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This sociophonetic study examines affricate variation through a continuous lens using diachronic data from Caracas Spanish. We investigate the relationship between frication and occlusion period duration in affricate segments across two steps. First, we present a phonetic characterization of the dependent variable and its variants. Second, we examine the sociolinguistic profile of the variants in an oral corpus of Caracas Spanish. Correlation analyses between the frication period, occlusion period, and overall segment duration suggest that frication lengthening is most prominent, which may mean that affricate variation in Caracas is not necessarily a lenition process, but rather a lengthening one. Through a mixed-effects linear regression model, we determine that frication duration is significantly conditioned by social and linguistic factors in Caracas. Longer frication periods are predicted by following high vowels, corpus year, speaker sex, and in word-initial position. These results suggest that traditional affricate lenition may in some cases point to a process of lengthening and retiming that is both socially and linguistically stratified. This paper contributes to the field by providing an acoustic examination of variable affricate production as well as a diachronic sociolinguistic investigation of this phenomenon in the Spanish of Caracas, Venezuela.

Purpose: General language abilities of children with cochlear implants have been thoroughly investigated, especially at young ages, but far less is known about how well they process language in real-world settings, especially in higher grades. This study addressed this gap in knowledge by examining recognition of sentences with complex syntactic structures in backgrounds of speech babble by adolescents with cochlear implants, and peers with normal hearing. Design: Two experiments were conducted. First, new materials were developed using young adults with normal hearing as the normative sample, creating a corpus of sentences with controlled, but complex syntactic structures presented in three kinds of babble that varied in voice gender and number of talkers. Second, recognition by adolescents with normal hearing or cochlear implants was examined for these new materials and for sentence materials used with these adolescents at younger ages. Analyses addressed three objectives: (1) to assess the stability of speech recognition across a multiyear age range; (2) to evaluate speech recognition of sentences with complex syntax in babble; and (3) to explore how bottom-up and top-down mechanisms account for performance under these conditions. Results: Results showed: (1) Recognition was stable across the ages of 10-14 years for both groups. (2) Adolescents with normal hearing performed similarly to young adults with normal hearing, showing effects of syntactic complexity and background babble; adolescents with cochlear implants showed poorer recognition overall, and diminished effects of both factors. (3) Top-down language and working memory primarily explained recognition for adolescents with normal hearing, but the bottom-up process of perceptual organization primarily explained recognition for adolescents with cochlear implants. Conclusions: Comprehension of language in real-world settings relies on different mechanisms for adolescents with cochlear implants than for adolescents with normal hearing. A novel finding was that perceptual organization is a critical factor.

The Quiet Classroom Game (Radley in School Psychological Review 45: 93-108, 2016) is a class-wide behavior intervention involving an interdependent group contingency based on classroom noise level. It has been shown to be effective at increasing academically engaged behavior, decreasing disruptive behavior, and decreasing classroom noise level in three first-grade classrooms. The current study was undertaken to replicate and extend research on the QCG. Using an ABAB design, we investigated the impact of the QCG on on-task behavior, off-task behavior, and classroom noise level across three seventh-grade classrooms. We also investigated a procedure for systematically fading the teacher feedback component of the QCG in a maintenance phase. Results were not supportive of a functional relation between the QCG and on-task behavior and off-task behavior for any of the three classrooms. However, there was a functional relation between the QCG and classroom noise level for two of three classrooms. Implications for researchers and practitioners, limitations, and future directions are discussed.

Creativity is a fundamental human accomplishment from scientific advances to composing music. The left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) are important metacontrol hubs in flexibility and persistence brain states, respectively. Those hubs are related to divergent thinking, insight problem-solving, and convergent thinking. In this double-blind, between-subjects study, 81 healthy participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups (n = 27) that received a combined transcranial direct current stimulation-transcranial random noise stimulation (tDCS-tRNS) protocol with the anode over the left DLPFC and cathode over the left IFG (+DLPFC-IFG), the opposite montage (-DLPFC+IFG), and a sham group (+DLPFC-IFG). Both active tDCS-tRNS groups received 20 min of 1 mA tDCS with 1 mA (100-500 Hz) tRNS. Creativity was assessed before (baseline) and during stimulation with the Unusual Uses, Picture Completion (PC), Remote Association test (RAT), Matchstick Arithmetic (MA), and Nine-dot (ND) problems. Only the +DLPFC-IFG group had significantly higher scores compared with sham in the RAT (p = 0.009), PC fluency (p = 0.018), PC originality (p = 0.007), ND (p = 0.007), and MA (p = 0.032). Overall, -DLPFC+IFG had greater scores in all creativity tests compared with sham. Implications from the metacontrol theory are discussed.

English proficiency assessments have become a necessary metric for filtering and selecting prospective candidates for both academia and industry. With the rise in demand for such assessments, it has become increasingly necessary to have the automated human-interpretable results to prevent inconsistencies and ensure meaningful feedback to the second language learners. Feature-based classical approaches have been more interpretable in understanding what the scoring model learns. Therefore, in this work, we utilize classical machine learning models to formulate a speech scoring task as both a classification and a regression problem, followed by a thorough study to interpret and study the relation between the linguistic cues and the English proficiency level of the speaker. First, we extract linguist features under five categories (fluency, pronunciation, content, grammar and vocabulary, and acoustic) and train models to grade responses. In comparison, we find that the regression-based models perform equivalent to or better than the classification approach. Second, we perform ablation studies to understand the impact of each of the feature and feature categories on the performance of proficiency grading. Further, to understand individual feature contributions, we present the importance of top features on the best performing algorithm for the grading task. Third, we make use of Partial Dependence Plots and Shapley values to explore feature importance and conclude that the best performing trained model learns the underlying rubrics used for grading the dataset used in this study.

