Beyond the Printed Page

BEYOND THE PRINTED PAGE

Temporal Processing Deficits of Language-Learning Impaired Children Ameliorated by Training

Michael M. Merzenich, William M. Jenkins, Paul Johnston, Christoph Schreiner, Steven L. Miller, Paula Tallal

Frequency modulated sweeps forming a continuum from long duration and long interstimulus interval to short duration and short interstimulus interval were used as training stimuli in the "Circus Sequence" training game. Similarly, synthetic phonemes ranging from highly modified to normal consonant transition duration and intensity were used as stimuli in the "Phoneme Identification" training game.

This page contains links to example sound files that present examples from the two ends of the continuum for these two games for one stimulus set.

This page also contains a link to a short Quicktime movie, showing a child playing the Circus Sequence game.

Listening to the audio samples

The sound files accompanying this paper are in .au format, which is standard on Sun and NeXT workstations. In order to listen to these files on Windows or Mac machines, you need to obtain "helper applications" to play back the digitized sound. (Your computer should also have a sound card.) Your WWW browser needs to be set up to launch the helper application. (Netscape for Windows, go to Options, General, select "helper applications," select audio basic); (Netscape for Macintosh, go to Options, Preferences, select "helper applications," select audio basic).

Windows: Netscape comes with a helper application called NAPLAYER.EXE, which will play .au files on PCs equipped with sound cards. There is also a shareware program called WHAM 1.33 audio player (waveform hold and manipulate) that will play .au files and several other formats.

Macintosh: A program called Soundmachine will play .au files.

Note that the .au sound file examples presented here are in 8-bit format and have a sampling rate of 22.05 kHz. The 8-bit format is compatible with all the software listed above. The sound files used in this study were 16-bit format in order to allow for a greater dynamic range.

"Circus Sequence" sound examples

Click Here to Play
Level 1 starts at 1 kHz, frequency modulated sweep, 60 ms duration, 500 ms separation, upward then downward

Click Here to Play
Level 130 starts at 1 kHz, frequency modulated sweep, 20 ms duration, 20 ms separation, upward then downward

"Phoneme Identification" sound examples

Click Here to Play
Level 1, synthetic "ba vs. da," maximum emphasis and formant transition duration, 500 ms separation

Click Here to Play
Level 26, synthetic "ba vs. da," minimum emphasis and formant transition duration, 200 ms separation

Watching the Quicktime movie

The movie accompanying this paper is in Quicktime format and contains an audio track. The movie is 'flat' to allow playing in both Macintosh and Windows platforms. You will need the Quicktime sytem software and a movie player in order to view this movie.

Windows quicktime software is available on-line.
A Windows movie player is also available on-line

The latest Macintosh quicktime software and player is available online.

A short Quicktime movie showing a child playing the "Circus Sequence" game

Click Here to Download (835k)