• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.63-73
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• 2016

It is widely acknowledged that the human auditory system is organized tonotopically and people generally listen to sounds as a function of frequency distribution through the auditory system. However, it is still unclear how acoustic features of speech sounds are indicated to the human brain in terms of speech perception. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate whether two sounds with similar high-frequency characteristics in the acoustic analysis show similar results at the level of auditory brainstem. Thirty three young adults with normal hearing participated in the study. As stimuli, two Korean monosyllables (i.e., /ja/ and /cha/) and four frequencies of toneburst (i.e., 500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz) were used to elicit the auditory brainstem response (ABR). Measures of monosyllable and toneburst were highly replicable and the wave V of waveform was detectable in all subjects. In the results of Pearson correlation analysis, the /ja/ syllable had a high correlation with 4000 Hz of toneburst which means that its acoustic characteristics (i.e., 3671~5384 Hz) showed the same results in the brainstem. However, the /cha/ syllable had a high correlation with 1000 and 2000 Hz of toneburst although it has acoustical distribution of 3362~5412 Hz. We concluded that there was disagreement between acoustic features and physiology outcomes at the auditory brainstem level. This finding suggests that an acoustical-perceptual mapping study is needed to scrutinize human speech perception.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.77-84
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to examine the acoustic characteristics of Parkinsonian speech, with respect to different utterance conditions, by employing acoustic/auditory-perceptual analysis. The subjects of the study were 15 patients (M=7, F=8) with Parkinson's disease who were asked to read out sentences under different utterance conditions (clear/casual). The sentences read out by each subject were recorded, and the recorded speech was subjected to cepstrum and spectrum analysis using Analysis of Dysphonia in Speech and Voice (ADSV). Additionally, auditory-perceptual evaluation of the recorded speech was conducted with respect to breathiness and loudness. Results indicate that in the case of clear speech, there was a statistically significant increase in the cepstral peak prominence (CPP), and a decrease in the L/H ratio SD (ratio of low to high frequency spectral energy SD) and CPP F0 SD values. In the auditory-perceptual evaluation, a decrease in breathiness and an increase in loudness were noted. Furthermore, CPP was found to be highly correlated to breathiness and loudness. This provides objective evidence of the immediate usefulness of clear speech intervention in improving the voice quality of Parkinsonian speech.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.10
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• pp.181-187
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• 2013

When there are background noises or some people speaking at the same time, a human's auditory sense has the ability to listen the target speech signal with a specific purpose through Auditory Scene Analysis. The CASA system with human's auditory faculty system is able to segregate the speech. However, the performance of CASA system is reduced when the CASA system fails to determine the correct position of the speech. In order to correct the error in locating the speech on the CASA system, voice activity detection algorithm is proposed in this paper, which is a combined auditory scene analysis with PAR(Periodic to Aperiodic component Ratio). The experiments have been conducted to evaluate the performance of voice activity detection in environments of white noise and car noise with the change of SNR 15~0dB. In this paper, by comparing the existing algorithms (Pitch and Guoning Hu) with the proposed algorithm, the accuracy of the voice activity detection performance has been improved as the following: improvement of maximum 4% at SNR 15dB and maximum 34% at SNR 0dB for white noise and car noise, respectively.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.383-388
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• 1994

Chaotic analysis of EEG signal responding to auditory stimulus with various carrier frequency and constant triggering frequency is given in this paper. The EEG signal is obtained from the digital 12channel EEG system made in our laboratory. The carrier frequency is varied from 1 kHz to 3 kHz by 0.5 kHz step. Chaos analysis such as pseudo phase space portrait, Lyapunov exponent, and so on is done on the auditory stimulated evoked potential. This result is found to be quite consistent with the well known results from the psychological perception theory.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.83-93
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• 2004

The objectives of this study are to analyze Korean speakers' pronunciations of various Japanese /p/ patterns and to provide desirable pronunciation models. This is a part of an ongoing research that aims to propose a useful method of teaching Japanese pronunciation of /p/ to Koreans. The experimental data consist of /p/ phonemes in word initial, word medial, and 'yoon' positions. Yoon must be written in small size after a letter and it only makes a syllable with the preceding letter in Japanese. There were 22 different phoneme positions. They were pronounced by 48 Japanese majoring students (24 females and 24 males), who were in their twenties and were raised in Daejeon and vicinity. The individual pronunciations were collected and digitized into 528 files. The results show that Koreans pronounced the Japanese phoneme /p/ in a variety of ways, according to the auditory environments in which the phoneme was tested: as [ph] in word initial, [pp] or [ph] in word medial, and [ph] in 'yoon', unlike native speakers who pronounced Japanese /p/ as [ph] in word initial, [pp] in word medial and, and [pp] or [ph] in 'yoon'.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.165-170
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• 2009

