Psychoacoustic Methods Research Articles

Subjective Response Test of Auralized Brushless Direct Current Motor-Propeller System Noise

The auralization can be an effective asset in the design of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and urban air mobility vehicles, serving as a valuable resource in decision-making regarding the mitigation of noise-related issues. However, in order to be effective, the auralization must be perceptually accurate. During the process of auralization, a multirotor noise evaluation framework based on multidisciplinary principles was employed to model the periodical fluctuations in rotational speed. The subjective response test was utilized to evaluate synthesized UAV-like noise. The tests included participants becoming acquainted with different noise sources (ice-breaking), assessing participants' emotional responses to different noises (helicopter and UAV-like), and evaluating participants' ability to differentiate between measured and auralized sounds. Statistical analysis of the results of the subjective response test showed that the measured noise and the auralized noise were not identical, but were not perfectly indistinguishable. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of psychoacoustic methods and statistical analysis in the perceptual assessment of noise and validate a comprehensive rotor noise assessment framework based on a multidisciplinary approach.

From the outer ear to the nerve: A complete computer model of the peripheral auditory system

Computer models of the individual components of the peripheral auditory system – the outer, middle, and inner ears and the auditory nerve – have been developed in the past, with varying level of detail, breadth, and faithfulness of the underlying parameters. Building on previous work, we advance the modeling of the ear by presenting a complete, physiologically justified, bottom-up computer model based on up-to-date experimental data that integrates all of these parts together seamlessly. The detailed bottom-up design of the present model allows for the investigation of partial hearing mechanisms and their defects, including genetic, molecular, and microscopic factors. Also, thanks to the completeness of the model, one can study microscopic effects in the context of their implications on hearing as a whole, enabling the correlation with neural recordings and non-invasive psychoacoustic methods. Such a model is instrumental for advancing quantitative understanding of the mechanism of hearing, for investigating various forms of hearing impairment, as well as for devising next generation hearing aids and cochlear implants.

Рsychoacoustic testing to assess the functional maturation of the central audiotory system

The age-appropriate development of the central auditory system is crucial for a child’s normal auditory and speech development. If there are any issues with this development, it can lead to central auditory processing disorders (APD) and problems with psychoverbal and general development. Psychoacoustic testing is an informative and accessible diagnostic tool for identifying signs of APD. This testing can be performed on children as young as four years old, provided there are normative data available for different age groups. The purpose of this study was to assess the functional state of the central auditory system using psychoacoustic methods in healthy children of different ages. Materials Methods. We examined 125 healthy full-term children between the ages of 4 and 17 years who had normal peripheral hearing and no speech, language, cognitive, or academic problems. The children were divided into five age groups: 4–5 years 11 months, 6–7 years 11 months, 8–9 years 11 months, 10–11 years 11 months, and 12 years and older. In addition to traditional audiological examinations, all children underwent tests to assess the functional state of the central parts of the auditory system, including tests for the perception of rhythmic sequences of stimuli, Random Gap Detection Test, monaural low redundant speech testing in quiet and in noise, alternating binaural speech testing, dichotic digits test, and a simplified version of the Russian matrix sentence test in noise (RUMatrix). The results showed that the tests used were sensitive to the functional state of various structures of the central auditory system, and signs of maturation in the “bottom-up” direction were demonstrated as the children grew older. The rate of evolutionary processes varied depending on the age group of the subjects. It was also shown that the morphofunctional development of the central auditory system is not completed by adolescence. Conclusion. These findings can be used to differentiate between the immaturity of the central auditory system, APD, and speech-language disorders of different types in children of different ages. Overall, this study emphasizes the importance of early detection and intervention for any issues related to the central auditory system in children.

Binaural masking level difference for pure tone signals

The binaural masking level difference (BMLD) is a psychoacoustic method to determine binaural interaction and central auditory processes. The BMLD is the difference in hearing thresholds in homophasic and antiphasic conditions. The duration, phase and frequency of the stimuli can affect the BMLD. The main aim of the study is to evaluate the BMLD for stimuli of different durations and frequencies which could also be used in future electrophysiological studies. To this end we developed a GUI to present different frequency signals of variable duration and determine the BMLD. Three different durations and five different frequencies are explored. The results of the study confirm that the hearing threshold for the antiphasic condition is lower than the hearing threshold for the homophasic condition and that differences are significant for signals of 18ms and 48ms duration. Future objective binaural processing studies will be based on 18ms and 48ms stimuli with the same frequencies as used in the current study.

