Snoring To Attention David Pierre Leibovitz 1st year Cognitive Science PhD Graduate 15 November 2012 Abstract Why don’t you hear your own snoring, while your partner does? A Perceptual Learning and Matching System (PLMS) is hypothesized that preattends the auditory scene during sleep with the goal of classifying sounds into the background to be ignored or into the foreground which will cause arousal for further conscious action. It is also active while an individual is awake and is responsible for the automatic acquisition of capabilities such as non-conceptual linguistic components. In the case of chaotic snoring sounds, the partner’s PLMS cannot detect a pattern and will awaken the partner, while the snorer’s PLMS will correlate the snoring sounds directly with the individual’s own breathing pattern and hence, ignore it. The main purpose of this investigation is to understand the functional characteristics of PLMS during a sleep paradigm which is not confounded by consciousness nor rationality. PLMS is a hitherto new cognitive system not before studied. A secondary purpose is to investigate whether the PLMS of the snorer’s partner can be trained to ignore the snoring sounds. Several experiments are proposed to verify this possibility. Partners of snorers may be more affected than the snorers themselves! 15 November 2012 Snoring To Attention - David Pierre Leibovitz 1 Hypothesis A Perceptual Learning and Matching System (PLMS) is hypothesized that: – pre-attends the auditory scene during sleep – with the single goal of classifying sounds into the • background to be ignored, or into the • foreground which will cause arousal for further conscious action – is also active while awake and responsible for • Automatic acquisition of capabilities such as non-conceptual linguistic components Although such arousal behaviour is well known, proposing a cognitive system behind it is novel. 15 November 2012 Snoring To Attention - David Pierre Leibovitz 2 Not Hearing Own Snore? • Pattern Classification – Regular patterns are safe, e.g., • swaying of trees in the breeze • white noise from a waterfall – Irregular patterns are potentially dangerous, e,g., • snapping of twigs (from a stalking predator) • Snoring has a chaotic pattern – Partner of snorer cannot learn pattern classified into the foreground; causes arousal The point is not whether you can consciously hear the snoring, but whether it differentially affects your sleep. – Snorer does learn pattern • It is 100% correlated to self breathing  classified into the background and ignored 15 November 2012 Snoring To Attention - David Pierre Leibovitz 3 Purpose - Primary To understanding the functional characteristics of the PLMS: – What patterns can be learned and how long does this take? • Intensity, frequency, pitch, regularity, etc. • What about self patterns? • Person’s name – What patterns are classified into the background or foreground? • What causes a sound to transit from the background to the foreground and how long do these decisions take. • What pattern deviations are detectable? How many deviations are required? • Is it the “dangerousness” of sounds that causes arousal, or simply any sound associated with urgent action? Do sounds have intentionality? – How many sounds “objects” can be simultaneously tracked? • How are sound clusters grouped? – Other modalities • Touch (changes in pressure or electrical stimulation) • Visions (changes in lighting conditions) 15 November 2012 Snoring To Attention - David Pierre Leibovitz 4 Purpose – Secondary* Can the PLMS of a partner be trained to ignore the snoring sounds of others? For example, by synchronizing the other’s snoring sounds to their own breathing patterns, or by filling in extra snoring sounds to create a repetitive pattern. *Likely the best purpose for funding 15 November 2012 Snoring To Attention - David Pierre Leibovitz 5 Snoring Prevalence Prevalence Male Female Snoring 48% 34% Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) 3.5% 1.5% Adults Partnered 61%  Impact to partner may be greater than impact to snorer! 