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Room reflections and constancy in speech-like sounds: within-band effects
The experiment asks whether constancy in hearing precedes or follows grouping. Listeners heard speech-like
sounds comprising 8 auditory-filter shaped noise-bands that had temporal envelopes corresponding to those
arising in these filters when a speech message is played. The âcontextâ words in the message were ânext youâll
get _to click onâ, into which a âsirâ or âstirâ test word was inserted. These test words were from an 11-step
continuum that was formed by amplitude modulation. Listeners identified the test words appropriately and quite
consistently, even though they had the âroboticâ quality typical of this type of 8-band speech. The speech-like
effects of these sounds appears to be a consequence of auditory grouping. Constancy was assessed by comparing
the influence of room reflections on the test word across conditions where the context had either the same level
of reflections, or where it had a much lower level. Constancy effects were obtained with these 8-band sounds,
but only in âmatchedâ conditions, where the room reflections were in the same bands in both the context and the
test word. This was not the case in a comparison âmismatchedâ condition, and here, no constancy effects were
found. It would appear that this type of constancy in hearing precedes the across-channel grouping whose
effects are so apparent in these sounds. This result is discussed in terms of the ubiquity of grouping across
different levels of representation
Enhancement of the Binding Energy of Charged Excitons in Disordered Quantum Wires
Negatively and positively charged excitons are identified in the
spatially-resolved photoluminescence spectra of quantum wires. We demonstrate
that charged excitons are weakly localized in disordered quantum wires. As a
consequence, the enhancement of the "binding energy" of a charged exciton is
caused, for a significant part, by the recoil energy transferred to the
remaining charged carrier during its radiative recombination. We discover that
the Coulomb correlation energy is not the sole origin of the "binding energy",
in contrast to charged excitons confined in quantum dots.Comment: 4 Fig
Absorption spectrum of a weakly n-doped semiconductor quantum well
We calculate, as a function of temperature and conduction band electron
density, the optical absorption of a weakly n-doped, idealized semiconductor
quantum well. In particular, we focus on the absorption band due to the
formation of a charged exciton. We conceptualize the charged exciton as an
itinerant excitation intimately linked to the dynamical response of itinerant
conduction band electrons to the appearance of the photo-generated valence band
hole. Numerical results for the absorption in the vicinity of the exciton line
are presented and the spectral weights associated with, respectively, the
charged exciton band and the exciton line are analyzed in detail. We find, in
qualitative agreement with experimental data, that the spectral weight of the
charged exciton grows with increasing conduction band electron density and/or
decreasing temperature at the expense of the exciton.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Shake-up Processes in a Low-Density Two-Dimensional Electron Gas: Spin-Dependent Transitions to Higher Hole Landau Levels
A theory of shake-up processes in photoabsorption of an interacting
low-density two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in strong magnetic fields is
presented. In these processes, an incident photon creates an electron-hole pair
and, because of Coulomb interactions, simultaneously excites one particle to
higher Landau levels (LL's). In this work, the spectra of correlated charged
spin-singlet and spin-triplet electron-hole states in the first hole LL and
optical transitions to these states (i.e., shake-ups to the first hole LL) are
studied. Our results indicate, in particular, the presence of optically-active
three-particle quasi-discrete states in the exciton continuum that may give
rise to surprisingly sharp Fano resonances in strong magnetic fields. The
relation between shake-ups in photoabsorption of the 2DEG and in the 2D hole
gas (2DHG), and shake-ups of isolated negative X^- and positive X^+ trions are
discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures. References updated, one figure added (Fig. 6).
Accepted in Phys. Rev.
Across-formant integration and speech intelligibility:effects of acoustic source properties in the presence and absence of a contralateral interferer
The role of source properties in across-formant integration was explored using three-formant (F1+F2+F3) analogues of natural sentences (targets). In experiment 1, F1+F3 were harmonic analogues (H1+H3) generated using a monotonous buzz source and second-order resonators; in experiment 2, F1+F3 were tonal analogues (T1+T3). F2 could take either form (H2 or T2). Target formants were always presented monaurally; the receiving ear was assigned randomly on each trial. In some conditions, only the target was present; in others, a competitor for F2 (F2C) was presented contralaterally. Buzz-excited or tonal competitors were created using the time-reversed frequency and amplitude contours of F2. Listeners must reject F2C to optimize keyword recognition. Whether or not a competitor was present, there was no effect of source mismatch between F1+F3 and F2. The impact of adding F2C was modest when it was tonal but large when it was harmonic, irrespective of whether F2C matched F1+F3. This pattern was maintained when harmonic and tonal counterparts were loudness-matched (experiment 3). Source type and competition, rather than acoustic similarity, governed the phonetic contribution of a formant. Contrary to earlier research using dichotic targets, requiring across-ear integration to optimize intelligibility, H2C was an equally effective informational masker for H2 as for T2
Magnetic field dependence of the energy of negatively charged excitons in semiconductor quantum wells
A variational calculation of the spin-singlet and spin-triplet state of a
negatively charged exciton (trion) confined to a single quantum well and in the
presence of a perpendicular magnetic field is presented. We calculated the
probability density and the pair correlation function of the singlet and
triplet trion states. The dependence of the energy levels and of the binding
energy on the well width and on the magnetic field strength was investigated.
We compared our results with the available experimental data on GaAs/AlGaAs
quantum wells and find that in the low magnetic field region (B<18 T) the
observed transition are those of the singlet and the dark triplet trion (with
angular momentum ), while for high magnetic fields (B>25 T) the dark
trion becomes optically inactive and possibly a transition to a bright triplet
trion (angular momentum ) state is observed.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figures submitted to Phys. Rev.
Impaired frequency selectivity and sensitivity to temporal fine structure, but not envelope cues, in children with mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss.
Psychophysical thresholds were measured for 8-16âyear-old children with mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss (MMHL; Nâ=â46) on a battery of auditory processing tasks that included measures designed to be dependent upon frequency selectivity and sensitivity to temporal fine structure (TFS) or envelope cues. Children with MMHL who wore hearing aids were tested in both unaided and aided conditions, and all were compared to a group of normally hearing (NH) age-matched controls. Children with MMHL performed more poorly than NH controls on tasks considered to be dependent upon frequency selectivity, sensitivity to TFS, and speech discrimination (/bÉ/-/dÉ/), but not on tasks measuring sensitivity to envelope cues. Auditory processing deficits remained regardless of age, were observed in both unaided and aided conditions, and could not be attributed to differences in nonverbal IQ or attention between groups. However, better auditory processing in children with MMHL was predicted by better audiometric thresholds and, for aided tasks only, higher levels of maternal education. These results suggest that, as for adults with MMHL, children with MMHL may show deficits in frequency selectivity and sensitivity to TFS, but sensitivity to the envelope may remain intact.Economic and Social Research Council First Grants Award (RES-061-25-
0440) and Medical Research Council Senior Fellowship in
Hearing Research (MR/S002464/1) awarded to L.F.H
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