PAMPAS: A PsychoAcoustical Method for the Perceptual Analysis of multidimensional Sonification.

The sonification of data to communicate information to a user is a relatively new approach that established itself around the 1990s. To date, many researchers have designed their individual sonification from scratch. There are no standards in sonification design and evaluation. But researchers and practitioners have formulated several requirements and established several methods. There is a wide consensus that psychoacocustics could play an important role in the sonification design and evaluation phase. But this requires a) an adaption of psychoacoustic methods to the signal types of sonification and b) a preparation of the sonification for the psychoacoustic experiment procedure. In this method paper, we present a PsychoAcoustical Method for the Perceptual Analysis of multidimensional Sonification (PAMPAS) dedicated to the researchers of sonification. A well-defined and well-established, efficient, reliable, and replicable just noticeable difference (JND) experiment using the maximum likelihood procedure (MLP) serves as the basis to achieve perceptual linearity of parameter mapping during the sonification design stage and to identify and quantify perceptual effects during the sonification evaluation stage, namely the perceptual resolution, hysteresis effects and perceptual interferences. The experiment results are scores from standardized data space and a standardized procedure. These scores can serve to compare multiple sonification designs of a single researcher or even among different research groups. This method can supplement other sonification designs and evaluation methods from a perceptual viewpoint.

WSTĘPNE BADANIE PSYCHOAKUSTYCZNE ZASTOSOWANIA PROCEDURY SIAM DO POMIARU PROGÓW RÓŻNICOWANIA CZĘSTOTLIWOŚCI

BackgroundThe study investigated the cause of varying estimates of frequency difference limens (DLs) in delayed comparison tasks involving pitch retention in auditory working memory (AWM). Using procedures adapted from the method of constant stimuli (MCS) and the single-interval adjustment matrix (SIAM), we sought to determine via 3 experiments whether the disparity in frequency DLs obtained using each procedure was due to the method of measurement (Experiment 1), the response format (Experiment 2), or performance feedback (Experiment 3).Material and methodsFive adults (ages 21 to 38 years) with hearing within normal limits participated in Experiments 1 and 2, and seven adults (ages 20 to 30 years) with hearing within normal limits participated in Experiment 3. Delayed comparison tasks were used to evaluate frequency DLs under SIAM and MCS.ResultsOur preliminary results suggest that DL values for pitch discrimination are more influenced by response format than by the measurement procedure or performance feedback. Regardless of the method used, DL values were greater in the condition containing intervening stimuli compared to the condition lacking intervening stimuli.ConclusionsPreliminary findings suggest there is consistency in the listener’s adopted criterion (i.e., judgment rationale) across the psychoacoustic methods investigated. Performance measures suggest that SIAM is as accurate as MCS, but it is noteworthy that two SIAM measurement runs using the "same/different" response format is more efficient than four runs with MCS. Future application of the SIAM procedure for measuring DL values might, with larger sample sizes, identify additional factors that contribute to performance and the listener’s adopted criterion, since data collection time is appreciably shorter with SIAM.

The effect of broadband elicitor laterality on psychoacoustic gain reduction across signal frequency.

There are psychoacoustic methods thought to measure gain reduction, which may be from the medial olivocochlear reflex (MOCR), a bilateral feedback loop that adjusts cochlear gain. Although studies have used ipsilateral and contralateral elicitors and have examined strength at different signal frequencies, these factors have not been examined within a single study. Therefore, basic questions about gain reduction, such as the relative strength of ipsilateral vs contralateral elicitation and the relative strength across signal frequency, are not known. In the current study, gain reduction from ipsilateral, contralateral, and bilateral elicitors was measured at 1-, 2-, and 4-kHz signal frequencies using forward masking paradigms at a range of elicitor levels in a repeated measures design. Ipsilateral and bilateral strengths were similar and significantly larger than contralateral strength across signal frequencies. Growth of gain reduction with precursor level tended to differ with signal frequency, although not significantly. Data from previous studies are considered in light of the results of this study. Behavioral results are also considered relative to anatomical and physiological data on the MOCR. These results indicate that, in humans, cochlear gain reduction is broad across frequencies and is robust for ipsilateral and bilateral elicitation but small for contralateral elicitation.

