Frontal brain asymmetries as effective parameters to assess the quality of audiovisual stimuli perception in adult and young cochlear implant users

How is music perceived by cochlear implant (CI) users? This question arises as "the next step" given the impressive performance obtained by these patients in language perception. Furthermore, how can music perception be evaluated beyond self-report rating, in order to obtain measurable data? To address this question, estimation of the frontal electroencephalographic (EEG) alpha activity imbalance, acquired through a 19-channel EEG cap, appears to be a suitable instrument to measure the approach/withdrawal (AW index) reaction to external stimuli. Specifically, a greater value of AW indicates an increased propensity to stimulus approach, and vice versa a lower one a tendency to withdraw from the stimulus. Additionally, due to prelingually and postlingually deafened pathology acquisition, children and adults, respectively, would probably differ in music perception. The aim of the present study was to investigate children and adult CI users, in unilateral (UCI) and bilateral (BCI) implantation conditions, during three experimental situations of music exposure (normal, distorted and mute). Additionally, a study of functional connectivity patterns within cerebral networks was performed to investigate functioning patterns in different experimental populations. As a general result, congruency among patterns between BCI patients and control (CTRL) subjects was seen, characterised by lowest values for the distorted condition (vs. normal and mute conditions) in the AW index and in the connectivity analysis. Additionally, the normal and distorted conditions were significantly different in CI and CTRL adults, and in CTRL children, but not in CI children. These results suggest a higher capacity of discrimination and approach motivation towards normal music in CTRL and BCI subjects, but not for UCI patients. Therefore, for perception of music CTRL and BCI participants appear more similar than UCI subjects, as estimated by measurable and not self-reported parameters

Different Perception of Musical Stimuli in Patients with Monolateral and Bilateral Cochlear Implants

The aim of the present study is to measure the perceived pleasantness during the observation of a musical video clip in a group of cochlear implanted adult patients when compared to a group of normal hearing subjects. This comparison was performed by using the imbalance of the EEG power spectra in alpha band over frontal areas as a metric for the perceived pleasantness. Subjects were asked to watch a musical video clip in three different experimental conditions: with the original audio included (Norm), with a distorted version of the audio (Dist), and without the audio (Mute). The frontal EEG imbalance between the estimated power spectra for the left and right prefrontal areas has been calculated to investigate the differences among the two populations. Results suggested that the perceived pleasantness of the musical video clip in the normal hearing population and in the bilateral cochlear implanted populations has similar range of variation across the different stimulations (Norm, Dist, and Mute), when compared to the range of variation of video clip’s pleasantness for the monolateral cochlear implanted population. A similarity exists in the trends of the perceived pleasantness across the different experimental conditions in the mono- and bilaterally cochlear implanted patients

Antismoking campaigns’ perception and gender differences: a comparison among EEG Indices

Human factors’ aim is to understand and evaluate the interactions between people and tasks, technologies, and environment. Among human factors, it is possible then to include the subjective reaction to external stimuli, due to individual’s characteristics and states of mind. These processes are also involved in the perception of antismoking public service announcements (PSAs), the main tool for governments to contrast the first cause of preventable deaths in the world: tobacco addiction. In the light of that, in the present article, it has been investigated through the comparison of different electroencephalographic (EEG) indices a typical item known to be able of influencing PSA perception, that is gender. In order to investigate the neurophysiological underpinnings of such different perception, we tested two PSAs: one with a female character and one with a male character. Furthermore, the experimental sample was divided into men and women, as well as smokers and nonsmokers. The employed EEG indices were the mental engagement (ME: the ratio between beta activity and the sum of alpha and theta activity); the approach/withdrawal (AW: the frontal alpha asymmetry in the alpha band); and the frontal theta activity and the spectral asymmetry index (SASI: the ratio between beta minus theta and beta plus theta). Results suggested that the ME and the AW presented an opposite trend, with smokers showing higher ME and lower AW than nonsmokers. The ME and the frontal theta also evidenced a statistically significant interaction between the kind of the PSA and the gender of the observers; specifically, women showed higher ME and frontal theta activity for the male character PSA. This study then supports the usefulness of the ME and frontal theta for purposes of PSAs targeting on the basis of gender issues and of the ME and the AW and for purposes of PSAs targeting on the basis of smoking habits

