Spatial Hearing

Background and Aims Despite good speech intelligibility in quiet environments, unilateral hearing loss can lead to significant challenges in noisy settings. This is due to the deprivation of binaural spatial cues, crucial for sound localization, lateralization, and speech comprehension in noisy environments. Accordingly, individuals with unilateral hearing loss are suspected of having spatial auditory processing disorders. This study investigates the effects of moderate to profound unilateral hearing loss on spatial auditory processing skills in adults using two validated self-assessment questionnaires. Methods This cross-sectional descriptive analytical study enrolled 60 participants, including 30 adults with moderate to profound unilateral hearing loss (target group) and 30 adults with normal hearing in both ears (control group). Spatial auditory processing skills were assessed using the Persian versions of the speech, spatial, and qualities of hearing scale and the spatial hearing questionnaire. Independent t tests were used for group comparisons, and the Spearman correlation test was applied to examine the relationship between the two questionnaires, considering the non-normal data distribution. Results Significant differences were observed in total and subscale scores on both questionnaires between the target and control groups. The target group (individuals with unilateral hearing loss) demonstrated poorer performance in spatial auditory processing compared to the control group. Meanwhile, a strong correlation was found between the total and subscale scores of the two questionnaires, suggesting consistency in the findings. Conclusion Moderate to profound unilateral hearing loss significantly impacts spatial auditory processing skills. This study provides evidence for the challenges individuals with unilateral hearing loss face in auditory processing tasks, highlighting the need for targeted interventions and support to enhance their listening abilities.

Background and Objectives: In masking level difference (MLD), the masked detection threshold for a signal is determined as a function of the relative interaural differences between the signal and the masker. Study 1 analyzed the results of school-aged children with good school performance in the MLD test, and study 2 compared their results with those of a group of children with poor academic performance.Subjects and Methods: Study 1 was conducted with 47 school-aged children with good academic performance (GI) and study 2 was carried out with 32 school-aged children with poor academic performance (GII). The inclusion criteria adopted for both studies were hearing thresholds within normal limits in basic audiological evaluation. Study 1 also considered normal performance in the central auditory processing test battery and absence of auditory complaints and/or of attention, language or speech issues. The MLD test was administered with a pure pulsatile tone of 500 Hz, in a binaural mod...

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Coordination of actions requires that organisms actively monitor the movements of others. The current study examined acoustic cues within the fee-bee song of chickadees that may provide listening conspecifics with information about the movements of singers. The difference between direct and reverberant acoustic energy present during the second note of the fee-bee song provided clear indications of how far the song had traveled. Preliminary analyses suggest that this distance cue may be robust to variations in the spectra and amplitude of song components, and that the acoustic features of the fee-bee song may facilitate simultaneous comparisons of reverberating fees with directly received bees by listening birds. Comparing coincident reverberation with directly received sounds may be a previously unsuspected way that animals living in reverberant environments can monitor the movements and interactions of conspecifics.

Doutoramento em MúsicaThis thesis explores the possibilities of spatial hearing in relation to sound perception, and presents three acousmatic compositions based on a musical aesthetic that emphasizes this relation in musical discourse. The first important characteristic of these compositions is the exclusive use of sine waves and other time invariant sound signals. Even though these types of sound signals present no variations in time, it is possible to perceive pitch, loudness, and tone color variations as soon as they move in space due to acoustic processes involved in spatial hearing. To emphasize the perception of such variations, this thesis proposes to divide a tone in multiple sound units and spread them in space using several loudspeakers arranged around the listener. In addition to the perception of sound attribute variations, it is also possible to create rhythm and texture variations that depend on how sound units are arranged in space. This strategy permits to overcome ...

We report results of an auditory navigation experiment. In auditory navigation sound is employed as a navigational aid in a virtual environment. In our experiment, the test task was to find a sound source in a dynamic virtual acoustic environment. In dynamic auralization the movements of the subject are taken into account in acoustic modeling of the room. We tested the effect of three different factors (stimulus, panning method and acoustic environment) to the number of errors and to the time spent in the test in finding the target. The results, which were also statistically validated, proved that noise is the best stimulus, reverberation complicates the navigation and simple models of spatial hearing give enough cues for auditory navigation.

Human auditory perception is accomplished with hearing, which is an ability and listening, which is a skill. Pure tone threshold evaluation is the most common test of hearing used in the clinical setting by audiologists. This test focuses on hearing sensitivity in simple sounds (pure tones) and may prove insufficient in identifying listening difficulties in everyday situations. Normal pure tone thresholds do not ensure normal functional hearing (listening), since problems such as reduced speech recognition in noise, or sound localization may be present but remain undetected. Auditory processing is the medical term of listening. This review paper presents the nature of Auditory Processing Disorder, the valid testing approach, its aetiology, clinical populations that may have the disorder and how intervention and management are achieved according to current scientific evidence and clinical practice.

Examining educational environment (academic and clinical) by means of a valid, reliable and comprehensive questionnaire is a major key in achieving a highly qualified student - oriented curricula. The Persian translation of Ambulatory Care Learning Education Environment Measure-ACLEEM questionnaire has been developed to support this goal, and its psychometrics has been explored in this administration in teaching hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences. This descriptive - analytical study involved medical residents in four major clinics. In this study, the ACLEEM Questionnaire was conducted after translating and retranslating the questionnaire and examine the face and content validity, construct validity, test retest reliability and internal consistency coefficient. In this study, 157 out of 192 residents completed the questionnaire (response rate 82%). The mean age of the residents was 31.81 years .The final mean of the questionnaire was calculated as 110.91 ou...

Emotional stimuli have been shown to modulate attentional orienting through signals sent by subcortical brain regions that modulate visual perception at early stages of processing. Fewer studies, however, have investigated a similar effect of emotional stimuli on attentional orienting in the auditory domain together with an investigation of brain regions underlying such attentional modulation, which is the general aim of the present study. Therefore, we used an original auditory dot-probe paradigm involving simultaneously presented neutral and angry non-speech vocal utterances lateralized to either the left or the right auditory space, immediately followed by a short and lateralized single sine wave tone presented in the same (valid trial) or in the opposite space as the preceding angry voice (invalid trial). Behavioral results showed an expected facilitation effect for target detection during valid trials while functional data showed greater activation in the middle and posterior s...

The accurate estimation of the proximity of threat is important for biological survival and to assess relevant events of everyday life. We addressed the question of whether proximal as compared with distal vocal threat would lead to a perceptual advantage for the perceiver. Accordingly, we sought to highlight the neural mechanisms underlying the perception of proximal vs distal threatening vocal signals by the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging. Although we found that the inferior parietal and superior temporal cortex of human listeners generally decoded the spatial proximity of auditory vocalizations, activity in the right voice-sensitive auditory cortex was specifically enhanced for proximal aggressive relative to distal aggressive voices as compared with neutral voices. Our results shed new light on the processing of imminent danger signaled by proximal vocal threat and show the crucial involvement of the right mid voice-sensitive auditory cortex in such processing.

Interaural time differences (ITD) and interaural level differences (ILD) both signal horizontal sound source location. To achieve a unified percept of our acoustic environment, these two cues require integration. In the present study, we tested this integration of ITD and ILD with electroencephalography (EEG) by measuring the mismatch negativity (MMN). The MMN can arise in response to spatial changes and is at least partly generated in auditory cortex. In our study, we aimed at testing for an MMN in response to stimuli with counterbalanced ITD/ILD cues. To this end, we employed a roving oddball paradigm with alternating sound sequences in two types of blocks: (a) lateralized stimuli with congruently combined ITD/ILD cues and (b) midline stimuli created by counterbalanced , incongruently combined ITD/ILD cues. We observed a significant MMN peaking at about 112-128 ms after change onset for the congruent ITD/ILD cues, for both lower (0.5 kHz) and higher carrier frequency (4 kHz). More importantly, we also observed significant MMN peaking at about 129 ms for incongruently combined ITD/ILD cues, but this effect was only detectable in the lower frequency range (0.5 kHz). There were no significant differences of the MMN responses for the two types of cue combinations (congruent/incongruent). These results suggest that-at least in the lower frequency ranges (0.5 kHz)-ITD and ILD are processed independently at the level of the MMN in auditory cortex.

Most communication in everyday life takes place in less than ideal listening conditions and the presence of noise or other voices in the background is often challenging for older adults. This study investigated how the informational content of the background noise affects communication in age-matched younger and older talker pairs. We used an interactive ‘spotthe-difference’ task to elicit spontaneous interactive speech in younger (20-27 years, N=10) and older (5876 years, N=20) female talkers with normal hearing. The task was done in quiet and in three different masker conditions varying in informational content: no content (speech-shaped noise), unrelated speech, related speech. Communication efficiency, self-rated listening effort, and acoustic-phonetic features of speech were measured for all conditions. Even though younger and older talkers did not differ in task efficiency or self-rated effort in the masker conditions, some of these conditions elicited speech adaptations consi...

Introduction Communication breakdown, a consequence of hearing impairment (HI), is being fought by fitting amplification devices and providing auditory training since the inception of audiology. The advances in both audiology and rehabilitation programs have led to the advent of computer-based auditory training programs (CBATPs). Objective To review the existing literature documenting the evidence-based CBATPs for children with HIs. Since there was only one such article, we also chose to review the commercially available CBATPs for children with HI. The strengths and weaknesses of the existing literature were reviewed in order to improve further researches. Data Synthesis Google Scholar and PubMed databases were searched using various combinations of keywords. The participant, intervention, control, outcome and study design (PICOS) criteria were used for the inclusion of articles. Out of 124 article abstracts reviewed, 5 studies were shortlisted for detailed reading. One among them ...

Visual spatial information plays an important role in calibrating auditory space. Blindness results in deficits in a number of auditory abilities, which have been explained in terms of the hypothesis that visual information is needed to calibrate audition. When judging the size of a novel room when only auditory cues are available, normally sighted participants may use the location of the farthest sound source to infer the nearest possible distance of the far wall. However, for people with partial visual loss (distinct from blindness in that some vision is present), such a strategy may not be reliable if vision is needed to calibrate auditory cues for distance. In the current study, participants were presented with sounds at different distances (ranging from 1.2 to 13.8 m) in a simulated reverberant (T 60 = 700 ms) or anechoic room. Farthest distance judgments and room size judgments (volume and area) were obtained from blindfolded participants (18 normally sighted, 38 partially sighted) for speech, music, and noise stimuli. With sighted participants, the judged room volume and farthest sound source distance estimates were positively correlated (p < 0.05) for all conditions. Participants with visual losses showed no significant correlations for any of the conditions tested. A similar pattern of results was observed for the correlations between farthest distance and room floor area estimates. Results demonstrate that partial visual loss disrupts the relationship between judged room size and sound source distance that is shown by sighted participants.

We assessed how visually impaired (VI) people perceived their own auditory abilities using an established hearing questionnaire, the Speech, Spatial, and Qualities of Hearing Scale (SSQ), that was adapted to make it relevant and applicable to VI individuals by removing references to visual aspects while retaining the meaning of the original questions. The resulting questionnaire, the SSQvi, assessed perceived hearing ability in diverse situations including the ability to follow conversations with multiple speakers, assessing how far away a vehicle is, and the ability to perceptually segregate simultaneous sounds. The SSQvi was administered to 33 VI and 33 normally sighted participants. All participants had normal hearing or mild hearing loss, and all VI participants had some residual visual ability. VI participants gave significantly higher (better) scores than sighted participants for: (i) one speech question, indicating less difficulty in following a conversation that switches fro...

Compared to sighted listeners, blind listeners often display enhanced auditory spatial abilities such as localization in azimuth. However, less is known about whether blind humans can accurately judge distance in extrapersonal space using auditory cues alone. Using virtualization techniques, we show that auditory spatial representations of the world beyond the peripersonal space of blind listeners are compressed compared to those for normally sighted controls. Blind participants overestimated the distance to nearby sources and underestimated the distance to remote sound sources, in both reverberant and anechoic environments, and for speech, music, and noise signals. Functions relating judged and actual virtual distance were well fitted by compressive power functions, indicating that the absence of visual information regarding the distance of sound sources may prevent accurate calibration of the distance information provided by auditory signals.

The design of immersive soundscape experiences, both for artistic and informative purposes, is an established field in Auditory Display. This paper describes the process of designing historically informed soundscapes to be incorporated in modern travel-guide applications. The work stems from the research project TRACCE (TRavelogue with Augmented Cultural & Contemporary Experience), which focuses on the design and development of a platform for augmented cultural routes. Using this platform, hikers can follow the journey of 18th and 19th century travelers, having access to the original travelogues, tracked routes, and a wide variety of modern information. User experience is augmented by means of visual and auditory reconstructions of the original surrounding environments in several identified points of interest in each path. Apart from the creative process and technical details, the paper discusses the design challenges, which mainly stem from a) the limited data available which would...

This paper presents a new methodology to perceptually evaluate the spatial distortions that can occur in a spatial remix context, when using sound sources degraded by a source separation process. It consists in comparing localization performances on complex sound scenes composed of synthetic musical instruments in both clean and degraded cases. The localization task takes into account perceived position or positions of each instrument, as well as their perceived size and shape. In order to deal with this complex task, the test is performed through a virtual environment, using head-mounted gear. This methodology has been tested to evaluate spatial image distortions induced by an NMF source separation algorithm developed by Simon Leglaive [1]. The present study reveals that the source separation process leads to perceptible degradations of the spatial image. Three main kinds of spatial distortions have been characterized, including "phantom" sources emergence, source widening and increasing of the localization blur.

Hearing protection devices (HPDs) remain the first line of defense against hazardous noise exposure and noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). Despite the increased awareness of NIHL as a major occupational health hazard, implementation of effective hearing protection interventions remains challenging in at-risk occupational groups including those in public safety that provide fire, emergency medical, or law enforcement services. A reduction of situational awareness has been reported as a primary barrier to including HPDs as routine personal protective equipment. This study examined the effects of hearing protection and simulated NIHL on spatial awareness in ten normal hearing subjects. In a sound-attenuating booth and using a head-orientation tracker, speech intelligibility and localization accuracy were collected from these subjects under multiple listening conditions. Results demonstrate that the use of HPDs disrupts spatial hearing as expected, specifically localization performance ...

The spatial misrepresentation objection (SMO) against the wave theory of sound argues that if sounds are compression waves, then our auditory experiences are massively illusory for not representing sounds as propagating in the medium. Thus, it claims that the wave theory should be rejected because it is unreasonable to accept such an error theory of hearing. This paper presents a metaphysics of compression waves to show that the wave theory correctly implies that we cannot hear sounds as propagating. Moreover, I argue that the SMO is based on a mischaracterisation of the phenomenology of auditory experiences. A new conception of auditory perception is then proposed to explain how a sound source and its compression wave are both represented in the same auditory experience. Finally, I compare my view with some alternative theories of sound. Overall, it is found that the SMO is more of an objection against the traditional conception of hearing than a challenge to the wave theory of sound.

It is not always easy to follow a conversation in a noisy environment. To distinguish between two speakers, a listener must mobilize many perceptual and cognitive processes to maintain attention on a target voice and avoid shifting attention to the background noise. The development of an intelligibility task with long stimuli—the Long-SWoRD test—is introduced. This protocol allows participants to fully benefit from the cognitive resources, such as semantic knowledge, to separate two talkers in a realistic listening environment. Moreover, this task also provides the experimenters with a means to infer fluctuations in auditory selective attention. Two experiments document the performance of normal-hearing listeners in situations where the perceptual separability of the competing voices ranges from easy to hard using a combination of voice and binaural cues. The results show a strong effect of voice differences when the voices are presented diotically. In addition, analyzing the influe...

This review article reviews the contemporary studies of localization ability for different populations in different listening environments and provides possible future research directions. Conclusions: The ability to accurately localize a sound source relying on three cues (interaural time difference, interaural level difference, and spectral cues) is important for communication, learning, and safety. Confounding effects including noise and reverberation, which exist in common listening environments, mask or alter localization cues and negatively affect localization performance. Hearing loss, a common public health issue, also affects localization accuracy. Although hearing devices have been developed to provide excellent audibility of speech signals, less attention has been paid to preserving and replicating crucial localization cues. Unique challenges are faced by users of various hearing devices, including hearing aids, bone-anchored hearing instruments, and cochlear implants. Hearing aids have failed to consistently improve localization performance and, in some cases, significantly impair sound localization. Boneconduction hearing instruments show little to no benefit for sound localization performance in most cases, although some improvement is seen in binaural users. Although cochlear implants provide great hearing benefit to individuals with severe-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss, cochlear implant users have significant difficulty localizing sound, even with two implants. However, technologies in each of these areas are advancing to reduce interference with desired sound signals and preserve localization cues to help users achieve better hearing and sound localization in real-life environments. One of the many important advantages human hearing provides is the ability to localize sound in the environment, a skill that is important for communication, learning, and safety. In fact, it has been crucial in the survival and propagation of mammalian species since it has evolved, allowing for rapid and accurate identification of hazards in the environment (e.g., Grothe & Pecka, 2014). In modern times, localization is important for environmental awareness and providing crucial information about hazards like approaching traffic, as well as locating desired speech signals in the presence of noise (e.g., Risoud et al., 2018). This ability is dependent on experience in the environment and is highly plastic, adapting to environmental factors and hearing ability (Keating et al., 2013). Indeed, localization ability can be affected by a variety of factors, such as variations of stimuli, environmental conditions like reverberation and noise, previous exposure to the target sound, individual hearing abilities, and so on (e.g.,

Background and Aim: In noisy environments, two types of masking including energetic masking (EM) and informational masking (IM) occur. EM results from the spectral overlap of the target and maskers on the basilar membrane, while IM occurs at higher level. This paper aimed to review the concept of IM in terms of historical perspective and definitions, the important cues for releasing from it, age-related effects and its neural basis. Recent Findings: The data from psychoacoustic, behavioral, and neuro-imaging studies were reviewed and discussed in order to provide an overall image of IM. According to these studies, it seems that perceptual segregation between the target and maskers is the most important cues for releasing from IM. This process takes place simply and without any effort in adults with normal hearing; however, it does not occur easily in children, elderly people and those with impaired hearing. Moreover, it seems that both top-down and bottom-up processing are involved in IM formation. Conclusion: Since IM leads to failure in selection of auditory objects and prevents the individual from auditory scene analysis, understanding the IM concept leads to a better knowledge of speech perception in noise.

Technological advances in mobile computing, wireless communications, 3-D audio simulation, global positioning systems (GPS), and distributed data management have opened the door to novel multiuser mobile application spaces. These advances have allowed for a focus on location-based audiovisual content, ranging from navigation displays to distributed gaming, not to mention the serious potential for the arts, including music performance and installations. In our demonstration of Audio Graffiti, we explore novel modes of interaction with sound and space. Set in an outdoor "audio augmented" environment, we allow several mobile users to create and explore a gradually evolving wall of audio graffiti. Equipped with headsets and small mobile computers, each participant can 'tag' or 'spray' the wall with their audio, mixing in with pre-existing musical material. Others can walk about, experiencing a mix that changes based on their position and movement, resulting in a collaborative jamming and personal remixing space.

AUDIO GRAFFITI: A LOCATION BASED AUDIO-TAGGING AND REMIXING ENVIRONMENTZack Settel University of Montreal Montréal, Québec, Canada Mike Wozniewski Société des arts technologiques Montréal, Québec, Canada Nicolas Bouillot, Jeremy R. Cooperstock ...

In this paper we describe the sound design of a location based mobile phone game and investigate the role of spatialised audio and reverberation. Particular attention was given to the effect of audio on immersion and emotional engagement of participants. We present the sound design, implementation and evaluation of our working prototype, Viking Ghost Hunt and the results and interpretations obtained. Evaluation of the game was undertaken over a three-day period with the participation of 19 subjects in which the prototype was evaluated for game immersion and engagement. Further tests of a subset of participants was undertaken in order to test the specific audio parameters of spatialised audio and reverberation and their effect on game immersion and engagement. The results indicated that audio and specifically reverberation, play an important role in immersing a player within the game space.

PurposeThis study (a) examined the effect of different levels of background noise on speech intelligibility and perceived listening effort in speakers with impaired and intact speech following treatment for head and neck cancer (HNC) and (b) determined the relative contribution of speech intelligibility, speaker group, and background noise to a measure of perceived listening effort.MethodTen speakers diagnosed with nasal, oral, or oropharyngeal HNC provided audio recordings of six sentences from the Sentence Intelligibility Test. All speakers were 100% intelligible in quiet: Five speakers with HNC exhibited mild speech imprecisions (speech impairment group), and five speakers with HNC demonstrated intact speech (HNC control group). Speech recordings were presented to 30 inexperienced listeners, who transcribed the sentences and rated perceived listening effort in quiet and two levels (+7 and +5 dB SNR) of background noise.ResultsSignificant Group × Noise interactions were found for speech intelligibility and perceived listening effort. While no differences in speech intelligibility were found between the speaker groups in quiet, the results showed that, as the signal-to-noise ratio decreased, speakers with intact speech (HNC control) performed significantly better (greater intelligibility, less perceived listening effort) than those with speech imprecisions in the two noise conditions. Perceived listening effort was also shown to be associated with decreased speech intelligibility, imprecise speech, and increased background noise.ConclusionsSpeakers with HNC who are 100% intelligible in quiet but who exhibit some degree of imprecise speech are particularly vulnerable to the effects of increased background noise in comparison to those with intact speech. Results have implications for speech evaluations, counseling, and rehabilitation.

ҟ xiii Chapter one: Introductionҟ 1 1.1. STATIC LOCALIZATION CUESɁ 5 1.1.1. Classical interaural cues 5 1.1.2. The ambiguity of classical interaural cues 7 1.1.3. Representing auditory space with a convenient co-ordinate system 12 1.1.4. High-frequency puma derived spectral cues 14 1.1.5. Low-frequency shoulder/torso-derived spectral cues 17

This paper explores different approaches to the sonification and visualisation of two environmental projects:-”Heavy Metal” is focussed upon the real-time analysis and sonification of the chemical elements in a painting via a camera vision system, whilst “Oratorio for a Million Souls” concerns the behaviour and acoustic properties of live bee colonies manifest in the creation of real-time multi-channel sound compositions and associated sound architectures.Whilst these two projects differ in terms of methodology, aesthetics and technical approach they both share a direct concern with a deep analysis of the underlying environmental structures and perceptual frameworks that emerge in direct ‘live’ encounters - one one hand the discover of what lies behind the surface of a painted image in terms of chemical and colour structures - and in the case of Oratorio, a compelling immersion into the acoustic environment of Bees.

Coordination of actions requires that organisms actively monitor the movements of others. The current study examined acoustic cues within the fee-bee song of chickadees that may provide listening conspecifics with information about the movements of singers. The difference between direct and reverberant acoustic energy present during the second note of the fee-bee song provided clear indications of how far the song had traveled. Preliminary analyses suggest that this distance cue may be robust to variations in the spectra and amplitude of song components, and that the acoustic features of the fee-bee song may facilitate simultaneous comparisons of reverberating fees with directly received bees by listening birds. Comparing coincident reverberation with directly received sounds may be a previously unsuspected way that animals living in reverberant environments can monitor the movements and interactions of conspecifics.

Talker familiarity can facilitate the extraction of linguistic content from speech signals embedded in broadband noise; however, relatively little research has investigated the impact of talker familiarity with competing speech in the background. This study explores the effects of familiarity with the target or competing talker in speech-in-speech perception. Listeners were first familiarized with and trained to identify three female voices. They then completed a sentence recognition task in the presence of 1-talker babble. Familiarity with either the target or background talker was manipulated in separate conditions. Results revealed significantly better sentence recognition for familiar relative to unfamiliar target talkers in the presence of an unfamiliar background talker; however, sentence recognition with an unfamiliar target talker did not differ depending on background talker familiarity. Thus, while listeners were able to capitalize on familiarity with a talker’s voice to a...

BACKGROUND: Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a leading cause of cardiovascular death worldwide. Therefore, assessing knowledge in patients with CAD needs a specific tool. This study aims to carry out the Persian validation of the Coronary Artery Disease Education Questionnaire Short Version (CADE-Q SV) for education of patients undergoing cardiac rehabilitation (CR). METHODS: This study was a cross-sectional study. First, the original version of the CADE-Q SV was translated from English into Farsi using the standard approach. The face validity and content validity were measured using quantitative and qualitative approaches. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was done to examine the construct validity. The reliability of the questionnaire was investigated through test-retest reliability and by calculating Cronbach's alpha coefficient. SPSS software was used to analyze the data, and the R package lavaan, to approve the CFA. RESULTS: The result of quantitative face validity showed that the minimum score was 4.42. The minimum scores for quantitative content validity were 0.83 for content validity index (CVI) and 0.66 for content validity ratio (CVR); therefore, all the items were approved. According to the results of the CFA, the comparative fit index (CFI) was reported to be 0.969, indicating a good fit for the items. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the whole instrument was 0.679, and the test-retest correlation was measured to be > 0.4, after a 2-week interval. CONCLUSION: In total, it can be concluded that the CADE-Q SV has good psychometric properties and proper reliability. It can be utilized in medical and CR centers.

Podium Paper I.A. Neural Correlates of Phonetic Categorization in Adult Cochlear Implant Listeners Sharon Miller, PhD; Samantha Munzer; Jessica Graham, BA, University Of Louisville, Louisville, KY Yang Zhang, PhD, University of Louisville, Minneapolis, Minnesota Auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) can shed light on the neural mechanisms underlying speech and language outcomes in cochlear implant (CI) listeners. The mismatch negativity (MMN) component of the ERP response reflects pre-attentive sensory discrimination, making it a potentially useful clinical measure of accurate phonetic categorization, a skill known to support language and word learning. The present study used ERPs and a double oddball paradigm to examine whether the MMN could serve as a neural marker of phonetic categorization in individual adult CI users. The double oddball paradigm uses two distinct deviants from across and within phonetic categories to elicit MMN responses. Behavioral phoneme identification an...

Interaural time differences (ITD) and interaural level differences (ILD) both signal horizontal sound source location. To achieve a unified percept of our acoustic environment, these two cues require integration. In the present study, we tested this integration of ITD and ILD with electroencephalography (EEG) by measuring the mismatch negativity (MMN). The MMN can arise in response to spatial changes and is at least partly generated in auditory cortex. In our study, we aimed at testing for an MMN in response to stimuli with counterbalanced ITD/ILD cues. To this end, we employed a roving oddball paradigm with alternating sound sequences in two types of blocks: (a) lateralized stimuli with congruently combined ITD/ILD cues and (b) midline stimuli created by counterbalanced , incongruently combined ITD/ILD cues. We observed a significant MMN peaking at about 112-128 ms after change onset for the congruent ITD/ILD cues, for both lower (0.5 kHz) and higher carrier frequency (4 kHz). More importantly, we also observed significant MMN peaking at about 129 ms for incongruently combined ITD/ILD cues, but this effect was only detectable in the lower frequency range (0.5 kHz). There were no significant differences of the MMN responses for the two types of cue combinations (congruent/incongruent). These results suggest that-at least in the lower frequency ranges (0.5 kHz)-ITD and ILD are processed independently at the level of the MMN in auditory cortex.