Development of a finite element model of a human head including auditory periphery for understanding of bone-conducted hearing

A three-dimensional finite-element (FE) model of a human head including the auditory periphery was developed to obtain a better understanding of bone-conducted (BC) hearing. The model was validated by comparison of cochlear and head responses in both air-conducted (AC) and BC hearing with experimental data. Specifically, the FE model provided the cochlear responses such as basilar membrane velocity and intracochlear pressure corresponding to BC stimulations applied to the mastoid or the conventional bone-anchored-hearing-aid (BAHA) positions. This is a strength of the model because it is difficult to obtain the cochlear responses from experiments corresponding to the BC stimulation applied at a specific position on the head surface. In addition, there have been few studies based on an FE model that can calculate the head and cochlear responses simultaneously from a BC stimulation. Moreover, in this study, the intracochlear sound pressure at multi-positions along the BM length was calculated and used to clarify the effect of stimulating force direction on the cochlear and promontory velocities in BC hearing. Also, the relationship between BC and AC stimulation and the basilar membrane velocity in the FE model was used to calculate the stimulation level at hearing thresholds which has been investigated only by psychoacoustical methods.

Virtual bass preprocessing and carrier frequency optimization for the parametric array loudspeaker

The parametric array loudspeaker (PAL) is a novel type of loudspeaker that can project a directional sound beam. It is usually used in creating personal sound zone and projecting private messages to a targeted audience. However, the PAL has a very poor low-frequency response due to the inherent nonlinear acoustic principle generating sound from ultrasound in air. A psychoacoustic signal processing method known as the virtual bass (VB) has been proved to be an effective method to improve the bass quality of consumer electronics with miniature or flat loudspeaker unit. This paper proposes the VB processing based on the phase vocoder (PV) for the bass enhancement of the PAL that adopts a vestigial sideband modulation method. The harmonics generated by the VB processing are presented in the partial sideband, while the audio input without the bass component is embedded in the full sideband. A measure, namely the in-band peak flatness, is thereafter proposed in this paper to determine the optimal carrier frequency, given a practical uneven frequency response of the ultrasonic transducer. The subjective testing results validate that the proposed VB processing together with the optimal carrier frequency can finally realize the improvement of bass sound quality of the PAL.

Conversion of amplitude modulation to phase modulation in the human cochlea

When an amplitude modulated signal with a constant-frequency carrier is fed into a generic nonlinear amplifier, the phase of the carrier of the output signal is also modulated. This phenomenon is referred to as amplitude-modulation-to-phase-modulation (AM-to-PM) conversion and regarded as an unwanted signal distortion in the field of electro-communication engineering. Herein, we offer evidence that AM-to-PM conversion also occurs in the human cochlea and that listeners can use the PM information effectively to process the AM of sounds. We recorded otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) evoked by AM signals. The results showed that the OAE phase was modulated at the same rate as the stimulus modulation. The magnitude of the AM-induced PM of the OAE peaked generally around the stimulus level corresponding to the compression point of individual cochlear input–output functions, as estimated using a psychoacoustic method. A computational cochlear model incorporating a nonlinear active process replicates the abovementioned key features of the AM-induced PM observed in OAEs. These results indicate that AM-induced PM occurring at the cochlear partition can be estimated by measuring OAEs. Psychophysical experiments further revealed that, for individuals with higher sensitivity to PM, the PM magnitude is correlated with AM-detection performance. This result implies that the AM-induced PM information cannot be a dominant cue for AM detection, but listeners with higher sensitivity may partly rely on the AM-induced PM cue.

Comparison of Behavioral and Physiological Measures of the Status of the Cochlear Nonlinearity.

