This SHAR volume serves to expand, supplement, and update the original "Cochlea" volume in the series. The book aims to highlight the power of diverse modern approaches in cochlear research by focusing on advances in those fields over the last two decades. It also provides insights into where cochlear research is going, including new hearing prostheses for the deaf that will most likely soon enter the phase of clinical trials. The book will appeal to a broad, interdisciplinary readership, including neuroscientists and clinicians in addition to the more specific auditory community.
The Auditory System at the Cocktail Party is a rather whimsical title that points to the very serious challenge faced by listeners in most everyday environments: how to hear out sounds of interest amid a cacophony of competing sounds. The volume presents the mechanisms for bottom-up object formation and top-down object selection that the auditory system employs to meet that challenge.
Ear and Brain Mechanisms for Parsing the Auditory Scene by John C. Middlebrooks and Jonathan Z. Simon
Auditory Object Formation and Selection by Barbara Shinn-Cunningham, Virginia Best, and Adrian K. C. Lee
Energetic Masking and Masking Release by John F. Culling and Michael A. Stone
Informational Masking in Speech Recognition by Gerald Kidd, Jr. and H. Steven Colburn
Modeling the Cocktail Party Problem by Mounya Elhilali
Spatial Stream Segregation by John C. Middlebrooks
Human Auditory Neuroscience and the Cocktail Party Problem by Jonathan Z. Simon
Infants and Children at the Cocktail Party by Lynne Werner
Older Adults at the Cocktail Party by M. Kathleen Pichora-Fuller, Claude Alain, and Bruce A. Schneider
Hearing with Cochlear Implants and Hearing Aids in Complex Auditory Scenes by Ruth Y. Litovsky, Matthew J. Goupell, Sara M. Misurelli, and Alan Kan
About the Editors:
John C. Middlebrooks is a Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology at the University of California, Irvine, with affiliate appointments in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, the Department of Cognitive Sciences, and the Department of Biomedical Engineering.
Jonathan Z. Simon is a Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, with joint appointments in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Department of Biology, and the Institute for Systems Research.
Arthur N. Popper is Professor Emeritus and Research Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Richard R. Fay is Distinguished Research Professor of Psychology at Loyola University, Chicago.
About the Series:
The Springer Handbook of Auditory Research presents a series of synthetic reviews of fundamental topics dealing with auditory systems. Each volume is independent and authoritative; taken as a set, this series is the definitive resource in the field.
Presents a comprehensive review of nonhuman primate audition and vocal communication. These are obviously intimately related topics, but are often addressed separately. The hearing abilities of primates have been tested experimentally in a large number of species across the primate order, and these studies have revealed both consistent patterns as well as interesting variation within and between taxonomic groups. Recent studies have shed light on how variation in anatomical structures along the auditory pathway relates to variation in auditory sensitivity. At the same time, ongoing studies of vocal communication in wild primate populations continue to reveal new insights into the social and environmental contexts of many primate calls, and the range of known primate vocalizations has increased dramatically with the development of more sophisticated and accessible auditory equipment and software that enables the recording and analysis of higher-fidelity and broader-band recordings, including documenting very high frequency (i.e. ultrasound) vocalizations. Historically the relative importance of primate calls has been evaluated qualitatively by the perception of the researcher, but new methods and approaches now enable a greater appreciation for how signals are used and perceived by the primates in question. The integration of anatomical and behavioral data on acoustic communication and the environmental correlates thereof has significant potential for reconstructing behavior in the fossil record. This confluence of factors and accumulating evidence for the sophistication and complexity in both the signal and its interpretation indicate that a book synthesizing this information across primates is warranted and represents an important contribution to the literature.
This volume presents a set of essays that discuss the development and plasticity of the vertebrate auditory system. The topic is one that has been considered before in the Springer Handbook of Auditory Research (volume 9 in 1998, and volume 23 in 2004) but the field has grown substantially and it is appropriate to bring previous material up to date to reflect the wealth of new data and to raise some entirely new topics. At the same time, this volume is also unique in that it is the outgrowth of a symposium honoring two-time SHAR co-editor Professor Edwin W Rubel on his retirement. The focus of this volume, though, is an integrated set of papers that reflect the immense contributions that Dr. Rubel has made to the field over his career. Thus, the volume concurrently presents a topic that is timely for SHAR, but which also honors the pioneer in the field. Each chapter explores development with consideration of plasticity and how it becomes limited over time. The editors have selected authors with professional, and often personal, connections to Dr. Rubel, though all are, in their own rights, outstanding scholars and leaders in their fields. The specific audience will be graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and established psychologists and neuroscientists who are interested in auditory function, development, and plasticity. This volume will also be of interest to hearing scientists and to the broad neuroscience community because many of the ideas and principles associate with the auditory system are applicable to most sensory systems. The volume is organized to appeal to psychophysicists, neurophysiologists, anatomists, and systems neuroscientists who attend meetings such as those held by the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, the Acoustical Society of America, and the Society for Neuroscience.
