Sound localization is known to be a complex phenomenon, combining multisensory information processing, experience-dependent plasticity, and movement. Here we present a sensorimotor model that addresses the question of how an organism could learn to localize sound sources without any a priori neural representation of its head-related transfer function or prior ...

The objective of the present work was to develop automated methods for the compressed tracheal breathing sound analysis. Overnight tracheal breathing sound was recorded from ten apnoea patients. From each patient, three different types of tracheal sound deflection pattern, each of 10 min duration, were visually scored, viewing the compressed ...

The physiology of sound production in suboscines is poorly investigated. Suboscines are thought to develop song innately unlike the closely related oscines. Comparing phonatory mechanisms might therefore provide interesting insight into the evolution of vocal learning. Here we investigate sound production and control of sound frequency in the Great Kiskadee ...

To determine how listeners weight different portions of the signal when integrating level information, they were presented with 1-s noise samples the levels of which randomly changed every 100 ms by repeatedly, and independently, drawing from a normal distribution. A given stimulus could be derived from one of two such ...

The ontogenetic development of acoustic communication has so far only been investigated in one fish species. In order to determine whether detectability of conspecific sounds changes during growth in a species with limited hearing abilities (generalist), we investigated the development of auditory sensitivity and agonistic vocalizations in the Lusitanian toadfish ...

The perception of a composite sound's temporal cues, like synchronous onsets, is considered essential to correct perceptual grouping of its constituent components. The processing of a single sound's spatial cues, already present at its onset, may interact with temporal perception of the onset. The current study investigated the influence of ...

In 1890, William James hypothesized that emotions are our perception of physiological changes. Many different theories of emotion have emerged since then, but it has been demonstrated that a specifically induced physiological state can influence an individual's emotional responses to stimuli. In the present study, auditory and/or vibrotactile heartbeat stimuli ...

Pitch is a fundamental perceptual attribute of sounds. Our ability to discriminate, separate, and identify sounds relies heavily on pitch. Recent neuroimaging studies in humans have provided converging evidence for the existence of a "pitch center"--a region on the superior temporal plane (STP) lateral to Heschl's gyrus specialized in pitch ...

A new auscultation system for the detection of breath sound form trachea was developed in house. Small size microphone(panasonic pin microphone) was encapsuled in a housing for resonant effect, and hardware for the sound detection was fabricated. Pulmonary function test results were compared with the parameters extracted from frequency spectrum ...

This study was performed to establish the swallowing trigger by using the reaction time from an auditory stimulus. With this stable temporal starting point, we described the chronology of the different acoustic, electrophysiologic, and respiratory events that occurred during swallowing in a population of normal adults. We studied the swallowing ...

Auditory recognition expertise refers to one's ability to accurately and rapidly identify individual sound sources within a homogeneous class of stimuli. Compared to the study of visual expertise, the field of expertise in sound source recognition has been neglected. Different types of visual experts have been studied extensively both in ...

Just-noticeable differences of physical parameters are often limited by the resolution of the peripheral sensory apparatus. Thus, two-point discrimination in vision is limited by the size of individual photoreceptors. Frequency selectivity is a basic property of neurons in the mammalian auditory pathway. However, just-noticeable differences of frequency are substantially smaller ...

Information about an event takes different amounts of time to be processed depending on which sensory system the event activates. However, despite the variations in processing time for lights and sounds, the point of subjective simultaneity (PSS) for briefly presented audio/visual stimuli is usually close to true simultaneity. Here we ...

This article investigates the perceptual effect of a high plateau in the intonation contour. Plateaux are flat stretches of contour and have been observed associated with high tones in Standard Southern British (SSB) English. The hypothesis that plateaux may make the accents with which they are associated sound higher in ...

Separation of heart and lung sounds from breath sound recordings is a challenging task due to the temporal and spectral overlap of the two signals. In this paper, the use of a spectro-temporal representation to improve signal separation is investigated. The representation is obtained by means of a frequency decomposition ...

A new device and method described here will allow real-time processing of any audio signal (e.g., from a television set) into a high-frequency tinnitus sound therapy stimulus. By simultaneously listening to the unprocessed and processed speech, a patient can enjoy the entertainment while obtaining therapy that appears to be a ...

In this paper, we propose a robust and automatic wheeze detection method using sample entropy (SampEn) histograms of the filtered narrow band respiratory sound signals. The sound signals are segmented first into their respective inspiration/expiration phases. Time-frequency distribution of each segment is then obtained using Gabor spectrogram. After the construction ...

