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Introduction: Perception and memorizing of melody and rhythm start about the third trimester of gestation. Infants have astonishing musical predispositions, and melody contour is most salient for them. Objective: To longitudinally analyse melody contour of spontaneous crying of healthy infants and to identify melodic intervals. The aim was 3-fold: (1) to answer the question whether spontaneous crying of healthy infants regularly exhibits melodic intervals across the observation period, (2) to investigate whether interval events become more complex with age and (3) to analyse interval size distribution. Methods: Weekly cry recordings of 12 healthy infants (6 females) over the first 4 months of life were analysed (6,130 cry utterances) using frequency spectrograms and pitch analyses (PRAAT). A preselection of utterances containing a well-identifiable, noise-free and undisturbed melodic contour was applied to identify and measure melodic intervals in the final subset of 3,114 utterances. Age-dependent frequency of occurrence of melodic intervals was statistically analysed using generalized estimating equations. Results: 85.3% of all preselected melody contours (n = 3,114) either contained single rising or falling melodic intervals or complex events as combinations of both. In total 6,814 melodic intervals were measured. A significant increase in interval occurrence was found characterized by a non-linear age effect (3 developmental phases). Complex events were found to significantly increase linearly with age. In both calculations, no sex effect was found. Interval size distribution showed a maximum of the minor second as the prevailing musical interval in infants' crying over the first 4 months of life. Conclusion: Melodic intervals seem to be a regular phenomenon of spontaneous crying of healthy infants. They are suggested to be a further candidate for developing an early risk marker of vocal control in infants. Subsequent studies are needed to compare healthy infants and infants at risk for respiratory-laryngeal dysfunction to investigate the diagnostic value of the occurrence of melodic intervals and their age-depending complexification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rhythm perception and synchronization to periodicity hold fundamental neurodevelopmental importance for language acquisition, musical behavior, and social communication. Rhythm is omnipresent in the fetal auditory world and newborns demonstrate sensitivity to auditory rhythmic cues. During the last trimester of gestation, the brain begins to respond to auditory stimulation and to code the auditory environment. When and how during this period do the neural capacities for rhythm processing develop? We conducted a cross-sectional study in 46 neonates (24 male) born between 27 and 35 weeks gestational age (wGA), measuring their neural responses to auditory rhythms with high-density electroencephalography during sleep. We developed measures to evaluate neural synchronization to nested rhythmic periodicities, including the fast isochronous beat and slower metrical (beat grouping) structures. We show that neural synchronization to beat and meter becomes stronger with increasing GA, converging on small phase differences between stimulus and neural responses near term, similar to those observed in adults. Dividing the cohort into subpopulations born before and after 33 wGA revealed that both younger and older groups showed neural synchronization to the fast periodicity related to the isochronous beat, whereas only the older group showed significant neural synchronization to the slower meter frequencies related to beat groupings, suggesting that encoding of nested periodicities arrives during late gestation. Together, our results shed light on the rapid evolution of neural coding of external hierarchical auditory rhythms during the third trimester of gestation, starting from the age when the thalamocortical axons establish the first synapses with the cortical plate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In recent years, the use of music as a therapeutic and developmental tool for infants, especially within neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), has seen a surge in interest. Despite a growing body of research underscoring the potential benefits of music therapy and music medicine in enhancing infant development and aiding medical practices, the specific characteristics of music that maximize these benefits remain poorly understood. Objectives: This scoping review aims to provide a comprehensive foundation by mapping the existing literature on passive music listening and identifying gaps, trends, and patterns that are crucial precursors to the development of best practices. Methods: Following the PRISMA guidelines, a comprehensive literature search was conducted, covering studies published up until December 2022. The focus was on passive music listening, with a deliberate exclusion of active music interventions. Out of the initial pool of studies, 56 met the inclusion criteria, determined by the PICO framework, focusing on passive music exposure among full-term and preterm infants. Starting with a descriptive analysis approach, the study employed Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF) and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) to identify key themes, including the physiological impacts of music, its role in pain management, effects on sleep and stress, and influences on feeding and weight gain. Results: The review revealed a predominance of quantitative research methods, a significant concentration of studies from the United States, suggesting potential geographical bias, and a notable clinical setting bias. These findings indicate a critical need for methodological diversity and a more culturally inclusive and interdisciplinary approach to research. They also point to the necessity for standardized music intervention protocols to optimize therapeutic and developmental outcomes for this vulnerable population. Future research should aim to bridge the methodological gaps identified, integrating both qualitative and quantitative approaches to provide a comprehensive understanding of music's impact on infant development and medical practices in a global, culturally nuanced context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Word identification accuracy is modulated by many factors including linguistic characteristics of words (frequent vs. infrequent), listening environment (noisy vs. quiet), and listener-related differences (older vs. younger). Nearly, all studies investigating these factors use high-familiarity words and noise signals that are either energetic maskers (e.g., white noise) or informational maskers composed of competing talkers (e.g., multitalker babble). Here, we expand on these findings by examining younger and older listeners' speech-in-noise perception for words varying in both frequency and familiarity within a simulated hospital noise that has important non-speech information. The method was inspired by the real-world challenges aging patients can face in understanding less familiar medical terminology used by healthcare professionals in noisy hospital environments. Word familiarity data from older and young adults were collected for 800 medically related terms. Familiarity ratings were highly correlated between the two age groups. Older adults' transcription accuracy for sentences with medical terminology that vary in their familiarity and frequency was assessed across four listening conditions: hospital noise, speech-shaped noise, amplitude-modulated speech-shaped noise, and quiet. Listeners were less accurate in noise conditions than in a quiet condition and were more impacted by hospital noise than either speech-shaped noise. Sentences with low-familiarity and low-frequency medical words combined with hospital noise were particularly detrimental for older adults compared to younger adults. The results impact our theoretical understanding of speech perception in noise and highlight real-world consequences of older adults' difficulties with speech-in-noise and specifically noise containing competing, non-speech information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sensory systems are permanently bombarded with complex stimuli. Cognitive processing of such complex stimuli may be facilitated by accentuation of