The auditory system is a complex neural system composed of many types of neurons connected into networks. One feature that sets the auditory system apart from other sensory systems, such as somatosensory or visual systems, is the many stages of neural processing that occur between the ear in the periphery and the cerebral cortex. Each stage is composed of specialized types of neurons connected in specific microcircuits that perform computations on the information about sound. To understand this processing, all the tools of neuroscience must be employed. The proposed text integrates cell biology, synaptic physiology, and electrophysiology to fully develop the topic, presenting an overview of the functional anatomy of the central auditory system. It is organized based on the neuronal connectivity of the central auditory system, which emphasizes the neurons, their synaptic organization, and their formation of functional pathways and microcircuits. The goal of the book is to stimulate research into the cell biology of the central auditory system and the characteristics of the specific neurons and connections that are necessary for normal hearing. Future research on the development of the central auditory including that employing stem cells will require such information in order to engineer appropriate therapeutic approaches. ?
Electroreception has become one of the most revealing areas in the study of the neural basis of behavior, and neurobiologists recognize it as a model sensory system for experimental study. Through studies of electroreception, researchers have gained extensive knowledge about a complete sensory system, from molecular biology to computation, communication, and behavior. The book Electroreception will examine the behavior, structure, and function of the electrosensory systems of fish and other vertebrates. As a comprehensive volume on the subject, the book will serve as both an introduction to the study of electroreception and a reference and review volume for researchers in related fields.
This volume details the essential role of the spiral ganglion neurons. The volume elucidates and characterizes their development, their environment, their electrophysiological characteristics, their connectivity to their targets in the inner ear and the brain, and discusses the potential for their regeneration. A comprehensive review about the spiral ganglion neurons is important for researchers not only in the inner ear field but also in development, neuroscience, biophysics as well as neural networks researchers. The chapters are authored by leading researchers in the field.
The evolution of vertebrate hearing is of considerable interest in the hearing community. However, there has never been a volume that has focused on the paleontological evidence for the evolution of hearing and the ear, especially from the perspective of some of the leading paleontologists and evolutionary biologists in the world. Thus, this volume is totally unique, and takes a perspective that has never been taken before. It brings to the fore some of the most recent discoveries among fossil taxa, which have demonstrated the sort of detailed information that can be derived from the fossil record, illuminating the evolutionary pathways this sensory system has taken and the diversity it had achieved.
The Springer Handbook of Auditory Research presents a series of compreh- sive and synthetic reviews of the fundamental topics in modern auditory - search. The volumes are aimed at all individuals with interests in hearing research including advanced graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and clinical investigators. The volumes are intended to introduce new investigators to important aspects of hearing science and to help established investigators to betterunderstandthefundamentaltheoriesanddatain?eldsofhearingthatthey may not normally follow closely. Each volume presents a particular topic comprehensively, and each servesas a synthetic overview and guide to the literature. As such, the chapters present neither exhaustive data reviews nor original research that has not yet appeared in peer-reviewed journals. The volumes focus on topics that have developed a solid data and conceptual foundation rather than on those for which a literature is only beginning to develop. New research areas will be covered on a timely basis in the series as they begin to mature. Eachvolumeintheseriesconsistsofafewsubstantialchaptersonaparticular topic. In some cases, the topics will be ones of traditional interest for which there is a substantial body of data and theory, such as auditory neuroanatomy (Vol. 1) and neurophysiology (Vol. 2). Other volumes in the series deal with topics that have begun to mature more recently, suchasdevelopment,plasticity, and computational models of neural processing. In many cases, the series - itorsarejoinedbyaco-editorhavingspecialexpertiseinthetopicofthevolume.
