Jeffery Jones | Wilfrid Laurier University (original) (raw)

Papers by Jeffery Jones

Human brain mapping, Dec 12, 2016

Several studies have shown sensorimotor deficits in speech processing in individuals with idiopat... more Several studies have shown sensorimotor deficits in speech processing in individuals with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD). The underlying neural mechanisms, however, remain poorly understood. In the present event-related potential (ERP) study, 18 individuals with PD and 18 healthy controls were exposed to frequency-altered feedback (FAF) while producing a sustained vowel and listening to the playback of their own voice. Behavioral results revealed that individuals with PD produced significantly larger vocal compensation for pitch feedback errors than healthy controls, and exhibited a significant positive correlation between the magnitude of their vocal responses and the variability of their unaltered vocal pitch. At the cortical level, larger P2 responses were observed for individuals with PD compared with healthy controls during active vocalization due to left-lateralized enhanced activity in the superior and inferior frontal gyrus, premotor cortex, inferior parietal lobule...

BMC Neurology, 2014

Background: Recent research has argued that removal of relevant sensory information during the pl... more Background: Recent research has argued that removal of relevant sensory information during the planning and control of simple, self-paced walking can result in increased demand on central processing resources in Parkinson's disease (PD). However, little is known about more complex gait tasks that require planning of gait adaptations to cross over an obstacle in PD. Methods: In order to understand the interaction between availability of visual information relevant for self-motion and cognitive load, the current study evaluated PD participants and healthy controls while walking toward and stepping over an obstacle in three visual feedback conditions: (i) no visual restrictions; (ii) vision of the obstacle and their lower limbs while in complete darkness; (iii) vision of the obstacle only while in complete darkness; as well as two conditions including a cognitive load (with a dual task versus without a dual task). Each walk trial was divided into an early and late phase to examine changes associated with planning of step adjustments when approaching the obstacle. Results: Interactions between visual feedback and dual task conditions during the obstacle approach were not significant. Patients with PD had greater deceleration and step time variability in the late phase of the obstacle approach phase while walking in both dark conditions compared to control participants. Additionally, participants with PD had a greater number of obstacle contacts when vision of their lower limbs was not available specifically during the dual task condition. Dual task performance was worse in PD compared to healthy control participants, but notably only while walking in the dark regardless of visual feedback. Conclusions: These results suggest that reducing visual feedback while approaching an obstacle shifts processing to somatosensory feedback to guide movement which imposes a greater demand on planning resources. These results are key to fully understanding why trips and falls occur in those with PD.

PLoS ONE, 2014

Background: Why are some people happier than others? This question has intrigued many researchers... more Background: Why are some people happier than others? This question has intrigued many researchers. However, limited work has addressed this question within a neuroscientific framework. Methods: The present study investigated the neural correlates of trait happiness using the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) approach. Specifically, regional homogeneity (ReHo) was examined on two groups of young adults: happy and unhappy individuals (N = 25 per group). Results: Decreased ReHo in unhappy relative to happy individuals was observed within prefrontal cortex, medial temporal lobe, superior temporal lobe, and retrosplenial cortex. In contrast, increased ReHo in unhappy relative to happy individuals was observed within the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, middle cingulate gyrus, putamen, and thalamus. In addition, the ReHo within the left thalamus was negatively correlated with Chinese Happiness Inventory (CHI) score within the happy group. Limitations: As an exploratory study, we examined how general trait happiness is reflected in the regional homogeneity of intrinsic brain activity in a relatively small sample. Examining other types of happiness in a larger sample using a multitude of intrinsic brain activity indices are warranted for future work. Conclusions: The local synchronization of BOLD signal is altered in unhappy individuals. The regions implicated in this alteration partly overlapped with previously identified default mode network, emotional circuitry, and rewarding system, suggesting that these systems may be involved in happiness.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2013

Session 4aSCa: Auditory Feedback in Speech Production I 4aSCa5. The relationship between vocal pi... more Session 4aSCa: Auditory Feedback in Speech Production I 4aSCa5. The relationship between vocal pitch feedback error and event-related brain potentials.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2010

Vocal sensory-motor adaptation is typically studied by introducing a prolonged change in auditory... more Vocal sensory-motor adaptation is typically studied by introducing a prolonged change in auditory feedback. While it may be preferable to perform multiple blocks of adaptation within a single experiment, it is possible that a carry-over effect from previous blocks of adaptation may affect the results of subsequent blocks. Speakers were asked to vocalize an /a/ sound and match a target note during ten adaptation blocks. Each block represented a unique combination of target note and shift direction. The adaptation response was found to be similar for all blocks, indicating that there were no carry-over effects from previous blocks of adaptation.

