IUBio

Fw: How do Humans Perceive Simultaneous Sounds?

Jeffrey Torp jnt at expert.cc.purdue.edu
Thu Mar 25 07:47:27 EST 1999


flefever at ix.netcom.com(F. Frank LeFever) writes:

<snipped bunch of stuff>

>Paula Tallal has studied this in relationship to individual differences
>in  temporal resolution, for many years, and has related poor temporal
>resolution to impaired language abilities underlying at least one form
>of dyslexia.  She can assess this ability by presenting clicks or pure
>tones (or even visual stimuli) with very brief separations.  Children
>who need separations much longer than 40-50ms to tell the difference
>between one and two clicks are at risk for dyslexia.

>(It turns out that, contrary to prior suspicions about "poor sequencing
>ability", their sequencing is OK if interals are long enough for them
>to distinguish two events.)

>A lit search using "au: Tallal, Paula" should put you in touch with
>relevant research.

If you are going to read Tallal's 'stuff' you might also want to 
check out Michael Studdert-Kennedy as he has some (IMHO correct)
apprehensions about her interpretation of her findings.  This is
particularly relevant because there is a 'remedial training technique'
being touted as the next best thing for all sorts of language/phonological
impairments, not just dyslexia. BTW, much of Tallal's application of her
findings to 'dyslexic' children suffers from her lack of a clear, consistent
operational definition of dyslexia.  I do think her findings are intriguing,
I am just a bit wary about the whole FastForward (tm) phenomenon and the
way it is marketed as the best intervention for a multitude of language/
phonological problems.  My .02 cents. I've assumed you have alluded to
FastForward below: 

n>Incidentally, someone using a remedial training technique which grew
>out of this research will be one of the speakers at the New York
>Neuropsychology Group's 20th annual conference, May 8, at New York
>University Med Ctr: "Neuropsychology and Treatment: After Testing,
>What?"

Jeffrey Torp
jnt at expert.cc.purdue.edu

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