Normal-hearing listeners can locate sound sources, using binaural cues for azimuth angle. These binaural differences in the timing and intensity of sound arriving at the two ears, interaural time differences (ITDs) and interaural intensity differences (IIDs), also support selective listening in multi-talker environments. Auditory-brainstem neurons of the medial superior olive (MSO) and lateral superior olive (LSO) encode ITD in the envelope of sound (ITDENV) and in the temporal fine structure of low-frequency sound (ITDTFS); LSO neurons encode IID. Bilateral-cochlear-implant (bCI) listeners generally receive only IID and ITDENV. Experimental bCI pulse-bursts overcome adaptation, and convey electrical ITDTFS. Improving the understanding of mechanisms for ITD sensitivity can help bCI developers convey acoustic ITDTFS. In this dissertation, models for auditory-brainstem neurons are developed that explain human ability to detect small differences in ITD, as neuronal and MSO population mechanisms. Promoting binaural-coincidence detection and limiting backpropagation, model MSO ion-channels set resting potentials that reproduce dendritic and somatic KLT activation, somatic Na+ inactivation, and a lower amount of axonal Na+ inactivation. Sensitivity to ITDTFS in moderately fast and very fast model MSO neurons collectively match physiological data from 150 to 2000 Hz. The best-ITD (the ITD of highest spike rate) can be made contralateral-leading, by contralateral inhibition of moderate speed, or by asymmetric axon location, leveraging dendritic filtering. Leveraging standard binaural-display models, neuronal populations based on these model MSO neurons match normal-hearing human discrimination thresholds for ITDTFS in sine tones from 39 to 1500 Hz. Adaptation before binaural interaction helps model MSO neurons glimpse the ITDTFS of sound direct from a source, before reflected sound arrives from different directions. With inputs from adapting model spherical bushy cells, a moderately fast model MSO neuron reproduces in vivo responses to amplitude-modulated binaural beats, with a frequency-dependent emphasis of rising vs. peak sound-pressure for ITDTFS encoding, which reflects human ITD detection and reverberation times in outdoor environments. Distinct populations of model LSO neurons, spanning the range of electrical membrane impedance as a function of frequency in LSO neurons, collectively reflect discrimination thresholds for ITDENV in transposed tones across carrier frequency (4-10 kHz) and modulation rate (32-800 Hz). / 2022-09-28T00:00:00Z

I detta arbete undersöker jag processen kring att kombinera modern popmusik med sound healing och ASMR. Under arbetet har jag sammanställt ofta förekommande element inom ASMR och sound healing och därefter producerat poplåtar där jag lagt till dessa element. Låtarna skapades utifrån en struktur av modern pop där fokus låg på vocals, production och ”finishing touches”. Arbetet resulterade i tre låtar som enligt mig lyckades kombinera de två världarna. Många artister har på liknande sätt experimenterat med att sammanföra dessa genrer, bland de mest framgångsrika är Björk och Billie Eilish, som båda på sitt eget sätt har varit framträdande i att skapa ett eget och unikt sound genom att använda ljud som går att hitta i ASMR i sin popmusik. Utmaningen i att kombinera genrerna låg i att deras progression och uppbyggnad i stor utsträckning skiljer sig åt samt vilket syfte de är de tänka att konsumeras för. Jag insåg dock under arbetets gång att genrernas olikheter är just det som gör att de kompatibla. Konstnärlighet och teknik gick hand i hand då en stor del av produktionen låg i att hitta eller skapa rätt ljud, samt att producera ett binaural sound. För detta laborerade jag med olika inspelnings -och mixtekniker, såsom att spela in i binaural stereo och prova olika upptagning på mikrofoner, samt att mixa i surround och binaural. / In this work I examine from a musicproducers point of view how to combine modern popmusic with sound healing and ASMR. I explored many aspects of the different styles of music and sounds as well as wrote and produced songs that strived to find a balance between the three genres. Atristic choices and the techinal aspect of producing became main focus as I elaborated with different recording and mixing techniques, such as binaural and surround. This empirically based studies resulted in this work as well as compositions created with the intention of musically merging modern pop with traditional sounds.

The central theme of this thesis is a description of information processing in the sound localization circuit of the auditory pathway. The focus is on principal neurons of the medial superior olive (MSO), the first major convergence point for binaural information. Selected properties and relations of MSO neurons are derived and expressed through models. In the thesis we present three modeling studies. The first one clarifies a relation- ship between biophysical parameters of the MSO neuron and its ability to detect coincidental spikes from the left and the right ear. The second study describes the statistical behavior of spike trains on the input and output of the MSO neuron. In the third work, we studied how interaural coherence could guide localization of sound sources in complex listening situations with multiple sound sources in reverberant environments. The main results are analytical and numerical models describing the aforemen- tioned relations and behaviors. Secondary results include that inhibitory input to the MSO neuron narrows and shifts the time range of coincidence detection, that ergodic assumption from statistical physics and circular statistics are beneficial in the description of spike trains in the auditory pathway, and that interaural level difference of parts of the signal with...