European Journal of Neuroscience, 2013

Speech motor control develops gradually as the acoustics of speech are mapped onto the positions ... more Speech motor control develops gradually as the acoustics of speech are mapped onto the positions and movements of the articulators. In this event-related potential (ERP) study, children and adults aged 4-30 years produced vocalizations while exposed to frequency-altered feedback. Vocal pitch variability and the latency of vocal responses were found to differ as a function of age. ERP responses indexed by the P1-N1-P2 complex were also modulated as a function of age. P1 amplitudes decreased with age, whereas N1 and P2 amplitudes increased with age. In addition, a correlation between vocal variability and N1 amplitudes was found, suggesting a complex interaction between behavioural and neurological responses to frequency-altered feedback. These results suggest that the neural systems that integrate auditory feedback during vocal motor control undergo robust changes with age and physiological development.

Clinical Neurophysiology, 2013

h i g h l i g h t s Girls aged 13-15 years produced larger P2 amplitudes than girls aged 10-12 ye... more h i g h l i g h t s Girls aged 13-15 years produced larger P2 amplitudes than girls aged 10-12 years, and girls aged 13-15 years produced shorter P2 latencies than boys of the same age. P1 amplitudes became smaller as 10-15 year-old children increased in age, while N1 amplitudes varied as function of sex such that they were larger for boys than for girls. There is a sex-specific development in the cortical processing of auditory-vocal integration in normally developing school-aged children. a b s t r a c t Objective: The present event-related potential (ERP) study examined the developmental mechanisms of auditory-vocal integration in normally developing children. Neurophysiological responses to altered auditory feedback were recorded to determine whether they are affected by age and sex. Method: Forty-two children were pairwise matched for sex and were divided into a group of younger (10-12 years) and a group of older (13-15 years) children. Twenty healthy young adults (20-25 years) also participated in the experiment. ERPs were recorded from the participants who heard their voice pitch feedback unexpectedly shifted À50, À100, or À200 cents during sustained vocalization. Results: P1 amplitudes became smaller as subjects increased in age from childhood to adulthood, and males produced larger N1 amplitudes than females. An age-related decrease in the P1-N1 latencies was also found: latencies were shorter in young adults than in school children. A complex age-by-sex interaction was found for the P2 component, where an age-related increase in P2 amplitudes existed only in girls, and boys produced longer P2 latencies than girls but only in the older children. Conclusions: These findings demonstrate that neurophysiological responses to pitch errors in voice auditory feedback depend on age and sex in normally developing children. Significance: The present study provides evidence that there is a sex-specific development of the neural mechanisms involved in auditory-vocal integration.

BMC Neuroscience, 2013

Background Auditory feedback is important for accurate control of voice fundamental frequency (F ... more Background Auditory feedback is important for accurate control of voice fundamental frequency (F 0). The purpose of this study was to address whether task instructions could influence the compensatory responding and sensorimotor adaptation that has been previously found when participants are presented with a series of frequency-altered feedback (FAF) trials. Trained singers and musically untrained participants (nonsingers) were informed that their auditory feedback would be manipulated in pitch while they sang the target vowel [/ɑ /]. Participants were instructed to either ‘compensate’ for, or ‘ignore’ the changes in auditory feedback. Whole utterance auditory feedback manipulations were either gradually presented (‘ramp’) in -2 cent increments down to -100 cents (1 semitone) or were suddenly (’constant‘) shifted down by 1 semitone. Results Results indicated that singers and nonsingers could not suppress their compensatory responses to FAF, nor could they reduce the sensorimotor ada...

PloS one, 2011

Auditory feedback has been demonstrated to play an important role in the control of voice fundame... more Auditory feedback has been demonstrated to play an important role in the control of voice fundamental frequency (F(0)), but the mechanisms underlying the processing of auditory feedback remain poorly understood. It has been well documented that young adults can use auditory feedback to stabilize their voice F(0) by making compensatory responses to perturbations they hear in their vocal pitch feedback. However, little is known about the effects of aging on the processing of audio-vocal feedback during vocalization. In the present study, we recruited adults who were between 19 and 75 years of age and divided them into five age groups. Using a pitch-shift paradigm, the pitch of their vocal feedback was unexpectedly shifted ±50 or ±100 cents during sustained vocalization of the vowel sound/u/. Compensatory vocal F(0) response magnitudes and latencies to pitch feedback perturbations were examined. A significant effect of age was found such that response magnitudes increased with increasi...

