Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes both ASU Theses and Dissertations, submitted by graduate students, and the Barrett, Honors College theses submitted by undergraduate students.
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Description
Previous research of impulse control disorders, common in adults with a diagnosis of Parkinson’s, were reviewed to determine possible links between impulse control
disorders in in adults with aphasia. Aphasia is a disorder often caused by a stroke that can
impact speech and language both receptively and expressively. Impulse control disorders
(ICDs) (i.e., pathological gambling, hypersexuality, compulsive eating and shopping, etc.)
have drastic consequences and can cause harm to the individual affected as well as their
caregivers and family. This study sought to identify if symptoms of ICDs are prevalent in
adults with aphasia by utilizing self-report surveys and a Go/No-Go impulsivity computer
task. The findings of this study indicate that some impulsive factors are significantly
heightened in adults who have had a stroke when compared to healthy same-age peers
and that these differences are perhaps best captured by the self-report surveys. Despite a
large amount of literature on the impact of stroke and quality of life, this area of impulse
control has remained largely unexplored. Further investigation is warranted for the
prevalence of impulse control disorders in adults with aphasia, however, this study is a
step forward into understanding how aphasia and stroke affect the quality of life of those
impacted.
ContributorsMajors, Madilyn (Author) / Rogalsky, Corianne (Thesis advisor) / Trueba, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Azuma, Tamiko (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
This study focuses on the properties of binaural beats (BBs) compared to Monaural beats (MBs) and their steady-state response at the level of the Superior Olivary Complex (SOC). An auditory nerve stimulator was used to simulate the response of the SOC. The simulator was fed either BBs or MBs stimuli to compare the SOC response. This was done for different frequencies at twenty, forty, and sixty hertz for comparison of the SOC response envelopes. A correlation between the SOC response envelopes for both types of beats and the waveform resulting from adding two tones together was completed. The highest correlation for BBs was found to be forty hertz and for MBs it was sixty hertz. A Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) was also completed on the stimulus envelope and the SOC response envelopes. The FFT was able to show that within the BBs presentation the envelopes of the original stimuli showed no difference frequency. However, the difference frequency was present in the binaural SOC response envelope. For the MBs, the difference frequency was present within the stimulus and the monaural SOC response envelope.
ContributorsCrawford, Taylor Janay (Author) / Brewer, Gene (Thesis advisor) / Zhou, Yi (Committee member) / Azuma, Tamiko (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Cochlear implants (CIs) restore hearing to nearly one million individuals with severe-to-profound hearing loss. However, with limited spectral and temporal resolution, CI users may rely heavily on top-down processing using cognitive resources for speech recognition in noise, and change the weighting of different acoustic cues for pitch-related listening tasks such as Mandarin tone recognition. While auditory training is known to improve CI users’ performance in these tasks as measured by percent correct scores, the effects of training on cue weighting, listening effort, and untrained tasks need to be better understood, in order to maximize the training benefits. This dissertation addressed these questions by training normal-hearing (NH) listeners listening to CI simulation. Study 1 examined whether Mandarin tone recognition training with enhanced amplitude envelope cues may improve tone recognition scores and increase the weighting of amplitude envelope cues over fundamental frequency (F0) contours. Compared to no training or natural-amplitude-envelope training, enhanced-amplitude-envelope training increased the benefits of amplitude envelope enhancement for tone recognition but did not increase the weighting of amplitude or F0 cues. Listeners attending more to amplitude envelope cues in the pre-test improved more in tone recognition after enhanced-amplitude-envelope training. Study 2 extended Study 1 to compare the generalization effects of tone recognition training alone, vowel recognition training alone, and combined tone and vowel recognition training. The results showed that tone recognition training did not improve vowel recognition or vice versa, although tones and vowels are always produced together in Mandarin. Only combined tone and vowel recognition training improved sentence recognition, showing that both suprasegmental (i.e., tones) and segmental cues (i.e., vowels) were essential for sentence recognition in Mandarin. Study 3 investigated the impact of phoneme recognition training on listening effort of sentence recognition in noise, as measured by a dual-task paradigm, pupillometry, and subjective ratings. It was found that phoneme recognition training improved sentence recognition in noise. The dual-task paradigm and pupillometry indicated that from pre-test to post-test, listening effort reduced in the control group without training, but remained unchanged in the training group. This suggests that training may have motivated listeners to stay focused on the challenging task of sentence recognition in noise. Overall, non-clinical measures such as cue weighting and listening effort can enrich our understanding of the training-induced perceptual and cognitive effects, and allow us to better predict and assess the training outcomes.
ContributorsKim, Seeon (Author) / Luo, Xin (Thesis advisor) / Azuma, Tamiko (Committee member) / Zhou, Yi (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024