding simple conditioned stimuli, less is known about complex environmental cues, particularly those that may be salient in human addiction. Recent studies indicate that music can serve as a contextual conditioned stimulus in rats and influence drug-seeking behavior during abstinence. The purpose of the present study was to further assess the effectiveness of music as a conditioned stimulus in rats, to determine rats' preferences for two contrasting pieces of music, and to determine rats' preferences for music versus silence. To this end, we created an apparatus that gave instrumental control of musical choice (Miles Davis vs. Beethoven) to the rats themselves. After determining baseline musical preference, animals were conditioned with cocaine (10 mg/kg) to the music they initially preferred least, with alternating conditioning sessions pairing saline with the music preferred most. The animals were subsequently tested in a drug-free state to determine what effect this conditioning had on musical preference. The results indicate that music serves as an effective contextual conditioned stimulus, significantly increasing both musical preference and locomotor activity after repeated cocaine conditioning. Furthermore, we found that rats initially favor silence over music, but that this preference can be altered as a result of cocaine-paired conditioning. These findings demonstrate that, after repeated association with reward (cocaine), music can engender a conditioned context preference in rats; these findings are consistent with other evidence showing that musical contextual cues can reinstate drug-seeking behavior in rats. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Thematic fame, melodic originality, and musical zeitgeist: A biographical and transhistorical content analysis.

15,618 musical themes by 479 classical composers were selected from H. Barlow and S. Morgenstern's (1948, 1976) thematic dictionaries to determine whether the fame of a musical theme is a function of melodic originality and the composer's concurrent creative productivity and whether melodic originality is a function of historical time and composer's age. A citation measure was used to define the fame of the themes, and a computerized content analysis of 2-note transition possibilities was used to operationalize melodic originality relative to both the repertoire and the zeitgeist at time of composition. The study controlled for form, medium, work size, competition, and the composer's lifetime productivity. A multiple regression analysis showed that thematic fame is an inverted-J function of repertoire melodic originality, a J-function of zeitgeist melodic originality, and a positive function of creative productivity. Repertoire melodic originality is a positive function of historical time and an inverted backwards- J function of the composer's age, whereas zeitgeist melodic originality is a positive linear function of the composer's age. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)