Article
Chemistry, Analytical
Nannan Zong, Meihong Wu
Summary: The study demonstrates that humans have the ability to process extremely rapid changes in interaural configurations and store acoustic features in a transient auditory manner. Interaural delay affects the ability to store acoustic features temporarily, and the relationship between wideband and narrowband simulation noise in auditory processes is explored.
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Langchen Fan, Lingzhi Kong, Liang Li, Tianshu Qu
Summary: The study found that human listeners can detect a binaurally uncorrelated arbitrary-noise fragment in both frequency-constant and frequency-gliding noises, but their sensitivity to this phenomenon in frequency-gliding noises is significantly lower than in frequency-constant noise.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Clinical Neurology
Jillian B. Roberts, G. Christopher Stecker, Jourdan T. Holder, Rene H. Gifford
Summary: The study aimed to evaluate the impact of EAS on speech understanding in children with preserved acoustic hearing and investigate the role of acoustic interaural time difference sensitivity in EAS benefits. Results indicated that children with preserved acoustic hearing may not initially benefit from EAS for speech recognition in semi-diffuse noise, but EAS fittings are recommended for binaural acoustic access. Future research should focus on the emergence of EAS benefits, binaural cue sensitivity, and the role of EAS experience in both children and adults.
OTOLOGY & NEUROTOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Acoustics
T. Fischer, C. Schmid, M. Kompis, G. Mantokoudis, M. Caversaccio, W. Wimmer
Summary: The study found that bilateral cochlear implant users showed significantly improved ITD discrimination for 250Hz pure-tone stimuli when using a coding strategy that preserved TFS, but this sensitivity did not extend to broadband stimuli or sound field spatial hearing tests.
JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
(2021)
Article
Acoustics
Sean R. Anderson, Alan Kan, Ruth Y. Litovsky
Summary: Patients with bilateral cochlear implants may experience difficulties in distinguishing targets of interest and background noise due to patient-specific differences in the interface between cochlear implant electrodes and the auditory nerve. This study investigates the impact of comparing degraded temporal envelope information across spectral channels on the ability to detect differences in amplitude modulation rate. Results suggest that electrodes with poorer temporal fidelity act as a bottleneck in comparisons of temporal information, limiting access to cues used for segregating sounds.
JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
(2022)
Article
Acoustics
Xin Leng, Jingdong Chen, Jacob Benesty
Summary: This paper investigates binaural speech enhancement and proposes a method to construct noise reduction filters as linear combinations of eigenvectors. Different dimensions of the subspace offer varying trade-offs between noise reduction and spatial information preservation of speech and noise.
JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Vanessa C. Irsik, Ala Almanaseer, Ingrid S. Johnsrude, Bjorn Herrmann
Summary: Older listeners have difficulty understanding speech in noise, possibly due to changes in sensitivity to speech-sound identity with age, which alters neural synchronization to envelope dynamics.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Audiology & Speech-Language Pathology
Alyssa Davidson, Megan Eitel, Rael T. Lange, Louis M. French, Sara Lippa, Tracey A. Brickell, Douglas Brungart
Summary: This article proposes an alternative technique for measuring Masking Level Difference (MLD) based on manual audiometry, which is just as reliable as the CD-based Wilson test. The study found that although the manual and Wilson MLD techniques produced significantly different thresholds, they can be transformed to obtain approximately equivalent scores. The manual MLD technique also showed stronger correlations with subjective and objective hearing measures compared to the Wilson technique.
JOURNAL OF SPEECH LANGUAGE AND HEARING RESEARCH
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Sean R. Anderson, Rachael Jocewicz, Alan Kan, Jun Zhu, ShengLi Tzeng, Ruth Y. Litovsky
Summary: The ability to locate sound sources is important in daily life, but patients with bilateral cochlear implants often face difficulties in sound source localization. This study used machine learning analysis to examine localization errors in these patients and found that earlier onset of deafness and older age were associated with poorer localization performance. Early bilateral hearing is crucial for optimal sound source localization outcomes in patients with bilateral cochlear implants.
Article
Neurosciences
Yue Long, Wei Wang, Jiao Liu, Ke Liu, Shusheng Gong
Summary: This study aimed to investigate whether tinnitus affects the ability to localize sound in participants with normal hearing and whether the effect is related to the type of stimulus. The results showed that tinnitus interfered with the ability to localize pure tones, but had no effect on the ability to localize monosyllables. Therefore, the interference of tinnitus in localizing sound sources is related to the type of stimulus.
