The current research examined how drivers handle task-demands induced by listening to the radio while driving. In particular, we explored the traces of a possible cognitive strategy that might be used by drivers to cope with task-demands, namely blocking-out auditory distracters. In Study 1 (N=15), participants listened to a radio-broadcast while watching traffic videos on a screen. Based on a ...

A controversy exists over the “Mozart effect,” which is the influence of Mozart’s classical music on spatial-reasoning abilities. There are contradicting studies of whether listening to Mozart’s music improves performance on spatial-reasoning tasks. This study tested the effect of classical music on performance and investigated the role of arousal and relaxation. Participants were randomly assi...

The performance of listening tests can be a laborious process and requires significant preparation and control to ensure good data quality . This is particularly true for sm all impairment listening tes ts perform ed in accordance to recommendation ITU-R BS.1116-1 [ 1] in dedicated listening rooms under calibrated conditions. The us age of s uch central location testing (CLT) methods is time co...

Inference is an important strategy that could be applied in listening activities. It could help one to grasp the meanings of an oral message by analysing textual and contextual information. When the listener has difficulties in activities because of his poor linguistic skills, it is strongly recommended that he apply the inference strategy efficiently. But how and to what degree does this strat...

This study focused on the effect of two factors of complexity and salience and the mixture of both on listening comprehension. Advanced learners were divided into four separate groups (complex-salience-mixture-control) and each group was tested by different listening tests. Each group received a pre-test, 10 sessions of during-test instructions and a final post-test. The results showed that the...

We hypothesized that the Digit Span (DS) subtest and component tasks (Wechsler, 1991) would show strong relationships with a dichotic listening test (Musiek, 1983). In two sets of archival clinical data (N = 74 and N = 51) we demonstrated that: (a) individuals with central auditory deficits had lower DS scores, F(1, 72) = 7.34, p = .008; eta2 = .09; and (b) left-ear dichotic deficits impacted f...

Active music listening has emerged as a study field that aims to enable listeners to interactively control music. Most of active music listening systems aim to control music aspects such as playback, equalization, browsing, and retrieval, but few of them aim to control expressive aspects of music to convey emotions. In this study our aim is to enrich the music listening experience by allowing l...

The present study investigated the differential effects of emotions evoked by music on heart rate (HR) and its variability (HRV) during the playing of music on the piano compared to those in persons listening to the same music. Thirteen elite pianists underwent experiments under expressive piano playing, nonexpressive piano playing, expressive listening, and nonexpressive listening conditions. ...

Does music make you smarter? Music listening and music lessons have been claimed to confer intellectual advantages. Any association between music and intellectual functioning would be notable only if the benefits apply reliably to nonmusical abilities and if music is unique in producing the effects. The available evidence indicates that music listening leads to enhanced performance on a variety...

Dynamic Assessment is an approach to assessment within Applied Linguistics which is stemmed from Vygotsky’s Socio-Cultural Theory of mind, his concept of Zone of Proximal Development and Feuerstein's theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability. This study is an attempt to pinpoint the sources of mental processing problems in listening comprehension and applies dynamic interventions to remove t...