Spatial Release from Masking for Tones and Noises in a Soundfield under Conditions Where Targets and Maskers Are Stationary or Moving.

M Torben Pastore,William A Yost

doi:10.3390/audiolres12020013

Abstract

Stationary visual targets often become far more salient when they move against an otherwise static background–the so-called “pop out” effect. In two experiments conducted over loudspeakers, we tested for a similar pop-out effect in the auditory domain. Tone-in-noise and noise-in-noise detection thresholds were measured using a 2-up, 1-down adaptive procedure under conditions where target and masker(s) were presented from the same or different locations and when the target was stationary or moved via amplitude-panning. In the first experiment, target tones of 0.5 kHz and 4 kHz were tested, maskers (2–4, depending on the condition) were independent Gaussian noises, and all stimuli were 500-ms duration. In the second experiment, a single pink noise masker (0.3–12 kHz) was presented with a single target at one of four bandwidths (0.3–0.6 kHz, 3–6 kHz, 6–12 kHz, 0.3–12 kHz) under conditions where target and masker were presented from the same or different locations and where the target moved or not. The results of both experiments failed to show a decrease in detection thresholds resulting from movement of the target.

Highlights

Introduction under Conditions Where Targets andIn everyday environments, listeners and sound sources often move
It has been shown that listeners often enjoy an improved ability to detect or understand speech when the target stimulus is presented from a different location than other simultaneous interfering signals
Experiment 2 temporally centered the target stimulus in a longer masker to allow listeners to use the change in the masker sound that came when the target was introduced as an additional cue for detection

Summary

Introduction

Introduction under Conditions Where Targets andIn everyday environments, listeners and sound sources often move. While much is known about auditory detection under stationary conditions over headphones, far less is known about sound-source detection over loudspeakers in a soundfield and the effects, if any, of sound-source motion on sound-source detection. It has been shown that listeners often enjoy an improved ability to detect or understand speech when the target stimulus is presented from a different location than other simultaneous interfering signals (maskers). This improvement in performance over conditions where target and masker are presented from the same location is called spatial release from masking (SRM) and is often measured as the difference, in decibels, between the masked thresholds in the two conditions.

Methods

Results

Conclusion