Tender Shoots is a randomized controlled trial (RCT) for parents aimed at improving preschool children's oral language skills relevant for later reading. Parents of 72 preschool children (M = 50 months) were randomly assigned to either a Rich Reading and Reminiscing (RRR) condition, a Strengthening Sound Sensitivity (SSS) condition, or an Activity-Based Control (ABC) condition. RRR and SSS conditions involved dyads conversing about the same 12 books over 6 weeks, with RRR focused on the meaning of the story in relation to children's own experiences, and SSS focused on soundplay. Children's oral narrative skills were assessed with a story listening comprehension and retelling task before and one-year post-intervention. At the 1-year follow-up, children in RRR retold stories with greater accuracy (g = 0.61) and quality (g = 0.68) than did children in the control condition. Tender Shoots RRR is a promising tool for parents to help their children's narrative production (retelling) skills.

Background: Individuals with Down syndrome are known to have high rates of hearing loss, but it is unclear how this impacts their ability to communicate and function in real-world environments. Methods: Sixteen English-speaking and Spanish-speaking mothers of individuals with Down syndrome ages 6-40 years participated in individual, semi-structured interviews using a videoconferencing platform. Session transcripts were analysed using applied thematic analysis. Results: Mothers described listening environments, the impact of hearing on daily life, barriers to successful listening, and strategies to overcome communication barriers for their children with Down syndrome. Conclusions: Hearing was largely discussed in terms of challenges and detriments, suggesting that hearing experiences are predominately considered to negatively impact the functional abilities of individuals with Down syndrome. Background noise and hearing loss were sources of communication difficulties. Parent-reported barriers and strategies can inform ecologically valid research priorities aimed at improving outcomes for individuals with Down syndrome.

The COVID-19 public health crisis forced all educators to explore technology in the largest test of online teaching during the spring of 2020. Included in the population of educators were the studio music faculty steeped in a tradition of side-by-side teaching. This research study explored the application of lighting and sound technology adapted to enhance the experiences in a 10-week, fully online course of one-to-one private lessons with a music studio faculty member and his students during summer 2020. The students received condenser microphones, headphones, and webcams with instructions for hardwiring into their home internet connection. The faculty member used the same materials plus a speaking microphone overhead on a boom along with three-point lighting: key, fill, and backlights. The lighting was used to ensure a bright studio, much like a television anchor employs. Students noticed the microphone use by instructor and commented his adaptation to the virtual lessons were more flexible while one participant exclaimed he grew more as a musician and covered more material in virtual lessons than in previous face-to-face lessons with the same instructor. The faculty member noticed better sounds from students when using the condenser microphones and less feedback because of the closed back headphones.

It is well documented in the cognitive literature that visual stimuli create strong memory connections (Shapiro & Waters, 2005). In L2 research, mnemonic devices have been found to be a relevant factor in the development of vocabulary learning (Sagarra & Alba, 2006). However, the extent to which visual cues are needed in the association of an L2 item with an acoustic link has not been explored. Thus, the present study sought to compare two different versions of the Keyword Method (KM) (Atkinson & Raugh, 1975) in an EFL setting and to assess their effectiveness when compared to a group using Rote Learning. To this end, 37 EFL learners from a private university majoring in Journalism were divided into three groups (KM + visual cues, KM with no visual cues, and Rote Learning) and were exposed to the three different approaches to learn and retain 15 unknown target words. A Kruskal-Wallis test ran with immediate and delayed outcome measures (passive recall and passive recognition) showed that there were no significant differences in the three groups. However, a trend was seen where the version of the KM with no visual cues consistently had higher scores than the other version of the KM. Furthermore, it was found that rote rehearsal may be an effective vocabulary learning tool when the pedagogical goal is to learn and retain a discrete number of lexical items.

Today's students often speak through mediated technologies. Thus, understanding how nonverbal cues impact meaning-making is key to understanding effective communication across mediums. This case study explores a group project where students created audio podcasts to teach others about a specific aspect of communication studies while considering the way sound and vocal performance affect the transference of the message. This article examines the use of audio podcasts as a vehicle for teaching university students about the power of paralinguistic and chronemic nonverbal behaviors.

This article aims is to explore a perspective of the ontology of becoming, that makes it possible to study the emergence of phenomena and thereby broaden the understanding of how knowledge is created. It is written in close connection with research in posthumanism and new materialism. What hat has been lacking in these perspectives has been a clearer connection to ontological points of departure. It is therefore the purpose of this article to describe, based on ontological positions, both philosophical points of departure and methodology and research practice. The article is structured in three parts, where the introductory part describes basic ontological starting points. The second part describes how a research apparatus can be constructed and used to carry out analyses based on the ontology of becoming. A research apparatus where the body's senses and mobility are given a prominent role through a haptic sensorium. The third part describes examples of phenomena that can be explored with an onto-analysis of becoming. Among these, special focus is placed on the border phenomenon of sound. The result of the article is a perspective that can contribute to renewed insights into how phenomena are created with the world.

Narrative accounts of classroom instruction suggest that external interruptions, such as intercom announcements and visits from staff, are a regular occurrence in U.S. public schools. We study the frequency, nature, duration, and consequences of external interruptions in the Providence Public School District (PPSD) using original data from a district-wide survey and classroom observations. We estimate that a typical classroom in the PPSD is interrupted more than 2,000 times per year and that these interruptions and the disruptions they cause result in the loss of between 10 and 20 days of instructional time. Several findings suggest that there exists substantial scope for reducing interruptions. Administrators appear to systematically underestimate the frequency and negative consequences of interruptions. Furthermore, interruptions vary widely across schools and are largely caused by school staff. Schools might reduce disruptions to the learning environment by creating a culture that prioritizes instructional time, instituting better communication protocols, and addressing the challenges posed by student tardiness.

