In auditory alpha biofeedback, a subject is used to sit in a chair and adopt his usual meditative posture in aquiet, moderately illuminated room. It is considered that appreciation of biofeedback in disturbing circumstances enlarge the value of the biofeedback technique. Our study was designed to examine the effects of auditory biofeedback in variousauditory disturbing circumstances. After the auditory alpha biofeedback pre-training, 8 subjects were devided into 2 groups, Group F-C and Group C-F. In Group F-C, auditory feedback was employed in the 1st experiment, but not in the 2nd experiment. In group C-F, the order was reversed. Both experiments consisted of 3 courses (each 10 trials). In each trial, firstly a subject was in a quiet room, and subsequently in a auditory disturbing circumstance. A subject received the auditory disturbance produced by tape recorder. Music, interesting speech and uninteresting speech had tape recorded for disturbances. It is beleved that the auditory signals are transmittered finally into the common integrative center, where the overall meaning of all combined sensation is determined compared with the memories stored in the brain. The feedback signals from this areas are transmitted into the thalamic-cortex system. The rhythmic activty of the cortex, especially the alpha rhythm, is induced largely by the activity of the thalamus. So the alpha rhythm changes of the subjects are determined individually when auditory disturbance are affected. But our experiments suggested the following results qualitatively. Alpha activities are enhanced by musical disturbances, but alpha activities are inhibited by disturbances including speeches. In the case of music, enhancement ratio depends on the character of the music, and in the case of speech, inhibiting ratio are correlated with interest for the subject. In musical disturbance, the effectiveness of biofeedback training is decreased trial by trial, but in disturbance including speech, it is increased trial by trial from beginning to the 5th trial approximately, and then deceased by degress. From the results of these experiments, it was found that auditory biofeedback indicate training effects even in auditory disturbing cirumstances. But the effects were different individually from the characters of the disterbances and the subjects' personalities.
View full abstract