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-17T14:52:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Edil James de Jesus Nascimento.PDF: 2709948 bytes, checksum: c8bf5634508e47328bd033c4d323f9c0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2004-04-02 / The human hearing system is capable to accomplish different tasks that would be useful in engineering applications. One of them is the ability to separate sound sources, allowing the listener to "focus" a single sound source in a noisy environment. Great investments have been made in the development of technologies applied to the voice recognition by machines in real environment. For that, different techniques of processing computational have been proposed, for reduction of the ambient noise and improvement of the signal desired in complex acoustic environment (cocktail party). The model of the human hearing system motivates those techniques in their different phases. In this work, we developed an algorithm to improve the processing speech signal based on the binaural hearing model. After receiving the mixed signals, for two microphones, the algorithm increases the intelligibility of the signal of larger energy of one of the receivers. Using two speakers and considering that each one is closer of one of the microphones, we made use of the concepts of lateral inhibition and binaural masking, to recover the signal of speech of larger energy of one of the receivers. The algorithm was developed in platform matlab and it was compared with another without use the lateral inhibition in the recovery of the desired signal. The results, appraised through the calculation of the relative error and of the scale MOS, showed that the use of the lateral inhibition in the recovery of the signal, improves the relative error between the desired signal and the recovered signal and consequently the quality of the recovered signal. / O sistema auditivo humano é capaz de realizar diferentes tarefas que seriam úteis em aplicações de engenharia. Uma delas é a habilidade de separar fontes sonoras, permitindo a um ouvinte focar uma única fonte sonora em um ambiente ruidoso. Grandes investimentos têm sido feitos no desenvolvimento de tecnologias aplicadas ao reconhecimento de voz, por meio de máquinas, em ambientes reais. Para isso, diferentes técnicas de processamento computacional têm sido propostas para a redução do ruído ambiente e melhoramento do sinal desejado em ambiente acústico complexo (cocktail party). Essas técnicas são motivadas pelo modelo do sistema auditivo humano em suas diferentes fases. Neste trabalho, desenvolvemos um algoritmo para melhorar o processamento de um sinal de fala baseado no modelo auditivo binaural. Após receber os sinais misturados, por dois microfones, o algoritmo aumenta a inteligibilidade do sinal de maior energia de um dos receptores. Utilizando dois oradores e considerando que cada um está mais próximo de um dos receptores, fizemos uso dos conceitos de inibição lateral e mascaramento binaural, para recuperar o sinal de fala de maior energia de um dos receptores. O algoritmo foi desenvolvido sob a plataforma matlab e comparado com um outro sem a utilização da inibição lateral na recuperação do sinal desejado. Os resultados, avaliados através do cálculo do erro relativo e da escala MOS, mostraram que a utilização da inibição lateral na recuperação do sinal, melhora o erro relativo entre o sinal desejado e o sinal recuperado e conseqüentemente a qualidade do sinal recuperado.

Les implants cochléaires sont des appareils destinés à la réhabilitationdes surdités profondes et totales. Ils assurent la stimulation du nerf auditif en plaçant des électrodes dans la cochlée. Différentes études ont été établis afin d’améliorer l’intelligibilité de la parole dans le bruit chez le patientporteur de cet appareil. Les techniques bilatérales et binaurales permettent dereproduire une audition binaurale, car les deux oreilles sont simulées (commepour les personnes normo-entendantes). Ainsi la localisation et la perceptiondes sons environnants sont améliorées par rapport à une implantationmonaurale. Toutefois, les capacit´es de reconnaissances des mots sont trèsvite limitées en pr´esence de bruits. Nous avons d´evelopp´es des techniquesde r´eduction de bruit afin d’augmenter les performances de reconnaissance.Des améliorations de 10% à 15% suivant les conditions ont été observées. Néanmoins, si la perception est améliorée par les algorithmes, ils focalisent sur une direction, et ainsi, la localisation est alors réduite à l’angle delocalisation. Une seconde étude a alors été effectuée pour mesurer l’effetdes algorithmes sur la localisation. Ainsi, le beamformer donne les meilleurs résultats de compréhension mais la moins bonne localisation. La ré-injectiond’un pourcentage du signal d’entrée sur la sortie a permis de compenser laperte de la localisation sans détériorer l’intelligibilité. Le résultat de ces deux expériences montre qu’il faut un compromis entre laperception et la localisation des sons pour obtenir les meilleures performances. / Cochlear implants are to sail for the rehabilitation of deep and totaldeafness. They provide stimulation of the auditory nerve by placing electrodesin the cochlea. Various studies have been established to improve thespeech intelligibility in noise in the patient of this device. Bilateral andbinaural techniques allow reproducing a binaural hearing, since both earsare simulated (as for normal hearing people). Thus localization and theperception of the surrounding sounds are improved from a monauralimplantation. However, the recognition of the words capabilities are limitedvery quickly in the presence of noise.We developed noise reduction techniquesto increase the performance of recognition. Improvements of 10% to 15%depending on the conditions were observed. Nevertheless, if the perception isenhanced by algorithms, they focus on a direction, and thus the location isthen reduced at the corner of localization. Then, a second study was madeto measure the effect of localization algorithms. Thus, the beamformer givesthe best results of understanding but the less good location. The re-injectionof a percentage of the input to the output signal helped offset the loss of thelocation without damaging the intelligibility.The result of these two experiments shows that it takes a compromisebetween perception and sound localization for best performance.