NeuroDante: Poetry Mentally Engages More Experts but Moves More Non-Experts, and for Both the Cerebral Approach Tendency Goes Hand in Hand with the Cerebral Effort

Neuroaesthetics, the science studying the biological underpinnings of aesthetic experience, recently extended its area of investigation to literary art; this was the humus where neurocognitive poetics blossomed. Divina Commedia represents one of the most important, famous and studied poems worldwide. Poetry stimuli are characterized by elements (meter and rhyme) promoting the processing fluency, a core aspect of neuroaesthetics theories. In addition, given the evidence of different neurophysiological reactions between experts and non-experts in response to artistic stimuli, the aim of the present study was to investigate, in poetry, a different neurophysiological cognitive and emotional reaction between Literature (L) and Non-Literature (NL) students. A further aim was to investigate whether neurophysiological underpinnings would support explanation of behavioral data. Investigation methods employed: self-report assessments (recognition, appreciation, content recall) and neurophysiological indexes (approach/withdrawal (AW), cerebral effort (CE) and galvanic skin response (GSR)). The main behavioral results, according to fluency theories in aesthetics, suggested in the NL but not in the L group that the appreciation/liking went hand by hand with the self-declared recognition and with the content recall. The main neurophysiological results were: (i) higher galvanic skin response in NL, whilst higher CE values in L; (ii) a positive correlation between AW and CE indexes in both groups. The present results extended previous evidence relative to figurative art also to auditory poetry stimuli, suggesting an emotional attenuation “expertise-specific” showed by experts, but increased cognitive processing in response to the stimuli

Neurodante: Poetry mentally engages more experts but moves more non-experts, and for both the cerebral approach tendency goes hand in hand with the cerebral effort

11noopenNeuroaesthetics, the science studying the biological underpinnings of aesthetic experience, recently extended its area of investigation to literary art; this was the humus where neurocognitive poetics blossomed. Divina Commedia represents one of the most important, famous and studied poems worldwide. Poetry stimuli are characterized by elements (meter and rhyme) promoting the processing fluency, a core aspect of neuroaesthetics theories. In addition, given the evidence of different neurophysiological reactions between experts and non-experts in response to artistic stimuli, the aim of the present study was to investigate, in poetry, a different neurophysiological cognitive and emotional reaction between Literature (L) and Non-Literature (NL) students. A further aim was to investigate whether neurophysiological underpinnings would support explanation of behavioral data. Investigation methods employed: self-report assessments (recognition, appreciation, content recall) and neurophysiological indexes (approach/withdrawal (AW), cerebral effort (CE) and galvanic skin response (GSR)). The main behavioral results, according to fluency theories in aesthetics, suggested in the NL but not in the L group that the appreciation/liking went hand by hand with the self-declared recognition and with the content recall. The main neurophysiological results were: (i) higher galvanic skin response in NL, whilst higher CE values in L; (ii) a positive correlation between AW and CE indexes in both groups. The present results extended previous evidence relative to figurative art also to auditory poetry stimuli, suggesting an emotional attenuation “expertise-specific” showed by experts, but increased cognitive processing in response to the stimuli.openCartocci G.; Rossi D.; Modica E.; Maglione A.G.; Martinez Levy A.C.; Cherubino P.; Canettieri P.; Combi M.; Rea R.; Gatti L.; Babiloni F.Cartocci, G.; Rossi, D.; Modica, E.; Maglione, A. G.; Martinez Levy, A. C.; Cherubino, P.; Canettieri, P.; Combi, M.; Rea, R.; Gatti, L.; Babiloni, F

Réorganisation audiotactile suite à un entraînement multisensoriel ou à une privation auditive congénitale

Des études suggèrent que certaines capacités sensorielles peuvent être augmentées chez l’humain, soit i) à la suite d’un entraînement ou ii) à la suite de privation sensorielle précoce. Des études suggèrent qu’une telle altération sensorielle peut être retrouvée chez les personnes ayant subi un entraînement musical. L’interaction entre ce qui est entendu et ressenti est spécialement importante lorsqu’un individu joue d’un instrument de musique. L’entraînement musical est reconnu comme étant une forme d’entraînement multisensoriel incluant des interactions entre des composantes auditives, visuelles et tactiles. Celui-ci peut mener à des réorganisations anatomiques et structurelles dans les régions corticales associées à ces modalités sensorielles. Plusieurs études comportementales ont révélé des habiletés de détection tactile améliorées chez les musiciens. Il est toujours incertain que ces améliorations puissent être retrouvées lors de processus plus complexes tels que la reconnaissance des émotions. Une autre population d’étude pourrait aussi révéler une altération des capacités tactiles, soit les personnes sourdes de naissance. Des études en imagerie ont révélé que les stimuli vibrotactiles activaient les régions auditives chez les personnes sourdes, suggérant ainsi une importante réorganisation tactile chez ces individus. Pourtant, au niveau comportemental, les capacités de détection tactile semblent similaires aux contrôles. Récemment, il a été suggéré que des processus tactiles plus complexes pourraient permettre de révéler des différences comportementales entre les personnes sourdes et entendantes. Malheureusement, tout comme chez les musiciens, ces processus n’ont toujours pas été évalués à ce jour. L’objectif principal de cette thèse est donc d’évaluer i) la perception unisensorielle tactile, auditive ainsi que multisensorielle chez les musiciens et ii) la perception unisensorielle tactile chez les sourds à l’aide de tâches non-musicales et musicales. Chez les musiciens, les résultats de cette thèse suggèrent des capacités de discrimination fréquentielle auditive, tactile et audiotactile améliorées (étude 1) ainsi que des améliorations de la perception d’émotions musicales complexes auditive et tactile (étude 2). Ces études supportent l’hypothèse qu’une formation musicale à long terme : i) entraîne une amélioration des capacités unisensorielles auditives et tactiles, mais surtout que celle-ci s’étend à des processus tactiles complexes, ii) a un impact à tous les niveaux hiérarchiques du traitement sensoriel et cognitif. Chez les individus sourds, les résultats ont révélé un plus haut taux d’erreurs lors de la tâche de détection d’ordre temporel tactile (étude 3). Ce résultat suggère que la cartographie spatiale du toucher est altérée chez les individus sourds. De plus, l’étude ayant mesuré la perception des émotions tactiles a révélé que ceux-ci sont capables d’identifier des émotions via la modalité tactile seule et ont même une capacité améliorée à identifier la joie (étude 4). Cette capacité accrue à percevoir la joie dans une mélodie via la modalité tactile illustre que des habiletés tactiles complexes peuvent être améliorées suite à une privation auditive de longue date. Ces deux études mises en commun illustrent que des capacités tactiles complexes non-musicales et musicales sont altérées chez l’individu sourd, ce qui supporte les études suggérant une réorganisation corticale des aires auditives et tactiles chez les individus sourds.Studies suggest that some sensory abilities may be increased in humans, either i) following training or ii) following early sensory deprivation. Studies suggest that such sensory alteration can be found in people who have undergone musical training. The interaction between what is heard and felt is especially important when an individual is playing a musical instrument. Musical training is well-known as a form of multisensory training that includes interactions between auditory, visual and tactile modalities. This can lead to anatomical and structural reorganizations in the cortical regions associated with these sensory systems. Several behavioral studies have revealed improved tactile perception skills in musicians. It is still unclear whether these improvements can be found for more complex processes, such as recognition of emotions. Similar alteration of tactile abilities may also be found in another population, namely early-deaf individuals. Imaging studies have shown that vibrotactile stimuli activate auditory regions following deafness, suggesting a significant tactile reorganization of their cortex. Yet, from a behavioral point of view, tactile perception in deaf seems similar to controls. Recently, it has been suggested that more complex tactile processes may reveal behavioral differences between deaf and normal-hearing individuals. Unfortunately, similarly to musicians, these processes have not been investigated to date. The main objective of this thesis is therefore to evaluate via non-musical and musical tasks i) tactile, auditory and multisensory perception of music among musicians and ii) tactile perception of music among deaf individuals. For musicians, results of this thesis suggest enhanced auditory, tactile and audio-tactile frequency discrimination capabilities (Study 1). Also, results suggest an increase perception of emotions in music, which suggests improvements for complex auditory and tactile abilities (Study 2). These studies support the hypothesis that long-term musical training: i) leads to improved auditory and tactile perception, but especially that it extends to complex tactile processes, ii) has an impact at all hierarchical levels of sensory and cognitive processing For deaf individuals, results revealed a higher error rate during the tactile temporal order detection task (Study 3). This result suggests that spatial mapping of touch is impaired in deaf individuals. In addition, the study measuring tactile perception of emotion in music revealed that they are able to identify emotions via tactile modality solely. Also, improvements were found for the identification of happy emotion via tactile modality solely (Study 4). This increased ability to perceive happiness in a melody via the tactile modality illustrates that complex tactile skills can be improved following longstanding hearing deprivation. These two studies together suggest that complex non-musical and musical tactile abilities are altered in the deaf individual, which supports studies suggesting a cortical reorganization of auditory and tactile areas following long-term auditory deprivation