important elements. In the case of music listening, alteration of some surface features –such as volume and duration– may facilitate the cognitive processing of otherwise high-level information, such as melody and harmony. Hence, musical accents are often aligned with intrinsically salient elements in the stimuli, such as highly unexpected notes. We developed a novel listening paradigm based on an artificial Markov-chain melodic grammar to probe the hypothesis that listeners prefer structurally salient events to be consistent with salient surface properties such as musical accents. We manipulated two types of structural saliency: one driven by Gestalt principles (a note at the peak of a melodic contour) and one driven by statistical learning (a note with high surprisal, or information content [IC], as defined by the artificial melodic grammar). Results suggest that for all listeners, the aesthetic preferences in terms of surface properties are well predicted by Gestalt principles of melodic shape. In contrast, despite demonstrating good knowledge of novel statistical properties of the melodies, participants did not demonstrate a preference for accentuation of high-IC notes. This work is a first step in elucidating the interplay between intrinsic, Gestalt-like and acquired, statistical properties of melodies in the development of expressive musical properties, with a focus on the appreciation of dynamic accents (i.e. a transient increase in volume). Our results shed light on the implementation of domain-general and domain-specific principles of information processing during music listening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: As highlighted by the scientific literature, music therapy (MT) represents a significant non-pharmacological intervention within neurorehabilitation programs. MT offers benefits in the recovery process and enhances the quality of life for patients with neurodevelopmental disorders. A review of the literature reveals a lack of MT models focusing on real-time personalized composition using electronic music techniques. Furthermore, studies on MT conducted within a multisensory therapeutic context are limited. Recent literature reviews on MT in telerehabilitation have highlighted that the application of the Euterpe Method (EM) is complex due to limited technical information available and the combined background required for music therapists to replicate the EM protocol. Methods: This paper presents a manual which specifies the procedures and algorithms of the EM, developed during a research program conducted in a pediatric hospital in Italy. The prerogative of the EM is the use of procedures aimed at creating personalized therapeutic compositions within a multisensory environment. Discussion: The efficacy and resilience of the EM have been demonstrated in two experimental studies. The first focused on the use of telerehabilitation in children with developmental disorders, while the second involved hospitalized children with cerebral palsy. Conclusion: This study integrates medicine, neuroscience, and MT to develop personalized interventions in pediatrics, fostering collaboration among specialists and families, enhancing patient well-being, and opening new therapeutic perspectives, while ensuring the replicability of the EM approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Positive relationships between the home literacy environment and children's language and literacy development are well-established. However, existing literature has overlooked the potential contributions of the home music environment. Initial evidence indicates positive relationships between the home music environment and children's emerging language and literacy skills, yet it remains unclear whether and how children's home music and literacy environments may be related. Furthermore, parents' sense of self-efficacy is known to impact the home environment provided for their children. Despite being linked with the home literacy environment, parental self-efficacy has not been directly investigated in relation to the home music environment. In the present study, 124 caregivers of preschoolers completed a one-time online survey about their children's home music environment, home literacy environment, and parental self-efficacy. Partial correlations and hierarchical regressions reveal that children's amount of music exposure is associated with qualitative (not quantitative) aspects of the home literacy environment, specifically parents' use of interactive techniques during shared reading. Moreover, parental self-efficacy is associated with children's amount of exposure to music. Overall, these findings support the need to further examine how the home music environment may meaningfully contribute to an enriching learning environment, especially to support language and literacy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mental time travel (MTT), a cornerstone of human cognition, enables individuals to mentally project themselves into their past or future. It was shown that this self-projection may extend beyond the temporal domain to the spatial and social domains. What about higher cognitive domains? Twenty-eight participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while self-projecting to different political, moral and temporal perspectives. For each domain, participants were asked to judge their relationship to various people (politicians, moral figures, personal acquaintances) from their actual or projected self-location. Findings showed slower, less accurate responses during self-projection across all domains. fMRI analysis revealed self-projection elicited brain activity at the precuneus, medial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction and anterior insula, bilaterally and right lateral temporal cortex. Notably, 23.5% of active voxels responded to all three domains and 27% to two domains, suggesting a shared brain system for self-projection. For ordinality judgement (self-reference), 52.5% of active voxels corresponded to the temporal domain specifically. Self-projection activity overlapped mostly with the frontoparietal control network, followed by the default mode network, while self-reference showed a reversed pattern, demonstrating MTT's implication in spontaneous brain activity. MTT may thus be regarded as a 'mental-experiential travel', with self-projection as a domain-general construct and self-reference related mostly to time. This article is part of the theme issue 'Elements of episodic memory: lessons from 40 years of research'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Current evidence from individual studies shows that music primarily captures attention, can suppress various emotions, and alters or regulates mood. It enhances work performance, stimulates arousal, promotes higher cognitive functions, regulates inhibitions, and supports rhythmic movement, among other effects. Previous research has demonstrated that exposure to various types of music improves sustained attention when compared to a control group. Additionally, various types of music, such as those with high-frequency beats, have been found to enhance alertness and attentional focus. Music has also been shown to have positive effects on physiological responses. Aims & objectives: the present study was an attempt to assess the effect of different types of music on HRV. Material & Methods: This crosssectional observational study was conducted in the Department of Physiology at Government Medical College, Patiala, from January to December 2023. A total of 120 subjects, aged 18 to 25, were enrolled based on specific inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results: The study enrolled a total of 120 study subjects, comprising of more than 50% female study subjects followed by males. The result showed that POP and Punjabi music had a more pronounced impact on increasing blood pressure, pulse rate, and HRV measures compared to Raag Darbari, which showed subtler effects. Conclusion: Raag Darbari caused minimal changes in blood pressure and heart rate, while POP and Punjabi music significantly increased systolic/diastolic pressure and heart rate. Faster-paced music stimulates the autonomic system more, while Raag Darbari has a calming effect. Music genre influences physiological parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The human brain exhibits both oscillatory and aperiodic, or 1/f, activity. Although