Speech discourse is the communication between people, that is, the speaker seeks to influence the recipient in a conversation, using deep thoughts and meaningful words, expecting to receive a response from the addressee. In modern Kazakh linguistics, speech discourse is being explored in various ways as a reflection of people's relationships and actions. This research aims to study intonation of the text in the form of official radio interview and to reveal pragmalinguistic peculiarities of it. We used methods of audit, experimental and electro-acoustic analysis for this research. In the article, speech discourse is analyzed pragmalinguistically and its intonation features are investigated by experimental research. Consequently, we took unprepared speech for experimental research, where the participant of interview was informed about the topic of the conversation. However, despite the fact that the theme of the issue was given, the discourse in the form of a previously unprepared radio interview is provided as the subject of research. Among other findings, the results of the study showed that it is advisable to use appropriate pauses, especially the pauses of hesitation, while speaking.

Engineering design process-oriented STEM activities are activities that involve solving a real-world problem with teamwork by using integrative engineering design and engineering applications using scientific and mathematical concepts and 21st century skills. The research aimed to examine the effects of engineering design process-oriented STEM activities, which were developed for sound concept, on the conceptual development of 6th grade students. In the research, comparative case study design was used. The study group consisted of 40 students attending a middle school in Kayseri, Turkey. The teaching was carried out by the activities in science curriculum in the control group, while it was carried out by engineering design process-oriented STEM activities in the experimental group. Each student was individually interviewed using 11 open-ended questions in a verbal format. The mean of Kappa coefficients of the questions was 0.93. As a result of content analysis, 11 categories, including 21 themes and 81 codes, were obtained. When the differences between pre- and post-interviews were examined, it was seen that conceptual understanding levels of the students in experimental group were more positive than the students in control group. This shows that engineering design process-oriented integrated STEM activities have positive effects on students' conceptual understanding of sound.

The aim of the current study was to examine the way in which preschool children deal with the concept of sound. For this purpose, a study was carried out in the context of detecting and categorizing the mental representations among young children of sounds which propagate through space from source to the receiver. Specifically, 91 preschool children aged 5-6 years voluntarily participated in individual semi-structured interviews which were carried out by three researchers in a special area of kindergartens. During these interviews, the children were asked to express their views on the three following axes: the concept of sound itself; the subjective characteristics of sound; and the phenomenon of the production and propagation of sound. The results of the research showed that while a small percentage of children recognized the propagation of sound in space, the vast majority of them associated sound with either the object that produced it or with the object that received it.

This study is a case study of the effects of tonal L1 on the acquisition of tonal L2, comparing two groups of tonal L1 learners, namely, Chinese Zhuang (C+Z) and Chinese non-Zhuang (C-Z) in the same classroom. The two groups of learners read aloud 60 words from a Thai wordlist, then their tone production was analyzed in two dimensions. The phonological analysis focused on tone error patterns while the acoustic analysis focused on the fundamental frequency (F0) compared to the Thai native speakers. The Praat Program was employed for the acoustic part. The analysis of tone errors showed positively that the C+Z group had higher rates of accuracy than the C-Z group, arguably due to their familiarity with Tai tone patterns, with no confusion stemming from Zhuang tone patterns. Contrastingly, the phonetic characteristics findings showed negatively that the C+Z group shared less similar production with Thai native speakers group than the C-Z group's ones, arguably due to L1 interference. The current study confirmed both positive and negative effects of tonal L1 on the acquisition of L2 tones. Therefore, tonal problems should be investigated closely and identified clearly for the efficiency and effectiveness of tone acquisition training.

Praat is a freeware program widely used by phoneticians for acoustic analyses of speech sounds, though less commonly so for pedagogical purposes. To our knowledge, no research on English pronunciation teaching has used Praat outside a classroom setting. In this article, we would like to report on a voluntary pronunciation-training project and discuss the extent to which Praat can promote self-regulating pronunciation practice beyond the classroom. Six Thai college learners with high aspirations to improve their pronunciation skills volunteered to participate in this training. In light of the small number of participants, we were unable to conduct in-depth research to examine extensively the effectiveness of using Praat outside the classroom. However, we have gained hands-on experience from undertaking this training project, and therefore would like to share with readers how an instructor can use the Praat program to help their learners improve their pronunciation. We also discuss the strengths and weaknesses of using Praat beyond the classroom setting and highlight the roles of the instructor in assisting learners to reach their pronunciation goals.

Game-based learning in science education is an effective method to enhance students' motivation, active participation, and conceptual understanding of the scientific knowledge. This study aimed to encourage teachers to develop and use game-based activities related to the concepts of light and sound and to present students' views about the games developed in the study. The game-based activities were implemented in the 2016-2017 academic year with 27 sixth-grade students. The study reports on the design and implementation processes of 6 games about the light and sound unit. The students evaluated the games by answering 6 open-ended questions. Students' responses were analyzed using the content analysis method, and the findings are shared. The findings showed that the game-based activities facilitated students' learning and created an enjoyable learning environment. Time management is an aspect that should be paid attention to during the games. Teachers are recommended to include games in their lessons.

This study examines future secondary physics teachers' knowledge related to the teaching of sound waves, and specifically the topics of sound level and sound intensity. The data is comprised of future teachers' responses to a task in which they had to compose a script for an imaginary dialogue between a teacher and a group of students and to provide a commentary elaborating on their instructional choices. The topics selected for the task were chosen intentionally as they provide authentic and rich opportunities to bridge mathematics and science concepts, while challenging future teachers to consider the logarithmic measurement scale and its role in science. The task provided the participants with the beginning of a dialogue that featured student confusion about the measurement of sound level using a decibel scale. Future physics teachers were asked to extend this dialogue through describing envisioned instructional interactions that could have ensued. The instructional interchange related to the relationship between sound intensity and sound level, and particular teachers' responses to the student ideas related to the meaning of a decibel sound level scale were analysed. These responses were categorized as featuring superficial or deep, and conceptual or procedural knowledge for teaching. We describe each category using illustrative excerpts from the participants' scripts. We conclude with highlighting the affordances of scriptwriting for teachers, teacher educators, and researchers.

