Abstract
Developmental dyslexics reportedly discriminate auditory frequency poorly. A recent study found no such deficit. Unlike its predecessors, however, it employed multiple exposures per trial to the standard stimulus. To investigate whether this affects frequency discrimination in dyslexics, a traditional twointerval same-different paradigm (2I_1A_X) and a variant with six A-stimuli per trial (2I_6A_X) were used here. Frequency varied around 500 Hz; interstimulus interval (ISI) ranged between 0 and 1,000 msec. Under 2I_1A_X, dyslexics always had larger just noticeable differences (JNDs) than did controls. Dyslexic and control JNDs were equal at shorter ISIs under 2I_6A_X, but dyslexics became worse than controls at longer ISIs. Signal detection analysis suggests that both sensory variance and trace variance are larger in dyslexics than in controls.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Ahissar, M., Protopapas, A., Reid, M., &Merzenich, M. M. (2000). Auditory processing parallels reading abilities in adults.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,97, 6832–6837.
Baddeley, A. D. (1986).Working memory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Baldeweg, T., Richardson, A., Watkins, S., Foale, C., &Gruzilier, J. (1999). Impaired auditory frequency discrimination in dyslexia detected with mismatch evoked potentials.Annals of Neurology,45, 495–503.
Bradley, L., &Bryant, P. E. (1983). Categorizing sounds and learning to read: A causal connection.Nature,301, 419–420.
Castro-Caldas, A., Petersson, A. M., Reis, A., Stone-Elander, S., &Ingvar, M. (1998). The illiterate brain: Learning to read and write during childhood influences the functional organization of the brain.Brain,121, 1053–1063.
Cornelissen, P., Richardson, A., Mason, A., Fowler, S., &Stein, J. (1995). Contrast sensitivity and coherent motion detection measures at photopic sensitivity levels in dyslexic readers and controls.Vision Research,35, 1483–1494.
D’Agostino, R. B., Sr., &Russell, H. K. (1998). Multivariate Bartlett test. In P. Armitage & T. Colton (Eds.),Encyclopedia of biostatistics (Vol. 4, pp. 2843–2844). Chichester, U.K.: Wiley.
DeWeirdt, W. (1988). Speech perception and frequency discrimination in good and poor readers.Applied Psycholinguistics,9, 163–183.
Dolan, T. G., &Small, A. N., Jr. (1984). Frequency effects in backward masking.Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,75, 932–936.
Dougherty, R. F., Cynader, M. S., Bjornson, B. J., Edgell, D., &Giaschi, D. E. (1998). Dichotic pitch: A new stimulus distinguishes normal and dyslexic auditory function.NeuroReport,9, 3001–3005.
Durlach, N. I., &Braida, L. D. (1969). Intensity perception: I. Preliminary theory of intensity resolution.Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,46, 372–383.
Farmer, M. E., &Klein, R. M. (1995). The evidence for a temporal processing deficit linked to dyslexia: A review.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,2, 460–493.
Galaburda, A., &Livingstone, M. (1993). Evidence for a magnocellular defect in developmental dyslexia. In P. Tallal et al. (Eds.),Temporal information processing in the nervous system: Special reference to dyslexia and dysphasia(Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 682, pp. 70–82). New York: New York Academy of Sciences.
Gehr, S. E., &Sommers, M. S. (1999). Age differences in backward masking.Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,106, 2793–2799.
Green, D. M., &Swets, J. A. (1966).Signal detection theory and psychophysics. New York: Wiley.
Hari, R., Sääskilahti, A., Helenius, P., &Uutela, K. (1999). Nonimpaired auditory phase-locking in dyslexic adults.NeuroReport,10, 2347–2348.
Hill, N. I., Bailey, P. J., Griffiths, Y. M., &Snowling, M. J. (1999). Frequency acuity and binaural masking release in dyslexic listeners.Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,106, L53-L58.
Jastak, S., &Wilkinson, D. (1984).Wide-range achievement test (revised). Wilmington, DE: Jastak Associates.
Kaernbach, C. (1991). Simple adaptive testing with the weighted up-down method.Perception & Psychophysics,49, 227–229.
Lovegrove, W. (1993). Weakness in the transient visual system: A causal factor in dyslexia? In P. Tallal et al. (Eds.),Temporal information processing in the nervous system: Special reference to dyslexia and dysphasia (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 682, pp. 57–69). New York: New York Academy of Sciences.
Macmillan, N. A., Goldberg, R. F., &Braida, L. D. (1988). Resolution for speech sounds: Basic sensitivity and context memory on vowel and consonant continua.Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,84, 1262–1280.
Mair, V. H. (1996). Modern Chinese writing. In P. T. Daniels & W. Bright (Eds.),The world’s writing systems (pp. 200–208). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Massaro, D. W. (1970). Preperceptual auditory images.Journal of Experimental Psychology,85, 411–417.
Massaro, D. W. (1971). Effect of masking tone duration on preperceptual auditory images.Journal of Experimental Psychology,87, 146–148.
Massaro, D. W. (1972). Preperceptual images, processing time, and perceptual units in auditory perception.Psychological Review,79, 124–145.
Massaro, D. W., &Burke, D. (1991). Perceptual development and auditory backward recognition masking.Developmental Psychology,27, 85–96.
McAnally, K. I., &Stein, J. F. (1996). Auditory temporal coding in dyslexia.Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Series B,263, 961–965.
Menell, P., McAnally, K. I., &Stein, J. F. (1999). Psychophysical sensitivity and physiological response to amplitude modulation in adult dyslexic listeners.Journal of Speech, Language, & Hearing Research,42, 797–803.
