Restoration of auditory nerve synapses in cats by cochlear implants

Congenital deafness results in abnormal synaptic structure in endings of the auditory nerve. If these abnormalities persist after restoration of auditory nerve activity by a cochlear implant, the processing of time-varying signals such as speech would likely be impaired. We stimulated congenitally deaf cats for 3 months with a six-channel cochlear implant. The device used human speech-processing programs, and cats responded to environmental sounds. Auditory nerve fibers exhibited a recovery of normal synaptic structure in these cats. This rescue of synapses is attributed to a return of spike activity in the auditory nerve and may help explain cochlear implant benefits in childhood deafness.     

Hearing in honey bees: detection of air-particle oscillations

Although the airborne sounds produced by dancing honey bees seem essential in the bees' dance communication, attempts to show directly that bees can detect airborne sounds have been unsuccessful. It is shown here that bees can in fact detect airborne sounds and that they do so by detecting air-particle movements. Most vertebrates, by contrast, detect pressure oscillations. Because all traveling sound waves have both components, either can be used in sound detection. The bees' acoustic sense appears to be sensitive enough to allow bees to detect the air-particle movements that occur within several millimeters of a sound-emitting dancer.     

Inhibition of central auditory response

Sulitable electrical stimulaltion of the region of the decussation of the olivocochlear bundles, which supply efferent innervation to the organ of Corti, was found to abolish the response of the auditory cortex to a click, without changing the responses (N(1) and N(2)) of the eighth nerve in cats. At higher stimulation values the eighth nerve responses also were abolished, and at intermediate stimulus values responses at the medial geniculate and inferior colliculus were suppressed.     

Auditory sense in certain sphingid moths

Moths of the genus Celerio, hovering and feeding from blossoms, have been observed to react vigorously to high-pitched sounds. The acoustic receptor appears to involve the labial palps. Its characteristics have been determined from responses made, when the moth is exposed to artificial sound pulses, by an interneuron originating in its head. These responses have been found only in 4 out of 19 sphingid species tested.     

Attention shifts in a maintained discrimination

Pigeons received lights of varying wavelengths paired with sounds of varying frequencies; pecking was reinforced only at one stimulus combination. Then either the light or the sound was held constant at its reinforced value, while the other stimulus continued to vary. Subsequent tests showed that the constant stimulus had lost much of its control over the birds' responses.     

城市公园声景分析及GIS声景观图在其中的应用

通过对泰安市东湖公园和南湖公园的实地勘测与问卷调查,对两公园春季的声景现状和使用者对其声景的主观评价进行了调查,利用GIS系统初步建立了两公园声景的数据库和声景观图,并对公园的声景进行分析。结果表明,以春季为例,城市公园的声景主要由自然声、人工声和机械声构成,其中自然声最受游客喜爱。公园声景的组成和特征受公园周边环境和游客使用情况影响较大,这主要是由城市公园的性质决定的。声景观图不仅能够全面有效地描述城市公园的声景,还可以作为分析公园声景的有效方法,为城市公园声景的记录和设计提供了新的途径。     

Physiological limits for "subliminal" perception

Cortical, subcortical, and peripheral sensory nerve potentials were studied in cats to determine comparative thresholds of response. Stimuli capable of eliciting responses in peripheral nerve also invariably elicited responses from thalamus and cortex. Together with relevant data from human studies, the results indicate that stimuli subthreshold for perception do not affect the nervous system. They also have implications for studies of "subliminal" perception.     

Dynamics of the vocal imitation process: how a zebra finch learns its song

Song imitation in birds provides good material for studying the basic biology of vocal learning. Techniques were developed for inducing the rapid onset of song imitation in young zebra finches and for tracking trajectories of vocal change over a 7-week period until a match to a model song was achieved. Exposure to a model song induced the prompt generation of repeated structured sounds (prototypes) followed by a slow transition from repetitive to serial delivery of syllables. Tracking this transition revealed two phenomena: (i) Imitations of dissimilar sounds can emerge from successive renditions of the same prototype, and (ii) developmental trajectories for some sounds followed paths of increasing acoustic mismatch until an abrupt correction occurred by period doubling. These dynamics are likely to reflect underlying neural and articulatory constraints on the production and imitation of sounds.     

禽蛋检测与分级智能机器人系统的软件实现

禽蛋检测与分级智能机器人系统SIRDGE(systern of intelligent robot detecting and grading eggs)包括场景图像的采集和摄像机的标定,图像处理和特征值的提取,机器人运动控制和轨迹规划,真空吸盘的单片机控制,敲击声音的处理与破损检测,彩色图像处理与内部品质检测等子系统.笔者对各子系统软件的算法进行了研究,采用VC 编程实现了其软件功能,对SIRDGE进行调试结果表明,SIRDGE性能稳定,运行正常.     

Sharks: Attraction by Low-Frequency Sounds

Large sharks (Carcharhinidae, Sphyrnidae), in their natural environment, were attracted to low-frequency (predominantly 20 to 60 cy/sec) pulsed sounds, but apparently not to higher frequency (400 to 600 cy/sec) pulsed sounds, or to low-frequency continuous sounds. The sharks apparently detected and oriented to the sounds in the acoustic far field.     