The purpose of this article is to present an analysis to identify the reasoning processes and representations that preschool students develop about sound based on the inferential-representational approach. Participants were 18 preschool students between the ages of four and five attending three rural schools located in the Sierra Norte of Puebla, Mexico. Data were obtained through a 14 question semi-structured interview. From children's answers to the formulated questions, an inferential analysis method was applied to identify intentionality, representation elements, sign-material expressions, representations, inferences, and coordination rules in students' constructions. The results show that children build a basic set of epistemic tools to give meaning to their interpretations and can use them as surrogate reasoning to make inferences. This research constitutes the first approximation toward the understanding of preschool children's reasoning forms with an inferential-representational approach and constitutes a new approach that puts forward new referents to analyze students of different ages. We consider that the described results and analysis have implications on science education at this educational level.

Acoustics in schools have been studied during years, but nowadays there are more possibilities than ever before to introduce improvements. This study presents a systematic literature review determining what acoustic parameters are present in classrooms and how they affect both teachers and students. Following the analysis, we put forward a two-block classification: the physical parameters of the sound or noise in the classroom and the consequences of the acoustics on the people in the classroom. Advances in the design of learning spaces and the use of technologies ranging from devices and green material to advanced automation systems make it possible to direct acoustic solutions toward smarter learning spaces. This review also highlights the acoustic parameters to consider in smart classrooms (noise, reverberation, speech transmission and speech clarity) and the main effects of acoustics on teachers and students. Some conclusions and recommendations are drawn, but more research is needed in terms of school improvement considering acoustics influence and smart classrooms possibilities.

This work presents the evaluation of a practical experience on noise pollution based on the use of smartphones to check if it helps students to better understand the concepts related to this phenomenon. This evaluation has been done with a pre-post design in which 112 students, enrolled in the "Physics and Chemistry" course of the 1st year of non-compulsory high school, have first filled in a diagnostics questionnaire with 5 free response questions about their knowledge on the topic and then a pre-post questionnaire with 4 free response questions. The results show that the proposed practical experience is effective since a statistically significant improvement is obtained both globally and in each of the questions of the questionnaire. The practical experience has also been highly valued by 38 students enrolled in the "Physics and Chemistry" specialisation of the Master in Secondary Education Teaching.

The present study examined the level of outcome satisfaction of two main engineering courses taken by students in the Architectural Engineering department (AE) by evaluating the students' satisfaction result (SR), the attained level of the students' opinions (SO), and the instructors' opinions (IO). The AE program in United Arab Emirates University is one of the departments in the College of Engineering accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET which provides assurance that a College or University program meets the quality standards of the profession for which that program prepares graduates. The AE program offers a wide range of engineering courses at different levels from sophomore level to senior level. All the engineering courses are mainly prerequisites to the Capstone Engineering Design Project which builds on the outcomes of all courses to perform detailed design and cost estimates of the selected alternative solutions to a well-defined engineering problem. The two courses considered in this study are Building Electrical Circuits and Building Acoustics and Lighting. New assessment parameters which are the student course outcome satisfaction coefficient (SCOSC) and the mean absolute deviation around a central point (AMD) have been introduced in this paper. These two parameters are calculated based on the comparison of the students' satisfaction results with both students' opinions and insructors' opinions, and compare the mean absolute deviations of the students' direct results with the students' opinions and the instructors' opinions, respectively. Indeed, the course learning outcomes (CLOs) of the SR of some sections for both courses show higher attainment compared with the SO and IO.

The aim of this study is to examine parents' views on noise at home and at school. Seventy-seven parents who know their children's school, such as class representatives and class mothers, and who are closely interested in the education of their children, participated in the study. Questionnaire and observations of the researcher were used as data collection tools. The "Sound and Noise Questionnaire in Learning Environments" is the basic data collection tool. The data were analyzed descriptively. The results show that children are exposed to various noises such as loud talking, kitchen appliances, vacuum cleaners and TV sound while studying at home. It has been revealed that some families do not try to reduce the noise in the house while their children are studying. It is understood that nearly half of the parents have insufficient awareness of the psychological and physiological discomfort caused by noise. The rate of parents who do not make a rule about keeping the environment quiet, while children are studying, is 14.7%. Almost 40% of the parents find the noisy behaviors of children during school break appropriate. On the other hand, about 60% of the parents are of the opinion that the noise in the school is distracting, and the noise they are exposed to is disturbing. Parents do not have a consensus on preventing noise at school. There is a need to increase the awareness of parents about the negative effects of noise. Most of the parents stated that they would support the acoustic improvements to be made at the school. It has been observed that parents have great excitement, interest, and curiosity about noise in learning environments by asking questions to the researcher regarding the survey questions. Just filling out a questionnaire has drawn parents' attention to noise in their learning environment. In order to create quieter learning environments at home and at school, and to sprout a culture of tranquility in social life, parents should be included in projects to reduce noise. [The abstract of the study was translated by Atacan Bulunuz.]

The purpose of this study was to reveal the leadership qualities of school principals in solving a noise problem at school. A single case study was selected as the research design. The study group consisted of primary and secondary school principals, one female and three males, working in the schools where the project was conducted. The main data collection tool of the study was interviews with the school principals. In addition, the study was supported with researcher observations and documents. The data were analyzed with inductive thematic analysis. The data were analyzed with a descriptive, explanatory and interpretive perspective in the context of noise prevention at schools. Four main themes emerged from the interviews with principals regarding noise at schools: "the noise problem," "administrative leadership," "educational leadership," and "solution suggestions." The results show that participating in a project to prevent noise at schools has increased principals' awareness of noise and improved their leadership qualities in solving the noise problem. Principals think that their schools are quieter than before and that the average academic success of their schools has increased. As a result, it has been determined that acoustic improvement, noise awareness training, rulemaking, discipline, value creation, and culture formation are needed to create a quiet learning environment at schools.

