Evaluation of Central Auditory Processing of Azeri-Persian Bilinguals Using Dichotic

 Objectives: Sometimes there is no hearing impairment, but it is possible to have an auditory disorder. This is known as a central auditory processing disorder (CAPD). Verbal dichotic tasks are useful tools to evaluate CAPD, but there is almost no tool to assess this for Azeri people in their native language. The aim of this study is to evaluate central auditory processing of Azeri participants by Azeri dichotic digit test (ADDT).Materials & Methods: Participants were 52 normal Iranian Azeri students (mean age 23.27± 4.71 ; 26 female, 26 male).They were chosen by convenient sampling. ADDT was constructed and administered in free recall format along with a Persian dichotic digit test (PDDT). After two to four weeks, reliability was performed. Results: The mean of the right ear score of PDDT and ADDT were 98.90 and 99.09 percent, respectively. ADDT was reliable in almost all scores. There was no significant difference in performance between men and women in any score of both tests (p>0.05). The results showed a significant difference between both ears’ scores in PDDT (p<0.02) as well as in ADDT (p=0.00). The right ear advantage were seen in both tests. Conclusions: All participants performed significantly better on numbers presented in the right ear than the left ear in both tests. Central auditory processing of Azeri participants for Azeri is similar to that for Persian.

The Effect of Contralateral Noise Stimulation on Difference Limen for Intensity

Background and Aim: Contralateral stimulation with noise can improve auditory intensity discrimination. This may be related to function of the efferent system. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between the auditory intensity discrimination and the efferent system function.Methods: Twenty students with normal hearing were included in this descriptive-analytic study. We examined Difference Limen for Intensity (DLI), Otoacoustic Emissions suppression and Speech In Noise. DLI was evaluated with and without contralateral noise stimulation at two different stimulus levels (20, 70 dB SL).Results: There was significant difference between mean DLI scores of with contralateral masking comparing to without it, which was more prominent as frequency increased. Mean DLI score while masking with white noise was more than mean scores when masking with narrow band noise (p<0.05). Transient evoked otoacoustic emissions responses decreased significantly in amplitude with contralateral masking. (p<0.05)Conclusion: These results suggest that medial olivocochlear bundle functions as a key role in auditory intensity discrimination

Comparative Evaluation of Auditory Attention in 7 to 9 Year Old Learning Disabled Students

Background and Aim: Learning disability is a term referes to a group of disorders manifesting listening, reading, writing, or mathematical problems. These children mostly have attention difficulties in classroom that leads to many learning problems. In this study we aimed to compare the auditory attention of 7 to 9 year old children with learning disability to non- learning disability age matched normal group.Methods: Twenty seven male 7 to 9 year old students with learning disability and 27 age and sex matched normal conrols were selected with unprobable simple sampling. 27 In order to evaluate auditory selective and divided attention, Farsi versions of speech in noise and dichotic digit test were used respectively.Results: Comparison of mean scores of Farsi versions of speech in noise in both ears of 7 and 8 year-old students in two groups indicated no significant difference (p>0.05) Mean scores of 9 year old controls was significant more than those of the cases only in the right ear (p=0.033). However, no significant difference was observed between mean scores of dichotic digit test assessing the right ear of 9 year-old learning disability and non learning disability students (p>0.05). Moreover, mean scores of 7 and 8 year- old students with learning disability was less than those of their normal peers in the left ear (p>0.05).Conclusion: Selective auditory attention is not affected in the optimal signal to noise ratio, while divided attention seems to be affected by maturity delay of auditory system or central auditory system disorders

Determination of Mismatch Negativity in 4 to 9-Year-Old Children by Tonal Stimulation

Background and Aim: Mismatch negativity (MMN) is one of the auditory evoked potentials that occurs about 100-250 ms after stimulus onset. The MMN waveform is elicited by a discriminable change in a sequence of repetitive homogenous stimuli. This change can be in intensity level, frequency, or duration of auditory stimuli. The purpose of this study was to obtain MMN waveform using tonal stimuli and to investigate its changes during changes in age. Materials and Methods: The study was prescriptive-analytic cross-sectional. The participants were sixty children aged 4 to 9 year. The stimuli were at 80 dB pe SPL. A 1000Hz tone and a 1500Hz tone were used as standard and deviant stimuli, respectively. Probability of deviant stimuli was 20%. Trials were recorded using surface electrode placed at four locations on the head. Results: The MMN waveform does not exist in 22.5% of the children. Also, determining of MMN peak in 22.5% was not exactly possible. In other subjects, a significant negative correlation was observed between latency of MMN and age, but not for age and amplitude for this negativity. Conclusion: This study confirms that the MMN may not be seen in normal people. Also there are maturational changes in MMN waveform

The auditory attention status in Iranian bilingual and monolingual people

Background and Aim: Bilingualism, as one of the discussing issues of psychology and linguistics, can influence the speech processing. Of several tests for assessing auditory processing, dichotic digit test has been designed to study divided auditory attention. Our study was performed to compare the auditory attention between Iranian bilingual and monolingual young adults. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 60 students including 30 Turkish-Persian bilinguals and 30 Persian monolinguals aged between 18 to 30 years in both genders. Dichotic digit test was performed on young individuals with normal peripheral hearing and right hand preference. Results: No significant correlation was found between the results of dichotic digit test of monolinguals and bilinguals (p=0.195), and also between the results of right and left ears in monolingual (p=0.460) and bilingual (p=0.054) groups. The mean score of women was significantly more than men (p=0.031). Conclusion: There was no significant difference between bilinguals and monolinguals in divided auditory attention; and it seems that acquisition of second language in lower ages has no noticeable effect on this type of auditory attention