This study was to investigate for comparison between single rating and average ratings from multiple presentations of the same stimulus for measuring the voice quality of dysphonia using 7-point equal-appearing interval (EAI) rating scale. Overall severity of voice quality for 46 /a/ vowel stimuli (23 stimuli from dysphonia, 23 stimuli from control) was rated by 3 experienced speech-language pathologists (averaged 19 years; range = 7 to 40 years). For average ratings, each stimulus was rated five times in random order and averaged from two to five times. Although higher inter-rater reliability was found in average ratings than in single rating, there were no significant differences in rating scores between single and multiple average ratings judged by experienced listeners, suggesting that auditory perceptual ratings judged by well-trained listeners have relatively good agreement with the same stimulus across the judgment. Larger variations in perceptual ratings were observed for moderate voices than for mild or severe voices, even in the average ratings.

• Proceedings of the Acoustical Society of Korea Conference
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• 1998.06c
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• pp.291-296
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• 1998

In the experiment carried out on 20 college students, recorded were frontal, temporal and occipital EEG, skin conductance response, skin conductance level, heart rate and respiration rate during listening to two music fragments with different affective valences and white noise administered immediately after negative visual stimulation. Analysis of physiological patterns observed during the experiment suggests that affective auditory stimulation with music is able to selectively modulate autonomic and cortical activity evoked by preceding aversive visual stimulation and to restore initial baseline levels. On other hand, physiological responses to white noise, which does not possess emotion-eliciting capabilities, evokes response typical for orienting reaction after the onset of a stimulus and is rapidly followed by habituation. Observed responses to white noise were similar to those specific to attention only and had no evidence for any emotion-related processes. Interpretation of the obtained data is considered in terms of the role of emotional and orienting significance of stimuli, dependence of effects on the background physiological activation level and time courses of attention and emotion processes. Physiological parameters are summarized with regard to their potential utility in differentiation of psychological processes induced by auditory stimuli.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.113-117
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• 1996

We study the similarities in timbre by varying both the form of the spectrum and the fundamental frequencies. A three dimensional configuration was drawn as a result of multidimensional scaling analysis. This configuration suggests that the difference in fundamental frequencies is one of the factors that change the timbre of complex tones. Also we considered the possibility of expressing the broad perception of timbre using auditory spectrum. The experimental result is well agreed with the calculation using the frequency weight matrix excluding the small value of auditory spectrum.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.2187-2196
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• 2011

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of gait training using rhythmic auditory stimulation on gait symmetry of stroke patients. Forty chronic stroke patients were divided into four groups by intervention. Group A and B received auditory stimulation when they walk with comfortable gait speed. Group A received auditory stimulation to paralyzed side while group B to non-paralyzed side. Group C and D received auditory stimulation with 10% faster gait speed than their comfortable gait speed. Group C received auditory stimulation to paralyzed side while group D to non-paralyzed side. Gait training using auditory stimulation was done in each group during five minutes. Gait symmetry was evaluated by formula and temporal variables of gait were measured by gait analysis system. Step time was decreased significantly in all groups except group A (P<.05), and gait symmetry was also improved significantly in all groups except group A (P<.05). Cadence was increased significantly in all groups except group A (p<.05), but velocity was not increased in all groups. Therefore we conclude that RAS gait training is effective in improving gait symmetry and can be useful to stroke patient's gait training.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.134-139
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• 2005

Purpose : To evaluate the usefulness of acoustic noise attenuator on auditory fMRI examination. Materials and methods : The acoustic noise attenuator consists of mask, earmuff and silicon earplug. The soft polyurethane sheet and polyurethane form , which has a good soundproof characteristic were used for mask and earmuff. Auditory fMRI experiments of 500 Hz pure tone stimulation were performed in three different cases; first all of mask, earmuff and earplug, secondly earmuff and earplug only and finally without attenuator in 4 normal hearing volunteers. For data acquisition, BOLD MR imaging technique was employed at a 1.5T MR scanner equipped with high performance gradient system. The raw data were analyzed using a SPM-99 analysis software and the activation maps were obtained. Results : In case of all items of acoustic attenuator used, the results revealed that activation was focused on primary auditory area. When only earmuff and earplug were used, the results showed that the activation spread over primary auditory and secondary associative areas. Last, when no device used, only weak activation was observed on the right auditory cortex. Conclusion : It is expected that the acoustic noise attenuator, which consists of earplugs, earmuffs and mask, is a very useful device in auditory fMRI study.