The relationship between interaural delay in binaural gap detection and sensitivity to temporal fine structure in young adults with or without musical training experience

Abstract

Humans can detect the presence of a break in interaural correlation (BIC, also called binaural gap) even if a large interaural time delay (ITD) is introduced, which is important for detecting, recognizing, and localizing sounds in everyday environments. To investigate the relationship between interaural delay in binaural gap detection and the sensitivity of temporal fine structure (TFS), 40 young college students with normal hearing took the BIC delay threshold test, the TFS1 test (the test of monaural TFS sensitivity), and the TFS-AF test (the test of binaural TFS sensitivity). All participants were asked whether they had any musical training experience in their childhood. Results showed that the BIC delay threshold was significantly correlated with the TFS1 test (r =−0.426, p = 0.006), but not with the TFS-AF performance (r =−0.005, p = 0.997). The correlation between BIC delay threshold and monaural TFS sensitivity was observed in the non-music training group (r =−0.508, p = 0.010), but not in the music training group (r =−0.290, p = 0.295). These findings suggest that the interaural delay in binaural gap detection is related to the monaural sensitivity of TFS, this significant correlation was mainly found in young adults without musical training experience.

Evaluation of Behavioral Characteristics After Hearing in Children with Cochlear Implants

“…Preschool children with CIs have been reported to perform similarly to their hearing peers in CBCL measurements after one year of implant use [17 ]. It has also been reported that deaf children successfully cope with social and school-life demands, regardless of their speech and language success after CI [17][18][19][20]. Our study shows a significant difference between the CAP variable's 0-5 year and > 6-year groups (p=0.017).…”

“…It was observed that they actively participate in school and sports activities, as in the normal-hearing student group [18]. Compared with the normative language acquisition process, it shows that these children develop expressive and receptive oral language skills and have linguistic skills patterns under their chronological age.…”