Responses of Auditory Nerve and Anteroventral Cochlear Nucleus Fibers to Broadband and Narrowband Noise: Implications for the Sensitivity to Interaural Delays

The quality of temporal coding of sound waveforms in the monaural afferents that converge on binaural neurons in the brainstem limits the sensitivity to temporal differences at the two ears. The anteroventral cochlear nucleus (AVCN) houses the cells that project to the binaural nuclei, which are known to have enhanced temporal coding of low-frequency sounds relative to auditory nerve (AN) fibers. We applied a coincidence analysis within the framework of detection theory to investigate the extent to which AVCN processing affects interaural time delay (ITD) sensitivity. Using monaural spike trains to a 1-s broadband or narrowband noise token, we emulated the binaural task of ITD discrimination and calculated just noticeable differences (jnds). The ITD jnds derived from AVCN neurons were lower than those derived from AN fibers, showing that the enhanced temporal coding in the AVCN improves binaural sensitivity to ITDs. AVCN processing also increased the dynamic range of ITD sensitivity and changed the shape of the frequency dependence of ITD sensitivity. Bandwidth dependence of ITD jnds from AN as well as AVCN fibers agreed with psychophysical data. These findings demonstrate that monaural preprocessing in the AVCN improves the temporal code in a way that is beneficial for binaural processing and may be crucial in achieving the exquisite sensitivity to ITDs observed in binaural pathways

Investigating the effect of visual phonetic cues on the auditory N1 & P2

Studies have shown that the N1 and P2 auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) that occur to a speech sound when the talker can be seen (i.e., Auditory-Visual speech), occur earlier and are reduced in amplitude compared to when the talker cannot be seen (auditory-only speech). An explanation for why seeing the talker changes the brain’s response to sound is that visual speech provides information about the upcoming auditory speech event. This information reduces uncertainty about when the sound will occur and about what the event will be (resulting in a smaller N1 and P2, which are markers associated with auditory processing). It has yet to be determined whether form information alone can influence the amplitude or timing of either the N1 or P2. We tested this by conducting two separate EEG experiments. In Experiment 1, we compared the N1 and P2 peaks of the ERPs to auditory speech when preceded by a visual speech cue (Audio-visual Speech) or by a static neutral face. In Experiment 2, we compared contrasting N1/P2 peaks of the ERPs to auditory speech preceded by print cues presenting reliable information about their content (written “ba” or “da” shown before these spoken syllables), or to control cues (meaningless printed symbols). The results of Experiment 1 confirmed that the presentation of visual speech produced the expected effect of amplitude suppression of the N1 but the opposite effect occurred for latency facilitation (Auditory-only speech faster than Audio-visual speech). For Experiment 2, no difference in the amplitude or timing of the N1 or P2 ERPs to the reliable print versus the control cues was found. The unexpected slower latency response of the N1 to AV speech stimuli found in Experiment 1, may be accounted for by attentional differences induced by the experimental design. The null effect of print cues in Experiment 2 indicate the importance of the temporal relationship between visual and auditory events

The simultaneity of complementary conditions:re-integrating and balancing analogue and digital matter(s) in basic architectural education

The actual, globally established, general digital procedures in basic architectural education,producing well-behaved, seemingly attractive up-to-date projects, spaces and first general-researchon all scale levels, apparently present a certain growing amount of deficiencies. These limitations surface only gradually, as the state of things on overall extents is generally deemed satisfactory. Some skills, such as “old-fashioned” analogue drawing are gradually eased-out ofundergraduate curricula and overall modus-operandi, due to their apparent slow inefficiencies in regard to various digital media’s rapid readiness, malleability and unproblematic, quotidian availabilities. While this state of things is understandable, it nevertheless presents a definite challenge. The challenge of questioning how the assessment of conditions and especially their representation,is conducted, prior to contextual architectural action(s) of any kind

