Species differences in the identification of acoustic stimuli by birds.

The perceptual organization of auditory stimuli can reveal a great deal about how the brain naturally groups events. The current study uses identification techniques to investigate the abilities of two species of birds in identifying zebra finch song as well as synthetically generated speech stimuli. Budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) and zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) were trained to differentially peck keys in response to the presentation of various complex stimuli. Although there were no clear differences in performance during the training paradigm between the two species, budgerigars were far more adept at learning to identify both sets of complex stimuli than were zebra finches, requiring far less trials to reach criterion. The non-singing but vocally plastic budgerigars vastly outperformed zebra finches at identifying both zebra finch song and synthetically designed human speech despite known similarities in auditory sensitivities between the two species and seemingly equivalent learning capacity. The flexibility that budgerigars seem to have at identifying various stimuli is highlighted by their enhanced performance in these tasks. These results are discussed in the context of what is known about both general and specialized processes which may contribute to any differences or similarities in performance.

Spatial unmasking of nearby speech sources in a simulated anechoic environment.

Spatial unmasking of speech has traditionally been studied with target and masker at the same, relatively large distance. The present study investigated spatial unmasking for configurations in which the simulated sources varied in azimuth and could be either near or far from the head. Target sentences and speech-shaped noise maskers were simulated over headphones using head-related transfer functions derived from a spherical-head model. Speech reception thresholds were measured adaptively, varying target level while keeping the masker level constant at the "better" ear. Results demonstrate that small positional changes can result in very large changes in speech intelligibility when sources are near the listener as a result of large changes in the overall level of the stimuli reaching the ears. In addition, the difference in the target-to-masker ratios at the two ears can be substantially larger for nearby sources than for relatively distant sources. Predictions from an existing model of binaural speech intelligibility are in good agreement with results from all conditions comparable to those that have been tested previously. However, small but important deviations between the measured and predicted results are observed for other spatial configurations, suggesting that current theories do not accurately account for speech intelligibility for some of the novel spatial configurations tested.

Investigation of the relationship among three common measures of precedence: fusion, localization dominance, and discrimination suppression.

Listeners have a remarkable ability to localize and identify sound sources in reverberant environments. The term "precedence effect" (PE; also known as the "Haas effect," "law of the first wavefront," and "echo suppression") refers to a group of auditory phenomena that is thought to be related to this ability. Traditionally, three measures have been used to quantify the PE: (1) Fusion: at short delays (1-5 ms for clicks) the lead and lag perceptually fuse into one auditory event; (2) Localization dominance: the perceived location of the leading source dominates that of the lagging source; and (3) Discrimination suppression: at short delays, changes in the location or interaural parameters of the lag are difficult to discriminate compared with changes in characteristics of the lead. Little is known about the relation among these aspects of the PE, since they are rarely studied in the same listeners. In the present study, extensive measurements of these phenomena were made for six normal-hearing listeners using 1-ms noise bursts. The results suggest that, for clicks, fusion lasts 1-5 ms; by 5 ms most listeners hear two sounds on a majority of trials. However, localization dominance and discrimination suppression remain potent for delays of 10 ms or longer. Results are consistent with a simple model in which information from the lead and lag interacts perceptually and in which the strength of this interaction decreases with spatiotemporal separation of the lead and lag. At short delays, lead and lag both contribute to spatial perception, but the lead dominates (to the extent that only one position is ever heard). At the longest delays tested, two distinct sounds are perceived (as measured in a fusion task), but they are not always heard at independent spatial locations (as measured in a localization dominance task). These results suggest that directional cues from the lag are not necessarily salient for all conditions in which the lag is subjectively heard as a separate event.

Tori of confusion: binaural localization cues for sources within reach of a listener.

To a first-order approximation, binaural localization cues are ambiguous: many source locations give rise to nearly the same interaural differences. For sources more than a meter away, binaural localization cues are approximately equal for any source on a cone centered on the interaural axis (i.e., the well-known "cone of confusion"). The current paper analyzes simple geometric approximations of a head to gain insight into localization performance for nearby sources. If the head is treated as a rigid, perfect sphere, interaural intensity differences (IIDs) can be broken down into two main components. One component depends on the head shadow and is constant along the cone of confusion (and covaries with the interaural time difference, or ITD). The other component depends only on the relative path lengths from the source to the two ears and is roughly constant for a sphere centered on the interaural axis. This second factor is large enough to be perceptible only when sources are within one or two meters of the listener. Results are not dramatically different if one assumes that the ears are separated by 160 deg along the surface of the sphere (rather than diametrically opposite one another). Thus for nearby sources, binaural information should allow listeners to locate sources within a volume around a circle centered on the interaural axis on a "torus of confusion." The volume of the torus of confusion increases as the source approaches the median plane, degenerating to a volume around the median plane in the limit.

Effects of categorization and discrimination training on auditory perceptual space.

