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

人类的言语交际是我们文化的基础，也是我们积极参与社会的关键。它受到许多因素的挑战，如社交聚会中复杂的声学背景，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交流目标的能力，这一点对听力受损的个人来说尤其适用。尽管数字信号处理作为一种标准被引入而取得了巨大的进步，但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好处。这主要是因为上面提到的挑战性因素与设备功能和个别听众的表现之间的相互关系没有得到很好的理解。具体地，在当前设备的设计中主要假设被动收听，而现实生活中的通信包括通过例如以最佳方式定位用户的两只耳朵、利用双耳感知优势以及适当地动作来进行主动收听。因此，人声通信涉及一个循环，包括声场、设备、用户的感知和用户的活动行为。合作研究中心(CRC)的听力声学通过系统地研究这种声学通信环路，并将其考虑到听觉建模以及听力设备的开发和评估，从而很好地完成了早期的研究。CRC的目标是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，在用于声音通信的感知增强的算法中实现这一知识，以及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建立了新颖的基于实验室的回路中主体评估程序，该程序使用视听虚拟现实将听者嵌入到模拟的通信回路中。这确保了实验结果的高度生态有效性，即实验室结果在更高的程度上反映了现实生活条件下与听觉相关的通信性能，比以前的实验方法提供的程度更高。为了实现这些目标，儿童权利委员会将对研究领域作出贡献的不同学科联系起来，即声学、心理学、听力学、工程学和物理模型。研究成果，即更好地支持现实生活中增强声学通信(语音、音乐)的电声设备，更好地与消费电子产品进行人机交互的原则，以及改进听力设备设计和评估的广泛基础，与我们(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.