Research on Biomedical Engineering
http://www.rbejournal.periodikos.com.br/article/doi/10.1590/2446-4740.01716
Research on Biomedical Engineering
Original Article

Psychoacoustic behavior of human listeners in lateralization judgments of binaural stimuli

Jurandyr Santos Nogueira; Ana Isabela Araújo Cunha; Raimundo Carlos Silvério Freire

Downloads: 1
Views: 871

Abstract

Abstract: Introduction: The present work aims to develop statistical models for the psychoacoustic behavior of human beings in lateralization judgments of binaural acoustic stimuli, as a function of Interaural Time Delay (ITD) and Interaural Amplitude Difference (IAD) for several Sensation Levels (SL). Such models intend to contribute to a deep comprehension of the perception or recognition mechanism which permits listeners to decide whether a source of a sound is located on the right or on the left side of their medial plane.

Methods: Numerous lateralization judgments are accomplished through a computer controlled experiment set-up in order to investigate the transduction mechanism beneath them. The statistical treatment of the psychoacoustic data obtained has been performed by Two and Three Factors – Probit (Probability Unit) Analysis.

Results: The Probit Analysis makes it possible to obtain the model coefficients and to fit ‘Probit Planes and Surfaces’ to the experimental data in order to study and predict the simultaneous effects produced by ITD and IAD in the listeners’ psychoacoustic perceptions at several Sensation Levels (SL).

Conclusion: The approach used here is appropriate for the analysis of this kind of binary response and it also offers a simple way to obtain psychophysical responses that can be related to neurophysiological phenomena. It is argued that this fact may lead to another way to access neural information through psychoacoustic experiments, without needing invasive methods.

Keywords

Acoustic measurements, Biomedical acoustics, Psychoacoustics, Regression analysis

References

Békésy G. Experiments in hearing. 1st ed. New York: McGraw-Hill; 1960.

Clopton BM, Spelman FA. Auditory system. In: Bronzino JD, editor. The Biomedical Engineering Handbook. Boca Raton: CRC Press & IEEE Press; 1995.

Devore S, Ihlefeld A, Hancock K, Shinn-Cunningham B, Delgutte B. Accurate sound localization in reverberant environments is mediate by robust encoding of spatial cues in the auditory midbbrain. Neuron. 2009; 62(1):123-34. PMid:19376072. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2009.02.018.

Fastl H, Zwiger E. Psycho-acoustics: facts and models. 3rd ed. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag; 2007.

Finney DJ. Probit analysis. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1977.

Keyrouz F. Advanced binaural sound localization in 3-D for humanoid robots. IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement. 2014; 63(9):2098-107. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TIM.2014.2308051.

Kuwada S, Batra R, Fitzpatrick DC. Neural processing of binaural temporal cues. In: Gilkey R, Anderson TR, editors. Binaural and spatial hearing in real and virtual environments. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; 1997. p. 399-425.

Laback B, Pok S-M, Baumgartner W-D, Deutsch WA, Schmid K. Sensitivity to interaural level and envelope time differences of two bilateral cochlear implant listeners using clinical sound processors. Ear and Hearing. 2004; 25(5):488-500. PMid:15599195. http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/01.aud.0000145124.85517.e8.

Liu PR, Meng MQ-H. Robotic sound source localisation algorithm with cues selection mechanism. Electronics Letters. 2008; 44(25):1493. http://dx.doi.org/10.1049/el:20082032.

Long CJ, Eddington DK, Colburn HS, Rabinowitz WM. Binaural sensitivity as a function of interaural electrode position with a bilateral cochlear implant user. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 2003; 114(3):1565-74. PMid:14514210. http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.1603765.

May T, van de Par S, Kohlrausch A. A binaural scene analyzer for joint localization and recognition of speakers in the presence of interfering noise sources and reverberation. IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing. 2012; 20(7):2016-30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TASL.2012.2193391.

Nogueira JN, Cunha AIA, Braghiroli MCBFM, Freire RCS. An experiment set-up for analysis of lateralization judgments of binaural stimuli. In: I2MCT 2013: Proceedings of the IEEE International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference; 2013 May 6-9; Minneapolis, MN. USA: IEEE; 2013a.

Nogueira JN, Cunha AIA, Braghiroli MCBFM, Freire RCS. An experiment set-up for analysis of lateralization judgments of binaural stimuli. Revista Brasileira de Engenharia Biomédica. 2013b; 29(4):343-52. http://dx.doi.org/10.4322/rbeb.2013.035.

Raspaud M, Viste H, Evangelista G. Binaural Source Localization by Joint Estimation of ILD and ITD. IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing. 2010; 18(1):68-76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TASL.2009.2023644.

Stern RM, Brown GJ, Wang D. Binaural sound localization. In: Wang D, Brown GJ, editors. Computational auditory scene analysis. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons; 2005. p. 147-78.

Stern RM, Trahiotis C. Models of binaural perception. In: Gilkey R, Anderson TR, editors. Binaural and spatial hearing in real and virtual environments. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; 1997. p. 499-531.

Strutt JW. On our perception of sound direction. Philosophical Magazine. 1907; 13(74):214-32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14786440709463595.

Willert V, Eggert J, Adamy J, Stahl R, Körner E. A probabilistic model for binaural sound localization. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics. Part B, Cybernetics. 2006; 36(5):982-94. PMid:17036807. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TSMCB.2006.872263.

Woodruff J, Wang DL. Binaural localization of multiple sources in reverberant and noisy environments. IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing. 2012; 20(5):1503-12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TASL.2012.2183869.

Woodruff J, Wang DL. Binaural detection, localization, and segregation in reverberant environments based on joint pitch and azimuth cues. IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing. 2013; 21(4):806-15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TASL.2012.2236316.
 

589213bd0e8825615bbbfdd1 rbejournal Articles
Links & Downloads

Res. Biomed. Eng.

Share this page
Page Sections