Perceptual adaptation to realistic acoustic environments

描述（由申请人提供）：在日常情况下，成功的声音定位和交流要求声源在感知上与环境的声音贡献分开。最近的研究结果表明，环境声学的各个方面随着暴露的增加而变得不那么突出，这表明了一种感知适应的形式。该项目的目标是了解服务于人类听觉感知的过程如何适应环境声学的变化，特别是这种适应如何促进声音定位和交流。该项目有四个具体目标：两个科学目标和两个方法论目标。科学目标将进行初步研究，寻求扩展当前的理论，即大脑如何解释和经常抑制单回声的贡献，以适应更现实的多回声和混响的声学情况。特别令人感兴趣的是回声抑制的适应性，这被认为反映了更集中的大脑过程的作用。实验将检验听者在现实刺激条件下定位空间声音和理解语音的能力，这些刺激条件将引发对环境声学特性的适应性抑制。该项目的方法学目标将通过验证新的刺激控制虚拟方法来实现科学目标，这些方法允许对房间环境进行真实的声学模拟，并通过开发新的响应技术。由于环境声学的影响，如回声和混响，经常对听力损失患者的声音定位和交流造成重大问题，因此全面了解这些自适应抑制效应将有助于改进辅助技术（双耳助听器和假体装置的设计）和听力环境的声学设计。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In everyday situations, successful sound localization and communication require that sources of sound be perceptually segregated from the acoustic contributions of the environment. Recent results have demonstrated that aspects of the environment's acoustics become less salient with increased exposure, which suggests a form of perceptual adaptation. The goal of this project is to understand how the processes subserving human auditory perception adapt to changes in environmental acoustics, and in particular how this adaptation may facilitate sound localization and communication. The project has four specific aims: two scientific and two methodological. The scientific aims will conduct preliminary research seeking to extend current theories as to how the brain interprets and often suppresses the contributions of single echoes to more realistic acoustic situations with multiple echoes and reverberation. Of particular interest is the adaptive nature of echo suppression, which is thought to reflect the role of more centralized brain processes. Experiments will examine listeners' abilities to both locate sounds in space and to comprehend speech under realistic stimulus conditions that will elicit adaptive suppression of environmental acoustic properties. The methodological aims of the project will enable the scientific aims, by validating new virtual methods of stimulus control that allow realistic acoustical simulation of room environments, and by developing new response techniques. Because effects of environmental acoustics, such as echoes and reverberation, often pose significant problems for sound localization and communication in individuals with hearing loss, a complete understanding of these adaptive suppression effects will lead to improvements in both assistive technologies (design of binaural hearing aids and prosthetic devices) and acoustical design of listening environments.