a large body of research has focused on the relationship between brain rhythms and sensory processes, aperiodic activity has often been overlooked as functionally irrelevant. Prompted by recent findings linking aperiodic activity to the balance between neural excitation and inhibition, we investigated its effects on the temporal resolution of perception. We recorded electroencephalography (EEG) from participants (both sexes) during the resting state and a task in which they detected the presence of two flashes separated by variable interstimulus intervals. Two-flash discrimination accuracy typically follows a sigmoid function whose steepness reflects perceptual variability or inconsistent integration/segregation of the stimuli. We found that individual differences in the steepness of the psychometric function correlated with EEG aperiodic exponents over posterior scalp sites. In other words, participants with flatter EEG spectra (i.e., greater neural excitation) exhibited increased sensory noise, resulting in shallower psychometric curves. Our finding suggests that aperiodic EEG is linked to sensory integration processes usually attributed to the rhythmic inhibition of neural oscillations. Overall, this correspondence between aperiodic neural excitation and behavioral measures of sensory noise provides a more comprehensive explanation of the relationship between brain activity and sensory integration and represents an important extension to theories of how the brain samples sensory input over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies reported mixed findings on autistic individuals' pitch perception relative to neurotypical (NT) individuals. We investigated whether this may be partly due to individual differences in cognitive abilities by comparing their performance on various pitch perception tasks on a large sample (n = 164) of autistic and NT children and adults. Our findings revealed that: (i) autistic individuals either showed similar or worse performance than NT individuals on the pitch tasks; (ii) cognitive abilities were associated with some pitch task performance; and (iii) cognitive abilities modulated the relationship between autism diagnosis and pitch perception on some tasks. Our findings highlight the importance of taking an individual differences approach to understand the strengths and weaknesses of pitch processing in autism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music is an important part of life for many people. It can evoke a wide range of emotions, including sadness, happiness, anger, tension, relief and excitement. People with hearing loss and people with cochlear implants have reduced abilities to discriminate some of the features of musical sounds that may be involved in evoking emotions. This paper reviews these changes in perceptual abilities and describes how they affect the perception of emotion in music. For people with acquired partial hearing loss, it appears that the perception of emotion in music is almost normal, whereas congenital partial hearing loss is associated with impaired perception of music emotion. For people with cochlear implants, the ability to discriminate changes in fundamental frequency (associated with perceived pitch) is much worse than normal and musical harmony is hardly perceived. As a result, people with cochlear implants appear to judge emotion in music primarily using tempo and rhythm cues, and this limits the range of emotions that can be judged. This article is part of the theme issue 'Sensing and feeling: an integrative approach to sensory processing and emotional experience'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although people commonly remember and recreate the tempo of musical pieces with high accuracy, comparatively less is known regarding sources of potential variation in musical tempo memory. This study therefore aimed to investigate musical tempo memory accuracy and the effects of reference tempo, reproduction method, musical expertise, and their interaction. A sample of 403 individuals with varying levels of musical training participated in the experimental online study, including nonmusicians, amateur musicians, and professional musicians. Participants were tasked with reproducing the tempos of 19 popular pop/rock songs using two methods: tempo tapping and adjusting the tempo of the audio file based on the previously tapped tempo. Results from multilevel models revealed overall high accuracy in tempo memory, with tempo adjusting yielding greater accuracy compared with tempo tapping. Higher musical expertise was associated with increased accuracy in tempo production. In addition, we observed a quadratic effect of reference tempo, with the greatest accuracy in tempo reproduction around 120 bpm. Gender, age, familiarity with the pieces, and accompaniment strategies were also associated with greater accuracy. These findings provide insights into the factors influencing musical tempo memory and have implications for understanding the cognitive processes involved in tempo perception and reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Music learning induces significant neural changes, enhancing auditory, verbal, and visuospatial skills, IQ, and speech perception. Research studies reveal structural and functional brain plasticity due to music training in adults and children. While musical abilities are linked to formal training, the existence of "musical sleepers" with heightened speech perception without formal training is noteworthy in adults. This study addresses the gap in understanding such phenomena in children, exploring psychophysical abilities in musically adept children, and aiming to impact rehabilitation models. Materials and method: A pre-experimental study involved 164 typically developing children (mean age: 9.93) without musical training. Musical abilities were evaluated using the abbreviated version of Montreal Battery for Evaluation of Musical Abilities (MBEMA) test in DMDX software, covering melody, rhythm, and memory subtests. Psychophysical tests in MATLAB assessed temporal, frequency, intensity, timbre, and binaural resolution. Results: Using a median split based on MBEMA test scores (median: 42), 84 children exhibited poor musical abilities, while 80 showed good ones. Descriptive statistics for MBEMA scores and psychophysical tests were conducted. As data did not follow normal distribution, non-parametric inferential statistics were employed. Mann–Whitney U tests revealed significant differences favouring good musical abilities in all assessments: gap deduction (p = 0.01), pitch discrimination at 500 Hz and 4 kHz (p = 0.00), intensity discrimination at 500 Hz (p = 0.00) and 4 kHz (p = 0.01), profile analysis (p = 0.01), interaural level difference (p = 0.023), and interaural time difference (p = 0.038). Spearman correlation showed highest correlation with pitch discrimination at 500 Hz (r = − 0.538), 4 kHz (− 0.416), intensity discrimination at 4 kHz (r = − 0.367), and 500 Hz (r = − 0.311), profile analysis (r = − 0.313), interaural level difference (r = − 0.276), and gap deduction (r = − 0.235). All were significant (p < 0.01), except for the interaural time difference. Conclusion: Children excelling in music surpassed those with weaker abilities in psychophysical tasks. This echoes past research, underscoring auditory discrimination's influence on musical skills in untrained children. These results potentially support the concept of musical sleepers in children. Key predictors include pitch discrimination, while interaural time difference exhibited minimal correlation. Utilising such assessments may predict musical training outcomes for children with auditory disorders, but additional robust statistical investigation is necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music, like spoken language, is often characterized by hierarchically organized structure. Previous experiments have shown neural tracking of notes and beats, but little work touches on the more abstract question: how does the brain establish high-level musical structures in real time? We presented Bach chorales to participants (20 females and 9 males) undergoing electroencephalogram (EEG) recording to investigate how the brain tracks musical phrases. We removed the main temporal cues to phrasal structures, so that listeners could only rely on harmonic information to parse a continuous musical stream. Phrasal structures