Work

Localizing the sources of two independent noises: Role of time varying amplitude differences

Year: 2013

Type: article

Abstract: Listeners localized the free-field sources of either one or two simultaneous and independently generated noise bursts. Listeners' localization performance was better when localizing one rather than two sound sources. With two sound sources, localization performance was better when the listener was provided prior information about the location of one of them. Listeners also localized two simultaneous noise bursts that had sinusoidal amplitude modulation (AM) applied, in which the modulation envelope was in-phase across the two source locations or was 180° out-of-phase. The AM was employed to investigate a hypothesis as to what process listeners might use to localize multiple sound sources. The results supported the hypothesis that localization of two sound sources might be based on temporal-spectral regions of the combined waveform in which the sound from one source was more intense than that from the other source. The interaural information extracted from such temporal-spectral regions might provide reliable estimates of the sound source location that produced the more intense sound in that temporal-spectral region.

Source: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

DOI: 10.1121/1.4792155

Authors: William A. Yost, Christopher A. Brown

Institutions: Arizona State University, University of Pittsburgh

Language: English

Topic: Neuroscience and Music Perception

Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience

Field: Neuroscience

Domain: Life Sciences

Open Access status: bronze

Funders: National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, Air Force Office of Scientific Research

Award: Understanding the Benefits of Electric-acoustic Stimulation