Determining acoustical parameters using cochlear modeling and auditory masking

Abstract

The acoustical qualities of a concert hall or any other room are generally expressed using acoustical parameters determined from impulse responses. From microphone array measurements it turned out that these parameters can fluctuate severely over small distances, whereas the perceptual cues for which these parameters are supposed to be a measure remain constant. This means that a local parameter value has a very low predictive value for acoustic quality. In this research, cochlear modeling techniques and simulations of auditory masking effects have been applied to model human hearing. These techniques together model various stages in the auditory path, like the movement of the basilar membrane inside the cochlea and mechanisms inside the brains. It turns out that determining acoustical parameters using this representation leads to results which show much less spatial fluctuations, and are closer to human perception.