Auditory Training Flashcards
Describe the results from Song et al., 2008.
At the end of the training program, subjects showed a statistically significant improvement in word identification.
Subjects also showed more accuracy in their pitch tracking in their brainstem. This was reflected in a significant decrease in their pitch tracking error with training.
Suggests that the brainstem contributes actively to auditory processing and is not simply a passive relay station transmitting information from the periphery to the cortex.
Describe the study conducted by Song et al (2012).
Overall results: training causes neuroplastic changes in lower-level sensory areas, consistent with animal models
What are the conclusions for auditory training?
- Learning happens quickly ~1 week
- Learning generalizes to stimuli not used in training
- Pre-attentive stimulus encoding is plastic
- Neural changes can precede behavioral learning
- Experience alters fundamental encoding of sensory
What is earobics?
Training game
Computer-based auditory training program, auditory memory and sequencing, rhyming, phoneme discrimination
What kind of evidence from animal models exists for training in older adults?
Auditory map plasticity is age-dependent
Brainard and Knudsen (1998)
- Baby owl has displacing prisms that shift the visual world
- Difference between ears is measured
- There is a shift present in the young owl and no shift in the older owl
What research is present that demonstrate that older owls have neural plasticity?
Linkenhoker and Knudsen (2002)
- Older owls can undergo plasticity
- Induced plasticity by giving incremental changes in sensory information
How long do the effects of training last?
Gains in processing speed persist for 6 months
Robust training-induced changes in memory and speech-in-noise perception did not persist for 6 months
What is the role of sleep in training effects? Alain et al. (2015)
Sleep decreases response time in vowel identification task
Sleep increases training effects on P2 amplitude
What can we do to enhance training benefits and improve compliance?
Music training enhances neural encoding of sound
- Might improve auditory encoding of sound
- Can naturally elicit the reward pathways
- Musicians have higher response in quiet/in noise across the lifespan
What is the OPERA hypothesis?
O: overlap in the auditory system anatomy for speech and music
P: precision required for music processing is greater than speech
E: emotion elicited in performing music well induces plasticity
R: repetition - extensive practice tunes system
A: attention - focusing on details of sound
Do the effects of musical training last into older adulthood? (White-Schwoch, 2013)
Took older adults with some degree of musical training in their childhood
Non-musicians had prolonged latencies compared to the little to moderate training
What is generalization?
Training on one stimulus generalizes to other, untrained stimuli
What two things demonstrate that auditory training can transfer to untrained stimuli?
Behavioral testing
Cortical responses
What occurs first: changes in neurophysiology or changes in behavioral learning?
Neurophysiology
How quickly does auditory learning happen?
~1 week
