Listening effort and stress in tinnitus: a multidimensional approach.

Introduction: This study investigated the impact of chronic tinnitus on auditory perception, text comprehension, and physiological stress responses, with a focus on sex-related differences. The main objectives were to assess the influence of sex and stress on tinnitus severity, examine neurophysiological indicators of listening effort, and evaluate the effects of background noise on perceived difficulty and listening pleasantness.

Materials And Methods: Forty-seven participants (24 with tinnitus, 23 controls) performed a listening task involving audiobook excerpts presented at different signal-to-noise ratios.

P300 to Low and High Frequency Stimuli Are Not Influenced by Intensity in Adults with Normal Hearing.

: Since high frequencies are susceptible to disruption in various types of hearing loss, a symptom which is common in people with tinnitus, the aim of the study was to investigate EEG cortical auditory evoked and P300 responses to both a high- and low frequency-centered oddball paradigm to begin to establish the most suitable cognitive physiologic testing conditions for those with both unimpaired hearing and those with hearing impairments. : Cortical auditory evoked potential (CAEP) P1, N1, P2 and P300 (subtraction wave) peaks were identified in response to high- (standard: 6000 Hz, deviant: 8000 Hz) and low frequency (Standard: 375 Hz, Deviant: 500 Hz) oddball paradigms. Each paradigm was presented at various intensity levels.

Optimizing EEG Signal Integrity: A Comprehensive Guide to Ocular Artifact Correction.

Ocular artifacts, including blinks and saccades, pose significant challenges in the analysis of electroencephalographic (EEG) data, often obscuring crucial neural signals. This tutorial provides a comprehensive guide to the most effective methods for correcting these artifacts, with a focus on algorithms designed for both laboratory and real-world settings. We review traditional approaches, such as regression-based techniques and Independent Component Analysis (ICA), alongside more advanced methods like Artifact Subspace Reconstruction (ASR) and deep learning-based algorithms.

Investigation of Deficits in Auditory Emotional Content Recognition by Adult Cochlear Implant Users through the Study of Electroencephalographic Gamma and Alpha Asymmetry and Alexithymia Assessment.

Background/objectives: Given the importance of emotion recognition for communication purposes, and the impairment for such skill in CI users despite impressive language performances, the aim of the present study was to investigate the neural correlates of emotion recognition skills, apart from language, in adult unilateral CI (UCI) users during a music in noise (happy/sad) recognition task. Furthermore, asymmetry was investigated through electroencephalographic (EEG) rhythm, given the traditional concept of hemispheric lateralization for emotional processing, and the intrinsic asymmetry due to the clinical UCI condition.

Methods: Twenty adult UCI users and eight normal hearing (NH) controls were recruited.

Characterization of Cochlear Implant Artifact and Removal Based on Multi-Channel Wiener Filter in Unilateral Child Patients.

Cochlear implants (CI) allow deaf patients to improve language perception and improving their emotional valence assessment. Electroencephalographic (EEG) measures were employed so far to improve CI programming reliability and to evaluate listening effort in auditory tasks, which are particularly useful in conditions when subjective evaluations are scarcely appliable or reliable. Unfortunately, the presence of CI on the scalp introduces an electrical artifact coupled to EEG signals that masks physiological features recorded by electrodes close to the site of implant.

Bridging the Gap between Psychophysiological and Audiological Factors in the Assessment of Tinnitus: An EEG Investigation in the Beta Band.

Background: Despite substantial progress in investigating its psychophysical complexity, tinnitus remains a scientific and clinical enigma. The present study, through an ecological and multidisciplinary approach, aims to identify associations between electroencephalographic (EEG) and psycho-audiological variables.

Methods: EEG beta activity, often related to stress and anxiety, was acquired from 12 tinnitus patients (TIN group) and 7 controls (CONT group) during an audio cognitive task and at rest.

Two are better than one: Differences in cortical EEG patterns during auditory and visual verbal working memory processing between Unilateral and Bilateral Cochlear Implanted children.

Despite the proven effectiveness of cochlear implant (CI) in the hearing restoration of deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) children, to date, extreme variability in verbal working memory (VWM) abilities is observed in both unilateral and bilateral CI user children (CIs). Although clinical experience has long observed deficits in this fundamental executive function in CIs, the cause to date is still unknown. Here, we have set out to investigate differences in brain functioning regarding the impact of monaural and binaural listening in CIs compared with normal hearing (NH) peers during a three-level difficulty n-back task undertaken in two sensory modalities (auditory and visual).

Music in noise recognition: An EEG study of listening effort in cochlear implant users and normal hearing controls.

Despite the plethora of studies investigating listening effort and the amount of research concerning music perception by cochlear implant (CI) users, the investigation of the influence of background noise on music processing has never been performed. Given the typical speech in noise recognition task for the listening effort assessment, the aim of the present study was to investigate the listening effort during an emotional categorization task on musical pieces with different levels of background noise. The listening effort was investigated, in addition to participants' ratings and performances, using EEG features known to be involved in such phenomenon, that is alpha activity in parietal areas and in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), that includes the Broca's area.