Vowel processing in Italian pediatric cochlear-implant users: A behavioral and neurophysiological study

Multichannel cochlear implant (CI) devices partially restore the auditory sensation in children affected by congenital, bilateral, and severe-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss, especially in the absence of background noise, provided that CI surgery takes place during the sensitive period for maturation of the auditory pathways, which is presumed to end at 3.5 years [Sharma et al. 2002abc, 2005, 2007; 2009; Gilley et al. 2008]. A few previous studies on Italian pediatric CI users investigated the general auditory abilities as well as the speech intelligibility of deaf children [cf. Santarelli et al. 2009; Colletti et al. 2012; Caselli et al. 2012; Martines et al. 2013], by using the usual tests administered by speech therapists. Plenty of previous studies investigated detection, categorization, and discrimination of speech sounds, both consonants and vowels, at the cortical level (automatically), in CI children exposed to languages other than Italian, such English [Kileny et al. 1997; Sharma et al. 2002abc, 2005, 2007; 2009; Gilley et al. 2008; Henkin et al. 2008], Dutch [Beynon et al. 2002], German [Ortmann et al. 2013], Hebrew [Singh et al. 2004], and Croatian [Munivrana & Mildner 2013]. As compared to the above-mentioned studies, the present research introduces three methodological innovations: i) it investigates the processing of vowels; ii) it relies on natural speech stimuli, only minimally normalized; and iii) it combines the use of behavioral measures (e.g., tests of categorization and discrimination of speech sounds, administered attentively) with the use of neurophysiological measures (e.g., the EEG recording for subsequent extraction of the auditory ERPs indexing speech sound detection, categorization, and discrimination). The present study investigates the processing of single vowels (e.g., /u/, /i/, /e/, /o/, /a/) as well as of same-vowel pairs (e.g., /u/-/u/, /i/-/i/, /e/-/e/, /o/-/o/, /a/-/a/) and of different-vowel pairs (e.g., /u/-/i/, /i/-/u/, /e/-/i/, /i/-/e/, /o/-/a/, /a/-/o/) at the behavioral (e.g., conscious) and at the neurophysiological (e.g., automatic) levels in a group of deaf Italian children implanted during the sensitive period for central auditory maturation (range of age at surgery: 2.1 – 4.4 years) and who had been using their CI for at least 2 years (range of duration of CI stimulation: 2.4 – 8.1 years). At the behavioral level, tests of vowel detection and of vowel categorization were administered. At the neurophysiological level, the EEG activity was passively recorded when children were watching a silent movie while hearing vowel stimuli on the background. Subsequently, the P1, N1, and MMN responses of the auditory ERPs are the neural correlates of (speech) sound detection, categorization, and discrimination, in turn, were extracted. The vowel processing performance of the CI children will be compared against the performance exhibited by a group of normal-hearing (NH) children matched for biological age with the CI children. This study also investigated whether, and to what extent, some external factors were able to constrain vowel processing at the behavioral and neurophysiological level in CI children. These factors are the following ones: i) vowel quality; ii) the articulatory characteristics of the five vowels; iii) the larger vs. smaller Euclidean distance characterizing the vowel pairs; iv) the different distinctive feature specification and, more particularly, the direction of change in the distinctive feature specification between the first and the second vowel of each pair; v) the earlier vs. later age at surgery; and vi) the longer vs. shorter duration of CI use. The main findings of the present study are the following ones. First, the main difference between the behavioral and the neurophysiological levels of processing in CI children consists in the fact that the processing of vowel pairs is partially impaired for accuracy only at the behavioral level, whereas the processing of single vowels is partially impaired for accuracy, and rarely delayed, only at the neurophysiological level. Second, at the neurophysiological level, CI children are impaired at the auditory, not at the cognitive, level. In fact, in spite of typically being less accurate in detection and categorization of single vowels, CI children are not impaired in the processing of vowel pairs. Third, age at surgery and duration of implant stimulation are irrelevant for behavioral vowel processing, whereas they constrain cortical vowel processing, although not systematically: deaf children implanted before 3.4 years and/or who had been using their CI for at least 5.8 years may process single vowels as well as vowel pairs faster and more accurately. Vowel quality, the articulatory characteristics of the five vowels, the Euclidean, and the direction of change in the distinctive feature specification, on the other hand, turn out to be irrelevant in constraining vowel processing either at the behavioral and at the neurophysiological level