were disrupted by locally or globally reversing the harmonic progression, so that our observations on the original music could be controlled and compared. We first replicated the findings on neural tracking of musical notes and beats, substantiating the positive correlation between musical training and neural tracking. Critically, we discovered a neural signature in the frequency range ~0.1 Hz (modulations of EEG power) that reliably tracks musical phrasal structure. Next, we developed an approach to quantify the phrasal phase precession of the EEG power, revealing that phrase tracking is indeed an operation of active segmentation involving predictive processes. We demonstrate that the brain establishes complex musical structures online over long timescales (>5 s) and actively segments continuous music streams in a manner comparable to language processing. These two neural signatures, phrase tracking and phrasal phase precession, provide new conceptual and technical tools to study the processes underpinning high-level structure building using noninvasive recording techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A common complaint in older adults is trouble with their memory, especially for new information. Current knowledge about normal aging and changes in memory identify a divide between memory tasks that are unaffected by aging and those that are. Among the unaffected are recognition tasks. These memory tasks rely on accessing well-known information, often include environmental support, and tend to be automatic. Negative age effects on memory are often observed at both encoding and during recall. Older adults often have difficulty with recall tasks, particularly those that require effortful self-initiated processing, episodic memory, and retention of information about contextual cues. Research in memory for music in healthy aging suggests a skill-invariance hypothesis: that age effects dominate when general-purpose cognitive mechanisms are needed to perform the musical task at hand, while experience effects dominate when music-specific knowledge is needed to perform the task [1]. Aims: The goals of this pair of studies were to investigate the effects of age and familiarity on musical memory in the context of real pieces of music, and to compare a live concert experimental setting with a lab-based experimental setting. Method: Participants' task was to click a button (or press the spacebar) when they heard the target theme in three pieces of music. One was Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and the others were original pieces commissioned for this study, one tonal and one atonal. Participants heard the relevant theme three times before listening to a piece of music. The music was performed by the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra; participants either attended the concert, or watched a recording of the concert in the lab. Participants also completed two short cognitive tests and filled out a questionnaire collecting demographic information and a hearing abilities self-assessment. Results: We find a significant effect of familiarity and setting but not of age or musical training on recognition performance as measured by d'. More specifically, performance is best for the familiar, tonal piece, moderate for the unfamiliar tonal piece and worst for the unfamiliar atonal piece. Performance was better in the live setting than the lab setting. Conclusions: The absence of an age effect provides encouraging evidence that music's diverse cues may encourage cognitive scaffolding, in turn improving encoding and subsequent recognition. Better performance in an ecological versus lab setting supports the expansion of ecological studies in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most individuals, regardless of formal musical training, have long-term absolute pitch memory (APM) for familiar musical recordings, though with varying levels of accuracy. The present study followed up on recent evidence suggesting an association between singing accuracy and APM (Halpern & Pfordresher, 2022, Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 84(1), 260–269), as well as tonal short-term memory (STM) and APM (Van Hedger et al., 2018, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 71(4), 879–891). Participants from three research sites (n = 108) completed a battery of tasks including APM, tonal STM, singing accuracy, and self-reported auditory imagery. Both tonal STM and singing accuracy predicted APM, replicating prior results. Tonal STM also predicted singing accuracy, music training, and auditory imagery. Further tests suggested that the association between APM and singing accuracy was fully mediated by tonal STM. This pattern comports well with models of vocal pitch matching that include STM for pitch as a mechanism for sensorimotor translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The search for common characteristics between the musical abilities of humans and other animal species is still taking its first steps. One of the most promising aspects from a comparative point of view is the analysis of rhythmic components, which are crucial features of human communicative performance but also well-identifiable patterns in the vocal displays of other species. Therefore, the study of rhythm is becoming essential to understand the mechanisms of singing behavior and the evolution of human communication. Recent findings provided evidence that particular rhythmic structures occur in human music and some singing animal species, such as birds and rock hyraxes, but only 2 species of nonhuman primates have been investigated so far (Indri indri and Hylobates lar). Therefore, our study aims to consistently broaden the list of species studied regarding the presence of rhythmic categories. We investigated the temporal organization in the singing of 3 species of crested gibbons (Nomascus gabriellae, Nomascus leucogenys , and Nomascus siki) and found that the most prominent rhythmic category was isochrony. Moreover, we found slight variation in songs' tempo among species, with N. gabriellae and N. siki singing with a temporal pattern involving a gradually increasing tempo (a musical accelerando), and N. leucogenys with a more regular pattern. Here, we show how the prominence of a peak at the isochrony establishes itself as a shared characteristic in the small apes considered so far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Although cochlear implants can restore auditory inputs to deafferented auditory cortices, the quality of the sound signal transmitted to the brain is severely degraded, limiting functional outcomes in terms of speech perception and emotion perception. The latter deficit negatively impacts cochlear implant users' social integration and quality of life; however, emotion perception is not currently part of rehabilitation. Developing rehabilitation programs incorporating emotional cognition requires a deeper understanding of cochlear implant users' residual emotion perception abilities. Methods: To identify the neural underpinnings of these residual abilities, we investigated whether machine learning techniques could be used to identify emotion-specific patterns of neural activity in cochlear implant users. Using existing electroencephalography data from 22 cochlear implant users, we employed a random forest classifier to establish if we could model and subsequently predict from participants' brain responses the auditory emotions (vocal and musical) presented to them. Results: Our findings suggest that consistent emotion-specific biomarkers exist in cochlear implant users, which could be used to develop effective rehabilitation programs incorporating emotion perception training. Conclusions: This study highlights the potential of machine learning techniques to improve outcomes for cochlear implant users, particularly in terms of emotion perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: Cochlear implants (CIs) are well known to improve audibility and speech recognition in individuals with hearing loss, but some individuals still struggle with many aspects in communication, such as prosody. This study explores how prosodic elements are perceived by those with normal hearing (NH) and CIs. Subjects and Methods: Thirteen individuals with NH and thirteen CI users participated in this study and completed speech perception, speech prosody perception, speech prosody