Auditory Source Event Perception

孩子晚上叫醒你的哭声并不难辨认。西方电影中的脚步声和蹄子节拍为电影观众提供了至关重要的现实主义。制造噪音的东西紧紧地编织在人类经验的结构中。然而，我们对听觉事件的实际感知知之甚少。例如，尽管我们对耳朵的工作原理有广泛的了解，而且我们对我们自己和其他动物的基本听觉能力也有广泛的了解，但情况确实如此。言语感知的专业领域已经取得了一些进展，但对我们环境的感知涉及的是语音以外的声音，对人类言语的研究几乎没有提供关于我们如何感知复杂的声学事件的见解。鞋子在木地板上的撞击声音将与同样的鞋子在金属地板上的声音不同。听觉事件的声学特性反映了其声源的物理和生物力学特性。为了了解听觉事件的感知，受资助的项目将识别源事件的物理和生物力学特性，然后确定这些源特性与结果声音的声学特性之间的关系。有了这个数据库，帕斯托雷博士和他的同事们接下来将进行实验，以确定收听者正确(或错误)与信号源属性相关联的声音属性。具体地说，资助的项目使用这种来源-声音-感知的方法来研究人类步态作为一类听觉事件。虽然这项拟议的研究侧重于将人类步态作为声音的来源，但总体目标是开发研究程序，以研究几乎任何听觉事件的感知。这项基础研究具有广泛的意义。例如，虚拟现实技术培养了人们对开发听觉虚拟现实能力的兴趣。资助的基础研究将完成关键的第一步，使这种应用成为可能。这项研究还有助于为研究、商业和军事用途开发有效的监视系统。此外，它还将确定如何通过培训来提高听力技能，以及哪些声音属性对帮助听力受损的人最重要。

The child's cry that wakes you in night is not hard to identify. The footfalls and hoof beats in a western movie supply crucial realism to the moviegoer. Things that make noise are tightly woven into the fabric of human experience. Nevertheless, we know very little about the actual perception of auditory events. This is true despite our extensive knowledge of how ears work, for example, and our extensive knowledge about the basic auditory capabilities of ourselves and other animals. The specialized area of speech perception has made some advances, but the perception of our environment involves sounds other than speech, and the study of human speech has provided few insights into how we perceive complex acoustic events.The impact of a shoe on a wooden floor will sound differently than the same shoe on a metal floor. Acoustic properties of auditory events reflect physical and biomechanical properties of their sources. To understand auditory event perception, the funded project will identify the physical and biomechanical properties of source events and then identify relations between these source properties and the acoustic properties of the resulting sound. With this database in hand, Dr. Pastore and his colleagues will next conduct experiments to identify the sound attributes that listeners correctly (or incorrectly) associate with source properties. Specifically, the funded project employs this source-sound-perception approach to investigate human gait as a class of auditory events. Although the proposed research focuses on human gait as a source of sounds, the overarching goal is to develop research procedures to study perception of almost any auditory event.This basic research has broad implications. For example, virtual-reality technology has fostered interests in the development of auditory virtual-reality capabilities. The funded basic research will accomplish the crucial first step to make such applications possible. This research could also contribute to the development of effective surveillance systems for research, commercial, and military use. Moreover, it will identify how listening skills may be improved with training and which attributes of sounds are most important to aid the hearing impaired.