Psychophysical phenomena such as categorical perception and the perceptual magnet effect indicate that our auditory perceptual spaces are warped for some stimuli. This paper investigates the effects of two different kinds of training on auditory perceptual space. It is first shown that categorization training using nonspeech stimuli, in which subjects learn to identify stimuli within a particular frequency range as members of the same category, can lead to a decrease in sensitivity to stimuli in that category. This phenomenon is an example of acquired similarity and apparently has not been previously demonstrated for a category-relevant dimension. Discrimination training with the same set of stimuli was shown to have the opposite effect: subjects became more sensitive to differences in the stimuli presented during training. Further experiments investigated some of the conditions that are necessary to generate the acquired similarity found in the first experiment. The results of these experiments are used to evaluate two neural network models of the perceptual magnet effect. These models, in combination with our experimental results, are used to generate an experimentally testable prediction concerning changes in the brain's auditory maps under different training conditions.

Adapting to supernormal auditory localization cues. I. Bias and resolution.

Head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) were used to create spatialized stimuli for presentation through earphones. Subjects performed forced-choice, identification tests during which allowed response directions were indicated visually. In each experimental session, subjects were first presented with auditory stimuli in which the stimulus HRTFs corresponded to the allowed response directions. The correspondence between the HRTFs used to generate the stimuli and the directions was then changed so that response directions no longer corresponded to the HRTFs in the natural way. Feedback was used to train subjects as to which spatial cues corresponded to which of the allowed responses. Finally, the normal correspondence between direction and HRTFs was reinstated. This basic experimental paradigm was used to explore the effects of the type of feedback provided, the complexity of the stimulated acoustic scene, the number of allowed response positions, and the magnitude of the HRTF transformation subjects had to learn. Data showed that (1) although subjects may not adapt completely to a new relationship between physical stimuli and direction, response bias decreases substantially with training, and (2) the ability to resolve different HRTFs depends both on the stimuli presented and on the state of adaptation of the subject.

Adapting to supernormal auditory localization cues. II. Constraints on adaptation of mean response.

A series of experiments was performed in which subjects were trained to interpret auditory localization cues arising from locations different from their normal spatial positions. The exact pattern of mean response to these alterations (as a function of time) was examined in order to begin to develop a quantitative model of adaptation. Mean responses were roughly proportional to the normal position associated with the localization cues presented. As subjects adapted, the best-fit slope (relating mean response and normal position) changed roughly exponentially with time. The exponential rate and adaptation asymptote were found for each subject in each experiment, as well as the rate and asymptote of readaptation to normal cues. The rate of adaptation does not show any statistical dependence on experimental conditions; however, the asymptote of the best-fit slope varied with the strength of the transformation used in each experiment. This result is consistent with the hypothesis that subjects cannot adapt to a nonlinear transformation of auditory localization cues, but instead adapt to a linear approximation of the transformation. Over time, performance changes exponentially towards the best-fit linear approximation for the transformation used in a particular experiment, and the rate of this adaptation does not depend upon the transformation employed.

Cross-frequency interactions in the precedence effect.

This paper concerns the extent to which the precedence effect is observed when leading and lagging sounds occupy different spectral regions. Subjects, listening under headphones, were asked to match the intracranial lateral position of an acoustic pointer to that of a test stimulus composed of two binaural noise bursts with asynchronous onsets, parametrically varied frequency content, and different interaural delays. The precedence effect was measured by the degree to which the interaural delay of the matching pointer was independent of the interaural delay of the lagging noise burst in the test stimulus. The results, like those of Blauert and Divenyi [Acustica 66, 267-274 (1988)], show an asymmetric frequency effect in which the lateralization influence of a lagging high-frequency burst is almost completely suppressed by a leading low-frequency burst, whereas a lagging low-frequency burst is weighted equally with a leading high-frequency burst. This asymmetry is shown to be the result of an inherent low-frequency dominance that is seen even with simultaneous bursts. When this dominance is removed (by attenuating the low-frequency burst) the precedence effect operates with roughly equal strength both upward and downward in frequency. Within the scope of the current study (with lateralization achieved through the use of interaural time differences alone, stimuli from only two frequency bands, and only three subjects performing in all experiments), these results suggest that the precedence effect arises from a fairly central processing stage in which information is combined across frequency.

Adjustment and discrimination measurements of the precedence effect.

A simple model to summarize the precedence effect is proposed that uses a single metric to quantify the relative dominance of the initial interaural delay over the trailing interaural delay in lateralization. This model is described and then used to relate new measurements of the precedence effect made with adjustment and discrimination paradigms. In the adjustment task, subjects matched the lateral position of an acoustic pointer to the position of a composite test stimulus made up of initial and trailing binaural noise bursts. In the discrimination procedure, subjects discriminated interaural time differences in a target noise burst in the presence of another burst either trailing or preceding the target. Experimental parameters were the delay between initial and trailing stimuli and the overall level of the stimulus. The model parameters (the metric c and the variability of lateral position judgments) were estimated from the results of the matching experiment and used to predict results of the discrimination task with good success. Finally, the observed values of the metric were compared to values derived from previous studies.

Supernormal auditory localization. I. General background.

In this series of papers, we consider human auditory localization and how its deficiencies can be reduced by appropriate processing and coding of acoustical signals in teleoperator and virtual-environment systems. Attention is given to how localization cues can be altered to improve the just-noticeable-difference (JND) in spatial position and to phenomena related to the use of such altered localization cues for the identification of spatial position. Unlike most current studies of synthetic auditory localization, our study includes consideration of distance as well as direction. In this first paper of the series, we provide general background material. In subsequent papers, we will present a variety of empirical results.