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2007

Magnitude estimation was used to assess the experience of urgency in pulse-train stimuli (pulsed ... more Magnitude estimation was used to assess the experience of urgency in pulse-train stimuli (pulsed white noise) ranging from 3.13 to 200 Hz. At low pulse rates, pulses were easily resolved. At high pulse rates, pulses fused together leading to a tonal sensation with a clear pitch level. Urgency ratings followed a nonmonotonic (polynomial) function with local maxima at 17.68 and 200 Hz. The same stimuli were also used in response time and pitch scaling experiments. Response times were negatively correlated with urgency ratings. Pitch scaling results indicated that urgency of pulse trains is mediated by the perceptual constructs of speed and pitch.

Canadian Acoustics, 1997

When the image of a speaker saying the bisyllable /aga/ is presented in synchrony with the sound ... more When the image of a speaker saying the bisyllable /aga/ is presented in synchrony with the sound of a speaker saying /aba/, subjects tend to report hearing the sound /ada/. The present experiment explores the effects of spatial separation on this class of perceptual illusion known as the McGurk effect. Synchronous auditory and visual speech signals were presented from different locations. The auditory signal was presented from positions 0°, 30°, 60° and 90° in azimuth away from the visual signal source. The results show that spatial incongruencies do not substantially influence the multimodal integration of speech signals.

Although the impact that visual information can have on speech perception is well known, we do no... more Although the impact that visual information can have on speech perception is well known, we do not yet have an adequate description of the neural mechanisms involved. We asked subjects to identify consonants produced by a speaker they both saw and heard while we acquired functional magnetic resonance images (fMRI) of their brain. During one experimental condition the acoustics were synchronous with the visual image of the speaker’s face movements, in another they were delayed by 250 ms. With respect to unimodal control conditions, we found more extensive enhanced activity in the superior temporal gyrus and sulcus (STG/STS), bilaterally, when the audiovisual stimuli were synchronous than when the sound was delayed. When we directly compared these two experimental conditions, we found more activity in the right premotor cortex and inferior parietal lobule (IPL) when the acoustics were delayed. The results indicate that polymodal regions of the STS and IPL play important but different ...

45 Research on the control of visually-guided limb movements indicates that the 46 brain learns a... more 45 Research on the control of visually-guided limb movements indicates that the 46 brain learns and continuously updates an internal model that maps the 47 relationship between motor commands and sensory feedback. A growing body of 48 work suggests that an internal model that relates motor commands to sensory 49 feedback also supports vocal control. There is evidence from arm-reaching 50 studies that shows that when provided with a contextual cue, the motor system 51 can acquire multiple internal models, which allows an animal to adapt to different 52 perturbations in diverse contexts. In this study we show that trained singers can 53 rapidly acquire multiple internal models regarding voice fundamental frequency 54 (F0). These models accommodate different perturbations to ongoing auditory 55 feedback. Participants heard three musical notes and reproduced each one in 56 succession. The musical targets could serve as a contextual cue to indicate 57 which direction (up or down) feedbac...

Frontiers in Psychology

Auditory feedback plays an important role in monitoring and correcting for errors during speech p... more Auditory feedback plays an important role in monitoring and correcting for errors during speech production. Previous research suggests that at vocalization onset, auditory feedback is compared to a sensory prediction generated by the motor system to ensure the desired fundamental frequency (F0) is produced. After vocalization onset, auditory feedback is compared to the most recently perceived F0 in order to stabilize the vocalization. This study aimed to further investigate whether after vocalization onset, auditory feedback is used strictly to stabilize speakers' F0, or if it is also influenced by the sensory prediction generated by the motor system. Event-related potentials (ERP) were recorded while participants produced vocalizations and heard the F0 of their auditory feedback perturbed suddenly mid-utterance by half a semitone. For half of the vocalizations, at vocalization onset, participants' F0 was also raised by half a semitone. Thus, half of the perturbations occurred while participants heard their unaltered auditory feedback, and the other half occurred in auditory feedback that had also been perturbed 50 cents at vocalization onset. If after vocalization onset auditory feedback is strictly used to stabilize speakers' F0, then similarly sized vocal and ERP responses would be expected across all trials, regardless of whether the perturbation occurred while listening to altered or unaltered auditory feedback. Results indicate that the perturbations to the participants' unaltered auditory feedback resulted in larger vocal and N1 and P2 ERP responses than perturbations to their altered auditory feedback. These results suggest that after vocalization onset auditory feedback is not strictly used to stabilize speakers' F0, but is also used to ensure the desired F0 is produced.