Although pitch has been considered an important area of auditory research since the birth of modern acoustics in the 19th century, some of the most significant developments in our understanding of this phenomenon have occurred comparatively recently. In auditory physiology, researchers are now identifying cells in the brainstem and cortex that may be involved in the derivation of pitch. In auditory psychophysics, dramatic developments over the last few years have changed our understanding of temporal pitch mechanisms, and of the roles of resolved and unresolved harmonics. Computational modeling has provided new insights into the biological algorithms that may underlie pitch perception. Modern brain imaging techniques have suggested possible cortical locations for pitch mechanisms.
This timely volume brings together the more recent findings, while emphasizing their relation to the discoveries of the past. It brings together insights from several different methodological areas: physiology, psychophysics, comparative, imaging, etc., in addressing a single scientific problem. Pitch perception can be regarded as one of the main problems of hearing, and the multidisciplinary approach of the book provides a valuable reference source for graduate students and academics.
Over the past several years, many investigators interested in the effects of man-made sounds on animals have come to realize that there is much to gain from studying the broader literature on hearing sound and the effects of sound as well as data from the effects on humans. It has also become clear that knowledge of the effects of sound on one group of animals (e.g., birds or frogs) can guide studies on other groups (e.g., marine mammals or fishes) and that a review of all such studies together would be very useful to get a better understanding of the general principles and underlying cochlear and cognitive mechanisms that explain damage, disturbance, and deterrence across taxa.The purpose of this volume, then, is to provide a comprehensive review of the effects of man-made sounds on animals, with the goal of fulfilling two major needs. First, it was thought to be important to bring together data on sound and bioacoustics that have implications across all taxa (including humans) so that such information is generally available to the community of scholars interested in the effects of sound. This is done in Chaps. 2-5. Second, in Chaps. 6-10, the volume brings together what is known about the effects of sound on diverse vertebrate taxa so that investigators with interests in specific groups can learn from the data and experimental approaches from other species. Put another way, having an overview of the similarities and discrepancies among various animal groups and insight into the "how and why" will benefit the overall conceptual understanding, applications in society, and all future research.
This volume will serve as the first Handbook of its kind in the area of hearing aid research, often the least-defined, least-understood, part of the multi-disciplinary research process. Most scientific training is very advanced within the particular disciplines but provides little opportunity for systematic introduction to the issues and obstacles that prevent effective hearing-aid related research. This area has emerged as one of critical importance, as signified by a single specialized meeting (the International Hearing Aid Conference, IHCON) that brings together specialists from the disparate disciplines involved, including both university and industry researchers. Identification of the key steps that enable high-impact basic science to ultimately result in significant clinical advances that improve patient outcome is critical. This volume will provide an overview of current key issues in hearing aid research from the perspective of many different disciplines, not only from the perspective of the key funding agencies, but also from the scientists and clinicians who are currently involved in hearing aid research. It will offer insight into the experience, current technology and future technology that can help improve hearing aids, as scientists and clinicians typically have little or no formal training over the whole range of the individual disciplines that are relevant. The selection and coverage of topics insures that it will have lasting impact, well beyond immediate, short-term, or parochial concerns. ?
This book reviews the growing literature that is consistent with the hypothesis that hormones can regulate auditory physiology and perception across a broad range of animal taxa, including humans. Understanding how hormones modulate auditory function has far reaching implications for advancing our knowledge in the basic biomedical sciences and in understanding the evolution of acoustic communication systems. A fundamental goal of neuroscience is to understand how hormones modulate neural circuits and behavior. For example, steroids such as estrogens and androgens are well-known regulators of vocal motor behaviors used during social acoustic communication. Recent studies have shown that these same hormones can also greatly influence the reception of social acoustic signals, leading to the more efficient exchange of acoustic information.
Although the fundamental principles of vocal production are well-understood, and are being increasingly applied by specialists to specific animal taxa, they stem originally from engineering research on the human voice. These origins create a double barrier to entry for biologists interested in understanding acoustic communication in their study species. The proposed volume aims to fill this gap, providing easy-to-understand overviews of the various relevant theories and techniques, and showing how these principles can be implemented in the study of all main vertebrate groups. The volume will have eleven chapters assembled from the world's leading researchers, at a level intelligible to a wide audience of biologists with no background in engineering or human voice science. Some will cover sound production in a particular vertebrate group; others will address a particular issue, such as vocal learning, across vertebrate taxa. The book will highlight what is known and how to implement useful techniques and methodologies, but will also summarize current gaps in the knowledge. It will serve both as a tutorial introduction for newcomers and a springboard for further research for all scientists interested in understanding animal acoustic signals.
