The results support central auditory processing evaluation in the elderly population as a promising tool to achieve earlier diagnosis of dementia, while identifying central auditory processing deficits that can contribute to communication deficits in the MCI patient population. A measure of temporal resolution (GIN) may offer an early, albeit indirect, measure reflecting left temporal cortical thinning associated with the transition between MCI and Alzheimer's disease.
The relation between rhythm and language has been investigated over the last decades, with evidence that these share overlapping perceptual mechanisms emerging from several different strands of research. The dynamic Attention Theory posits that neural entrainment to musical rhythm results in synchronized oscillations in attention, enhancing perception of other events occurring at the same rate. In this study, this prediction was tested in 10 year-old children by means of a psychoacoustic speech recognition in babble paradigm. It was hypothesized that rhythm effects evoked via a short isochronous sequence of beats would provide optimal word recognition in babble when beats and word are in sync. We compared speech recognition in babble performance in the presence of isochronous and in sync vs. non-isochronous or out of sync sequence of beats. Results showed that (a) word recognition was the best when rhythm and word were in sync, and (b) the effect was not uniform across syllables and gender of subjects. Our results suggest that pure tone beats affect speech recognition at early levels of sensory or phonemic processing.
Background: Accuracy of measured auditory memory may be negatively impacted by non-proper functioning of the auditory system (i.e. hearing loss or auditory processing disorder).Purpose: How important is this impact in clinical evaluation of short-term and working memory using the digit span test? The target group used is that of psychiatric patients as this patient population has both commonly observed cognitive deficits and undocumented hearing loss and auditory processing deficits.
Research design: Cross sectional.Study Sample: Twenty-two psychiatric inpatients were evaluated for short-term and working memory.Data collection and Analysis: The testing performed included (i) digit span evaluation at an intensity of 50dB HL, (ii) pure tone audiometry for hearing sensitivity evaluation and (iii) digit span evaluation at an intensity of 50dB SL (corrected based on the exact ear specific hearing sensitivity). Repeated measures ANOVA was implemented to test for differences between the two conditions (i & iii).Results: There was a documented improvement of short-term memory results due to adapting intensity of the digit span test according to each ear's specific hearing sensitivity as measured by pure tone audiometry. The effect (F=5.047, p=.036) was present when evaluating the backwards digit span score.
Conclusions:Adapting digit span test implementation intensity will provide short-term and working memory results that are more accurate and avoid over-diagnosis of cognitive deficits. The paradigm of the present study is that of psychiatric disorders but there is no reason why this is not valid for any population.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.