Frontiers in neuroscience, 2018

When people hear unexpected perturbations in auditory feedback, they produce rapid compensatory a... more When people hear unexpected perturbations in auditory feedback, they produce rapid compensatory adjustments of their vocal behavior. Recent evidence has shown enhanced vocal compensations and cortical event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to attended pitch feedback perturbations, suggesting that this reflex-like behavior is influenced by selective attention. Less is known, however, about auditory-motor integration for voice control during divided attention. The present cross-modal study investigated the behavioral and ERP correlates of auditory feedback control of vocal pitch production during divided attention. During the production of sustained vowels, 32 young adults were instructed to simultaneously attend to both pitch feedback perturbations they heard and flashing red lights they saw. The presentation rate of the visual stimuli was varied to produce a low, intermediate, and high attentional load. The behavioral results showed that the low-load condition elicited signific...

Scientific reports, Jun 30, 2016

Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is the most common drug-refractory focal epilepsy in adults. Previou... more Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is the most common drug-refractory focal epilepsy in adults. Previous research has shown that patients with TLE exhibit decreased performance in listening to speech sounds and deficits in the cortical processing of auditory information. Whether TLE compromises auditory-motor integration for voice control, however, remains largely unknown. To address this question, event-related potentials (ERPs) and vocal responses to vocal pitch errors (1/2 or 2 semitones upward) heard in auditory feedback were compared across 28 patients with TLE and 28 healthy controls. Patients with TLE produced significantly larger vocal responses but smaller P2 responses than healthy controls. Moreover, patients with TLE exhibited a positive correlation between vocal response magnitude and baseline voice variability and a negative correlation between P2 amplitude and disease duration. Graphical network analyses revealed a disrupted neuronal network for patients with TLE with a sign...

Memory & cognition, 2016

Studies of interference in working and short-term memory suggest that irrelevant information may ... more Studies of interference in working and short-term memory suggest that irrelevant information may overwrite the contents of memory or intrude into memory. While some previous studies have reported greater interference when irrelevant information is similar to the contents of memory than when it is dissimilar, other studies have reported greater interference for dissimilar distractors than for similar distractors. In the present study, we find the latter effect in a paradigm that uses auditory tones as stimuli. We suggest that the effects of distractor similarity to memory contents are mediated by the type of information held in memory, particularly the complexity or simplicity of information.

Journal of Neurophysiology, 2015

Hearing one's own voice is important for regulating ongoing speech and for mapping speech sou... more Hearing one's own voice is important for regulating ongoing speech and for mapping speech sounds onto articulator movements. However, it is currently unknown whether attention mediates changes in the relationship between motor commands and their acoustic output, which are necessary as growth and aging inevitably cause changes to the vocal tract. In this study, participants produced vocalizations while they heard their vocal pitch persistently shifted downward one semitone in both single- and dual-task conditions. During the single-task condition, participants vocalized while passively viewing a visual stream. During the dual-task condition, participants vocalized while also monitoring a visual stream for target letters, forcing participants to divide their attention. Participants' vocal pitch was measured across each vocalization, to index the extent to which their ongoing vocalization was modified as a result of the deviant auditory feedback. Smaller compensatory responses ...

Scientific reports, Jan 10, 2015

Working memory training can improve the performance of tasks that were not trained. Whether audit... more Working memory training can improve the performance of tasks that were not trained. Whether auditory-motor integration for voice control can benefit from working memory training, however, remains unclear. The present event-related potential (ERP) study examined the impact of working memory training on the auditory-motor processing of vocal pitch. Trained participants underwent adaptive working memory training using a digit span backwards paradigm, while control participants did not receive any training. Before and after training, both trained and control participants were exposed to frequency-altered auditory feedback while producing vocalizations. After training, trained participants exhibited significantly decreased N1 amplitudes and increased P2 amplitudes in response to pitch errors in voice auditory feedback. In addition, there was a significant positive correlation between the degree of improvement in working memory capacity and the post-pre difference in P2 amplitudes. Traini...

Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology