SFB 1330: Hearing acoustics: Perceptual principles, Algorithms and Applications (HAPPAA)

人类的言语交流是我们文化的基础，也是积极参与社会的关键。它受到许多因素的挑战，如复杂的声学背景，在社会聚会，复杂的房间声学，无处不在的噪声和混响，以及听力障碍。这些因素限制了个人在日常生活环境中实现其沟通目标的能力，这对于听力障碍的人来说尤其如此。尽管由于数字信号处理被引入作为标准而取得了巨大的进步，但是在这些情况下支持声学通信的当前电声设备仅提供有限的益处。这主要是因为上述挑战性因素与设备功能和单个收听者的性能之间的相互关系尚未得到很好的理解。特别地，在当前设备的设计中假设大多数被动监听，而现实生活中的通信涉及主动监听，例如，以最佳方式定位用户的双耳，利用双耳感知优势，并适当地动作。因此，人类声学通信涉及包括声场、设备、用户的感知和用户的主动行为的回路。协作研究中心（CRC）听觉声学通过系统地研究这种声学通信回路，并将其考虑到听觉建模以及听力设备开发和评估，从而超越了早期的研究。CRC旨在从根本上更好地定量理解人类处理复杂听觉和视听场景的基本原理，在声学通信感知增强算法中实现这些知识，并评估这些算法在消费电子产品，辅助听力设备和听力设备中的不同应用。此外，CRC建立了新的实验室为基础的主题在回路评估程序，使用视听虚拟现实嵌入在一个模拟的通信回路的听众。这确保了实验结果的高水平的生态有效性，即，实验室结果比早期实验方法提供的更高程度地反映了在现实生活条件下与听力相关的通信性能。为了实现这些目标，CRC将有助于研究领域的不同学科联系起来，即，声学、心理声学、听力学、工程学和物理建模。研究成果，即，电声设备对真实的生活中增强的声学通信（语音、音乐）的更好支持、与消费电子设备的人机交互的更好原理以及改进听力设备的设计和评估的广泛基础与我们的（老龄化的）通信社会高度相关。

Human speech communication is the foundation of our culture and key to active participation in society. It is challenged by a number of factors, such as complex acoustic backgrounds in social gatherings, com-plex room acoustics, ubiquitous noise and reverberation, as well as hearing impairment. These factors limit the capability of individuals to achieve their communication goals in daily-life environments, which holds in particular for individuals with hearing impairment. Despite the tremendous progress due to digital signal processing being introduced as a standard, current electroacoustic devices that support acoustic commu-nication in these situations provide only a limited benefit. This is mostly because the interrelation between the challenging factors mentioned above with the device function and the performance of the individual listener are not well understood. In particular, mostly passive listening is assumed in the design of current devices, whereas real-life communication involves active listening by, e.g., positioning both ears of the user in an optimum way, utilizing binaural perception advantages, and acting appropriately. Hence, human acoustic communication involves a loop that includes the sound field, the device, the perception of the user and the user’s active behavior. The collaborative research centre (CRC) Hearing Acoustics goes well be-yond earlier research by systematically investigating this acoustic communication loop, and taking it into account for auditory modeling as well as for hearing device development and evaluation. The CRC aims at a fundamentally better quantitative understanding of the principles underlying the processing of complex auditory and audio-visual scenes by humans, the implementation of this knowledge in algorithms for per-ceptual enhancement of acoustic communication, and the evaluation of these algorithms for different appli-cations in consumer electronics, assistive listening devices and hearing devices. In addition, the CRC es-tablishes novel lab-based subject-in-the loop assessment procedures, which use audio-visual virtual reality to embed the listener in a simulated communication loop. This ensures a high level of ecological validity of the experimental results, i.e., laboratory results reflect hearing-related communication performance in real-life conditions to a higher degree than what earlier experimental approaches offered. To achieve these goals, the CRC links the different disciplines that contribute to the research field, i.e., acoustics, psychoa-coustics, audiology, engineering and physical modelling. The research output, i.e., better support by elec-troacoustic devices for enhanced acoustic communication (speech, music) in real life, better principles of man-machine interaction with consumer electronics, and an extensive basis for improved design and as-sessment of hearing devices, is highly relevant to our (ageing) communication society.