STUDIES OF HUMAN SPATIAL HEARING

在三维世界中定位和跟踪声音的能力对于正常的通信和导航至关重要。当这种能力下降时，就像许多类型的听力损失一样，交流会受到严重干扰。该项目的长期目标是全面了解人类空间听觉的机制和过程。在以前的资助期间进行的研究集中在与消声环境中单个固定声源的定位有关的问题。从这项研究中我们了解到了很多关于声音方向的线索的性质以及人类听众如何使用这些线索。本申请中提出的研究既扩展和阐述了早期的定位研究，又进入了新的领域，如声源运动的感知和源距离的感知。所提出的方法包括虚拟听觉空间（VAS）技术，最初在实验室开发的在以前的资金期间，和一个变种的“有条件的单一刺激”（COSS）的程序，它可以给定量估计的感知权重由个别听众的各种空间线索。新的运动和距离研究将提供基本数据的区别和相对权重的各种线索的运动和距离在几个不同的刺激条件。拟议的本地化实验将解决悬而未决的问题，处理的频谱线索和耳间延迟线索，特别是有关的相对权重分配给这些线索在不同的本地化设置。

The ability to locate and track sounds in the three-dimensional world is essential for normal communication and navigation. When that ability is degraded, as with many types of hearing loss, communication is significantly disrupted. The long-term goal of this project is a complete understanding of the mechanisms and processes involved in human spatial hearing. Research conducted during previous funding periods has focused on issues related to the localization of single stationary sound sources in anechoic environments. Much has been learned from this research about the nature of the cues for sound direction and how those cues are used by human listeners. The research proposed in this application both extends and elaborates the earlier localization studies and moves into new areas such as the perception of sound source motion and the perception of source distance. The proposed methods include the virtual auditory space (VAS) technique, originally developed in the laboratory during previous funding periods, and a variant of the "conditioned-on-a-single-stimulus" (COSS) procedure, which can give quantitative estimates of the perceptual weight given by individual listeners to the various spatial cues. The new movement and distance studies will provide basic data on the discriminately and relative weighting of the various cues for movement and distance in several different stimulus conditions. The proposed localization experiments will address unanswered questions about processing of spectral cues and interaural delay cues and, in particular, about the relative weights assigned to these cues in different localization settings.