The school system at the university level in developing nations provides the most impactful environment for effective learning and building human capital required for a future-knowledge economy. Unfortunately, less attention is given to the provision of appropriate platforms for the disabled to effectively learn in the university system. Notably, disabled individuals rely on their ability to listen to only speech to gain information quickly to aid learning. In this paper, a learning framework was implemented and tested from educational and technological perspectives. The study focused on an ideal combination of a human-like behavior with a computer application to build a one-way interactive medium between the computer and the user. Using qualitative and quantitative research, we focused on acoustic signal processing without the incorporation of visual input. The respondents used for the study include students, lecturers, specialists in specialized education, and technological experts. The result is a prototype system that translates texts into speech, and a synthesized speech representation of the text entered into the system to aid effective learning. The test results with different users revealed that a majority of 84.70%, 85.30%, 84%, and 86.70% of the users rated the system to have high-quality content, clarity, attractiveness, and responsiveness, respectively.

This study revolves around primary and secondary school visual arts teachers' cultural and critical readings on their VR museum experience through object and representation. As part of the in-service training and research project, the study was carried out in the provinces of Çanakkale, Erzincan, Kayseri, Diyarbakir, Giresun, Mersin, Denizli, which were selected from seven regions of Turkey within a seven-month period. 508 primary and secondary school visual arts teachers participated in the study. The study is a case study and teachers' readings related to the object and representation in the virtual museum and their VR museum experiences formed the units of analysis in the study. The data of the study was collected through worksheets, pre-evaluation forms, participant diaries and focus group interviews with voluntary teachers and content analysis method was employed to analyse the data. In the study, teachers were motivated to incorporate social and personal contexts into their readings of the object-space-representation. The results denoted that the activity enhanced teachers' learning experiences in terms of personal and professional contexts. Although teachers highlighted that VR museum experiences could not offer much more rich experiences than the actual museum visits, they believed that it could be effective for visual arts classes and be blended with various learning activities given that the virtual museum experience offers the possibility of exploring a museum without a barrier of distance and incite enthusiasm and learning interest through digital technologies (e.g., sound, motion, immersive experience).

The recognition memory receiver operating characteristic (ROC) is typically asymmetric with a characteristic elevation of the left-hand portion. Whereas the unequal variance signal detection model (uvsd) assumes the asymmetry results because old item evidence is noisier than new item evidence, the dual process signal detection model (dpsd) assumes it results because old items convey more useful information than new items. To test these assumptions, the models were fit to old/new recognition data and their evidence parameters were used to predict performance on a novelty, three-alternative forced-choice (N3AFC) recognition task. Critically, under the uvsd model, increased old item variance (sigma) predicts poorer N3AFC performance, whereas under the dpsd model, increased recollection rates (Ro) predict better N3AFC performance. Hence, the asymmetry parameters of the two models make divergent predictions. In two experiments the dpsd model's predictions were supported, whereas the uvsd model yielded unpredicted (from that model's perspective) patterns. Through simulation it was also shown that the dpsd model predicted the uvsd model's mispredictions, which resulted because increases in old item noise markedly depress the upper portion of the ROC. Overall, the data demonstrate that increasing ROC asymmetry is not a function of increasingly noisier target evidence, but instead increasingly informative target evidence. These findings invalidate the uvsd model, which heretofore has been primarily supported by its post-hoc fitting ability, not its construct validity.

Purpose: The present brain--behavior study examined whether sensory registration or neural inhibition processes explained variability in the behavioral most comfortable level (MCL) and background noise level (BNL) components of the acceptable noise level (ANL) measure. Method: A traditional auditory gating paradigm was used to evoke neural responses to pairs of pure-tone stimuli in 32 adult listeners with normal hearing. Relationships between behavioral ANL, MCL, and BNL components and cortical responses to each of the paired stimuli were analyzed using linear mixed-effects regression analyses. Results: Neural responses elicited by Stimulus 2 in the gating paradigm significantly predicted the computed ANL response. The MCL component was significantly associated with responses elicited by Stimulus 1 of the pair. The BNL component of the ANL was significantly associated with neural responses to both Stimulus 1 and Stimulus 2. Conclusions: The results suggest neural processes related to neural inhibition support the ANL and BNL component while neural stimulus registration properties are associated with the MCL a listener chooses. These findings suggest that differential neural mechanisms underlie the separate MCL and BNL components of the ANL response.

Purpose: This study investigates the debate that musicians have an advantage in speech-in-noise perception from years of targeted auditory training. We also consider the effect of age on any such advantage, comparing musicians and nonmusicians (age range: 18-66 years), all of whom had normal hearing. We manipulate the degree of fundamental frequency (f[subscript o]) separation between the competing talkers, as well as use different tasks, to probe attentional differences that might shape a musician's advantage across ages. Method: Participants (ranging in age from 18 to 66 years) included 29 musicians and 26 nonmusicians. They completed two tasks varying in attentional demands: (a) a selective attention task where listeners identify the target sentence presented with a one-talker interferer (Experiment 1), and (b) a divided attention task where listeners hear two vowels played simultaneously and identify both competing vowels (Experiment 2). In both paradigms, f[subscript o] separation was manipulated between the two voices ([delta]f[subscript o] = 0, 0.156, 0.306, 1, 2, 3 semitones). Results: Results show that increasing differences in f[subscript o] separation lead to higher accuracy on both tasks. Additionally, we find evidence for a musician's advantage across the two studies. In the sentence identification task, younger adult musicians show higher accuracy overall, as well as a stronger reliance on f[subscript o] separation. Yet, this advantage declines with musicians' age. In the double vowel identification task, musicians of all ages show an across-the-board advantage in detecting two vowels--and use f[subscript o] separation more to aid in stream separation--but show no consistent difference in double vowel identification. Conclusions: Overall, we find support for a hybrid auditory encoding-attention account of music-to-speech transfer. The musician's advantage includes f[subscript o], but the benefit also depends on the attentional demands in the task and listeners' age. Taken together, this study suggests a complex relationship between age, musical experience, and speech-in-speech paradigm on a musician's advantage.