Insect Hearing provides a broadly based view of the functions, mechanisms, and evolution of hearing in insects. With a single exception, the chapters focus on problems of hearing and their solutions, rather than being focused on particular taxa. The exception, hearing in Drosophila, is justified because, due to its ever growing toolbox of genetic and optical techniques, Drosophila is rapidly becoming one of the most important model systems in neurobiology, including the neurobiology of hearing.
Auditory systems, whether insectan or vertebrate, must perform a number of basic tasks: capturing mechanical stimuli and transducing these into neural activity, representing the timing and frequency of sound signals, distinguishing between behaviorally relevant signals and other sounds and localizing sound sources. Studying how these are accomplished in insects offers a valuable comparative view that helps to reveal general principles of auditory function.
This volume brings together noted scientists who study presbycusis from the perspective of complementary disciplines, for a review of the current state of knowledge on the aging auditory system. Age-related hearing loss (ARHL) is one of the top three most common chronic health conditions affecting individuals aged 65 years and older. The high prevalence of age-related hearing loss compels audiologists, otolaryngologists, and auditory neuroscientists alike to understand the neural, genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying this disorder. A comprehensive understanding of these factors is needed so that effective prevention, intervention, and rehabilitative strategies can be developed to ameliorate the myriad of behavioral manifestations.
Efferent sensory systems have emerged as major components of processing by the central nervous system. Whereas the afferent sensory systems bring environmental information into the brain, efferent systems function to monitor, sharpen, and attend selectively to certain stimuli while ignoring others. This ability of the brain to implement these functions enables the organism to make fine discriminations and to respond appropriately to environmental conditions so that survival is enhanced. Our focus will be on auditory and vestibular efferents, topics linked together by the inner ear connection.
The biological utility of the efferent system is striking. How it functions is less well understood, and with each new discovery, more questions arise. The book that is proposed here reflects our vision to share what is known on the topic by authors who actually have made the observations.
Loudness is the primary psychological correlate of intensity. When the intensity of a sound increases, loudness increases. However, there exists no simple one-to-one correspondence between loudness and intensity; loudness can be changed by modifying the frequency or the duration of the sound, or by adding background sounds. Loudness also changes with the listener's cognitive state. Loudness provides a basic reference for graduate students, consultants, clinicians, and researchers with a focus on recent discoveries. The book begins with an overview of the conceptual thinking related to the study of loudness, addresses issues related to its measurement, and later discusses the physiological effects of loud sounds, reaction times and electrophysiological measures that correlate with loudness. Loudness in the laboratory, loudness of steady-state sounds and the loudness of time-varying sounds are also covered, as are hearing loss and models.
The Springer Handbook of Auditory Research presents a series of comprehensive and synthetic reviews of the fundamental topics in modern auditory research. The v- umes are aimed at all individuals with interests in hearing research including advanced graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, and clinical investigators. The volumes are intended to introduce new investigators to important aspects of hearing science and to help established investigators to better understand the fundamental theories and data in fields of hearing that they may not normally follow closely. Each volume presents a particular topic comprehensively, and each serves as a synthetic overview and guide to the literature. As such, the chapters present neither exhaustive data reviews nor original research that has not yet appeared in pe- reviewed journals. The volumes focus on topics that have developed a solid data and conceptual foundation rather than on those for which a literature is only beg- ning to develop. New research areas will be covered on a timely basis in the series as they begin to mature.
The Lateral Line System provides an overview of the key concepts and issues surrounding the development, evolution, neurobiology, and function of the lateral line, a fascinating yet somewhat enigmatic flow-sensing system. The book examines the historical precedence for linking the auditory and lateral line systems, its structure and development, use of the lateral line system of zebrafish as a model system, physical principles governing the response properties of the lateral line, the behavioral relevance of this sensory system to the lives of fish, and an examination of how this information is shaped and encoded by the peripheral and central nervous systems. ContentsThe Gems of the Past: A Brief History of Lateral Line Research in the Context of the Hearing Sciences - Sheryl Coombs and Horst BleckmannMorphological Diversity, Development, and Evolution of the Mechanosensory Lateral Line System - Jacqueline F. WebbThe Hydrodynamic of Flow Stimuli - Matthew J. McHenry and James C. LiaoThe Biophysics of the Fish Lateral Line - Sietse M. van Netten and Matthew J. McHenrySensory Ecology and Neuroethology of the Lateral Line - John Montgomery, Horst Bleckmann, and Sheryl CoombsInformation Encoding and Processing by the Peripheral Lateral Line System - Boris Philippe Chagnaud and Sheryl CoombsThe Central Nervous Organization of the Lateral Line System - Mario F. Wullimann and Benedikt GrotheCentral Processing of Lateral Line Information - Horst Bleckmann and Joachim Mogdans Functional Overlap and Nonoverlap Between Lateral Line and Auditory Systems - Christopher B. Braun and Olav SandThe Hearing Loss, Protection, and Regeneration in the Larval Zebrafish Lateral Line - Allison B. Coffin, Heather Brignull, David W. Raible, and Edwin WRubel
As models for vertebrate auditory systems, amphibians have been the source of extensive, ground-breaking research on hearing, the nervous system and acoustic communication. This comprehensive review covers key issues in amphibian hearing and communication in depth. Topics are relevant to auditory research, neuroethology, herpetology, animal behavior and bioacoustics.