Speech Evoked Auditory Brainstem Response in Stuttering

Auditory processing deficits have been hypothesized as an underlying mechanism for stuttering. Previous studies have demonstrated abnormal responses in subjects with persistent developmental stuttering (PDS) at the higher level of the central auditory system using speech stimuli. Recently, the potential usefulness of speech evoked auditory brainstem responses in central auditory processing disorders has been emphasized. The current study used the speech evoked ABR to investigate the hypothesis that subjects with PDS have specific auditory perceptual dysfunction. Objectives. To determine whether brainstem responses to speech stimuli differ between PDS subjects and normal fluent speakers. Methods. Twenty-five subjects with PDS participated in this study. The speech-ABRs were elicited by the 5-formant synthesized syllable/da/, with duration of 40 ms. Results. There were significant group differences for the onset and offset transient peaks. Subjects with PDS had longer latencies for the onset and offset peaks relative to the control group. Conclusions. Subjects with PDS showed a deficient neural timing in the early stages of the auditory pathway consistent with temporal processing deficits and their abnormal timing may underlie to their disfluency

WEIRD FAccTs: How Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic is FAccT?

Studies conducted on Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) samples are considered atypical of the world's population and may not accurately represent human behavior. In this study, we aim to quantify the extent to which the ACM FAccT conference, the leading venue in exploring Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems' fairness, accountability, and transparency, relies on WEIRD samples. We collected and analyzed 128 papers published between 2018 and 2022, accounting for 30.8% of the overall proceedings published at FAccT in those years (excluding abstracts, tutorials, and papers without human-subject studies or clear country attribution for the participants). We found that 84% of the analyzed papers were exclusively based on participants from Western countries, particularly exclusively from the U.S. (63%). Only researchers who undertook the effort to collect data about local participants through interviews or surveys added diversity to an otherwise U.S.-centric view of science. Therefore, we suggest that researchers collect data from under-represented populations to obtain an inclusive worldview. To achieve this goal, scientific communities should champion data collection from such populations and enforce transparent reporting of data biases.Comment: To appear at ACM FAccT 202

Dichotic auditory-verbal memory in adults with cerebro-vascular accident

Background and Aim: Cerebrovascular accident is a neurological disorder involves central nervous system. Studies have shown that it affects the outputs of behavioral auditory tests such as dichotic auditory verbal memory test. The purpose of this study was to compare this memory test results between patients with cerebrovascular accident and normal subjects.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 20 patients with cerebrovascular accident aged 50-70 years and 20 controls matched for age and gender in Emam Khomeini Hospital, Tehran, Iran. Dichotic auditory verbal memory test was performed on each subject.Results: The mean score in the two groups was significantly different (p<0.0001). The results indicated that the right-ear score was significantly greater than the left-ear score in normal subjects (p<0.0001) and in patients with right hemisphere lesion (p<0.0001). The right-ear and left-ear scores were not significantly different in patients with left hemisphere lesion (p=0.0860).Conclusion: Among other methods, Dichotic auditory verbal memory test is a beneficial test in assessing the central auditory nervous system of patients with cerebrovascular accident. It seems that it is sensitive to the damages occur following temporal lobe strokes

Competing Sentence Test (CST) Results in Patients With Cerebrovascular Accident (CVA)

Objective: As the cerebrovascular diseases (CVD) are among the most common anomalies that are directly or indirectly affecting the auditory cortex, studying in this area is important. We tried to evaluate the function of CANS in a group of 50-70 years old cerebrovascular accident (CVA) patients with no hearing complaint by competing sentences test (CST) as a dichotic speech test. Method and Material: This cross-sectional analytical study was conducted at Loghman-e-Hakim hospital between 22, august 1999 and 20, July 2000 in a group of 30 normal 50-70 years old persons and a group of 40 patients with CVA including 30 patients with abnormal CT scan and 10 patients with normal CT scan. Results: The results point out the mean scores of CST in the normal group were at normal range (80-100%) in both ears. And mean scores of CST decreased in the patients groups. There were significant difference between mean scores of CST in the patients with CVA and control groups. Conclusion: CST seems to be a valuable test in the CANS test batteries for the cerebrovascular diseases

Persian randomized dichotic digits test: Development and dichotic listening performance in young adults

Background and Aims: The dichotic listening subtest is an important component of the test battery for auditory processing assessment in both children and adults. A randomized dichotic digits test (RDDT) was created to compensate for sensitivity weakness of double digits when detecting abnormal ear asymmetry during dichotic listening. The aim of this study was the development and  intial evaluation of the Persian randomized dichotic digits test.Method: Persian digits 1-10 (except for the bisyllabic digit, 4) uttered by a native Persian language speaker were recorded in a studio. After alignment of intensity and temporal characteristics of digit waveforms, lists 1 and 2 of the RDDT were reproduced. List 1 of the test was administered at 55 dBHL on 50 right-handed normal hearing individuals (with an equal sex ratio) in the age group of 18-25 years and hearing thresholds of 15 dBHL or better in audiometric frequencies.Results: Mean (standard deviation) of percent-correct score for right and left ears and right ear advantage of the subjects was 94.3 (5.3), 84.8 (7.7), and 9.5 (7.0) percent, respectively. Sixty percent of the subjects showed normal results and unilateral and bilateral deficits were seen in 24 percent and 16 percent, respectively, of studied individuals.Conclusion: It seems the Persian version of RDDT test is the same as the original test as it is able to test ear asymmerty, unilateral and bilateral deficits in dichotic listening