15 November 2012 Snoring To Attention - David Pierre Leibovitz 6 Snoring Impacts • Loss of sleep – 26% of partners affected – 49 minutes lost on average per night – 20% road accidents caused by those excessively tired • Social Relationships – – – – 23% couples sleep in separate rooms 8% alter their sleep schedules, e.g., non-snorer goes to sleep first 24% have their intimate relations affected (vs. 9%) 35% have relationship problems (vs. 9%) • Hearing Loss – – – – 30 dBA is the recommended bedroom noise level exceeded 40 dBA by 78.7% (bothers others in same room), exceeded 50 dBA by 34.4% (bothers others in another room), exceeded 55 dBA by 12.3%, (max allowed outdoor night-time noise), – exceeded 70 dBA – none indicated (hearing can be impaired) – Nevertheless, closest ear implicated in hearing loss. 15 November 2012 Snoring To Attention - David Pierre Leibovitz 7 PLMS Functional Blocks • Learning system – Short and long term learning – Finds (self-similar) patterns in the world – Creates long term non-conceptual categories (e.g., phonemes) • Matching/classification pre-attentional system – Sleep: foreground/background (quick-slow) – Awake: phoneme categorization (quick) • Object simulation – Can predict how an individual sound should change – Pre-attentive notification of deviations from prediction, e.g., mismatch negativity 15 November 2012 Snoring To Attention - David Pierre Leibovitz 8 Sleep Paradigm While a (non-snoring) subject is asleep, – Manipulate sensory information • Sound • Light • Touch – Via various • Frequency changes; Pitch changes • Intensity changes (closer/further, moving left/right) • Temporal patterns (drum beats; regular/irregular) – And measure what causes long term arousal • Repeat often for statistical relevance 15 November 2012 Snoring To Attention - David Pierre Leibovitz 9 Sleep • Regular “arousals” every 90-100 minutes  repeat stimuli often for statistical relevance (pictures from thinkquest.org & Yale.edu) 15 November 2012 Snoring To Attention - David Pierre Leibovitz 10 Mismatch Negativity (MMN) • Auditory MMN sensitive to: – Frequency deviations – Pitch deviations – Intensity deviations – Temporal (rhythm) deviations (Picture from Helsinki University) • Visual & touch counterparts • Measured via an electroencephalography (EEG) • Magnetoencephalography (MEG) counterpart  MMNm 15 November 2012 Snoring To Attention - David Pierre Leibovitz 11 Experiments 1-2 1. Record an individual’s snoring (currently synchronised with breathing). Play it back another night (now unsynchronized). Does the individual awaken more often? What if the volume is reduced as they awaken? 2. Determine which self patterns are ignored. Record current breathing, teeth grinding & heartbeat. Amplify to snoring volume (or manipulate lights and pressure elements). Does the individual awaken more often? 15 November 2012 Snoring To Attention - David Pierre Leibovitz 12 Experiments 3-4 (Training) 3. Generate synchronized snoring sounds over several nights. Does the “partner” awaken less often when unsynchronized snores are played back? 4. Generate repetitious (non-chaotic) snoring sounds over several nights. Does the “partner” awaken less often when chaotic snores are played back? 15 November 2012 Snoring To Attention - David Pierre Leibovitz 13 PLMS – New System • Although detecting deviations (as done by mismatch negativity) occurs quickly, the decision to arouse an individual can take longer • The study of PLMS is the study of this longer term decision maker • Arousal by dangerous sounds is a known behaviour that has already been studied, however, proposing a cognitive system whose goal is to do just that provides a new outlook and a new set of research questions 15 November 2012 Snoring To Attention - David Pierre Leibovitz 14 References National Sleep Foundation (2005) 2005 Sleep in America Poll: Summary of Findings. Ohayon, Maurice et al. (1997) Snoring and breathing pauses during sleep: telephone interview survey of a United Kingdom population sample. BMJ 314:860-863. Perrin, Fabien et al. (1999) A differential brain response to the subject's own name persists during sleep. Clinical Neurophysiology 110:21532164. Sardesai, MG et al. (2003) Noise-induced hearing loss in snorers and their bed partners. Journal of Otolaryngol, 32(3):141-5. Sleep Alliance (2004) Sleep SOS Report: The impact of Sleep On Society. UK. Wilson, Kent et al. (1999) Acoustic Assessment of Snoring Sound Intensity in 1,139 Individuals Undergoing Polysomnography. CHEST, 115:762–770. World Health Organization (2001) Occupational and community noise. WHO Fact sheet N°258. 15 November 2012 Snoring To Attention - David Pierre Leibovitz 15