Listening Effort in Tinnitus: A Pilot Study Employing a Light EEG Headset and Skin Conductance Assessment during the Listening to a Continuous Speech Stimulus under Different SNR Conditions.

Background noise elicits listening effort. What else is tinnitus if not an endogenous background noise? From such reasoning, we hypothesized the occurrence of increased listening effort in tinnitus patients during listening tasks. Such a hypothesis was tested by investigating some indices of listening effort through electroencephalographic and skin conductance, particularly parietal and frontal alpha and electrodermal activity (EDA).

Facilitating or disturbing? An investigation about the effects of auditory frequencies on prefrontal cortex activation and postural sway.

Auditory stimulation activates brain areas associated with higher cognitive processes, like the prefrontal cortex (PFC), and plays a role in postural control regulation. However, the effects of specific frequency stimuli on upright posture maintenance and PFC activation patterns remain unknown. Therefore, the study aims at filling this gap.

Virtual and Reality: A Neurophysiological Pilot Study of the Sarcophagus of the Spouses.

Art experience is not solely the observation of artistic objects, but great relevance is also placed on the environment in which the art experience takes place, often in museums and galleries. Interestingly, in the last few years, the introduction of some forms of virtual reality (VR) in museum contexts has been increasing. This has solicited enormous research interest in investigating any eventual differences between looking at the same artifact either in a real context (e.

Esports and Visual Attention: Evaluating In-Game Advertising through Eye-Tracking during the Game Viewing Experience.

In recent years, technological advances and the introduction of social streaming platforms (e.g., Twitch) have contributed to an increase in the popularity of esports, a highly profitable industry with millions of active users.

Gamma-Band Modulation in Parietal Area as the Electroencephalographic Signature for Performance in Auditory-Verbal Working Memory: An Exploratory Pilot Study in Hearing and Unilateral Cochlear Implant Children.

This pilot study investigates the neurophysiological patterns of visual and auditory verbal working memory (VWM) in unilateral cochlear implant users (UCIs). We compared the task-related electroencephalogram (EEG) power spectral density of 7- to 13-year-old UCIs ( = 7) with a hearing control group (HC, = 10) during the execution of a three-level n-back task with auditory and visual verbal (letters) stimuli. Performances improved as memory load decreased regardless of sensory modality (SM) and group factors.

School wellbeing and psychological characteristics of online learning in families of children with and without hearing loss during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This study investigated the psychological characteristics of online learning on Italian students with and without hearing loss (HL) and on their parents, who were forced into isolation during the Covid-19 pandemic. An online survey collected information on socio-demographic data and opinions concerning online learning from 61 children (mean age 11; 25 males, 36 females), including 43 with HL and also from their parents; additionally, school wellbeing and anxiety were assessed. The results showed that, in both the student and parent groups, no significant effect of HL on school wellbeing and anxiety was found.

Neuroscientific Methods for Exploring User Perceptions While Dealing With Mobile Advertising: A Novel and Integrated Approach.

Display and native ads represent two of the most widely used digital advertising formats employed by advertisers that aim to grab the attention of online users. In recent years, the native format has become very popular because it relies on deceptive features that make harder the recognition of its advertising nature, reducing avoiding behaviors such as the banner blindness phenomena, traditionally associated to display advertising, and so increasing its advertising effectiveness. The present study, based on a forefront research protocol specifically designed for the advertising research on smartphone devices, aims to investigate through neurophysiological and self-reported measures, the perception of display and native ads placed within article webpages, and to assess the efficacy of an integrated approach.

Neurophysiological Verbal Working Memory Patterns in Children: Searching for a Benchmark of Modality Differences in Audio/Video Stimuli Processing.

Exploration of specific brain areas involved in verbal working memory (VWM) is a powerful but not widely used tool for the study of different sensory modalities, especially in children. In this study, for the first time, we used electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate neurophysiological similarities and differences in response to the same verbal stimuli, expressed in the auditory and visual modality during the n-back task with varying memory load in children. Since VWM plays an important role in learning ability, we wanted to investigate whether children elaborated the verbal input from auditory and visual stimuli through the same neural patterns and if performance varies depending on the sensory modality.

Smoke signals: A study of the neurophysiological reaction of smokers and non-smokers to smoking cues inserted into antismoking public service announcements.

