A Music-Related Quality of Life measure to guide music rehabilitation for adult CI users

Purpose: A music-related quality of life (MuRQoL) questionnaire was developed for the evaluation of music rehabilitation for adult cochlear implant (CI) users. The present studies were aimed at refinement and validation. Method: Twenty-four experts reviewed the MuRQoL items for face validity. A refined version was completed by 147 adult CI users and psychometric techniques were used for item selection, assessment of reliability and definition of the factor structure. The same participants completed the Short Form Health Survey for construct validation. MuRQoL responses from 68 CI users were compared with those of a matched group of normal-hearing (NH) adults. Results: Eighteen items measuring music perception & engagement and 18 items measuring their importance were selected; they grouped together into two domains. The final questionnaire has high internal consistency and repeatability. Significant differences between CI users and NH adults and a correlation between music engagement and quality of life (QoL) support construct validity. Scores of music perception & engagement and importance for the 18 items can be combined to assess the impact of music on the QoL. Conclusion: The MuRQoL questionnaire is a reliable and valid measure of self-reported music perception, engagement and their importance for adult CI users with potential to guide music aural rehabilitation

Effects of carrier and phase on the pitch of long-duration vibrato tones

Previous studies on the pitch of long-duration vibrato tones, where the modulator is a symmetric function (e.g. sine or triangular wave) have shown that the pitch perceived corresponds to either the arithmetic or geometric mean fundamental frequency of the vibrato tone. In one study the pitch of a vibrato tone consisting of a square wave modulated by a triangular wave was found to be inexplicably lower than that of a sine wave modulated by a triangular wave. An investigation into the pitch of short-duration vibrato tones also revealed an effect of phase on vibrato pitch. An experiment was undertaken with the aim of exploring the effects of carrier and phase on the pitch of long-duration vibrato tones. Six musically trained participants made matches between modulated and unmodulated tones using a method of adjustment and free response paradigm. The following carriers were investigated: a sinusoid, a complex tone with 4 resolved harmonics, a complex tone with 12 harmonics and a complex tone containing harmonics 10 to 15 (all of equal amplitude). Initial phases of 0 and p radians were also explored and the carrier frequency was set to 500 Hz for all conditions. A repeated measures analysis of variance with factors carrier, phase and adjustment tone starting frequency revealed a statistically significant main effect of phase (F (1, 5) = 24.747, p < 0.005), but no significant main effect of carrier. The effect of phase was found to be in opposition with previous findings for short-duration vibrato tones and possible reasons are discussed

Effect of carrier on the pitch of long duration vibrato tones

Background  Previous studies on the pitch perceived for long-duration vibrato tones, where the modulator is a symmetric function (e.g. sine or triangular wave) have shown that the pitch perceived is generally the mean. For sinusoidal carriers modulated using a triangular wave is has been suggested that the pitch perceived is closer to the geometric mean than the arithmetic mean.Aims  A pilot study was undertaken with the aim of exploring the effect of carrier on the perceived pitch and pitch strength of vibrato tones. The following carriers were investigated: a sinusoid, an impulse with four resolved harmonics of equal amplitude (including f0), an impulse with twelve harmonics and an impulse containing the fundamental plus unresolved harmonics nine to twelve (all of equal amplitude).Method  Pitch matches were obtained between modulated and unmodulated tones using a two-interval two-alternative adaptive procedure. The modulated tone was presented first, followed by one second of silence and then the unmodulated tone. Subjects indicated which of the tones was higher in pitch. Three carrier frequencies (fc = ERBN no. 4 (123.2Hz), 10 (442.3Hz) and 16 (1051.1Hz)) were investigated for each of the four carriers resulting in twelve experimental conditions. In addition subjects were required to make unmodulated tone matches for all carriers at fc = ERBN no. 10. Tone length was one second including 40ms raised cosine onset and offset ramps. The modulator in all cases was a sinusoid with an initial phase of 0 degrees, a rate of 6Hz and extent of .s 6% of fc. All stimuli were presented at 45dBA.Results   A two-way repeated measures ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of carrier, F(3, 39) =4.01, p &lt; .05 and interaction between carrier and frequency. Overall there was much variation in the subjects’ responses and this variation tended to increase with fc.Conclusions  The results of this pilot study suggest that carrier type may affect the perceived pitch of tonesvibrato; however there was large variance in subject responses and so a long term study using fewer, highly trained subjects is currently being undertaken to corroborate these results.<br/

