Two experiments tested whether newborns could discriminate their own and another newborn's cry. Results indicated that awake newborns expressed facial distress more frequently and longer to another newborn's cry than to their own. Sucking decreased significantly between pretest phase and first minute of another infant's cry. Asleep infants'…

This study sought to find an efficient and optimal sound format for the development of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) in the network environment and to provide some useful suggestions to the developers of CALL software who are interested in optimizing performance while maintaining an appropriate sound quality in the network…

A study, including research and practice notes by various authors, investigated whether extended training in an acoustically rich environment could enhance the spatial updating ability of 12 adults with congenital blindness. After training, the adults' distance perception from a home-base location and novel locations was superior to a sighted…

Critiques scholars who argue that theories of music and theories of musical perception are, and should be, fundamentally different. Reviews research on music perception and how it is used in aural training programs. Makes suggestions for improving the field of aural training and music-education research. (DSK)

A study examined whether electrophysiologic techniques could identify central auditory processing difficulties in 15 low-achieving gifted adolescents. Results found that P300-wave morphology was significantly poorer for the low-achieving gifted group compared to achieving gifted and nongifted typical groups, but was not different from those with…

This study (with 16 children and 11 adults) examined an alternative to the Developmental Weighting Shift model which explains age-related differences in labeling of speech stimuli as due to increasing experience with word-internal structure. Findings rejected the alternative model, that changes in perceptual weighting strategies are due to…

Examined children's auditory perception of traffic sounds, focusing on identification of vehicle movement. Subjects were 60 children of 5, 8, and 11 years. Results indicated that the auditory perception of movement was a problem area for children, especially five-year olds. Discussed the role of attention-demanding characteristics of some traffic…

A study investigated subjective judgments of clarity and intelligibility in 20 listeners in conditions in which speech was equated for predicted intelligibility but varied in bandwidth. Listeners produced clarity and intelligibility ratings for the same speech material and experimental conditions that were highly related but differed in magnitude.…

This article discusses issues related to auditory integration training (AIT), a developing treatment for children with auditory disorders. It presents preliminary data indicating that word recognition scores in the presence of competing noise improves for children with a variety of disorders who have been treated with AIT. (Author/DB)

Two studies explored the relationship between rapid auditory processing and phonological processing in 82 typical children and compared 17 children with dyslexia to controls. Children with dyslexia performed at a level similar to reading-age controls on auditory processing but obtained scores that were significantly below those of the…

Explored in 2 studies 3- and 4-year-olds' understanding that the 5 senses can each lead to different types of knowledge. Found that 3-year-olds performed significantly poorer than 4-year-olds on all tasks, suggesting a marked transition in children's ability to recognize the origin of their modality-specific knowledge between 3 and 4 years.…

A study examined perceptual-weighting strategies and performance-audibility functions of 11 children with moderate hearing impairments (HI), 11 age-matched peers, 11 adults with moderate HI, and 11 typical adults. Results showed both hearing sensitivity and age effects. Listeners with HI required lower levels of audibility to achieve similar…

A study involving 36 children and 10 adults investigated development of auditory frequency and temporal resolution using simultaneous and backward masking of a tone. On the measure of frequency resolution, 6- year-olds performed as well as adults. However, for the backward masking task, 6-year-olds had higher threshold than adults. (Contains…

Examined characteristics of the acoustic signature of languages in connection with identification of the target language, Korean. In one experiment, listeners were asked to distinguish spoken samples of Korean from competitor languages sharing syllable based rhythm. In another, listeners attempted to distinguish Korean from languages spoken in the…

Research indicates that attentional deficits exist in aphasic individuals. However, relatively little is known about auditory vigilance performance in individuals with aphasia. The current study explores reaction time (RT) and accuracy in 10 aphasic participants and 10 nonbrain-damaged controls during linguistic and nonlinguistic auditory…