Real time computer stress monitoring of piglets using vocalization analysis

The analysis of animal vocalization allows the interpretation of stress pattern in a non-invasive way, and it may be used to assess welfare as well as health status and social adaptation. This paper presents the development of software to monitor and analyze distinct sounds emitted by piglets correlating the noise response with levels of stress for assessing welfare. The software was developed using Delphi5. Through the component UwaveIn the sound was recorded with an electronic microphone and set to a PC hardware that registered the signal of amplitude noise intensity, expressed in decibel (dB), converting them into bytes. Fourier Transform was used to describe the sound spectrum and transform it into frequency and intensity. Validation of the software was done in a commercial swine farm using piglets from sows’ nursery. Five examples of vocalization were studied related to distinct levels of stress (fear and alertness) due to regular management procedures. The real time monitoring allowed the detection of piglet stress exposure through the surface point polynomial adjustment. The acoustic signal recorded in the software could be partitioned allowing an evaluation of the sonograph through time.     

大黄鱼的发声及信号特性研究

对大黄鱼Pseudosciaena crocea觅食及产卵时的发声及信号特性进行了研究。结果表明:不同行为下大黄鱼发声信号的频谱特性一致,即约在800 Hz频率处有一个明显的谱峰;但不同行为下发声的时域信号差距较大,即觅食时大黄鱼的发声信号都是简单的单脉冲,脉冲间隔大多集中在1~30 ms,脉冲间隔比较小,而产卵时大黄鱼的发声信号则大部分是连续的双脉冲或三脉冲,只有极个别的单脉冲或多脉冲,脉冲间隔则集中在100~130 ms,脉冲间隔要大得多。     

Sound Playback Experiments with Southern Right Whales (Eubalaena australis)

A variety of sound recordings were played to southern right whales. Whales approached the loudspeaker and made frequent sounds in response to recordings of other southern right whales, but swam away and made relatively few sounds in response to playbacks of water noise, 200-hertz tones, and humpback whale sounds. Thus it appears that southern right whales can differentiate between con-specific sounds and other sounds.     

Speech perception in infants

Discriminiationi of synthetic speech sounds was studied in 1- and 4-month-old infants. The speech sounds varied along an acoustic dimension previously shown to cue phonemic distinctions among the voiced and voiceless stop consonants in adults. Discriminability was measured by an increase in conditioned response rate to a second speech sound after habituation to the first speech sound. Recovery from habituation was greater for a given acoustic difference when the two stimuli were from different adult phonemic categories than when they were from the same category. The discontinuity in discrimination at the region of the adult phonemic boundary was taken as evidence for categorical perception.     

Synaptic transmission depressed by colchicine blockade of axoplasmic flow

Colchicine, which inhibits axoplasmic transport and induces organelle alterations in nerve terminals, was injected intraocularly in pigeons. Electrical stimulation of the optic nerve yielded normal evoked potentials in retinotectal fibers, whereas postsynaptic responses recorded in the tectum were reduced. Postsynaptic depression suggests a deficit of synaptic transmission, presumably dependent on colchicine interference with migrating material.     

Auditory induction: perceptual synthesis of absent sounds

Within certain auditory patterns, fainter sounds may be "heard" clearly when replaced by louder sounds having appropriate spectral compositions. This auditory induction of fainter by louder sounds can cancel the perceptual effects of masking. Phonemic restorations, which have been reported previously, appear to be a specialized application to speech of the much broader phenomenon of auditory induction. The rules governing auditory induction indicate that it helps maintain stable auditory perception in our frequently noisy environment.     

Effects of rectilinear acceleration and optokinetic and caloric stimulations in space

During the flight of Spacelab 1 the crew performed a number of experiments to explore changes in vestibular function and visual-vestibular interactions on exposure to microgravity. Measurements were made on the threshold for detection of linear oscillation, vestibulo-ocular reflexes elicited by angular and linear movements, oculomotor and posture responses to optokinetic stimulations, and responses to caloric stimulation. Tests were also conducted on the ground, during the 4 months before and on days 1 to 6 after flight. The most significant result was that caloric mystagmus of the same direction as on the earth could also be evoked in the weightless environment.     

Are women really more talkative than men?

Women are generally assumed to be more talkative than men. Data were analyzed from 396 participants who wore a voice recorder that sampled ambient sounds for several days. Participants' daily word use was extrapolated from the number of recorded words. Women and men both spoke about 16,000 words per day.     

Development of the place principle: tonotopic organization

The tonotopic organization of brainstem auditory nuclei was compared in embryonic and hatchling chickens. In embryos, neurons at any given position in these nuclei were maximally sensitive to lower frequency sounds than the best frequency after hatching. This finding indicates that neurons are maximally stimulated by sounds of different frequencies as development proceeds and supports the hypothesis that during development there is a change in the spatial encoding of frequency along the cochlea.     

Real-time recognition of sick pig cough sounds

This paper extends existing cough identification methods and proposes a real-time method for identifying sick pig cough sounds. The analysis and classification is based on the frequency domain characteristics of the signal, while an improved procedure to extract the reference is presented. This technique evaluates fuzzy c-means clustering to parts of the training signals and provides a frequency content reference that mirrors the characteristics of sick pig cough. The extraction of the reference is performed in such a way that allows for the identification process to be implemented in real-time applications that would speed up the diagnosis and treatment process and improve animal welfare in pig houses. Preliminary results for the evaluation of the algorithm are based on individual sounds of healthy and sick animals acquired in laboratory conditions. An 85% overall correct classification ratio is achieved with 82% of the sick cough sounds being correctly identified.