10,141 research outputs found
Psychophysical and physiological evidence for fast binaural processing
The mammalian auditory system is the temporally most precise sensory modality: To localize low-frequency sounds in space, the binaural system can resolve time differences between the ears with microsecond precision. In contrast, the binaural system appears sluggish in tracking changing interaural time differences as they arise from a low-frequency sound source moving along the horizontal plane. For a combined psychophysical and electrophysiological approach, we created a binaural stimulus, called "Phasewarp," that can transmit rapid changes in interaural timing. Using this stimulus, the binaural performance in humans is significantly better than reported previously and comparable with the monaural performance revealed with amplitude-modulated stimuli. Parallel, electrophysiological recordings of binaural brainstem neurons in the gerbil show fast temporal processing of monaural and different types of binaural modulations. In a refined electrophysiological approach that was matched to the psychophysics, the seemingly faster binaural processing of the Phasewarp was confirmed. The current data provide both psychophysical and physiological evidence against a general, hard-wired binaural sluggishness and reconcile previous contradictions of electrophysiological and psychophysical estimates of temporal binaural performance
139La NMR evidence for phase solitons in the ground state of overdoped manganites
Hole doped transition metal oxides are famous due to their extraordinary
charge transport properties, such as high temperature superconductivity
(cuprates) and colossal magnetoresistance (manganites). Astonishing, the mother
system of these compounds is a Mott insulator, whereas important role in the
establishment of the metallic or superconducting state is played by the way
that holes are self-organized with doping. Experiments have shown that by
adding holes the insulating phase breaks into antiferromagnetic (AFM) regions,
which are separated by hole rich clumps (stripes) with a rapid change of the
phase of the background spins and orbitals. However, recent experiments in
overdoped manganites of the La(1-x)Ca(x)MnO(3) (LCMO) family have shown that
instead of charge stripes, charge in these systems is organized in a uniform
charge density wave (CDW). Besides, recent theoretical works predicted that the
ground state is inhomogeneously modulated by orbital and charge solitons, i.e.
narrow regions carrying charge (+/-)e/2, where the orbital arrangement varies
very rapidly. So far, this has been only a theoretical prediction. Here, by
using 139La Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) we provide direct evidence that
the ground state of overdoped LCMO is indeed solitonic. By lowering temperature
the narrow NMR spectra observed in the AFM phase are shown to wipe out, while
for T<30K a very broad spectrum reappears, characteristic of an incommensurate
(IC) charge and spin modulation. Remarkably, by further decreasing temperature,
a relatively narrow feature emerges from the broad IC NMR signal, manifesting
the formation of a solitonic modulation as T->0.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
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