DIRECTIONAL HEARING AND THE PRECEDENCE EFFECT

描述：这项研究计划的长期目标是 了解听觉系统如何处理房间中的信息 回声。实验将重点放在优先效应上，它描述了 声音在感知和本地化方面的竞争 震源及其回声。拟议的研究将系统地探索几个 涉及优先和结果的知觉现象将是 在优先的描述性模型的背景下进行解释。这些 研究将与私家侦探S关于神经的工作同时进行 听觉脑干中优先顺序的关联性。目标1调查 震源(引线)和回声在房间内相对位置的重要性 (滞后)。这是一个重要的问题，因为通常假定优先 然而，在定向听力中发挥重要作用的经验很少 有数据支持这一假设。目标2是验证使用 用于优先研究的虚拟声空间(VAS)刺激 方向性提示可以在严格的实验控制下进行，从而 对提供给两者的相对方向信息的处理 耳朵。目标3是测量自由场中的优先顺序，并使用VAS刺激 方位平面(其中双耳视差提示主导定位) 在正中矢状面(光谱线索占主导地位) 本地化)。这些研究测试了关于 单耳和双耳机制在多大程度上调解优先权。目标4 将优先权的研究扩展到多回声范式，因此 使这些研究更接近现实环境，通常 包含一个复杂的回声数组。到目前为止，关于这方面的研究还很少 本课题已经完成。这项工作可能有助于阐明为什么听者有听力 在存在的情况下，障碍很难提取重要信息 混响和竞争的声音，并可能有助于开发助听器 旨在消除混响环境中的干扰。

DESCRIPTION: The long-term objective of this research program is to understand how the auditory system processes information in rooms with echoes. The experiments will focus on the precedence effect which describes aspects of competition for perception and localization between a sound source and its echoes. Proposed studies will systematically explore several perceptual phenomena that are involved in precedence and results will be interpreted in the context of a descriptive model of precedence. These studies will be conducted in parallel with the P.I.'s work on neural correlates of precedence in the auditory brainstem. Aim 1 investigates the importance of the relative locations in a room of the source (lead) and echo (lag). This is a significant question since precedence is generally assumed to play an important role in directional hearing, however, little empirical data are available to support this assumption. Aim 2 is to validate the use of virtual-acoustic-space (VAS) stimuli for precedence studies so that all directional cues can be brought under tight experimental control, allowing manipulation of the relative directional information provided to the two ears. Aim 3 is to measure precedence in free field and using VAS stimuli in the azimuthal plane (where binaural disparity cues dominate localization) and in the median-sagittal plane (where spectral cues dominate localization). These studies test fundamental hypotheses concerning the extent to which monaural and binaural mechanisms mediate precedence. Aim 4 extends investigations of precedence to a multiple-echo paradigm, thus bringing these studies closer to a realistic environment which normally contains a complex array of echoes. To date, very little research on this topic has been done. This work may help clarify why listeners with hearing impairments have difficulty extracting important information in the presence of reverberations and competing sounds, and may help develop hearing aids geared towards eliminating interference in reverberant environments.