Tobacco addiction is one of the biggest health emergencies in the world, Antismoking Public Service Announcements (PSAs) represent the main public tool against smoking; however, smoking-related cues (SCs) often included in PSAs can trigger ambiguous cerebral reactions that could impact the persuasiveness and efficacy of the antismoking message. This study aimed to investigate the electroencephalographic (EEG) response in adult smokers and non-smokers during the exposure to SCs presented in antismoking PSAs video, in order to identify eventual neurophysiological features of SCs' 'boomerang effect' elicited in smokers. EEG frontal Alpha asymmetry and frontal Theta were analyzed in 92 adults (30 no smokers, 31 low smokers, 31 high smokers) from EEG recorded during the vision of 3 antismoking PSAs, statistical analysis was conducted using ANOVA.

Higher Right Hemisphere Gamma Band Lateralization and Suggestion of a Sensitive Period for Vocal Auditory Emotional Stimuli Recognition in Unilateral Cochlear Implant Children: An EEG Study.

In deaf children, huge emphasis was given to language; however, emotional cues decoding and production appear of pivotal importance for communication capabilities. Concerning neurophysiological correlates of emotional processing, the gamma band activity appears a useful tool adopted for emotion classification and related to the conscious elaboration of emotions. Starting from these considerations, the following items have been investigated: (i) whether emotional auditory stimuli processing differs between normal-hearing (NH) children and children using a cochlear implant (CI), given the non-physiological development of the auditory system in the latter group; (ii) whether the age at CI surgery influences emotion recognition capabilities; and (iii) in light of the right hemisphere hypothesis for emotional processing, whether the CI side influences the processing of emotional cues in unilateral CI (UCI) children.

Forefront Users' Experience Evaluation by Employing Together Virtual Reality and Electroencephalography: A Case Study on Cognitive Effects of Scents.

Scents have the ability to affect peoples' mental states and task performance with to different extents. It has been widely demonstrated that the lemon scent, included in most all-purpose cleaners, elicits stimulation and activation, while the lavender scent elicits relaxation and sedative effects. The present study aimed at investigating and fostering a novel approach to evaluate users' experience with respect to scents' effects through the joint employment of Virtual Reality and users' neurophysiological monitoring, in particular Electroencephalography.

NeuroDante: Poetry Mentally Engages More Experts but Moves More Non-Experts, and for Both the Cerebral Approach Tendency Goes Hand in Hand with the Cerebral Effort.

Neuroaesthetics, the science studying the biological underpinnings of aesthetic experience, recently extended its area of investigation to literary art; this was the humus where neurocognitive poetics blossomed. Divina Commedia represents one of the most important, famous and studied poems worldwide. Poetry stimuli are characterized by elements (meter and rhyme) promoting the processing fluency, a core aspect of neuroaesthetics theories.

Consumer Behaviour through the Eyes of Neurophysiological Measures: State-of-the-Art and Future Trends.

The new technological advances achieved during the last decade allowed the scientific community to investigate and employ neurophysiological measures not only for research purposes but also for the study of human behaviour in real and daily life situations. The aim of this review is to understand how and whether neuroscientific technologies can be effectively employed to better understand the human behaviour in real decision-making contexts. To do so, firstly, we will describe the historical development of neuromarketing and its main applications in assessing the sensory perceptions of some marketing and advertising stimuli.

Antismoking Campaigns' Perception and Gender Differences: A Comparison among EEG Indices.

Human factors' aim is to understand and evaluate the interactions between people and tasks, technologies, and environment. Among human factors, it is possible then to include the subjective reaction to external stimuli, due to individual's characteristics and states of mind. These processes are also involved in the perception of antismoking public service announcements (PSAs), the main tool for governments to contrast the first cause of preventable deaths in the world: tobacco addiction.

EEG rhythms lateralization patterns in children with unilateral hearing loss are different from the patterns of normal hearing controls during speech-in-noise listening.

Unilateral hearing loss constitutes a field of growing interest in the scientific community. In fact, this kind of patients represent a unique and physiological way to investigate how neuroplasticity overcame unilateral deafferentation by implementing particular strategies that produce apparently next- to- normal hearing behavioural performances. This explains why such patients have been underinvestigated for a long time.

Neurophysiological Responses to Different Product Experiences.

It is well known that the evaluation of a product from the shelf considers the simultaneous cerebral and emotional evaluation of the different qualities of the product such as its colour, the eventual images shown, and the envelope's texture (hereafter all included in the term "product experience"). However, the measurement of cerebral and emotional reactions during the interaction with food products has not been investigated in depth in specialized literature. The aim of this paper was to investigate such reactions by the EEG and the autonomic activities, as elicited by the cross-sensory interaction (sight and touch) across several different products.

Neurophysiological Profile of Antismoking Campaigns.

Over the past few decades, antismoking public service announcements (PSAs) have been used by governments to promote healthy behaviours in citizens, for instance, against drinking before the drive and against smoke. Effectiveness of such PSAs has been suggested especially for young persons. By now, PSAs efficacy is still mainly assessed through traditional methods (questionnaires and metrics) and could be performed only after the PSAs broadcasting, leading to waste of economic resources and time in the case of Ineffective PSAs.