production, pitch difference discrimination, and melodic contour perception testing. Results: NH listeners performed significantly better than CI users on speech perception, speech prosody perception (except for words with neutral meaning and a negative prosody change and when words were repeated twice), pitch difference discrimination, and melodic contour perception testing. No statistical significance was observed for speech prosody production for both groups. Conclusions: Compared to NH listeners, CI users had limited ability to recognize prosodic elements. The study findings highlight the necessity of an assessment tool and signal processing algorithm for CIs, specifically targeting prosodic elements in clinical settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Selecting appropriate musical stimuli to induce specific emotions represents a recurring challenge in music and emotion research. Most existing stimuli have been categorized according to taxonomies derived from general emotion models (e.g., basic emotions, affective circumplex), have been rated for perceived emotions, and are rarely defined in terms of interrater agreement. To redress these limitations, we present research that served in the development of a new interactive online database, including an initial set of 364 music excerpts from three different genres (classical, pop, and hip/hop) that were rated for felt emotion using the Geneva Emotion Music Scale (GEMS), a music-specific emotion scale. The sample comprised 517 English- and German-speaking participants and each excerpt was rated by an average of 28.76 participants (SD = 7.99). Data analyses focused on research questions that are of particular relevance for musical database development, notably the number of raters required to obtain stable estimates of emotional effects of music and the adequacy of the GEMS as a tool for describing music-evoked emotions across three prominent music genres. Overall, our findings suggest that 10–20 raters are sufficient to obtain stable estimates of emotional effects of music excerpts in most cases, and that the GEMS shows promise as a valid and comprehensive annotation tool for music databases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vibrotactile feedback can support and enhance various musical learning processes of both children and adults, thus improving their musical experience. However, until now, to the best knowledge of the authors, only a few studies have focused on the auditory-tactile music perception in childhood. In this paper, we evaluate a bimodal auditory-tactile teaching approach for elementary school children. The experiment was designed based on the two-group-pretest-posttest design. Children allocated to the experimental group were subjected to auditory-tactile music training, while those allocated to the control-group completed the same training sessions stimulated by audio-only signals. Both groups received common, especially designed musical activities, divided into sixteen sessions. In order to evaluate the experimental procedure, children completed an auditory ability test in three different timepoints: before, half-way through, and at the end of the study. Data from 60 children were analyzed. The main aim of the study was to explore beat sensitivity in simple and complex music metrical structures and examine whether auditory-tactile stimulation could enhance the children's ability to recognize beat within various musical contexts. Results demonstrate notable performance improvements within the experimental group, suggesting that a multimodal music experience can improve beat induction abilities of both simple and complex meters for elementary school children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of extensive disciplinary integration, researchers worldwide have increasingly focused on musical ability. However, despite the wide range of available music ability tests, there remains a dearth of validated tests applicable to China. The Music Ear Test (MET) is a validated scale that has been reported to be potentially suitable for cross-cultural distribution in a Chinese sample. However, no formal translation and cross-cultural reliability/validity tests have been conducted for the Chinese population in any of the studies using the Music Ear Test. This study aims to assess the factor structure, convergence, predictiveness, and validity of the Chinese version of the MET, based on a large sample of Chinese participants (n≥1235). Furthermore, we seek to determine whether variables such as music training level, response pattern, and demographic data such as gender and age have intervening effects on the results. In doing so, we aim to provide clear indications of musical aptitude and expertise by validating an existing instrument, the Music Ear Test, and provide a valid method for further understanding the musical abilities of the Chinese sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Executive functions (EF) play a fundamental role in planning and executing goal-driven behaviours. The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to investigate EF skills mastered by preschool/school-age cochlear implanted children (CIC) without morpho-functional abnormalities and to compare their outcomes with typically hearing children (THC). Methods: Bibliographic search for observational studies of any language/date up to 16 December 2022 was performed with the following electronic databases: PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. After removal of duplicates, 2442 records were subjected to a three-stage screening process and 83 potentially eligible articles were identified. A total of 15 studies was included in the final analysis: 9 articles directly meeting the eligibility criteria plus 6 more studies thanks to the authors sharing their data set, specifically for participants who met present inclusion criteria. Results: Meta-analysis showed a statistically significant difference only for verbal short-term memory, whereas group differences for visuospatial short-term memory and verbal/visuospatial working memory were not significant. For fluency skills, meta-analysis revealed statistical significance for the semantic fluency task but not for the rapid naming test. Qualitative analysis reflected group similarities in flexibility but CIC's difficulties in auditory attention/planning skills. Controversial findings for inhibitory control skills were observed. Conclusions: EF performance comparisons between CIC and THC show inter-skill and inter-test variances. Due to the paucity of existing studies, present findings should be interpreted with caution. Future research in this domain is strongly recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Music perception is one of the greatest challenges for cochlear implant (CI) users. The aims of this study were: (i) to evaluate the music perception of CI users using the online Meludia music training program as music testing platform, (ii) to compare performance among three age groups, and (iii) to compare CI users with their normal hearing (NH) peers. Methods: 138 individuals participated, divided between children (6–10 y), adolescents (11–16 y), and adults (≥ 17 y). Five music perception tasks were evaluated: Rhythm, Spatialization, Stable/unstable, Melody, and Density. We also administered the music related quality of life (MuRQoL) questionnaire for adults, and a music questionnaire for pediatric population (6–16 y) (MuQPP). Results: A significantly higher percentage of the adolescent CI users completed the five tasks compared to the other age groups. Both pediatric and adolescent CI users had similar performance to their NH peers in most categories. On the MuRQoL, adult NH listeners reported more music exposure than CI users (3.8 ± 0.6 vs 3.0 ± 0.6, p < 0.01), but both groups reported similar levels of perceived music importance (3.4 ± 0.7 vs 3.2 ± 1.1, p = 0.340). On the MuQPP, pediatric CI users who scored highly on music perception also had higher reported questionnaire scores (54.2 ± 12.9 vs 40.9 ± 12.1, p = 0.009). Conclusions: Meludia can be used to evaluate music perception and to use for music training in CI users of all ages. Adolescents had the highest performance in most musical tasks. Pediatric CI users were more similar to their NH peers. The importance of music in adult CI users was comparable to their NH peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experience