While an audiogram is a useful method of characterizing hearing loss, it has been suggested that including a complementary, suprathreshold measure, for example, a measure of the status of the cochlear active mechanism, could lead to improved diagnostics and improved hearing-aid fitting in individual listeners. While several behavioral and physiological methods have been proposed to measure the cochlear-nonlinearity characteristics, evidence of a good correspondence between them is lacking, at least in the case of hearing-impaired listeners. If this lack of correspondence is due to, for example, limited reliability of one of such measures, it might be a reason for limited evidence of the benefit of measuring peripheral compression. The aim of this study was to investigate the relation between measures of the peripheral-nonlinearity status estimated using two psychoacoustical methods (based on the notched-noise and temporal-masking curve methods) and otoacoustic emissions, on a large sample of hearing-impaired listeners. While the relation between the estimates from the notched-noise and the otoacoustic emissions experiments was found to be stronger than predicted by the audiogram alone, the relations between the two measures and the temporal-masking based measure did not show the same pattern, that is, the variance shared by any of the two measures with the temporal-masking curve-based measure was also shared with the audiogram.

Assessing the benefit of acoustic beamforming for listeners with aphasia using modified psychoacoustic methods.

Acoustic beamforming has been shown to improve identification of target speech in noisy listening environments for individuals with sensorineural hearing loss. This study examined whether beamforming would provide a similar benefit for individuals with aphasia (acquired neurological language impairment). The benefit of beamforming was examined for persons with aphasia (PWA) and age- and hearing-matched controls in both a speech masking condition and a speech-shaped, speech-modulated noise masking condition. Performance was measured when natural spatial cues were provided, as well as when the target speech level was enhanced via a single-channel beamformer. Because typical psychoacoustic methods may present substantial experimental confounds for PWA, clinically guided modifications of experimental procedures were determined individually for each PWA participant. Results indicated that the beamformer provided a significant overall benefit to listeners. On an individual level, both PWA and controls who exhibited poorer performance on the speech masking condition with spatial cues benefited from the beamformer, while those who achieved better performance with spatial cues did not. All participants benefited from the beamformer in the noise masking condition. The findings suggest that a spatially tuned hearing aid may be beneficial for older listeners with relatively mild hearing loss who have difficulty taking advantage of spatial cues.

Psychoacoustic methods in diagnosis of central auditory processing disorders in prematurely born children

The presence of numerous perinatal risk factors and comorbid pathology in prematurely born children, even in the absence of peripheral auditory deficit, can lead to disruptions in the processes of higher nervous sound information processing with the formation of central auditory disorders. Audiological assessment of the functional state of auditory system central parts in prematurely born children. The study involved 54 deeply premature born infants, which were divided into 3 groups depending on age (6-7, 8-9, and 10-11 years), 18 subjects in each group, and 70 healthy, term-born children of the corresponding age. In addition to the traditional audiological examination, all children underwent an assessment of functional state of the central parts of auditory system through a pause detection test (Random Gap Detection Test, RGDT); the perception of fast rhythmic sequences of stimuli, monaural low excess speech testing, binaural interaction test in alternating binaural speech format (ABS ), dichotic presentation of pairs of single digits, single digits and monosyllables, two-digit numerals, Russian matrix phrasal test in noise (RUMatrix) were studied. Prematurely born infants of all age groups were significantly worse compared to control group (p<0.01) while having RGDT, a test for assessing the perception of fast rhythmic sequences of stimuli and dichotic binaural integration tests. Monaural intelligibility of monosyllabic words in silence in children of all three groups did not differ from normal values, but it suffered from contralateral use of noise interference in children aged 6-7. According to the RUMatrix test, legibility of phrases in noise was impaired in 65% of subjects. Test results in the ABS format revealed a significant violation of speech intelligibility (p<0.01) only in children of the younger age group. In prematurely born children, there is a dysfunction of the central parts of the auditory system, which is multilevel in nature, partially leveling as children grow older. Moreover, the processes of temporary processing of acoustic information suffer to the greatest extent, not being compensated up to adolescence.

Psychoacoustic and electrophysiological electric-acoustic interaction effects in cochlear implant users with ipsilateral residual hearing