Purpose: Prosody perception is an essential component of speech communication and social interaction through which both linguistic and emotional information are conveyed. Considering the importance of the auditory system in processing prosody-related acoustic features, the aim of this review article is to review the effects of hearing impairment on prosody perception in children and adults. It also assesses the performance of hearing assistive devices in restoring prosodic perception. Method: Following a comprehensive online database search, two lines of inquiry were targeted. The first summarizes recent attempts toward determining the effects of hearing loss and interacting factors such as age and cognitive resources on prosody perception. The second analyzes studies reporting beneficial or detrimental impacts of hearing aids, cochlear implants, and bimodal stimulation on prosodic abilities in people with hearing loss. Results: The reviewed studies indicate that hearing-impaired individuals vary widely in perceiving affective and linguistic prosody, depending on factors such as hearing loss severity, chronological age, and cognitive status. In addition, most of the emerging information points to limitations of hearing assistive devices in processing and transmitting the acoustic features of prosody. Conclusions: The existing literature is incomplete in several respects, including the lack of a consensus on how and to what extent hearing prostheses affect prosody perception, especially the linguistic function of prosody, and a gap in assessing prosody under challenging listening situations such as noise. This review article proposes directions that future research could follow to provide a better understanding of prosody processing in those with hearing impairment, which may help health care professionals and designers of assistive technology to develop innovative diagnostic and rehabilitation tools.

Purpose: This study aimed to examine how aging and modifications of critical acoustic parameters may affect the perception of whispered speech as a degraded signal. Method: Forty Mandarin-speaking adults were included in the study. Part 1 of the study compared the perception of Mandarin lexical tones, vowels, and syllables in older and younger adults in whispered versus phonated speech conditions. Parts 2 and 3 further examined how modification of duration and intensity cues contributed to the perceptual outcomes. Results: Perception of whispered tones was compromised in older and younger adults. Older adults identified lexical tones less accurately than their younger counterparts, particularly for phonated T2 and T3 and whispered T3. Aging also negatively affected the vowel identification of /i, u/ in the whispered condition. Syllable-level accuracy was largely dependent on the accuracy of lexical tones and vowels. Furthermore, reduced duration led to the decreased accuracy of phonated T3 and whispered T2 and T3 but increased accuracy of phonated T4. Reduced intensity lowered the recognition accuracy for phonated vowels /i, [Close-mid back unrounded vowel], o, y/ in older adults and /i, u/ in younger adults, and it also lowered the accuracy of whispered vowels /a, [Close-mid back unrounded vowel]/ in older adults. Contrary to our expectation, increased duration and intensity did not improve older adults' speech perception in either phonated or whispered conditions. Conclusions: The results suggest that aging adversely affected speech perception in both phonated and whispered conditions with more challenges in identifying whispered speech for older adults. While older adults' diminished performance may be potentially due to problems with processing the degraded temporal and spectral information of the target speech sounds, it cannot be simply compensated for by increasing the duration and intensity of the target sounds beyond the audible level.

Purpose: This study investigates whether crosslinguistic effects on auditory word recognition are modulated by the quality of the auditory signal (clear and noisy). Method: In an online experiment, a group of Spanish--English bilingual listeners performed an auditory lexical decision task, in their second language, English. Words and pseudowords were either presented in the clear or were embedded in white auditory noise. Target words were varied in the degree to which they overlapped in their phonological form with their translation equivalents and were categorized according to their overlap as cognates (form and meaning) or noncognates (meaning only). In order to test for effects of crosslinguistic competition, the phonological neighborhood density of the targets' translations was also manipulated. Results: The results show that crosslinguistic effects are impacted by noise; when the translation had a high neighborhood density, performance was worse for cognates than for noncognates, especially in noise. Conclusions: The findings suggest that noise increases lexical competition across languages, as it does within a language, and that the crosslinguistic phonological overlap for cognates compared with noncognates can further increase the pool of competitors by co-activating crosslinguistic lexical candidates. The results are discussed within the context of the bilingual word recognition literature and models of language and bilingual lexical processing.

Purpose: Sleep-based memory consolidation has been shown to facilitate perceptual learning of atypical speech input including nonnative speech sounds, accented speech, and synthetic speech. The current research examined the role of sleep-based memory consolidation on perceptual learning for noise-vocoded speech, including maintenance of learning over a 1-week time interval. Because comprehending noise-vocoded speech requires extensive restructuring of the mapping between the acoustic signal and prelexical representations, sleep consolidation may be critical for this type of adaptation. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the role of sleep-based memory consolidation on adaptation to noise-vocoded speech in listeners without hearing loss as a foundational step toward identifying parameters that can be useful to consider for auditory training with clinical populations. Method: Two groups of normal-hearing listeners completed a transcription training task with feedback for noise-vocoded sentences in either the morning or the evening. Learning was assessed through transcription accuracy before training, immediately after training, 12 hr after training, and 1 week after training for both trained and novel sentences. Results: Both the morning and evening groups showed improved comprehension of noise-vocoded sentences immediately following training. Twelve hours later, the evening group showed stable gains (following a period of sleep), whereas the morning group demonstrated a decline in gains (following a period of wakefulness). One week after training, the morning and evening groups showed equivalent performance for both trained and novel sentences. Conclusion: Sleep-consolidated learning helps stabilize training gains for degraded speech input, which may hold clinical utility for optimizing rehabilitation recommendations.

Children who are deaf or hard-of-hearing (D/HH) learning in inclusive educational settings must be aware of how well they hear and understand spoken language to advocate for themselves. This study explored elementary-age children's self-reported listening abilities using thematic analysis of brief interviews. Participants were 16 D/HH and 16 typically hearing (TH) 7- to 12-year-old monolingual English speakers in Canada. Children were asked about their ability to hear and understand the teacher, other students, and people in different environments. Findings showed surprising similarities across groups in terms of numbers of "no difficulty" responses and awareness of listening barriers related to speaker and environmental characteristics. Unsurprisingly, children who are D/HH were more likely to discuss hearing technologies and to attribute difficulties to their hearing abilities. Findings suggest that children who are D/HH with poor speech discrimination in noise abilities require support in developing awareness of and expressing difficulties with listening abilities.