This article establishes Joyce's ongoing interest in psychoacoustics and illustrates how much he drew, in the writing of the "Sirens" episode, on nineteenth-century sound experiments that were developed by the German physician Hermann von Helmholtz. It argues that Joyce consciously referenced nineteenth-century sound theories to explore the link between the ...

Auscultation is a technique in which a stethoscope is used to listen to the sounds of the heart. Structural defects of the heart are often reflected in the sounds the heart produces, and auscultation provides clinicians with valuable diagnostic and prognostic information. Although heart sound analysis by auscultation is convenient ...

In a bottlenose dolphin positions of sound receiving areas on the head surface were determined by comparing the acoustic delays from different sound-source positions. For this investigation, auditory brainstem responses (ABRs) to short tone pips were recorded and their latencies were measured at different sound source positions. After correction for ...

Auditory saltation is a spatiotemporal illusion in which the judged positions of sound stimuli are shifted toward subsequent stimuli that follow closely in time and space. In this study, the "reduced-rabbit" paradigm and a direct-location method were employed to investigate the effect of spectral sound content on the saltation illusion. ...

Sound localization cues generally include interaural time difference, interaural intensity difference, and spectral cues. The purpose of this study is to investigate the important spectral cues involved in so-called head related transfer functions (HRTFs) using a combination of HRTF analyses and a virtual sound localization (VSL) experiment. Previous psychoacoustical and ...

OBJECTIVES: To develop a new method of screening audiometry that reduces the adverse effects of low frequency background noise by using active noise reduction (ANR) headphone technology. DESIGN: Prospective testing within an anechoic chamber evaluated the physical properties of ANR headphones. A prospective clinical crossover study compared standard audiometry with ...

BACKGROUND: Music is ever present in our daily lives, establishing a link between humans and the arts through the senses and pleasure. Sound technicians are the link between musicians and audiences or consumers. Recently, general concern has arisen regarding occurrences of hearing loss induced by noise from excessively amplified sound-producing ...

Directional sound receivers are useful for locating sound sources, and they can also partly compensate for the signal degradations caused by noise and reverberations. Ears may become inherently directional if sound can reach both surfaces of the eardrum. Attempts to understand the physics of such pressure difference receiving ears have ...

OBJECTIVE: The auditory Event-Related Potentials (ERP) of component P50 to sound onset and offset have been reported to be similar, but their magnetic homologue has been reported absent to sound offset. We compared the spatio-temporal distribution of cortical activity during P50 to sound onset and offset, without confounds of spectral ...

Sensory gating is the ability of the brain to modulate its sensitivity to incoming stimuli. The N40 component of the auditory evoked potential, evaluated with the paired click paradigm, was used to probe the gating effect in rats. The physical characteristics of the first and second sounds (S1 and S2), ...

General dosage-response curves typically over- or underestimate the actual prevalence of noise annoyance for specific groups of individuals. The present study applies a social psychological approach to noise annoyance that helps to understand and predict collective deflections from the curve. The approach holds that being exposed to man-made sound is ...

This study is the first step in the psychoacoustic exploration of perceptual differences between the sounds of different violins. A method was used which enabled the same performance to be replayed on different "virtual violins," so that the relationships between acoustical characteristics of violins and perceived qualities could be explored. ...

In this presentation, the authors introduce the software-based measuring system EASERA SysTune to be used for measurements by excitation with music or speech signals. It investigates the use of standard signals supplied from a sound system in a stadium in real-time. Using a newly developed program module, live-sound recordings or ...

Sound attenuation depends on source-to-listener distance, the finishes, and the shape of the room. The amount of sound attenuation at different frequencies influences the overall speech intelligibility in a room. The sound at high frequencies, especially at 1 kHz and 2 kHz, contribute the most for the articulation of consonants, ...

Human abilities to adjust vocal output to compensate for intensity losses due to sound propagation over distance were investigated. Ten normally hearing adult participants were able to compensate for propagation losses ranging from -1.8 to -6.4 dBdoubling source distance over a range of distances from 1 to 8 m. The ...

The symphonic concert hall is a well documented reference point for matters of scale in the musical side of architectural acoustics. Larger spaces may have comparable shapes, and yet the matters of scale require vastly different approaches in regard to the sound system and architectural acoustics. The causes and consequences ...