modulates face processing abilities so that face discrimination and recognition improve with development, especially for more frequently experienced faces (e.g., own-race faces). Although advanced models describe how experience generally modulates perception, the mechanism by which exposure refines internal perceptual representations of faces is unknown. To address this issue, we investigated the effect of short- and long-term experienced stimulus history on face processing. Participants performed same-different judgments in a serial discrimination task where two consecutive faces were drawn from a distribution of morphed faces. Use of stimulus statistics was measured by testing the gravitation of face representations towards the mean of a range of morphed faces around which they were sampled (regression-to-the-mean). The results demonstrated regression of face representations towards the experienced mean and the retention of stimulus statistics over days. In trials where regression facilitated discrimination, the bias diminished the otherwise disadvantage of other-race over own-races faces. The dynamics of the perceptual bias, probed by trial-by-trial performance, further indicated different timescales of the bias, depending on perceptual expertise: people with weak face-recognition skills showed the use of a stable reference, built on long-term statistics accumulated over many trials, along with an updating of this reference by recent trials. In contrast, the strong face recognizers showed a different pattern where sequential effects mostly contributed to discrimination, with relatively minimal reliance on the long-term average for other-race faces. The findings suggest a mechanism by which exposure refines face representations and reveal, for the first time in adults, associations between levels of specialization of perceptual representations and the extent to which these representations become narrowly tuned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the study is to evaluate the interventions examining music exposure's effects on prosocial behaviour, to identify the behaviour change techniques (BCTs) through which they change it, and to examine the mechanisms of action (MoAs) that mediate the relationship between music exposure and prosocial behaviour. The review identified 15 research articles, comprising 19 relevant studies. The results revealed that, though many of the included studies did not provide enough information to code them adequately, the BCTs "Instruction on how to perform a behaviour", "Salience of consequences", "Reduce negative emotions" and "Identification of self as role model" were the most commonly utilized techniques. Additionally, "Emotion" was the most significant MoA in the intervention-behaviour relationship in this context, but too few BCTs were able to be coded to make conclusions about any BCT-MoA relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music training is generally assumed to improve perceptual and cognitive abilities. Although correlational data highlight positive associations, experimental results are inconclusive, raising questions about causality. Does music training have far-transfer effects, or do preexisting factors determine who takes music lessons? All behavior reflects genetic and environmental influences, but differences in emphasis—nature versus nurture—have been a source of tension throughout the history of psychology. After reviewing the recent literature, we conclude that the evidence that music training causes nonmusical benefits is weak or nonexistent, and that researchers routinely overemphasize contributions from experience while neglecting those from nature. The literature is also largely exploratory rather than theory driven. It fails to explain mechanistically how music-training effects could occur and ignores evidence that far transfer is rare. Instead of focusing on elusive perceptual or cognitive benefits, we argue that it is more fruitful to examine the social-emotional effects of engaging with music, particularly in groups, and that music-based interventions may be effective mainly for clinical or atypical populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scales, sets of discrete pitches that form the basis of melodies, are thought to be one of the most universal hallmarks of music. But we know relatively little about cross-cultural diversity of scales or how they evolved. To remedy this, we assemble a cross-cultural database (Database of Musical Scales: DaMuSc) of scale data, collected over the past century by various ethnomusicologists. Statistical analyses of the data highlight that certain intervals (e.g., the octave, fifth, second) are used frequently across cultures. Despite some diversity among scales, it is the similarities across societies which are most striking: step intervals are restricted to 100-400 cents; most scales are found close to equidistant 5- and 7-note scales. We discuss potential mechanisms of variation and selection in the evolution of scales, and how the assembled data may be used to examine the root causes of convergent evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The home language environment is a critical point of investment in early language skills. However, few studies have quantitatively measured the home language environment of low-socioeconomic-status households in non-western settings. This mixed methods study describes the home language environment and early child language skills among households in a low-socioeconomic-status, peri-urban district of Chengdu, China, and identifies factors influencing parental investment in the home language environment. Audio recordings were collected from 81 peri-urban households with children ages 18–24 months and analysed using the Language Environment Analysis (LENATM) system. The Mandarin version of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory was administered to each child's primary caregiver. The quantitative results revealed large variation in home language environments and child language skills among the sample, with relatively low average scores when compared to other Chinese samples. Qualitative interviews with a subset of 31 caregivers revealed that many caregivers face constraints on their knowledge of interactive parenting, compounded, in some households, by time constraints due to work or household responsibilities. The findings indicate a need for increased sources of credible parenting information for peri-urban caregivers of young children to promote investment in the home language environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We apply the independent cascade network inference model to a large database of music videos to infer the structure of the global network of music diffusion. The derived network reveals an intricate topology–fully interconnected, exhibiting a modular structure, and characterized by asymmetric links. We explore the relationship between the identified bilateral cultural diffusion pathways and the geographical and cultural distances among countries, and key socioeconomic interactions such as international trade and migration. Additionally, we use a gravity model to ascertain the factors contributing to both the formation and the intensity of the estimated diffusion channels between countries. Our findings reveal that cultural, geographical, and historical factors serve as primary drivers of musical diffusion, downplaying the importance of economic factors. This study posits that these elements exert considerable force in shaping musical preferences across nations, making the emergence of a homogeneous global musical culture improbable. This exploration adds valuable insights to the discourse on the globalization of music and its potential cultural implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most listeners can determine when a familiar recording of music has been shifted in musical key by as little as one semitone (e.g., from B to C major). These findings appear to suggest that absolute pitch memory is widespread in the general population. However, the use of familiar recordings makes it unclear whether these findings genuinely reflect absolute melody-key associations for at least two reasons. First, listeners may be able to use spectral cues from the familiar instrumentation of the recordings to determine when a familiar recording has been shifted in pitch. Second, listeners may