FRONTIERS IN NEUROSCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Acoustics
Stephen R. Dennison, Tanvi Thakkar, Alan Kan, Ruth Y. Litovsky
Summary: Bilateral cochlear implant (BICI) listeners have limited access to binaural cues for spatial hearing tasks. The CCi-MOBILE research processor was used to measure the perception of lateralized sound sources in BICI listeners. Results showed that interaural level differences (ILDs) contributed more to lateralization than envelope interaural time differences (ITDs) for both BICI and normal hearing (NH) listeners. The CCi-MOBILE is suitable for binaural testing and developing bilateral processing strategies.
JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
(2023)
Article
Acoustics
David Yun, Todd R. Jennings, Gerald Kidd, Matthew J. Goupell
Summary: Bilateral cochlear implant users benefit significantly from using acoustic beamforming in noisy environments to improve speech understanding and sound localization performance, particularly with the use of a triple beamformer.
JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
(2021)
Review
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Alvaro Balderrama, Jian Kang, Alejandro Prieto, Alessandra Luna-Navarro, Daniel Arztmann, Ulrich Knaack
Summary: This study presents a systematic literature review examining the effects of facades on the urban acoustic environment and soundscape. Facades were found to affect sound pressure levels and reverberation time in urban spaces, as well as people's perception of the acoustic environment.
Article
Audiology & Speech-Language Pathology
Jessica Payne, Agnes Au, Richard C. Dowell
Summary: Improvements in device technology, surgical technique, and patient outcomes have broadened cochlear implantation criteria to include patients with useful low-to-mid frequency residual acoustic hearing. The addition of a hearing aid to complement the cochlear implant can enhance listening outcomes, but there is variability in patient outcomes and the optimal fitting procedure and frequency assignments for the two devices remains unclear. Understanding how acoustic and electric speech information is combined can optimize device fittings and provide better patient outcomes.
Article
Health Care Sciences & Services
Griet Mertens, Ellen Andries, Anja Kurz, Dayse Tavora-Vieira, Miryam Calvino, Edda Amann, Ilona Anderson, Artur Lorens
Summary: The study aimed to develop a consensus classification system for reporting sound localization testing results, especially in the field of cochlear implantation. The proposed classification system reports localization errors according to the widely accepted ICF framework. The application of this classification system improves comparability of localization results, facilitating multi-center studies and improving evidence-based practice.
JOURNAL OF PERSONALIZED MEDICINE
(2022)
Review
Acoustics
Piotr Majdak, Franz Zotter, Fabian Brinkmann, Julien De Muynke, Michael Mihocic, Markus Noisternig
Summary: Spatially oriented acoustic data can be stored and shared using the standardized format known as Spatially Oriented Format for Acoustics (SOFA). SOFA allows representation of different measurement scenarios and complex room geometries, and it offers a new continuous-direction representation of data using spherical harmonics and novel conventions. This article provides an overview of SOFA and highlights its latest features.
JOURNAL OF THE AUDIO ENGINEERING SOCIETY
(2022)
Editorial Material
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Lorenzo Picinali, Brian F. G. Katz, Michele Geronazzo, Piotr Majdak, Arcadio Reyes-Lecuona, Alessandro Vinciarelli
IEEE SIGNAL PROCESSING MAGAZINE
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Glen McLachlan, Piotr Majdak, Jonas Reijniers, Michael Mihocic, Herbert Peremans
Summary: Natural listening involves small head movements that help resolve front-back confusions during sound localization. This study found that even small yaw rotations significantly decrease front-back confusion rates, while pitch rotations have little effect. Additionally, human listeners utilize subjective spatial frequency (MSS) cues before head movements and do not rely on differential MSS (dMSS) cues when using small head movements to localize sounds.
FRONTIERS IN NEUROSCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Acoustics
Martin J. Lindenbeck, Piotr Majdak, Sridhar Srinivasan, Bernhard Laback
Summary: Users of cochlear implants (CIs) struggle with selective hearing due to limited access to timing cues like temporal pitch or interaural time differences (ITDs). One proposed method to improve timing-cue sensitivity is through inserting extra pulses with short inter-pulse intervals (SIPIs) into amplitude-modulated (AM) high-rate pulse trains. However, this study found that low SIPI rates for ITD may create unknown pitch effects, highlighting the challenge of improving both temporal-pitch and ITD sensitivity in a mixed-rate stimulation approach.
JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
(2023)
Article
Acoustics
Roberto Barumerli, Piotr Majdak, Michele Geronazzo, David Meijer, Federico Avanzini, Robert Baumgartner
Summary: Humans estimate sound-source directions by combining prior beliefs with sensory evidence. We propose a Bayesian model that flexibly incorporates auditory features according to their spatial precision and integrates prior beliefs in the inference process. The model was evaluated on the effects of localizing with non-individual head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) and sounds with rippled spectrum, and the variant equipped with spectral gradient profiles outperformed other localization models. This model may serve as a basis for future extensions towards modeling dynamic listening conditions.
Article
Audiology & Speech-Language Pathology
Bernhard Laback
Summary: This study characterized ILD-based precursor effects (PEs) for high-frequency stimuli. It was found that ipsilateral precursors biased the perceived target azimuth toward the midline, contralateral precursors biased it contralaterally, and central precursors caused a symmetric lateral bias. The study also revealed that the ILD-based within-trial PE appears to be preshaped already in the auditory periphery and the mechanism underlying at least the ipsilateral PE appears to be immune against sequential segregation.
Article
Audiology & Speech-Language Pathology
Maike Klingel, Bernhard Laback
Summary: This study investigated the feasibility of changing binaural-cue weights through training and found that ILD reweighting requires high frequencies while ITD reweighting requires low frequencies. Additionally, binaural-cue reweighting demonstrates some degree of generalization.
Article
Acoustics
Piotr Majdak, Clara Hollomey, Robert Baumgartner
Summary: The Auditory Modeling Toolbox (AMT) is a MATLAB/Octave toolbox designed for the development and application of computational auditory models, with a focus on binaural hearing. It provides consistent implementation of auditory models, well-structured code documentation, and necessary auditory data. AMT allows for evaluation of model implementations and reproduction of model predictions.
Article
Acoustics
Alejandro Osses Vecchi, Leo Varnet, Laurel H. Carney, Torsten Dau, Ian C. Bruce, Sarah Verhulst, Piotr Majdak
Summary: This article compares eight monaural models that are openly accessible in the Auditory Modelling Toolbox and discusses how to make the model outputs comparable to each other. The discussion also includes recommendations for future applications of auditory models.
Proceedings Paper
Acoustics
Katharina Pollack, Piotr Majdak
Summary: Personalised head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) are important for binaural audio playback. This article introduces a parametric pinna model (PPM) that can accurately represent a listener's pinna and yield similar sound-localisation performance compared to reference meshes. The proposed PPM shows promise in simplifying HRTF acquisition for a wider audience.
2021 IMMERSIVE AND 3D AUDIO: FROM ARCHITECTURE TO AUTOMOTIVE (I3DA)
(2021)
Article
Acoustics
Robert Baumgartner, Piotr Majdak
Summary: In natural conditions, listeners attribute sounds to external objects, but this can be distorted when using hearing devices like headphones. A model combining monaural and interaural cues accurately predicted externalization of sound sources, suggesting a fixed weighting of these cues in static listening environments. This study highlights the importance of different cues in how we perceive sound sources.
Article
Acoustics
Christian H. Kasess, Thomas Maly, Piotr Majdak, Holger Waubke
Summary: The research demonstrated that the type of rumble strips affects acoustic effects, vibrations, and perception, with the loudness level being the best predictor of perceived annoyance and urgency.
Review
Acoustics
Glen McLachlan, Piotr Majdak, Jonas Reijniers, Herbert Peremans
Summary: Bayesian statistical inference has become a staple technique for modeling human multisensory perception, successfully combining sensory and prior information to optimally interpret the environment. Sound localization models based on Bayesian inference show promise in explaining human behavioral data, particularly due to the multiple sound localization cues available in binaural signals.
Article
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Andres Marafioti, Nicki Holighaus, Piotr Majdak
Summary: Phase retrieval performance in audio processing applications depends on STFT parameters and audio content, with increasing redundancy improving PR quality and the time-frequency ratio playing a significant role. The effect of audio content is smaller, with the window type only significantly affecting one PR algorithm. Different PR algorithms require different parameter sets for optimal performance, emphasizing the importance of individual parameters for fair comparison across algorithms.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SIGNAL PROCESSING
(2021)
Review
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Katharina Pollack, Fabian Brinkmann, Piotr Majdak, Wolfgang Kreuzer
Summary: This article describes the latest method of obtaining listener-specific Head-Related Transfer Functions (HRTFs) through numerical calculation, including the process of converting 2D photos into 3D geometries and then calculating HRTFs. This is crucial for achieving personalized sound reproduction.
ELEKTROTECHNIK UND INFORMATIONSTECHNIK
(2021)