The present study aims to investigate the identification of native vowel categories by adult individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and estimate their reaction times in both normal and whisper registers; their responses were compared with those of typically developing individuals. The results demonstrated that there was no deficit for individuals with ASD in normal speech, but their responses in the whispered speech were impaired. Also, individuals with ASD responded quicker than controls in normal speech but slower in the whispered speech; still, their responses were quicker than the responses of the controls in the whispered mode. The findings can have implications for the understanding of auditory sensitivities and auditory processing time in individuals with ASD as well as for clinical practice.

Poor mental health--compared to that of the neurotypical child population--is a serious concern for many autistic children and young people around the world. In the UK, we have an increasing number of autistic young people receiving care in NHS funded in-patient mental health facilities. While sensory processing differences have now been added to international diagnostic criteria for autism, recent autistic-led and co-produced, practice-based research commissioned by the Children and Young People's Mental Health Taskforce and delivered by National Development Team for Inclusion has identified that knowledge of autistic sensory differences and needs is institutionally absent. In particular, the sensory environments of NHS England-funded in-patient facilities were found to present sometimes extreme challenges for autistic young people that at best hinder wellbeing and at worst exacerbate existing mental health problems: instigating a cycle of progressing upwards through increasingly restrictive settings for some. This paper shares some of this learning, gained from the consultation with young autistic people who have experience of inpatient services and autistic "Experts by Experience" working on novel sensory ward environment reviews. We first introduce the framing of autism as primarily shaped by sensory and social processing differences and outline the significance of this perspective for the in-patient care of autistic young people and children. We then provide an overview of the current sensory challenges that exist in inpatient mental health facilities for autistic children and young people. Finally, we conclude with some suggestions for areas of future research around the impact of adapting ward environments, that have promise for broader and international settings.

This study was designed as a prospective, randomized controlled trial. A total of 90 preterm infants who underwent retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) examinations were categorized into three groups, a control group, a white noise group (WN), and a classical music group (CM), each comprising 30 preterm infants. The study data were obtained using an information form and the Premature Infant Pain Profile. During (WN: 9.70±3.02; CM: 11.2±2.28) and after the examination (WN: 3.60±2.11; CM: 3.77±1.83), the preterm infants in the WN and CM groups had lower mean pain scores and heart rates (181.17±15.76 and 3150.10±17.03 vs. 173.30±20.66 and 146.67±18.17, respectively; p<0.001) and higher mean oxygen saturation values (93.60±3.87 and 97.83±1.93 vs. 95.73±2.52 and 98.27±1.82, respectively; p<0.05) than those in the control group; the differences were statistically significant. The WN and CM listened to by the preterm infants during ROP examinations had positive effects on pain and heart rate and oxygen saturation values.

We investigated whether increased perceptual processing difficulty during reading or listening to a Sherlock Holmes novella impacts mind wandering as well as text comprehension. We presented 175 participants with a novella in either a visual or an auditory presentation format and probed their thoughts and motivational states from time to time during reading/listening. For half of the participants in each presentation-format condition (visual or auditory), the story was superimposed by Gaussian noise. For both presentation formats, the participants who were exposed to noise while processing the story mind-wandered more and performed worse in a later comprehension test than the participants who processed the story without added noise. These negative effects of increased perceptual processing difficulty on task focus and comprehension were partly driven by motivational factors: reading/listening motivation mediated the relationship between perceptual processing difficulty and mind wandering.

As an introduction to sound and vibration, the authors wanted their first-grade students to plan and conduct their own investigations. In this article, the authors share a series of investigations to help students explore the relationship between sound and vibration. By planning, creating, testing, adapting, and reflecting on the outcomes of the various investigations carried out, this lesson integrates inquiry-based science and the nature of science (NOS).

The present study investigates the role of three structural factors ("word order," "case-marking," and "verbal morphology") in the comprehension of the Korean suffixal passive by Korean-speaking children. To measure the relative impact of each factor on the comprehension of the passive, we devise a novel method where these factors are obscured systematically by employing acoustic masking -- chewing and coughing. Results from three picture selection tasks show that (1) the Agent-First preference is not ubiquitously employed by young children, but is dependent on other grammatical cues; (2) despite mediocre accuracy rates on passive sentences, we nonetheless find evidence that children have some knowledge about the passive construction; and (3) scrambling of passive sentences does not aid in comprehension. These findings suggest that, in order to understand the acquisition of the passive, all these structural factors need to be considered.

Background noise challenges auditory recognition of speech and may reveal the underlying deficits in auditory word recognition skills. Previous studies have reported an association between children's auditory skills and various linguistic skills, including phonology, although in some languages only. However, language-specific features influence these connections. This study describes the associations between auditory word recognition ability and phonological skills in a representative group of 3;6-year-old children in less studied language, Finnish (N = 65). Auditory recognition was assessed using a closed-set word recognition task presented in multi-talker babble noise (+13 dB) and the phonological skills using Finnish Phonology Test. A significant, moderate correlation was found between Finnish-speaking children's auditory word recognition and phonological skills. The late-developing phoneme /r/ challenged word recognition. The sibilant /s/ was noted to be the most noise resistant consonant, and the phoneme pair /r/ and /l/ created the most mutual confusion. The accuracy of phonological representations may be a moderating factor for both auditory recognition and phonological skills. Children with strong phonological skills may recognize spoken words more accurately in noisy everyday situations than children with weaker phonological skills. This should be taken into consideration in children's daily environments, such as daycare centers and preschools.