be able to rely solely on pitch height cues (e.g., relying on a feeling that an incorrect recording sounds "too high" or "too low"). Neither of these strategies would require an understanding of pitch chroma or musical key. The present experiments thus assessed whether listeners could make accurate absolute melody-key judgments when listening to novel versions of these melodies, differing from the iconic recording in timbre (Experiment 1) or timbre and octave (Experiment 2). Listeners in both experiments were able to select the correct-key version of the familiar melody at rates that were well above chance. These results fit within a growing body of research supporting the idea that most listeners, regardless of formal musical training, have robust representations of absolute pitch – based on pitch chroma – that generalize to novel listening situations. Implications for theories of auditory pitch memory are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: The present study aimed to explore meaningful change in the musical performance of cochlear implant (CI) users according to age after receiving music training compared to the other CI users who did not receive any music training and normal hearing (NH) listeners. Materials and Methods: Article search was conducted from five journal databases. In accordance with PICOS criteria, 29 articles and 15 articles were included for the CI and NH groups, respectively. A total of 44 articles consisting of 407 CI users and 486 NH participants were then analyzed. Using the data gathered from pre- and post-training, meta-analysis was applied by the random-effects model, and then piecewise meta-regression was employed. Results: CI users with music training showed better performance than those without the training across all ages. The curve change in musical performance when training showed that the CI users was similar to the general pattern of NH performance, indicating that the CI users gained benefits from music training and developed perceptual ability, even though it was not as high as the level of NH counterparts. Conclusions: This finding supports the benefits of active engagement with music for both CI users and NH listeners, while noting the important role of music as one of the primary aural rehabilitation approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research suggests that speaking a tone language confers benefits in processing pitch in nonlinguistic contexts such as music. This research largely compares speakers of nontone European languages (English, French) with speakers of tone languages in East Asia (Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Thai). However, tone languages exist on multiple continents—notably, languages indigenous to Africa and the Americas. With one exception (Bradley, Psychomusicology, 26(4), 337–345, 2016), no research has assessed whether these tone languages also confer pitch processing advantages. Two studies presented a melody change detection task, using quasirandom note sequences drawn from Western major scale tone probabilities. Listeners were speakers of Akan, a tone language of Ghana, plus speakers from previously tested populations (nontone language speakers and East Asian tone language speakers). In both cases, East Asian tone language speakers showed the strongest musical pitch processing, but Akan speakers did not exceed nontone speakers, despite comparable or better instrument change detection. Results suggest more nuanced effects of tone languages on pitch processing. Greater numbers of tones, presence of contour tones in a language's tone inventory, or possibly greater functional load of tone may be more likely to confer pitch processing benefits than mere presence of tone contrasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is one of the important parameters to be considered for the effective perception of speech. Many researchers indicate that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have reduced capacity to integrate sensory information across different modalities and show speech understanding difficulty in the presence of background speech or noise. So, this present study was undertaken with the aimed to evaluate and compare the speech perception ability in quiet and in the presence of noise for children with and without ASD and also to compare across different noise conditions. Speech perception in noise was measured for 15 children with ASD and 15 age-matched children without ASD in the age range of 8 to 12 years. The stimulus includes standardized bisyllabic and trisyllabic Kannada words in quiet and at different SNR conditions. The result showed that children with ASD had poor performance in all the listening conditions (quiet, speech babble, and speech noise) and the syllable conditions (bisyllables and trisyllables) compared to children without ASD. When compared across quiet and different SNR conditions for individuals with ASD, the result showed the best performance in quiet conditions followed by different SNR conditions. The performance deteriorated with a decrease in SNR for both groups. Children with ASD showed poor performance in quiet and in the presence of noise compared to children without ASD. Speech perception evaluation in the presence of noise provides a more reliable predictor of the communication difficulty faced by children with ASD than evaluating only in quiet conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several policies have been developed to improve the quality of life for older adults in cities, with soundscape being one of the factors that most influence general comfort. This work aims to present a systematic review based on PRISMA methodology, of the existing scientific literature that identifies the differences in sensitivity, noise annoyance, acoustic comfort, and urban soundscape preference of the elders with the rest of the population. Soundscape evaluation is a complex issue, understood as the relationship between human beings and the acoustic environment, based on sound, environment, and people's perceptions of those. Among the personal variables, age is related to physiological, psychological, social, and cultural factors that lead to evaluate urban soundscape in a certain way. Our results show that the greatest difference among older adults and other age groups is presented on noise annoyance and the least differences were presented on sound level evaluation. More research is needed in this field, to achieve comfortable urban areas through soundscape design which should be pleasant and inclusive for all, including elders as a vulnerable group, and contribute to improving their health and quality of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After only two exposures to previously unfamiliar melodies, adults remember the tunes for over a week and the key for over a day. Here, we examined the development of long-term memory for melody and key. Listeners in three age groups (7- to 8-year-olds, 9- to 11-year-olds, and adults) heard two presentations of each of 12 unfamiliar melodies. After a 10-min delay, they heard the same 12 old melodies intermixed with 12 new melodies. Half of the old melodies were transposed up or down by six semitones from initial exposure. Listeners rated how well they recognized the melodies from the exposure phase. Recognition was better for old than for new melodies, for adults compared to children, and for older compared to younger children. Recognition ratings were also higher for old melodies presented in the same key at test as exposure, and the detrimental effect of the transposition affected all age groups similarly. Although memory for melody improves with age and exposure to music, implicit memory for key appears to be adult-like by 7 years of age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human music and language are two systems of communication and expression that, while historically considered to overlap, have become increasingly divergent in their approach and study. Music and language almost certainly co-evolved and emerged from the same semiotic field, and this relationship as well as co-origin are actively researched and debated. For the sake of evaluating the semiotic content of zoomusicology, we investigate music from a 'bottom-up' biosemiotic functionalist account considering iconic, indexical, and symbolic forms of meaning not in a hierarchy but according to their effects on agents. Such an