Vestigial auriculomotor activity indicates the direction of auditory attention in humans

Unlike dogs and cats, people do not point their ears as they focus attention on novel, salient, or task-relevant stimuli. Our species may nevertheless have retained a vestigial pinna-orienting system that has persisted as a 'neural fossil’ within in the brain for about 25 million years. Consistent with this hypothesis, we demonstrate that the direction of auditory attention is reflected in sustained electrical activity of muscles within the vestigial auriculomotor system. Surface electromyograms (EMGs) were taken from muscles that either move the pinna or alter its shape. To assess reflexive, stimulus-driven attention we presented novel sounds from speakers at four different lateral locations while the participants silently read a boring text in front of them. To test voluntary, goal-directed attention we instructed participants to listen to a short story coming from one of these speakers, while ignoring a competing story from the corresponding speaker on the opposite side. In both experiments, EMG recordings showed larger activity at the ear on the side of the attended stimulus, but with slightly different patterns. Upward movement (perking) differed according to the lateral focus of attention only during voluntary orienting; rearward folding of the pinna’s upper-lateral edge exhibited such differences only during reflexive orienting. The existence of a pinna-orienting system in humans, one that is experimentally accessible, offers opportunities for basic as well as applied science

Soziales Lernen in Schule, Betrieb, Jugendarbeit und neuen gesellschaftlichen Organisationsformen

Available from UuStB Koeln(38)-970106646 / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman

Soziales Lernen in Schule, Betrieb, Jugendarbeit und neuen gesellschaftlichen Organisationsformen

Die vorliegende Tagungsdokumentation wird von Beitraegen eingeleitet, die grundsaetzliche Aspekte im Kontext von sozialem Lernen, Solidaritaet und Zukunft des Sozialstaats thematisieren und Grundzuege einer Theorie sozialen Lernens formulieren. Vor diesem Hintergrund werden Facetten von organisiertem sozialen Lernen in der Bundesrepublik in den Lernfeldern Schule, Betrieb und Jugendarbeit sowie in neuen gesellschaftlichen Organisationen beleuchtet. Darueberhinaus wird der Stellenwert von sozialen Kompetenzen auf dem Ausbildungsstellen- und Arbeitsmarkt bedacht. Abschliessend werden praktische Schlussfolgerungen formuliert, die dazu beitragen sollen, dass soziales Lernen in der Bundesrepublik zu einer Selbstverstaendlichkeit wird. (ICE2)Available from UuStB Koeln(38)-970106646 / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman

Speech induced binaural beats: Electrophysiological assessment of binaural interaction

This paper introduces and evaluates a speech signal manipulation scheme that generates transient speech induced binaural beats (SBBs). These SBBs can only be perceived when different signals are presented dichotically (to both ears). Event-related potentials were recorded in 22 normal-hearing subjects. Dichotic stimulus presentation reliably evoked auditory late responses (ALRs) in all subjects using such manipulated signals. As control measurements, diotic stimulation modalities were presented to confirm that the ALRs were not evoked by the speech signal itself or that the signal manipulation scheme created audible artifacts. Since diotic measurements evoked no ALRs, responses from dichotic stimulation are a pure correlate of binaural interaction. While there are several auditory stimuli (mostly modulated sinusoids or noise) that share this characteristic, none of them are based on running speech. Because SBBs can be added to any arbitrary speech signal, they could easily be combined with psychoacoustic tests, for example speech reception thresholds, adding an objective measure of binaural interaction

sj-pdf-1-tia-10.1177_23312165231200158 - Supplemental material for Assessment of Vestigial Auriculomotor Activity to Acoustic Stimuli Using Electrodes In and Around the Ear

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-tia-10.1177_23312165231200158 for Assessment of Vestigial Auriculomotor Activity to Acoustic Stimuli Using Electrodes In and Around the Ear by Andreas Schroeer, Martin Rune Andersen, Mike Lind Rank, Ronny Hannemann, Eline Borch Petersen, Filip Marchman Rønne, Daniel J. Strauss and Farah I. Corona-Strauss in Trends in Hearing</p