Sound localization in both humans and monkeys is tolerant to changes in sound levels. The underlying neural mechanism, however, is not well understood. This study reports the level dependence of individual neurons' spatial receptive fields (SRFs) in the primary auditory cortex (A1) and the adjacent caudal field in awake marmoset monkeys. We found that most neurons' excitatory SRF components wer...

This paper reports on the acute effects of a monaural plug on directional hearing in the horizontal (azimuth) and vertical (elevation) planes of human listeners. Sound localization behavior was tested with rapid head-orienting responses toward brief high-pass filtered (>3 kHz; HP) and broadband (0.5-20 kHz; BB) noises, with sound levels between 30 and 60 dB, A-weighted (dBA). To deny listeners ...

Cross-modal mappings of auditory stimuli reveal valuable insights into how humans make sense of sound and music. Whereas researchers have investigated cross-modal mappings of sound features varied in isolation within paradigms such as speeded classification and forced-choice matching tasks, investigations of representations of concurrently varied sound features (e.g., pitch, loudness and tempo)...

Recent studies have suggested that hyperacusis, an abnormal hypersensitivity to ordinary environmental sounds, may be characterized by certain resting-state cortical oscillatory patterns, even with no sound stimulus. However, previous studies are limited in that most studied subjects with other comorbidities that may have affected cortical activity. In this regard, to assess ongoing cortical os...

Based on the existing research on sound symbolism and crossmodal correspondence, this study proposed an extended research on cross-modal correspondence between various sound attributes and color properties in a group of non-synesthetes. In Experiment 1, we assessed the associations between each property of sounds and colors. Twenty sounds with five auditory properties (pitch, roughness, sharpne...

The scientific field of psychoacoustics quantitatively explains the relations between sound stimuli, well defined in the physical domain, and the hearing sensations elicited by such stimuli. Already more than 2500 years ago, the Greek philosopher Pythagoras when studying with his monochord musical consonance and dissonance, performed a typical psychoacoustic experiment: For Pythagoras, the phys...

Segmental properties of speech can convey sound symbolic meaning. This study presents two novel sound-meaning mappings using a choice reaction time paradigm in which participants have to select quickly one the vocal response alternatives based on predefined categories perceptual magnitude. The first showed that short distance between perceived objects facilitates initiation vowel [i] production...

We evaluated the response of the voice-selective areas of the auditory cortex to sound 'voiceness', that is, the degree to which an auditory stimulus resembles human voice. Normal participants were scanned using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging while passively listening to stimuli drawn from a 'voiceness' continuum generated via auditory morphing between sounds of voice and s...

In this paper we develop algorithms and hardware for the autonomous gathering of cattle. We present a comparison of three different autonomous gathering algorithms that employ sound and/or electric stimuli to guide the cattle. We evaluate these algorithms in simulation by extending previous behavioral simulations for cattle. We implemented one of these algorithms and present data from experimen...