approach avoids overintellectualizing the representational aspects of music, and instead inverts, as it were, the traditional hierarchy of semiotic categories to produce illocutionary effects. Understanding aesthetics and action not as a priori separate but rather fundamentally co-arising elements of the same events. The focus of musicality again returns to interpretation and how semiosis precipitates expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music is better recognized when it is liked. Does this association remain evident when music perception and memory are severely impaired, as in congenital amusia? We tested 11 amusic and 11 matched control participants, asking whether liking of a musical excerpt influences subsequent recognition. In an initial exposure phase, participants—unaware that their recognition would be tested subsequently—listened to 24 musical excerpts and judged how much they liked each excerpt. In the test phase that followed, participants rated whether they recognized the previously heard excerpts, which were intermixed with an equal number of foils matched for mode, tempo, and musical genre. As expected, recognition was in general impaired for amusic participants compared with control participants. For both groups, however, recognition was better for excerpts that were liked, and the liking enhancement did not differ between groups. These results contribute to a growing body of research that examines the complex interplay between emotions and cognitive processes. More specifically, they extend previous findings related to amusics' impairments to a new memory paradigm and suggest that (1) amusic individuals are sensitive to an aesthetic and subjective dimension of the music-listening experience, and (2) emotions can support memory processes even in a population with impaired music perception and memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) encompass a wide array of debilitating symptoms, including sensory dysfunction and delayed language development. Auditory temporal processing is crucial for speech perception and language development. Abnormal development of temporal processing may account for the language impairments associated with ASD. Very little is known about the development of temporal processing in any animal model of ASD. Methods: In the current study, we quantify auditory temporal processing throughout development in the Fmr1 knock-out (KO) mouse model of Fragile X Syndrome (FXS), a leading genetic cause of intellectual disability and ASD-associated behaviors. Using epidural electrodes in awake and freely moving wildtype (WT) and KO mice, we recorded auditory event related potentials (ERP) and auditory temporal processing with a gap-in-noise auditory steady state response (gap-ASSR) paradigm. Mice were recorded at three different ages in a cross sectional design: postnatal (p)21, p30 and p60. Recordings were obtained from both auditory and frontal cortices. The gap-ASSR requires underlying neural generators to synchronize responses to gaps of different widths embedded in noise, providing an objective measure of temporal processing across genotypes and age groups. Results: We present evidence that the frontal, but not auditory, cortex shows significant temporal processing deficits at p21 and p30, with poor ability to phase lock to rapid gaps in noise. Temporal processing was similar in both genotypes in adult mice. ERP amplitudes were larger in Fmr1 KO mice in both auditory and frontal cortex, consistent with ERP data in humans with FXS. Conclusions: These data indicate cortical region-specific delays in temporal processing development in Fmr1 KO mice. Developmental delays in the ability of frontal cortex to follow rapid changes in sounds may shape language delays in FXS, and more broadly in ASD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Blursday database is a collection of data obtained online from a longitudinal study where participants were asked to participate in several behavioral tasks and questionnaires during the COVID-19 pandemic from their homes. In this study, we analyzed the published data to explore (1) the longitudinal changes in temporal cognition observed from the data collected in the home-based setting (2), the effects of the voluntary quarantine measures implemented in Japan on temporal cognition, (3) whether the participant's temporal cognition is altered by the change in their psychological state or their cognitive abilities, and (4) whether the effects of the quarantine measures depend on the age of the individual. Results show that confinement measures were good predictors for the performance in both spontaneous finger-tapping task and paced finger-tapping task, though these were dependent on the age of the participant. In addition, cognitive scores were good predictors of the performance in the paced finger-tapping task but not the spontaneous finger-tapping task. Overall, this study provides evidence suggesting changes in both psychological, cognitive, and temporal cognition during the pandemic on the Japanese population despite its voluntary measures to deal with the new situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In humans, parent–child neural synchrony has been shown to support early communication, social attunement and learning. Further, some animal species (including rodents and bats) are now known to share neural synchrony during certain forms of social behaviour. However, very little is known about the developmental origins and sequelae of neural synchrony, and whether this neural mechanism might play a causal role in the control of social and communicative behaviour across species. Rodent models are optimal for exploring such questions of causality, with a plethora of tools available for both disruption/induction (optogenetics) and even mechanistic dissection of synchrony‐induction pathways (in vivo electrical or optical recording of neural activity). However, before the benefits of rodent models for advancing research on parent‐infant synchrony can be realised, it is first important to address a gap in understanding the forms of parent‐pup synchrony that occur during rodent development, and how these social relationships evolve over time. Accordingly, this review seeks to identify parent‐pup social behaviours that could potentially drive or facilitate synchrony and to discuss key differences or limitations when comparing mouse to human models of parent‐infant synchrony. Uniquely, our review will focus on parent‐pup dyadic social behaviours that have particular analogies to the human context, including instrumental, social interactive and vocal communicative behaviours. This review is intended to serve as a primer on the study of neurobehavioral synchrony across human and rodent dyadic developmental models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Understanding speech accurately in the presence of noise is crucial for the development of learning speech, language, and educational skills in children. There are various audiological procedures available to check the ability of speech perception in the presence of noise. Acceptable noise level (ANL) measures the individual’s ability to tolerate the amount of background noise while listening to speech. Though, ANL has been shown to be clinically effective measure in children and adults its test- retest reliability in children is not well understood. Hence the present study was carried out to establish ANL using Kannada stimuli in native Kannada speaking children with normal hearing sensitivity and to check the test-retest reliability of the measure in them. Method: The study included a total of 61 native Kannada speaking children within the age range of 9-12years. Most Comfortable Level (MCL) and Background Noise Level (BNL) were established using standard procedures. The ANL was obtained by subtracting the BNL value with MCL for each participant. Results: The results revealed that there exists unacceptable reliability in MCL, BNL and ANL measures in native Kannada speaking children with normal hearing sensitivity using Kannada speech stimulus. This indicates that the ANL needs to be interpreted with caution in Children. Conclusion: The current study findings highlight on the importance of exploring these measures in children of various age groups to understand the developmental trend and age of maturation of ANL measure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]