In Situ Listening:Soundscape, Site and Transphonia

This enquiry represents an exploration of environmental sound and artistic practice from the perspectives of in situ listening and transphonia. The initial term, in situ listening, has been coined by the author in order to constellate a group of intellectual trajectories and artists’ practices that engage with recorded sound and share a common theme: that the listening context, the relationship between mediated sound and site, is an integral part of the engagement process. Heikki Uimonen (2005, p.63) defines transphonia as the, “mechanical, electroacoustical or digital recording, reproduction and relocating of sounds.” The term applies to sound that is relocated from one location to another, or sound that is recorded at a site and then mixed with the sound of the prevailing environment. The experience of the latter, which is a key concern for this thesis, may be encountered during the field recording process when one ‘listens back’ to recordings while on site or during the presentation of site-specific sound art work. Twelve sound installations, each based on field recordings, were produced in order to progress the investigation. Installations were created using a personally devised approach that was rigorous, informed, and iterative. Each installation explored a different environment. These installations, and their related environmental studies, form the core content of this enquiry. In the first part of this thesis the installations are used to explore observations of transphonic audio content in relation to a number of subjective, surprising and intangible phenomena: disorientation, uncanny sensations or even the awareness of coincidence. These observations are supported and contextualised in relation to a wide range of historic and contemporary sources. Works in the second part of the thesis are used to motivate a meditation on the relationship between soundscape, site and time, which was proposed by the initial phase of the research

Chance and Necessity: Hegel’s Epistemological Vision

In this paper the authors provide an epistemological view on the old controversial random-necessity. It has been considered that either one or the other form part of the structure of reality. Chance and indeterminism are nothing but a disorderly efficiency of contingency in the production of events, phenomena, processes, i.e., in its causality, in the broadest sense of the word. Such production may be observed in natural and artificial processes or in human social processes (in history, economics, society, politics, etc.). Here we touch the object par excellence of all scientific research whether natural or human. In this work, is presented a hypothesis whose practical result satisfies the Hegelian dialectic, with the consequent implication of their mutual reciprocal integration. Producing abstractions, without which, there is no thought or knowledge of any kind, from the concrete, that is, the real problem, which in this case is a given Ontological System or Reality.Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature

Written Somewhere: The Social Space of Text

This thesis is concerned with the space of text, with the composition of that space, its form and substance, and also with the perception and experience of that space. The argument takes in existing theoretical attempts to explain the spatiality of texts, particularly Joseph Frank's 1945 essay "Spatial Form in Modem Literature," and tests their ideas against literary texts which, it will be argued, make a vital contribution to our comprehension of textual space. The keys texts studied are John Banville's Kepler, Paul Auster's City of Glass, Kazuo Ishiguro's The Unconsoled, and the works of Thomas Pynchon. As an understanding of the space of text develops, the work of Henri Lefebvre, and especially his 1974 text The Production of Space, comes increasingly to the fore. Criticising traditional philosophical concepts of space, which tend to view space in either purely physical or mental terms, Lefebvre's work enables us to place the discussion on textual space within a wider context. Textual space is seen to emerge as a social space, and thus a social product, capable of being employed in different ways within society, as a representation of space, aligned with mental space, or as a representational space, allied to lived spaces. The final sections of the thesis explore the reader's experience of this lived textual space, and question the role and place of textual space in the social realm

AUTOMATIC VERSUS AUTOMATIC,MATERIALIZED FICTION AS A CONFRONTATIONAL COMPOSITIONAL PROCESS: A resolved complexity: simplicity

The current submitted work consists of a portfolio of musical works, visual pieces and thoughts that preoccupied me over a period of research and creation from late 2014 to 2017. Pieces described in this thesis developed into an overall artistic research and craft which led to a specific workflow serving a new personal aesthetic. Two parts describe two seemingly antonymous automatic creation processes: automatic versus automatic. The first part describes my inspirations together with a consequent formal-ization of my composition techniques. I render generative automatic music both emerging from finite state computation and infinitesimal interference. The second part shows that I often perform my music in specific sites with challenging conditions. I consider them as constraints that eventually also be-come part of the composition system. The materialization of a piece involves aback-and-forth process, between concepts and realities, that I finally transcend in the sense of surrealist automatism. This mechanical and human process is a necessity for the authenticity to my pieces

Proceedings of the EAA Spatial Audio Signal Processing symposium: SASP 2019

International audienc