Revealing and quantifying temporal aspects of envelopes of high‐frequency stimuli that lead to enhanced processing of interaural temporal disparities.

Abstract

This presentation concerns evaluating which aspects of envelopes of high‐frequency waveforms foster efficient discrimination of interaural temporal disparities (ITDs). The experiments were designed to assess, quantitatively, the explanatory capability of metrics including: (1) the normalized fourth moment of the envelope (Y), (2) the normalized interaural correlation of the envelope, and (3) the dead time between peaks or maxima of the envelope. An ITD‐discrimination study was conducted employing raised‐sine stimuli centered at 4 kHz [John et al., Ear and Hearing 23, 106–117 (2002)]. The parameters of the stimuli that could be varied using such stimuli include: (1) the exponent of the raised sine, (2) the frequency of modulation, (3) the depth of modulation, (4) the degree of phase‐scrambling applied to the spectral components of the envelope, and (5) the degree of phase‐scrambling applied to the spectral components of the waveform. This set of parameters permitted us to construct an ensemble of stimuli t...