Cochlear implant users with ipsilateral residual hearing combine acoustic and electric hearing in one ear, this is called electric-acoustic stimulation (EAS). In EAS users, masking can be shown for electric probes in the presence of acoustic maskers and vice versa. Masking effects in acoustic hearing are generally attributed to nonlinearities of the basilar membrane and hair cell adaptation effects. However, similar masking patterns are observed more centrally in electric hearing. Consequently, there is no consensus so far on the level of interaction between the two modalities. Animal studies have shown that electric-acoustic interaction effects can result in reduced physiological responses in the cochlear nerve and the inferior colliculus. In CI users with residual hearing, it has recently become feasible to record intracochlear potentials with a high spatial resolution via the implanted electrode array. An investigation of the electrophysiological effects during combined electric-acoustic stimulation in humans might be used to assess peripheral mechanisms of masking.Seventeen MED-EL Flex electrode users with ipsilateral residual hearing participated in both a behavioral and a physiological electric-acoustic masking experiment. Psychoacoustic methods were used to measure the changes in behavioral thresholds due to the presence of a masker of the opposing modality. Subjects were stimulated electrically with unmodulated pulse trains using a research interface and acoustically with pure tones delivered via headphones. Auditory response telemetry was used to obtain objective electrophysiological changes of electrically evoked compound action potential and electrocochleography for electric, acoustic and combined electric-acoustic presentation in the same subjects.Behavioral thresholds of probe tones, either electric or acoustic, were significantly elevated in the presence of acoustic or electric maskers, respectively. 15 subjects showed significant electric threshold elevation with acoustic masking that did not depend on the electric-acoustic frequency difference (EAFD), a measure for the proximity of stimulation sites in the cochlea. Electric masking showed significant threshold elevation in eleven subjects, which depended significantly on EAFD. In the electrophysiological masking experiment, reduced responses to electric and acoustic stimulation with additional stimulation of the opposing modality were observed. Results showed a similar asymmetry as the psychoacoustic masking experiment. Response reduction was smaller than threshold elevation, especially for electric masking. Some subjects showed reduced responses to acoustic stimulation with electric masking, especially for small EAFD. The reduction of electrically evoked responses was significant in some subjects. No correlation was observed between psychoacoustic and electrophysiological masking results.From present study, it can be concluded that both electric and acoustic stimulation mask each other when presented simultaneously. Electrophysiological measurements indicate that masking effects are already to some extent present in the periphery.

Evaluation of Differential Sensitivity for Frequency, Intensity, and Duration around the Tinnitus Frequency in Adults with Tonal Tinnitus

The perceptual characteristics of tinnitus are usually assessed by a matching procedure, where loudness and pitch of an external sound are matched to those of the tinnitus percept. The duration discrimination test (DDT), differential limen for intensity (DLI) and differential limen for frequency (DLF) are relatively simple psychoacoustic methods of measuring differential sensitivity. 15 participants with normal or minimal hearing loss with tinnitus in the age range of 18 to 40 years were enrolled in the present study. Pure tone audiometry (PTA), immittance audiometry and otoacoustic emissions were done to diagnose the degree of hearing loss. Duration discrimination test (DDT), differential limen for intensity (DLI) and differential limen for frequency (DLF) was administered on all the participants using MATLAB software (MLP toolbox) at the matched tinnitus frequency, half an octave below - above the frequency. The results show that there was a significant increase in DDT, DLI and DLF thresholds at the tinnitus frequency compared to half an octave above and below the matched frequency. The result suggests that differential sensitivity abilities regarding frequency, intensity, and duration are affected at the tinnitus frequency in individuals with tinnitus. The results of the study suggest that the differential sensitivity ability is affected in individuals with tinnitus especially at the frequency of tinnitus.

Pspan: A New Tool for Assessing Pitch Temporal Processing and Patterning Capacity.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether merging the clinical pitch pattern test procedure with psychoacoustic adaptive methods would create a new tool feasible to capture individual differences in pitch temporal processing and patterning capacity of children and adults. Method Sixty-six individuals, young children (ages 10-12 years, n = 22), older children (ages 13-15 years, n = 23), and adults (ages 18-33 years, n = 21), were recruited and assigned to subgroups based on reported duration (years) of instrumental music instruction. Additional background information was collected in order to assess if the pitch temporal processing and patterning span developed, the Pspan, was sensitive to individual differences across participants. Results The evaluation of the Pspan task as a scale indicated good parallel reliability across runs assessed by Cronbach's alpha, and scores were normally distributed. Between-subjects analysis of variance indicated main effects for both age groups and music groups recruited for the study. A multiple regression analysis with the Pspan scores as the dependent variable found that 3 measures of music instruction, age in years, and paternal education were predictive of enhanced temporal processing and patterning capacity for pitch input. Conclusions The outcomes suggest that the Pspan task is a time-efficient data collection tool that is sensitive to the duration of instrumental music instruction, maturation, and paternal education. In addition, results indicate that the task is sensitive to age-related auditory temporal processing and patterning performance changes during adolescence when children are 10-15 years old.

