Non-LTE Model Atmospheres for Late-Type Stars II. Restricted NLTE Calculations for a Solar-Like Atmosphere

We test our knowledge of the atomic opacity in the solar UV spectrum. Using the atomic data compiled in Paper I from modern, publicly available, databases, we perform calculations that are confronted with space-based observations of the Sun. At wavelengths longer than about 260 nm, LTE modeling can reproduce quite closely the observed fluxes; uncertainties in the atomic line data account fully for the differences between calculated and observed fluxes. At shorter wavelengths, departures from LTE appear to be important, as our LTE and restricted NLTE calculations differ. Analysis of visible-near infrared Na I and O I lines, two species that produce a negligible absorption in the UV, shows that observed departures from LTE for theses species can be reproduced very accurately with restricted (fixed atmospheric structure) NLTE calculations.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, to appear in Ap

Comparison of Training, Anthropometric, Physiological and Psychological Variables of Ultra-Endurance Cyclists and Runners

AbstractWe compared training, anthropometric, physiological and psychological characteristics between 14 cyclists, participants in a 24-hour mountain bike race and 12 runners, participants in a 7-day running ultra-marathon. Methods: Questionnaires and physiological measurements. Results: The differences in ages between cyclists and runners were significant (p << 0.01). The pre-race minus post-race differences (Δ) in body mass (from 76.5 ± 13.1kg to 72.0 ± 12.0kg) and (Δ) in value of hematocrit (6.1 ± 3.5%) were significant only in runners. The post-race minus pre-race difference (Δ) in the rating of perceived exertion was significant in both groups

Spectro-Temporal Modulation Transfer Functions and Speech Intelligibility

Detection thresholds for spectral and temporal modulations are measuredusing broadband spectra with sinusoidally rippled profiles that drift up or down the log-frequency axis at constant velocities. Spectro-temporal Modulation Transfer Functions (MTF) are derived as a function of ripple peak density (cycles/octave) and drifting velocity (Hz). MTFs exhibit a lowpass function with respect to both dimensions, with 50 percent bandwidths ofabout 16 Hz and 2 cycles/octave. The data replicate (as special cases) previously measured purely temporal MTFs [Viemeister, 1979] and purely spectral MTFs [Green, 1986].We present a computational auditory model that exhibits spectro-temporal MTFs consistent with the salient trends in the data.The model is used to demonstrate the potential relevance of these MTFsto the assessment of speech intelligibility in noise and reverberantconditions

Does training with amplitude modulated tones affect tone-vocoded speech perception?

Temporal-envelope cues are essential for successful speech perception. We asked here whether training on stimuli containing temporal-envelope cues without speech content can improve the perception of spectrally-degraded (vocoded) speech in which the temporal-envelope (but not the temporal fine structure) is mainly preserved. Two groups of listeners were trained on different amplitude-modulation (AM) based tasks, either AM detection or AM-rate discrimination (21 blocks of 60 trials during two days, 1260 trials; frequency range: 4Hz, 8Hz, and 16Hz), while an additional control group did not undertake any training. Consonant identification in vocoded vowel-consonant-vowel stimuli was tested before and after training on the AM tasks (or at an equivalent time interval for the control group). Following training, only the trained groups showed a significant improvement in the perception of vocoded speech, but the improvement did not significantly differ from that observed for controls. Thus, we do not find convincing evidence that this amount of training with temporal-envelope cues without speech content provide significant benefit for vocoded speech intelligibility. Alternative training regimens using vocoded speech along the linguistic hierarchy should be explored

Summary statistics in auditory perception

Sensory signals are transduced at high resolution, but their structure must be stored in a more compact format. Here we provide evidence that the auditory system summarizes the temporal details of sounds using time-averaged statistics. We measured discrimination of 'sound textures' that were characterized by particular statistical properties, as normally result from the superposition of many acoustic features in auditory scenes. When listeners discriminated examples of different textures, performance improved with excerpt duration. In contrast, when listeners discriminated different examples of the same texture, performance declined with duration, a paradoxical result given that the information available for discrimination grows with duration. These results indicate that once these sounds are of moderate length, the brain's representation is limited to time-averaged statistics, which, for different examples of the same texture, converge to the same values with increasing duration. Such statistical representations produce good categorical discrimination, but limit the ability to discern temporal detail.Howard Hughes Medical Institut

Real-Time Contrast Enhancement to Improve Speech Recognition

An algorithm that operates in real-time to enhance the salient features of speech is described and its efficacy is evaluated. The Contrast Enhancement (CE) algorithm implements dynamic compressive gain and lateral inhibitory sidebands across channels in a modified winner-take-all circuit, which together produce a form of suppression that sharpens the dynamic spectrum. Normal-hearing listeners identified spectrally smeared consonants (VCVs) and vowels (hVds) in quiet and in noise. Consonant and vowel identification, especially in noise, were improved by the processing. The amount of improvement did not depend on the degree of spectral smearing or talker characteristics. For consonants, when results were analyzed according to phonetic feature, the most consistent improvement was for place of articulation. This is encouraging for hearing aid applications because confusions between consonants differing in place are a persistent problem for listeners with sensorineural hearing loss