Correlation between the size of participant’s TWS and rapid recalibration (ΔPPS).

<p>Left panel demonstrated a significant correlation between TWS and ΔPPS for Flash-Beep stimuli, while right panel demonstrates the same relation for Speech stimuli. The size of the dots indexes age of the participant represented, conveying the fact that these correlations seem to be largely driven by age.</p

Histogram of participants’ age as a function of stimulus type.

<p>A) Distribution of the ages of participants who were presented with Flash-Beep stimuli. B) Distribution of the ages of participants who were presented with Speech stimuli.</p

Simultaneity judgment and rapid recalibration as a function of stimuli complexity and age.

<p>Although no change is apparent in PSS (upper left), temporal window of simultaneities for both Flash-Beep (red) and Speech (black) stimuli portray protracted developmental time-courses (upper right). Similarly, rapid recalibration effects, both in terms of change in PSS (lower left) and TWS (lower right) as a function of the nature of the immediately precedent trial follow protracted developmental time-course, and a U-shape, indexing greater tendency to rely on recent perceptual experience later in life. Solid lines represent the mean of the 11-participant wide window centered at the particular age, shaded areas around the solid lines represent +/- 1 S.E.M. Dashed vertical lines represent the first age-point at which within condition values differed from the first time-point (thus, age at which the particular perceptual process reached maturity). The colored circles represent the minimum value for either the raw TWS or the change in PSS or TWS as a function of age. And finally the solid horizontal lines at the top of the panels indicate significant differences (p < 0.05) from the minimal value (circle). Hence, if these solid horizontal lines are present both at earlier and later ages than the respective minimum, we categorize the particular time-course as being U-shaped.</p

Number of participants as a function of age and stimuli presented.

<p>Number of participants within given age (left column) bins for both the Flash-Beep stimuli (middle column) and Speech stimuli (right column).</p

Cochlear Implant Users Experience the Sound-To-Music Effect

The speech-to-song illusion is a robust effect where repeated speech induces the perception of singing; this effect has been extended to repeated excerpts of environmental sounds (sound-to-music effect). Here, we asked whether repetition could elicit musical percepts in cochlear implant (CI) users, who experience challenges with perceiving music due to both physiological and device limitations. Thirty adult CI users and thirty age-matched controls with normal hearing (NH) completed two repetition experiments for speech and nonspeech sounds (water droplets). We hypothesized that CI users would experience the sound-to-music effect from temporal/rhythmic cues alone, but to a lesser magnitude compared to NH controls, given the limited access to spectral information CI users receive from their implants. We found that CI users did experience the sound-to-music effect but to a lesser degree compared to NH participants. Musicality ratings were not associated with musical training or frequency resolution, and among CI users, clinical variables like duration of hearing loss also did not influence ratings. Cochlear implants provide a strong clinical model for disentangling the effects of spectral and temporal information in an acoustic signal; our results suggest that temporal cues are sufficient to perceive the sound-to-music effect when spectral resolution is limited. Additionally, incorporating short repetitions into music specially designed for CI users may provide a promising way for them to experience music.</p