Public policy, social marketing and neuromarketing: from addressing the consumer behaviour to addressing the social behaviour - a study on the assessment of Public Service Announcements’ efficacy by neuro-metric indexes and techniques

The overall aim of this thesis is to investigate to what extent marketing can be a useful science for the public policy in developing effective Public Service Announcements (PSAs). In particular, hereby a specific discipline will be taken in consideration: the one that merges marketing with neuroscience, that is the so-called ‘neuromarketing’, which - in order to assess the advertising efficacy - adopts biometric and neurometric indexes. The objective of this work is to gain insights into the above-mentioned fields (marketing, neuroscience and public policy) by: - reviewing previous studies, as well as topical literature; - exploring the latest case studies and best practises; - examining the traditional methods’ results for the assessment of the PSAs (i.e. polls, surveys, focus groups) in their evolutionary path (till arriving to birth of the the neurometric methods) Such kind of research has the purpose to identify the factors that are considered relevant to answer the ultimate research question: is it possible today, by using state-of-the-art neurometric indexes and techniques, to provide policymakers with precise guidelines for developing effective PSAs, so that marketing will be able to address no more just the consumer behaviour, but also the social behaviour? In fact, the goal of any advertising campaign is to convey a specific message and reach a specific audience: the consumers. But, when talking about PSAs, many things changes: the KPIs for the assessment of their efficacy are no longer the commercial ones (GRP, reach etc.), but rather the gain obtained in public health after the airing of the campaign. Consequently, the specific message will be a different ‘call-to-action’: no more an invite to purchase, but rather to change a (wrong) social behaviour or adopt a (right) civil conscience. Given these premises, it is possible that marketing could be invested with a precise responsibility in terms of lives saved and public health. The practical and managerial implications of the research are the following: EU policymakers and local governments will have the opportunity to dispose of scientific data and information about the society that might be transformed in guidelines for producing effective PSAs based on the inner audience’s insights. The originality of this research resides in having framed the new neuromarketing protocols in the traditional Consumer Behaviour theory, combining thus future and past of the marketing research

Recognition and cortical haemodynamics of vocal emotions-an fNIRS perspective

Normal-hearing listeners rely heavily on variations in the fundamental frequency (F0) of speech to identify vocal emotions. Without reliable F0 cues, as is the case for cochlear implant users, listeners’ ability to extract emotional meaning from speech is reduced. This thesis describes the development of an objective measure of vocal emotion recognition. The program of three experiments investigates: 1) NH listeners’ abilities to use F0, intensity, and speech-rate cues to recognise emotions; 2) cortical activity associated with individual vocal emotions assessed using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS); 3) cortical activity evoked by vocal emotions in natural speech and in speech with uninformative F0 using fNIRS