An approach is borrowed from Measurement Theory [Krantz et al. (1971). Foundations of Measurement, Vol.1] to evaluate the interaction of spectral and spatial cues in the segregation of talkers in simulated cocktail-party listening. The goal is to determine whether mathematical transformations exist whereby the combined effect of cues can be additively related to their individual effects. On each trial, the listener judged whether an interleaved sequence of 4 vowel triplets (heard over headphones) were spoken by the same BBB BBB.. . or different ABA ABA.. . talkers. The talkers had nominally different fundamental frequencies and spoke from nominally different locations (simulated using Kemar HRTFs). Natural variation in these cues was simulated by adding a small, random perturbation to the nominal values independently for each vowel on each trial. Psychometric functions (PFs) relating d' performance to the difference in nominal values were obtained for the cues presented individually and in combination. The results revealed a synergistic interaction of cues wherein the PFs for cues presented in combination exceeded the simple vector sum of the PFs for the cues presented individually. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for possible emergent properties of cues affecting performance in simulated cocktail-party listening.

The ability to compute the location and direction of sounds is a crucial perceptual skill to efficiently interact with dynamic environments. How the human brain implements spatial hearing is, however, poorly understood. In our study, we used fMRI to characterize the brain activity of male and female humans listening to sounds moving left, right, up, and down as well as static sounds. Whole-brain univariate results contrasting moving and static sounds varying in their location revealed a robust functional preference for auditory motion in bilateral human planum temporale (hPT). Using independently localized hPT, we show that this region contains information about auditory motion directions and, to a lesser extent, sound source locations. Moreover, hPT showed an axis of motion organization reminiscent of the functional organization of the middle-temporal cortex (hMT+/V5) for vision. Importantly, whereas motion direction and location rely on partially shared pattern geometries in hPT, ...

In this paper, the development and implementation of a rich sound design, reminiscent of console gaming for a location aware game, Viking Ghost Hunt (VGH) is presented. The role of audio was assessed with particular attention to the effect on immersion and emotional engagement. Because immersion also involves the interaction and the creation of presence (the feeling of being in a particular place) these aspects of the sound design were also investigated. Evaluation of the game was undertaken over a three-day period with the participation of 19 subjects. The results gained imply that audio plays an important role in immersing a player within the game space and in emotionally engaging with the virtual world. However, challenges in regards to GPS inaccuracy and unpredictability remain, as well as device processor constraints, in order to create an accurate audio sound field and for the real-time rendering of audio files.

Despite the recognized importance of bodily movements in spatial audition, few studies have integrated action-based protocols with spatial hearing in the peripersonal space. Recent work shows that tactile feedback and active exploration allow participants to improve performance in auditory distance perception tasks. However, the role of the different aspects involved in the learning phase, such as voluntary control of movement, proprioceptive cues, and the possibility of self-correcting errors, is still unclear. We study the effect of guided reaching exploration on perceptual learning of auditory distance in peripersonal space. We implemented a pretest-posttest experimental design in which blindfolded participants must reach for a sound source located in this region. They were divided into three groups that were differentiated by the intermediate training phase: Guided, an experimenter guides the participant’s arm to contact the sound source; Active, the participant freely explores ...

We analyse the effects of exploration feedback on reaching measures of perceived auditory peripersonal space (APS) boundary and the auditory distance perception (ADP) of sound sources located within it. We conducted an experiment in which the participants had to estimate if a sound source was (or not) reachable and to estimate its distance (40 to 150 cm in 5-cm steps) by reaching to a small loudspeaker. The stimulus consisted of a train of three bursts of Gaussian broadband noise. Participants were randomly assigned to two groups: Experimental (EG) and Control (CG). There were three phases in the following order: Pretest–Test–Posttest. For all phases, the listeners performed the same task except for the EG-Test phase where the participants reach in order to touch the sound source. We applied models to characterise the participants’ responses and provide evidence that feedback significantly reduces the response bias of both the perceived boundary of the APS and the ADP of sound sourc...

There is increasing evidence that hearing-impaired (HI) individuals do not use the same listening strategies as normal-hearing (NH) individuals, even when wearing optimally fitted hearing aids. In this perspective, better characterization of individual perceptual strategies is an important step toward designing more effective speech-processing algorithms. Here, we describe two complementary approaches for (a) revealing the acoustic cues used by a participant in a /d/-/g/ categorization task in noise and (b) measuring the relative contributions of these cues to decision. These two approaches involve natural speech recordings altered by the addition of a “bump noise.” The bumps were narrowband bursts of noise localized on the spectrotemporal locations of the acoustic cues, allowing the experimenter to manipulate the consonant percept. The cue-weighting strategies were estimated for three groups of participants: 17 NH listeners, 18 HI listeners with high-frequency loss, and 15 HI liste...

