Werner L A, Marean G C, Halpin C F, Spetner N B, Gillenwater J M
University of Washington, Seattle 98195.
Child Dev. 1992 Apr;63(2):260-72.
The development of auditory temporal acuity during infancy was examined in 3-, 6-, and 12-month-old infants and in adults using the gap detection paradigm. Listeners detected a series of gaps, or silent intervals, or variable duration in a broadband noise. In order to vary the acoustic frequencies available to the listener, a high-pass noise was used to mask frequencies above specified cutoffs. High-pass maskers with cutoffs of 500, 2,000, and 8,000 Hz were used. The minimum detectable gap was determined using the Observer-based Psychoacoustic Procedure. The thresholds of 3- and 6-month-olds were considerably poorer than those of the adults, although the effect of masker condition was about the same for these 3 groups. The thresholds of 12-month-olds were significantly worse than the adults when the stimulus was unmasked or when the masker cutoff frequency was 2,000 or 8,000 Hz. When the masker cutoff frequency was 500 Hz, 12-month-olds fell into 2 groups: some had gap thresholds that were about the same as 3- and 6-month-olds, while some had gap thresholds that approached those of adults. In a second experiment, a larger group of 12-month-olds were tested with a 500-Hz masker cutoff. Average performance of 12-month-olds was about the same as that of 3- and 6-month-olds in Experiment 1. Some infants attained thresholds close to those of adults. Thus, gap detection thresholds are quite poor in infants, although the similarity of the effect of frequency on performance in infants and adults suggests that the mechanisms governing temporal resolution in infants operate qualitatively like those in adults.
利用间隙检测范式，对3个月、6个月和12个月大的婴儿以及成年人在婴儿期听觉时间敏锐度的发展进行了研究。受试者在宽带噪声中检测一系列间隙，即无声间隔，其持续时间可变。为了改变受试者可接收到的声频，使用高通噪声来掩蔽高于特定截止频率的频率。使用了截止频率为500Hz、2000Hz和8000Hz的高通掩蔽器。使用基于观察者的心理声学程序确定最小可检测间隙。3个月和6个月大婴儿的阈值比成年人的差得多，尽管这三组受试者中掩蔽条件的影响大致相同。当刺激未被掩蔽或掩蔽器截止频率为2000Hz或8000Hz时，12个月大婴儿的阈值明显比成年人差。当掩蔽器截止频率为500Hz时,12个月大婴儿分为两组：一些婴儿的间隙阈值与3个月和6个月大婴儿大致相同，而另一些婴儿的间隙阈值接近成年人水平。在第二个实验中，对一大组12个月大的婴儿进行了500Hz掩蔽器截止频率的测试。12个月大婴儿的平均表现与实验1中3个月和6个月大婴儿的表现大致相同。一些婴儿达到了接近成年人的阈值。因此，婴儿的间隙检测阈值相当差，尽管频率对婴儿和成年人表现的影响相似，这表明控制婴儿时间分辨率的机制在性质上与成年人的相似。
