Year: 2015
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Human echolocation is a technique that could improve the quality of life of most people who suffer from a visual impairment.This method consists of navigating the surroundings through the information provided by the echoes.These echoes are the reflections of sounds deliberately produced by the person who is trying to echolocate.This thesis is divided in a literature study and an implementation to simulate room acoustics to train some aspects of echolocation.The literature study includes three main topics.First of all sound localization is detailed, however, being this theme a large subject of study, only those factors that are involved in human echolocation are explained.These parameters are, among others: sound localization cues, the role of the pinnae and head related transfer functions, and the precedence effect.Secondly, a review of human echolocation most important cues and characteristics is given.To finish the theoretical part of the thesis, an explanation of the chosen method to simulate room acoustics is given.The model used in this thesis is the image method.Finally, some simulations and examples of the proposed model are provided.In addition to these simulations the results of a user test are also showed.These results were evaluated using an exact binomial test.v
Author: Eduard Fernández Aguilar
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2195825209