Sensory substitution devices (SSDs) facilitate the detection of environmental information through enhancement of touch and/or hearing capabilities. Research has demonstrated that several tasks can be successfully completed using acoustic, vibrotactile, and multimodal devices. The suitability of a substituting modality is also mediated by the type of information required to perform the specific task. The present study tested the adequacy of touch and hearing in a grasping task by utilizing a sensory substitution glove. The substituting modalities inform, through increases in stimulation intensity, about the distance between the fingers and the objects. A psychophysical experiment of magnitude estimation was conducted. Forty blindfolded sighted participants discriminated equivalently the intensity of both vibrotactile and acoustic stimulation, although they experienced some difficulty with the more intense stimuli. Additionally, a grasping task involving cylindrical objects of varying diameters, distances and orientations was performed. Thirty blindfolded sighted participants were divided into vibration, sound, or multimodal groups. High performance was achieved (84% correct grasps) with equivalent success rate between groups. Movement variables showed more precision and confidence in the multimodal condition. Through a questionnaire, the multimodal group indicated their preference for using a multimodal SSD in daily life and identified vibration as their primary source of stimulation. These results demonstrate that there is an improvement in performance with specific-purpose SSDs, when the necessary information for a task is identified and coupled with the delivered stimulation. Furthermore, the results suggest that it is possible to achieve functional equivalence between substituting modalities when these previous steps are met.

Ultrasound imaging is a dynamic imaging technique that uses high-frequency sound waves to capture live images of the structures beneath the skin. In addition to its growing use in diagnosis and interventions, ultrasound imaging has the potential to reinforce concepts in the undergraduate medical curriculum. However, research assessing the impact of ultrasound on anatomy learning and student cognition is scarce. The purpose of this study was to compare the impact of ultrasound-based instruction versus narrated videos on students' understanding of anatomical relationships, as well as the role of intrinsic motivation, self-efficacy beliefs, and students' attitudes in this process. A booster course on anterior leg and wrist anatomy was offered to second-year medical students. A randomized controlled trial with a cross-over design allocated students to either an ultrasound-based teaching condition (cohort A) or a narrated anatomy video condition (cohort B). Next, participants were crossed to the alternative intervention. At the start of the study (T0), baseline anatomy knowledge, intrinsic motivation, self-efficacy beliefs, and spatial ability were measured. After the first intervention (T1) and at the end of the study (T2), both cohorts were administered an anatomy test, an intrinsic motivation scale, and a self-efficacy scale. In addition, each student was asked to fill out a perception survey after the ultrasound intervention. Finally, building on the cross-over design, the most optimal sequence of interventions was examined. A total of 181 students participated (cohort A: n = 82, cohort B: n = 99). Both cohorts performed comparably on the baseline anatomy knowledge test, spatial ability test, intrinsic motivation, and self-efficacy scale. At T1, cohort B outperformed cohort A on the anatomy test (p = 0.019), although only a small effect size could be detected (Cohen's d = 0.34). Intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy of both cohorts were similar at T1. At T2, the anatomy test, intrinsic motivation, and self-efficacy scale did not reflect an effect after studying either sequence of the interventions. Students reported favorably about the ultrasound experience, but also mentioned a steep learning curve. Medical students found the hands-on ultrasound sessions to be valuable, increasing their interest in musculoskeletal anatomy and ultrasound imaging. However, the addition of ultrasound did not result in superior spatial anatomy understanding compared to watching anatomy videos. In addition, ultrasound teaching did not have a major effect on student cognition. Ultrasound-based teaching of musculoskeletal anatomy is regarded as difficult to learn, and therefore it is hypothesized that too high levels of cognitive load might explain the presented results.

This study evaluated the role of Nigerian print media in bringing the health hazards of noise pollution to public awareness through the presentation of stories. "The Guardian," "Punch," and "Vanguard" newspapers were content analyzed to ascertain the framing, volume, prominence, frequency, and genre of noise pollution articles published from June 2020 to July 2021. Seven (n = 7) articles on noise pollution were published within the period studied. Solution and effect frames were dominant as five articles mentioned the health effects of noise pollution. The results were inadequate to create public awareness of the health hazards of noise by Nigerian print media.

This study aimed to compare the effect of using white noise, embracing, and facilitated tucking on heel lance blood sampling in newborns. The study was a randomized controlled trial. Newborns totalling 160 were included in the study. The primary outcomes were evaluated pain and crying durations before, during, and after the procedure. The secondary outcomes were evaluated as physiological changes before, during, and after the procedure. The crying durations during and after the heel lance blood sampling were found significantly lower in the newborns in the embracing group compared to those in the other groups (p < 0.05). The average NIPS score of the newborns who were embraced by their mothers during (3.67 ± 2.76) and after (1.55 ± 2.6) heel lance blood sampling was found significantly lower than the other groups (p < 0.05). Maternal embracing during and after the heel lance blood sampling procedure may be effective in reducing crying duration and pain level in newborns.

Background: Recent studies have highlighted the application of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) knowledge into daily life via hands-on practical works. The limitations of the existing conventional laboratory work can be potentially overcome by the implementation of the innovative use of smartphones as an experimental tool due to its effectiveness and convenience to apply anywhere and anytime. Purpose: The purpose of the study was to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of a sound STEM practical kit using free mobile apps for secondary school students. This study also examined student perceptions of the implementation of the developed sound practical kit. Sample: Two intact Form 2 classes of secondary school students from a mainstream school in the state of Perak, Malaysia, were chosen using the cluster sampling method as research sample. One of the classes was selected as an experimental group (n = 36 students) with the implementation of developed sound practical kit, while the other class was a comparison group (n = 30 students) employing a conventional teaching method. Methods: A developmental research design according to the ASSURE (Analyse learners; State objectives; Select media and materials; Utilise media and materials; Require learner participation; and Evaluate) instructional design model and quasi-experimental were employed in this study. A set of achievement test and open-ended questions were employed as research instruments. The data were analysed using a non-parametric test that included Mann-Whitney test and Wilcoxon signed-rank test, while the students' feedbacks and comments were analysed using Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) software. Results: The findings demonstrated a significant difference between the posttest of the comparison group and the experimental group students. Conclusions: In summary, the developed sound practical kit improved students' understanding on the topic of sound. In implication, this study indicates that the implementation of STEM practical kit using free mobile apps promotes the interactive STEM teaching and learning process in secondary education.