Department of Otolaryngology, New York University School of Medicine, 550 First Avenue, NBV-5E5, New York, New York 10016, USA.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2011 Feb;129(2):898-906. doi: 10.1121/1.3531841.
Fluctuations in sound amplitude provide important cues to the identity of many sounds including speech. Of interest here was whether the ability to detect these fluctuations can be improved with practice, and if so whether this learning generalizes to untrained cases. To address these issues, normal-hearing adults (n = 9) were trained to detect sinusoidal amplitude modulation (SAM; 80-Hz rate, 3-4 kHz bandpass carrier) 720 trials/day for 6-7 days and were tested before and after training on related SAM-detection and SAM-rate-discrimination conditions. Controls (n = 9) only participated in the pre- and post-tests. The trained listeners improved more than the controls on the trained condition between the pre- and post-tests, but different subgroups of trained listeners required different amounts of practice to reach asymptotic performance, ranging from 1 (n = 6) to 4-6 (n = 3) sessions. This training-induced learning did not generalize to detection with two untrained carrier spectra (5 kHz low-pass and 0.5-1.5 kHz bandpass) or to rate discrimination with the trained rate and carrier spectrum, but there was some indication that it generalized to detection with two untrained rates (30 and 150 Hz). Thus, practice improved the ability to detect amplitude modulation, but the generalization of this learning to untrained cases was somewhat limited.
声音幅度的波动为许多声音（包括语音）的身份提供了重要线索。这里感兴趣的是，这种检测波动的能力是否可以通过练习来提高，如果可以，这种学习是否可以推广到未受过训练的情况。为了解决这些问题，正常听力的成年人（n=9）被训练来检测正弦幅度调制（SAM；80Hz 速率，3-4kHz 带通载波），每天 720 次，持续 6-7 天，并在训练前和训练后进行相关的 SAM 检测和 SAM 速率辨别测试。对照组（n=9）仅参加了预测试和后测试。与对照组相比，训练组在预测试和后测试之间，在训练条件下的表现提高更多，但不同的训练组需要不同的练习量才能达到最佳表现，范围从 1 次（n=6）到 4-6 次（n=3）。这种训练引起的学习并不能推广到使用两个未经训练的载波谱（5kHz 低通和 0.5-1.5kHz 带通）进行检测，也不能推广到使用训练速率和载波谱进行速率辨别，但有一些迹象表明，它可以推广到使用两个未经训练的速率（30Hz 和 150Hz）进行检测。因此，练习提高了检测幅度调制的能力，但这种学习向未受训练情况的推广有些有限。