Morais, J. (1985). Literacy and awareness of the units of speech: Implications for research on the units of perception.Linguistics,23, 705–721.
Nagarajan, S., Mahncke, H., Salz, T., Tallal, P., Roberts, T., &Merzenich, M. M. (1999). Cortical auditory signal processing in poor readers.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,96, 6483–6488.
Pennington, B. F., Van Orden, G. C., Smith, S. D., Green, P. A., &Haith, M. M. (1990). Phonological processing skills and deficits in adult dyslexics.Child Development,61, 1753- 1778.
Randles, R. H., &Wolfe, D. A. (1980).Introduction to the theory of nonparametric statistics. New York: Wiley.
Read, C., Zhang, Y.-F., Nie, H.-Y., &Ding, B.-Q. (1986). The ability to manipulate speech sounds depends on knowing alphabetic writing.Cognition,24, 31–44.
Roush, W. (1995). Arguing over why Johnny can’t read.Science,267, 1896–1898.
Rutter, M., &Yule, W. (1975). The concept of specific reading retardation.Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry,16, 181–197.
Shankweiler, D., Liberman, I. Y., Mark, L. S., Fowler, C. A., &Fischer, F. W. (1979). The speech code and learning to read.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning & Memory,5, 531–545.
Shaywitz, S. E., Shaywitz, B. A., Fletcher, J. M., &Escobar, M. D. (1990). Prevalence of reading disability in boys and girls: Results of the Connecticut longitudinal study.Journal of the American Medical Association,264, 998–1002.
Siegel, L. (1992). An evaluation of the discrepancy definition of dyslexia.Journal of Learning Disabilities,25, 619–629.
Skottun, B. (2000). The magnocellular deficit theory of dyslexia: The evidence from contrast sensitivity.Vision Research,40, 111–127.
Stanovich, K. (1991). Discrepancy definitions of reading disability: Has intelligence led us astray?Reading Research Quarterly,26, 7–29.
Stein, J. F. (1993). Dyslexia: Impaired temporal information processing? In P. Tallal et al. (Eds.),Temporal information processing in the nervous system: Special reference to dyslexia and dysphasia(Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 682, pp. 83–86). New York: New York Academy of Sciences.
Stein, J. F., &McAnally, K. (1995). Auditory temporal processing in developmental dyslexics.Irish Journal of Psychology,16, 220–228.
Stein, J. F., Richardson, A. J., &Fowler, M. S. (2000). Monocular occlusion can improve binocular control and reading in dyslexics.Brain,123, 164–170.
Stein, J. [F.], &Walsh, V. (1997). To see but not to read; the magnocellular theory of dyslexia.Trends in Neurosciences,20, 147–152.
Talcott, J., Hansen, P., Elikim, A., &Stein, J. (2000). Visual motion sensitivity in dyslexia: Evidence for temporal and energy integration.Neuropsychologia,38, 935–943.
Talcott, J., Hansen, P., Willis-Owen, C., McKinnell, I., Richardson, A., &Stein, J. (1998). Visual magnocellular impairment in adult developmental dyslexics.Neuro-ophthamology,20, 187–201.
Tallal, P. (1980). Auditory temporal perception, phonics, and reading disabilities in children.Brain & Language,9, 192–198.
Tallal, P., &Piercy, M. (1973). Developmental aphasia: Impaired rate of non-verbal processing as a function of sensory modality.Neuropsychologia,11, 389–398.
Tallal, P., &Piercy, M. (1974). Developmental aphasia: Rate of auditory processing and selective impairment of consonant perception.Neuropsychologia,12, 83–93.
Torgeson, J. K. (1978). Performance of reading disabled children on serial memory tasks: A review.Reading Research Quarterly,19, 57–87.
Turner, M. (1997).Psychological assessment of dyslexia. London: Whurr.
Vellutino, F. R. (1987). Dyslexia.Scientific American,256, 20–27.
Vellutino, F. R., Steger, J. A., &Kandel, A. (1972). Reading disability: An investigation of the perceptual deficit hypothesis.Cortex,8, 106–118.
Wechsler, D. (1981).Wechsler adult intelligence scales (revised). San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Weir, C. C., Jesteadt, W., &Green, D. M. (1977). Frequency discrimination as a function of frequency and sensation level.Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,61, 178–184.
Werner, L. A., &Gray, L. (1998). Behavioral studies of hearing development. In E. W. Rubel, A. N. Popper, & R. R. Fay, (Eds.),Springer handbook of auditory research (Vol. 9, pp. 12–79). New York: Springer-Verlag.
Witton, C., Talcott, J. B., Hansen, P. C., Richardson, A. J., Griffiths, T. D., Rees, A., Stein, J. F., &Green, G. G. R. (1998). Sensitivity to dynamic auditory and visual stimuli predicts nonword reading ability in both dyslexic and normal readers.Current Biology,8, 791–797.
Wright, B. A., Lombardino, L. J., King, W. M., Puranik, C. S., Leonard, C. M., &Merzenich, M. M. (1997). Deficits in auditory temporal and spectral resolution in language-impaired children.Nature,387, 176–178.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This research was supported by the Rodin Remediation Trust and by the Wellcome Research Trust.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
France, S.J., Rosner, B.S., Hansen, P.C. et al. Auditory frequency discrimination in adult developmental dyslexics. Perception & Psychophysics 64, 169–179 (2002). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03195783
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03195783