Auditory Processing of Interaural Envelope Differences

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Dynamically varying binaural information provides cues as to the movement of sound sources, as well as cues that allow listeners to perceptually segregate individual sound sources in multi-source environments. The proposed experiments focus on the manner in which the auditory system processes time-varying interaural information. These experiments are designed to provide insight into possible binaural limitations in temporal processing. The first experiment will provide a direct comparison in the same group of listeners between monaural measures of temporal resolution and temporal resolution of time-varying interaural differences of level. Characterization of the relationship between monaural and binaural temporal processing can produce insight as to the types of cues (temporal or spectral) available to the auditory system in various listening situations. The second experiment will assess the existence and nature of interference between binaural modulators at various relative modulation frequencies. In a general sense, the results will be applicable to situations in which detection of movement of one sound source must be performed in the presence of other moving sound sources. The auditory system is exquisitely sensitive to interaural differences. The metric used to describe interaural differences implies that the auditory system extracts a similar statistic during binaural processing. The third proposed experiment will differentiate between possible cues used to discriminate interaural differences in stimulus envelopes. This, in turn, will provide clues as to the nature of processing that is most likely performed by the binaural system in extracting interaural envelope differences.