Sound generated by people walking overhead made a conference room and law library unusable in the offices of a lawyer. Employing sound transmission class (STC) and impact insulation class (IIC) test procedures to quantify sound impacts in the space proved useless in understanding the complaints caused by the footfall. That ...

This study investigated the effects of a previous sound on loudness at the absolute threshold of hearing. Change of the absolute threshold of hearing was measured when a pure tone preceded the test tone in the measurement of the threshold. The previous sound at 60 dB SPL was presented first ...

The spatial and temporal distribution of early reflections in an auditorium is considered important for sound perception. Previous studies presented measurement and analysis methods based on spherical microphone arrays and plane-wave decomposition that could provide information on the direction and time of arrival of early reflections. This paper presents recent ...

Evidence of bone-conducted sound pathways through the skull have been explored with growth of loudness tests, auditory brainstem response, and otoacoustic emissions; however a comprehensive understanding of these pathways has not been achieved. Less is known about the usefulness of behavioral thresholds, sound pressure levels in the ear canal, and ...

Auditory perception of the depth of space is based mainly on spectral and amplitude changes of sound waves originating from the sound source and reaching the listener. The perceptive illusion of movement of an auditory image caused by changes in amplitude and/or frequency of the signal tone emanating from an ...

Sounds provide important signals for inter- and intraspecific communication in fishes, but few studies examine fish acoustic behavior in the context of coevolution of sound production and hearing ability within a species. This study characterizes the acoustic behavior in a reproductive population of the Hawaiian sergeant fish, Abudefduf abdominalis, and ...

Large stadiums, whether enclosed or open-air, present many acoustical design challenges including excessive reverberation, echoes from surfaces distant from the sound system loudspeakers, sound absorption by air, refraction, difficulty achieving acceptable speech intelligibility, and synchronization of the sound reinforcement system to the video boards. This paper is an overview of ...

Removal of asbestos material from an instrument rehearsal room at CSU, Sacramento, including acoustical treatment led to a new design. The fix dramatically altered the characteristics of the room and resulted in unacceptable conditions. Temporary installation of heavy velour curtains made the room tolerable, but a permanent fix was sought. ...

The human footstep generates broadband frequency sound in air due to friction forces between the foot and the ground surface. An ultrasonic (25-26 kHz) footstep signal was measured on the ground at a distance of 17 m from the walker. Another aspect of footstep sound characterization is a directivity pattern. ...

Echolocating bats localize objects by producing ultrasound vocalizations and listening to sonar returns. Interaural differences in the echoes arriving at the bats' ears contribute to the process of object localization. The spatial properties of sonar emissions and the mobility of the head and pinna also contribute to the process of ...

Dolphins (and other odontocetes) rely on echolocation to aid in detecting, identifying, localizing, and capturing prey. Dolphin sonar signals are well suited for localizing multiple, small targets in a three-dimensional aquatic environment by utilizing highly directional (3 dB beamwidth of about 10 deg), broadband (3 dB bandwidth typically of about ...

Sound visualization tools, for example, beam forming and acoustic holography, exhibit the spatial look of sound in time or frequency domain. However, they normally require a significant amount of computation time to draw well the sound picture in space. The picture contains a great deal of information: Sound pressure distribution, ...

Wind and rainfall are the principal physical processes responsible for the production of high frequency (1-50 kHz) ambient sound in the ocean. The primary source of the sound is the resonant ringing of individual bubbles created during wave breaking and raindrop splashes. Larger bubbles (?' 300 mu diam) quickly return ...

Objective measurement data and subjective evaluations have been collected from 20 small-/medium-sized halls in Denmark used for amplified rhythmic music concerts (pop, rock, jazz). The purpose of the study was to obtain knowledge about optimum acoustic conditions for this type of hall. The study is motivated by the fact that ...

Psychoacoustics of non-real spaces, modern recording, and mixing techniques provide the opportunity to create acoustic phenomena that do not exist in the real world. This presentation will discuss how recorded music has been manipulated and try to understand what people think they hear and why. Through a combination of recent ...

The most sensitive hearing and peak frequencies of courtship calls of the stream goby, Padogobius martensii, fall within a quiet window at around 100 Hz in the ambient noise spectrum. Acoustic pressure was previously measured although Padogobius likely responds to particle motion. In this study a combination pressure (p) and ...

Ranging, the ability to judge the distance to a sound source, depends on the presence of predictable patterns of attenuation. We measured long-range sound propagation in coastal waters to assess whether humpback whales might use frequency degradation cues to range singing whales. Two types of neural networks, a multi-layer and ...