Development on Frequency Resolution in Infancy

婴儿期频率分辨率的发展

• 批准号: 6760137
• 负责人: Lynne A. Werner
• 金额: $ 30.67万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 1986
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1986-06-01 至 2007-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6760137
• 关键词: auditory discrimination; behavioral /social science research tag; clinical research; developmental neurobiology; hearing; human subject; infant human (0-1 year); language development; loudness; psychoacoustics; sound frequency; sound perception

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The long-term objective of this project is to describe and understand the development of auditory behavior in human infants. In the proposed studies, a rigorous test method is combined with psychophysical measures to describe the factors that influence infants' behavioral responses to sound. The proposed work has two specific aims. The first specific aim is to describe in detail the development of basic auditory processes during the first 6 months of life. Although the broad outlines of auditory development have been determined, the proposed studies will provide the more detailed information that is needed to fully understand the process of development. Understanding auditory development during this age period is crucial, as it is a critical period for early language development. Experiments are proposed to assess infants' ability to perceive the intensity and frequency of sound as well as changes in sound over time. The second specific aim is to determine how higher-level processes contribute to the maturation of hearing in infants older than 6 months of age. Experiments are proposed to determine how infants listen to the frequencies in a complex sound and to sounds that change over time, as well as how infants' listening is related to their auditory sensitivity. Of particular interest is how infants listen to short-duration sounds. Current models of infants' auditory processing cannot account for their apparent difficulty in detecting such sounds. Moreover, while deficits in the perception of short-duration sounds have been associated with language impairment in children, the normal developmental course of the perception of such sounds has not been well described. Experiments are proposed to describe infants' abilities to process short-duration sounds when they occur just before, just after or simultaneously with competing sounds. The effects of overlap between the frequencies comprising the short-duration sound and the competing sound will also be examined. Finally, an experiment is proposed to address how infants identify sound sources, because this process is another as yet unstudied auditory capacity that could contribute to infants' auditory sensitivity. The results of these studies will inform the process of identifying and remediation hearing and auditory perceptual deficits in infants and children.

描述（由申请人提供）：该项目的长期目标是描述和理解人类婴儿听觉行为的发展。在拟议的研究中，严格的测试方法结合心理物理测量来描述影响婴儿对声音的行为反应的因素。拟议的工作有两个具体目标。第一个具体目标是详细描述生命最初6个月的基本听觉过程的发展。虽然听觉发展的大致轮廓已经确定，但拟议的研究将提供更详细的信息，这是充分了解发展过程所需要的。了解这个年龄段的听觉发展是至关重要的，因为这是早期语言发展的关键时期。实验被提出来评估婴儿感知声音的强度和频率以及声音随时间变化的能力。第二个具体目标是确定更高层次的过程如何促进6个月以上婴儿的听力成熟。实验旨在确定婴儿如何倾听复杂声音中的频率以及随时间变化的声音，以及婴儿的倾听与听觉敏感性之间的关系。特别有趣的是婴儿如何倾听短时间的声音。目前的婴儿听觉处理模型无法解释他们在检测这些声音时明显存在的困难。此外，虽然对短时间声音的感知缺陷与儿童的语言障碍有关，但对这种声音感知的正常发展过程尚未得到很好的描述。研究人员提出了一些实验来描述婴儿处理短时间声音的能力，这些声音是在竞争声音之前、之后或同时出现的。由短持续时间声音和竞争声音组成的频率之间重叠的影响也将被检查。最后，提出了一个实验来解决婴儿如何识别声源，因为这个过程是另一个尚未研究的听觉能力，可能有助于婴儿的听觉敏感性。这些研究的结果将为婴儿和儿童听力和听觉感知缺陷的识别和补救提供信息。