The peripersonal space (PPS) is a multisensory representation of the near-body region of space where objects appear at hand. It also represents a buffer zone protecting the body from external threats and as such it contributes to the organization of social interactions. However, how the combination of embodied objects processing and constraints inherent to social interactions contributes to PPS representation remains an open issue. By using a cooperative task where two male (N = 22) or female (N = 18) participants, sharing the same action space, were requested to select a number of stimuli on a touch-screen table, we investigated the effect of non-uniform distribution of reward-yielding stimuli on selection strategy and perceptual judgments of reachability, used as a proxy of PPS representation. The probability to select a reward-yielding stimulus (50% of the stimuli) was 75% in the proximal space of one of the two confederates. Results showed that participants initially prioritized stimuli in their proximal space and were progressively influenced by the spatial distribution of reward-yielding stimuli, thus invading their confederate's action space when associated with higher probability of reward. The distribution of reward-yielding stimuli led to an increase of reachability threshold, but only when biased towards the participants' distal space. Although the invasion of others' PPS was more pronounced in male participants, the biased distribution of rewardyielding stimuli altered the reachability threshold similarly in males and females. As a whole, the data revealed that reward expectations in relation to motor actions influence both PPS exploration and representation in social context, but differently in males and females.

Studies on audiovisual interactions in sound localization have primarily focused on the relations between the spatial position of sounds and their perceived visual source, as in the famous ventriloquist effect. Much less work has examined the effects on sound localization of seeing aspects of the visual environment. In this study, we took advantage of an innovative method for the study of spatial hearing-based on real sounds, virtual reality and real-time kinematic tracking-to examine the impact of a minimal visual spatial frame on sound localization. We tested sound localization in normal hearing participants (N = 36) in two visual conditions: a uniform gray scene and a simple visual environment comprising only a grid. In both cases, no visual cues about the sound sources were provided. During and after sound emission, participants were free to move their head and eyes without restriction. We found that the presence of a visual spatial frame improved hand-pointing in elevation. In addition, it determined faster first-gaze movements to sounds. Our findings show that sound localization benefits from the presence of a minimal visual spatial frame and confirm the importance of combining kinematic tracking and virtual reality when aiming to reveal the multisensory and motor contributions to spatial-hearing abilities.

Background and Aim: Spatial hearing is one of the most important functions of binaural hearing processing that is based on detection of fine interaural time and interaural intensity difference. Spatial hearing is beyond auditory localization and lateralization. It helps auditory scene analysis and target stream segregation from other simultaneous sound sources. This function is important in speech perception in presence of competing messages. The aim of the present paper was reviewing spatial hearing, plasticity of binaural hearing in auditory system and spatial hearing disorder in children with central auditory processing disorder ((C)APD). Recent Findings: Recent studies show that spatial hearing disorder is one of the important problems in relatively high proportion of children with (C)APD. It is proposed that spatial processing disorder can cause speech perception difficulty in noise which is the main complaint of children with (C)APD. Spatial hearing rehabilitation through soun...

Many children with central auditory processing disorder (C)APD suffer from spatial processing disorder and benefit from binaural processing training including auditory lateralization training. There are subjective tests for evaluating auditory training effects in children with (C)APD but they rely on patient's attention and cooperation so there is a need for appropriate objective tests. The aim of present study was investigating effects of auditory lateralization training on binaural interaction component (BIC) of middle latency response (MLR). This study was an analytical interventional study. Sixty children suspected to (C)APD (40 boys and 20 girls) were selected based on inclusion criteria and were divided into two groups: control and training group. Auditory lateralization training included 12 formal sessions under headphone by using interaural time difference and performed as a game. MLR (monaural right ear, monaural left ear and binaural) and monaural selective auditory attention test (mSAAT) tests were performed in all the cases. BIC was calculated by subtracting binaural response from summed monaural responses. Covariance test showed that BIC latency decreased and BIC amplitude increased significantly and mSAAT score increased significantly in training group after auditory lateralization training (p value B 0.001). In present study BIC of MLR had potential to show underlying neurophysiologic changes after auditory lateralization training in children suspected to (C)APD objectively. It is in agreement with behavioral improvements after training (mSAAT improvements).

Previous studies have shown that a subgroup of children with suspected (central) auditory processing disorder (SusCAPD) have insufficient ability to use binaural cues to benefit from spatial processing. Thus, they experience considerable listening difficulties in challenging auditory environments, such as classrooms. Some researchers have also indicated the probable role of binaural temporal fine structure (TFS) in the perceptual segregation of target signal from noise and hence in speech perception in noise. Therefore, in the present study, in order to further investigate the underlying reason for listening problems against background noise in this group of children, their performance was measured using binaural TFS sensitivity test (TFS-LF) as well as behavioral auditory lateralization in noise test, both of which are based on binaural temporal cues processing. Participants in this analytical study included 91 children with normal hearing and no listening problems and 41 children ...

Taxonomy of philosophical theories of Sound: proximal theories; medial theories; distal theories. A distal theory: The Located Event Theory (LET) of sound – Understanding sound and the cognition of sounding objects; ontology of sound according to the LET; epistemology of the perception of sound and sounding objects; auditory images according to the LET; conceptual revisions entailed by distal theories and the LET; replies to objections.