By far, the most widely used subjects in psychological and biological research today are rodents. Although rats and mice comprise the largest group of animals used in research, there are over 2,000 species and 27 families of rodents, living all over the world (except Antarctica) and thriving in many different habitat types. The vast environmental diversity that rodents face has led to numerous adaptations for communication, including vocalizing and hearing in both the sonic and ultrasonic ranges, effectively communicating in the open air and underground, and using vocalizations for coordinating sexual behavior, for mother-pup interactions, and for signaling an alarming situation to the group. Some rodent species have even developed foot drumming behaviors for communication. Comparative studies from around the globe, using both field and laboratory methodologies, reveal the vast differences in acoustic communication behavior across many rodent species. Some rodents are amenable to training and have been domesticated and bred purely for research purposes. Since the early 1900s, rats and mice have been indispensable to research programs around the world. Thus, much of what we know about hearing and vocalizations in rodents come from these two species tested in the laboratory. The sequencing of the mouse genome in 2002, followed by the rat genome in 2004, only increased the utility of these animals as research subjects since genetically engineered strains mimicking human diseases and disorders could be developed more easily. In the laboratory, rats and mice are used as models for human communication and hearing disorders and are involved in studies on hearing loss and prevention, hormones, and auditory plasticity, to name a few. We know that certain strains of mice retain hearing better than others throughout their lifespan, and about the genes involved in those differences. We know about the effects of noise, hormones, sex, aging, and circadian rhythms on hearing in mice and other rodents. We also know about normal hearing in many families of rodents, including the perception of simple and complex stimuli and the anatomy and physiology of hearing and sound localization.
The importance of acoustic communication to these animals, as well as the significance of these mammals to biomedical research, are summarized in the chapters.
Exposure to loud noise continues to be the largest cause of hearing loss in the adult population. The problem of NIHL impacts a number of disciplines. US standards for permissible noise exposure were originally published in 1968 and remain largely unchanged today. Indeed, permissible noise exposure for US personnel is significantly greater than that allowed in numerous other countries, including for example, Canada, China, Brazil, Mexico, and the European Union. However, there have been a number of discoveries and advances that have increased our understanding of the mechanisms of NIHL. These advances have the potential to impact how NIHL can be prevented and how our noise standards can be made more appropriate.
Cochlear implants are currently the standard treatment for profound sensorineural hearing loss. In the last decade, advances in auditory science and technology have not only greatly expanded the utility of electric stimulation to other parts of the auditory nervous system in addition to the cochlea, but have also demonstrated drastic changes in the brain in responses to electric stimulation, including changes in language development and music perception. Volume 20 of SHAR focused on basic science and technology underlying the cochlear implant. However, due to the newness of the ideas and technology, the volume did not cover any emerging applications such as bilateral cochlear implants, combined acoustic-electric stimulation, and other types of auditory prostheses, nor did it review brain plasticity in responses to electric stimulation and its perceptual and language consequences. This proposed volume takes off from Volume 20, and expands the examination of implants into new and highlyexciting areas.
This edited book starts with an overview and introduction by Dr. Fan-Gang Zeng. Chapters 2-9 cover technological development and the advances in treating the full spectrum of ear disorders in the last ten years. Chapters 10-15 discuss brain responses to electric stimulation and their perceptual impact.
This volume is particularly exciting because there have been quantum leap from the traditional technology discussed in Volume 20. Thus, this volume is timely and will be of real importance to the SHAR audience.