Psychoacoustic methods in diagnosis of central auditory disorders in patients with sensorineural hearing loss

Assessment of the condition of auditory analyzer central part functioning has been performed using of psychoacoustic tests that characterize human auditory system resolution, frequency differential response, binaural interaction and the ability to detect sound signal against the noise background. 20 patients with chronic bilateral symmetric sensorineural hearing loss at the age of 31 through 80 years old and 10 patients at the age of 20 through 25 years with normal hearing have been examined. Low informative value of the measurement of frequency difference thresholds and high importance of the gap detection test in diagnosing of central auditory disorders in patients with hearing loss have been noted. The studies on detection of a sound signal against the noise background made it possible to suggest a new test for assessment of central parts of auditory analyzer – the measurement of the useful signal threshold shift under the conditions of simultaneous presentation of tonal interference. Significantly greater signal threshold shifts against the noise background have been revealed in the patients with sensorineural hearing loss accompanied by impaired binaural interaction than in the patients with peripheral hearing loss and normal hearing.

Efficient and Noise Reduced Design of Axial Fans Considering Psychoacoustic Evaluation Criteria

Axial fans are the largest group of blowers and thus have a significant impact on their environment: Their demand for electrical power and the generation of a significant noise emission, have a negative impact on the environment.In this work the improvement of efficiency and reduction of noise emission are subject of the investigations. Several types of low-pressure axial fans are subject of this investigation. Measurements of pressure rise, efficiency and acoustic behavior will be presented for different blade geometries. The modifications of forward- and backward-skewed blades are compared to a unskewed blade geometry. The forward-skewed configurations show an improvement on the hydraulic properties, the efficiency and reduce the noise emission whilst the backward-skewed configurations improve the acoustic behavior at low flow rates with flow detachment occurring. Besides an acoustic quantification of the noise emission using the sound power level, psychoacoustic methods like loudness and sharpness were used.

A perceptual space for underwater man-made sounds towards target classification

This work is the second part in a series of studies about the auditory features for underwater target classification, focusing on man-made vehicle targets (i.e. submarines, patrol boats and large surface ships). A psychoacoustic method, which is suitable for a small number of samples, was used. An optimal model with three common dimensions, specificities and latent classes was selected on the basis of the dissimilarity ratings among representative sounds and with the use of an extended version of the multidimensional scaling algorithm CLASCAL. However, such a three-dimensional space could not absolutely separate targets, whereas the first dimension in the four-dimensional space discriminated the submarines, patrol boats and ships; thus, the four-dimensional space was superior in target classification. The stepwise regression method was used to establish the relationships between individual dimensions and typical auditory features. Results showed that the first dimension was represented by the linear combination of zero-crossing rate and spectral variation, whereas the second dimension was described by attack slope. The last two dimensions were not associated with any features, and they were proved to include meaningless data noises. Finally, through a contrastive analysis, the perceptual space obtained in this study was found to be a good ‘local’ representation of the space in the first part of the study series.

Revisiting Psychoacoustic Methods for the Assessment of Fish Hearing.

Behavioral methods have been critical in the study of auditory perception and discrimination in fishes. In this chapter, we review some of the common methods used in fish psychoacoustics. We discuss associative methods, such as operant, avoidance, and classical conditioning, and their use in constructing audiograms, measuring frequency selectivity, and auditory stream segregation. We also discuss the measurement of innate behavioral responses, such as the acoustic startle response (ASR), prepulse inhibition (PPI), and phonotaxis, and their use in the assessment of fish hearing to determine auditory thresholds and in the testing of mechanisms for sound source localization. For each psychoacoustic method, we provide examples of their use and discuss the parameters and situations where such methods can be best utilized. In the case of the ASR, we show how this method can be used to construct and compare audiograms between two species of larval fishes, the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) and the zebrafish (Danio rerio). We also discuss considerations for experimental design with respect to stimulus presentation and threshold criteria and how these techniques can be used in future studies to investigate auditory perception in fishes.