Towards an understanding of speech and song perception

The human singing voice plays an important role in music of all societies. It is an extremely flexible instrument and is capable of producing a tremendous range of sounds. As such, the human voice can be hard to classify and poses a major challenge for automatic audio discrimination and classification systems. Speech/song discrimination is an implicit goal of speech/music discrimination, where a division is sought between speech and song, such that the singing voice can be grouped together with other musical instruments in the same category. However, the division between speech and song is unclear and even human attempts at speech/song discrimination can be highly subjective and open to discussion. In this paper we present the results of a test that was designed to investigate differences in auditory perception for speech and song. Twenty-four subjects were instructed to attend to either the words or pitch, or both words and pitch of context-free spoken and sung phrases. After presentation of each phrase, subjects were asked to either type the words that they recalled, or select the correct pitch contour from a choice of four graphical representations, or do both, depending on the task specified before presentation of the phrase. The results of the experiment show a decrease in the amount of linguistic information retained by subjects for sung phrases and also a decrease in accuracy of response for the sung phrases when subjects attended to both words and pitch instead of words or pitch alone

Range of tuning for tones with and without vibrato

Previous studies on vibrato pitch attempted to determine the "principal pitch" of vibrato tones and not the range of tuning for such tones in a melodic context. This study investigates the range of acceptable tuning (RAT) for tones with and without vibrato, using repeating ascending and descending three-tone arpeggios. The second tone in each sequence was modulated or unmodulated with an initial pitch that was flat or sharp. With each repetition the pitch of the second tone increased or decreased by 3 cents depending upon the initial pitch condition. Participants indicated when they perceived the second tone to be in tune and out of tune. The RAT for vibrato tones was approximately 10 cents greater than for unmodulated tones. This is largely due to the lower RAT limit, indicating that the carrier frequency of vibrato tones can be 10 cents flatter than the fundamental frequency of an unmodulated tone

Fit for the frontline? Identification of mission-critical auditory tasks (MCATs) carried out by infantry and combat-support personnel

The ability to listen to commands in noisy environments and understand acoustic signals, whilst maintaining situational awareness, is an important skill for military personnel, and can be critical for mission success. Seventeen auditory tasks carried out by British infantry and combat-support personnel were identified through a series of focus groups conducted by Bevis et al.1. For military personnel these auditory tasks are termed mission-critical auditory tasks (MCATs) if they are carried in out in a military specific environment and have a negative consequence when performed below a specified level. A questionnaire study was conducted to find out which of the auditory tasks identified by Bevis et al.1 satisfy the characteristics of an MCAT. Seventy-nine British infantry and combat-support personnel from four regiments across the South of England participated. For each auditory task participants indicated: 1) the consequences of poor performance on the task, 2) who performs the task and 3) how frequently the task is carried out. The data were analysed to determine which tasks are carried out by all personnel, have the most negative consequences when performed poorly and are performed the most frequently. This resulted in a list of nine MCATs (seven speech communication tasks, one sound localisation task and one sound detection task) that should be prioritised for representation in a measure of auditory fitness for duty (AFFD) for these personnel. Incorporating MCATs in AFFD measures will help to ensure that personnel have the necessary auditory skills for safe and effective deployment on operational duties

The ‘Interactive Music Awareness Program’ (IMAP) for cochlear implant users

There is some evidence that structured training can benefit cochlear implant (CI) users' appraisal of music as well as their music perception abilities. There are currently very limited music training resources available for CI users to explore. This demonstration will introduce delegates to the `Interactive Music Awareness Program' (IMAP) for cochlear implant users, which was developed in response to the need for a client-centered, structured, interactive, creative, open-ended, educational and challenging music (re)habilitation resource