Infant pitch perception: Missing fundamental melody discrimination

Lau, Bonnie K.; Lalonde, Kaylah; Oster, Monika Maria; Werner, Lynne A.

doi:10.1121/1.4973412

Cited by 12 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…It is believed that little children prefer mother singing than talking to them (Mithen 2009 ). Lau et al ( 2017 ) compared pitch perception in small groups of 3-months-old infants, 7-months-old babies and adults. The experiment has shown that 3-months-old infants were fully functional to discriminate the missing fundamental melodies.…”

Section: Absolute Pitchmentioning

confidence: 99%

How far musicality and perfect pitch are derived from genetic factors?

Szyfter

Witt

2020

J Appl Genetics

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There is an agreement about joint genetic and environmental background of musical reception and performance. Musical abilities tend to cluster in families. The studies done on a random population, twins and families of gifted musicians provided a strong support for genetic contribution. Modern biomolecular techniques exploring linkage analysis, variation of gene copy number, scanning for whole-genome expression helped to identify genes, or chromosome regions associated with musical aptitude. Some studies were focused on rare ability to recognize tone without reference that is known as a perfect pitch where a far ethnic differentiation was established. On the other hand, gene deletion leading to dysfunction in amusical individuals also indicated appropriate loci "by negation." The strongest support for an association of genes with musicality was provided for genes: AVPR1 (12q14.2), SLC6A4 (17q11.2), GALM (2p22), PCDH7 (4p15.1), GATA2 (3q21.3), and few others as well for 4q22, 4q23, and 8q13-21 chromosome bands.

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Section: Absolute Pitchmentioning

confidence: 99%

How far musicality and perfect pitch are derived from genetic factors?

Szyfter

Witt

2020

J Appl Genetics

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“…The ability to discriminate pitch does not necessarily predict the ability to utilize it in the context of competing speech. Infants as young as 3 months can discriminate complex tones on the basis of their pitch (Lau & Werner 2012Lau et al 2017), and 4-to 6-montholds can discriminate voices of the same or different sex (Masapollo et al 2016). However, infants as old as 16 months of age do not appear to be able to use this information to detect speech in the presence of competing sounds Newman & Morini 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developmental Effects in Children’s Ability to Benefit From F0 Differences Between Target and Masker Speech

2018

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Objectives: The objectives of this study were to (1) evaluate the extent to which school-age children benefit from fundamental frequency (F0) differences between target words and competing two-talker speech, and (2) assess whether this benefit changes with age. It was predicted that while children would be more susceptible to speech-in-speech masking compared to adults, they would benefit from differences in F0 between target and masker speech. A second experiment was conducted to evaluate the relationship between frequency discrimination thresholds and the ability to benefit from target/masker differences in F0. Design: Listeners were children (5-15 years) and adults (20-36 years) with normal hearing. In the first experiment, speech recognition thresholds (SRTs) for disyllabic words were measured in a continuous, 60-dB-SPL two-talker speech masker. The same male talker produced both the target and masker speech (average F0 = 120 Hz). The level of the target words was adaptively varied to estimate the level associated with 71% correct identification. The procedure was a four-alternative forced-choice with a picture-pointing response. Target words either had the same mean F0 as the masker or it was shifted up by 3, 6 or 9 semitones. To determine the benefit of target/masker F0 separation on word recognition, masking release was computed by subtracting thresholds in each shifted-F0 condition from the threshold in the unshifted-F0 condition. In the second experiment, frequency discrimination thresholds were collected for a subset of listeners to determine whether sensitivity to F0 differences would be predictive of SRTs. The standard was the syllable /ba/ with an F0 of 250 Hz; the target stimuli had a higher F0. Discrimination thresholds were measured using a three-alternative, three-interval forced choice procedure. Results: Younger children (5-12 years) had significantly poorer SRTs than older children (13-15 years) and adults in the unshifted-F0 condition. The benefit of F0 separations generally increased with increasing child age and magnitude of target/masker F0 separation. For 5-to 7-year-olds, there was a small benefit of F0 separation in the 9-semitone condition only. For 8-to 12-year-olds, there was a benefit from both 6-and 9-semitone separations, but to a lesser degree than what was observed for older children (13-15 years

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“…Since F 0 neural encoding has been suggested to report phonological, syntactic, and semantic cues, even in a nontonal language like English (Nakatani & Schaffer 1978), crucial information for language acquisition (He et al 2007; Lau et al 2017), the analysis was centered on the stimulus F 0 . F1 and F2 were not investigated because their frequencies were above 500 Hz, and a recent study has showed that no FFR signal could be detected in newborns for harmonics above this value (Arenillas-Alcón et al 2021), roughly corresponding to the frequency limits of the natural filter of the mother’s womb (Gerhardt & Abrams 2000; Lahav & Skoe 2014).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Speech-Encoding Deficits in Neonates Born Large-for-Gestational Age as Revealed With the Envelope Frequency-Following Response

et al. 2023

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Objectives:The present envelope frequency-following response (FFR ENV ) study aimed at characterizing the neural encoding of the fundamental frequency of speech sounds in neonates born at the higher end of the birth weight continuum (>90th percentile), known as large-for-gestational age (LGA).Design: Twenty-five LGA newborns were recruited from the maternity unit of Sant Joan de Déu Barcelona Children's Hospital and paired by age and sex with 25 babies born adequate-for-gestational age (AGA), all from healthy mothers and normal pregnancies. FFR ENV s were elicited to the/da/ syllable and recorded while the baby was sleeping in its cradle after a successful universal hearing screening. Neural encoding of the stimulus' envelope of the fundamental frequency (F 0ENV ) was characterized through the FFR ENV spectral amplitude. Relationships between electrophysiological parameters and maternal/neonatal variables that may condition neonatal neurodevelopment were assessed, including pregestational body mass index (BMI), maternal gestational weight gain and neonatal BMI. Results:LGA newborns showed smaller spectral amplitudes at the F 0ENV compared to the AGA group. Significant negative correlations were found between neonatal BMI and the spectral amplitude at the F 0ENV . Conclusions:Our results indicate that in spite of having a healthy pregnancy, LGA neonates' central auditory system is impaired in encoding a fundamental aspect of the speech sounds, namely their fundamental frequency. The negative correlation between the neonates' BMI and FFR ENV indicates that this impaired encoding is independent of the pregnant woman BMI and weight gain during pregnancy, supporting the role of the neonatal BMI. We suggest that the higher adipose tissue observed in the LGA group may impair, via proinflammatory products, the fine-grained central auditory system microstructure required for the neural encoding of the fundamental frequency of speech sounds.

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Infant pitch perception: Missing fundamental melody discrimination

Cited by 12 publications

References 42 publications

How far musicality and perfect pitch are derived from genetic factors?

How far musicality and perfect pitch are derived from genetic factors?

Developmental Effects in Children’s Ability to Benefit From F0 Differences Between Target and Masker Speech

Speech-Encoding Deficits in Neonates Born Large-for-Gestational Age as Revealed With the Envelope Frequency-Following Response

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