The objective of the dissertation research is to investigate noise reduction methods for binaural hearing aids based on array and statistical signal processing and inspired by a human auditory model. In digital hearing aids, wide dynamic range compression (WDRC) is the most successful technique to deal with monaural hearing losses. This WDRC processing is usually performed after a monaural noise reduction algorithm. When hearing losses are present in both ears, i.e., a binaural hearing loss, independent monaural hearing aids have been shown not to be comfortable for most users, preferring a processing that involves synchronization between both hearing devices. In addition, psycho-acoustical studies have identified that under hostile environments, e.g., babble noise at very low SNR conditions, users prefer to use linear amplification rather than WDRC. In this sense, the noise reduction algorithm becomes an important component of a digital hearing aid to provide improvement in speech intelligibility and user comfort. Including a wireless link between both hearing aids offers new ways to implement more efficient methods to reduce the background noise and coordinate processing for the two ears. This approach, called binaural hearing aid, has been recently introduced in some commercial products but using very simple processing strategies. This research analyzes the existing binaural noise-reduction techniques, proposes novel perceptually-inspired methods based on blind source separation (BSS) and multichannel Wiener filter (MWF), and identifies different strategies for the real-time implementation of these methods. The proposed methods perform efficient spatial filtering, improve SNR and speech intelligibility, minimize block processing artifacts, and can be implemented in low-power architectures.

Professional research project (Au.D.)--University of SouthFlorida, 2002. / Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 22 pages. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of the binaural interaction component (BIC) in a large sample of normal hearing adults, and to measure the absolute latency and amplitude of the BIC as a function of the click rate of the stimulus and the electrode montage. The BIC is obtained by subtracting the auditory evoked potential waveform obtained with binaural stimulation from the waveform obtained by adding the responses from the left and right monaural stimulation. The tested hypothesis was that the recordings of the BIC vary among normal hearing individuals, and BIC latency and amplitude values change as a function of stimulus rate. Studies of the BIC help to explain the neural correlates of some binaural processes, and to develop an electrophysiological index of binaural processes for objective clinical evaluations.Data was completed and analyzed on 47 adults between the ages of 20 and 41 (mean = 25) with hearing in the normal range (thresholds [ 20 dB HL at 500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz in each ear) and no known neurological disorders. The results revealed a great variability in BIC morphology between subjects. The BIC waveforms were categorized into five distinct groups according to the number of positive and negative peaks present. Chi-square analyses revealed a significant relationship between click rate and BIC category; however, the relationship between recording montage and BIC category was insignificant. An Analysis of Variance (ANOVAs) revealed a significant increase in absolute latency and decrease in absolute amplitude of both negative and positive peaks as click rate increased from 7.7/s to 57.7/s. The results did not reveal a significant change in the type of BIC as an effect of electrode montage.In conclusion, the BIC within the binaural difference waveform may be obtained in the majority of young individuals with normal hearing. Specifically, a slower stimulus rate revealed more components of the waveform, as well as an improvement in the morphology of the BIC compared to a faster stimulus rate. As these findings may aid in the development of an electrophysiological index of binaural neural processes in young individuals with normal hearing, more research should be attempted in the study of BIC in other age groups and patients with different audiograms. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

In recent years, the research on the localization of audio objects within a stereo context has started to include musical audio objects. This study seeks to explore a research gap: localization ability whilst hearing multiple sounds. This study aims to investigate listeners’ ability to localize panned musical audio objects within a musical context. Subjects listened to two different versions of the same mix and were asked to simultaneously pan musical audio objects with different characteristics. When comparing the results from the different mixes, both mixes gave similar results. Therefore, the differences between the mixes had no impact on localization accuracy. Additionally, this study was able to reconstruct previous findings indicating that localization blur affects localization accuracy of wide-panned audio objects.

This thesis aimed to clarify the essential factors involved in externalising audio over headphones. Extensive research was conducted, examining binaural cues and the latest advancements in the field. A novel approach was proposed, which applied HRIRs and BRIRs on a Mid-Side decomposition. The objective was to enhance frontal externalization while increasing control over centre-panned and side-panned elements. The proposed method underwent rigorous testing in various setups, accompanied by objective and subjective evaluations. The objective measures were then correlated with the findings from the subjective evaluations. Interaural coherence analysis revealed that the BRIR exhibited lower overall coherence values than the HRIR. This was anticipated, considering BRIRs capture room acoustics that impact sound perception compared to anechoic conditions. Introducing simple room acoustics, such as early reflections and reverberation tails, significantly reduces the coherence in higher frequencies for HRIR. Connecting these findings to the conducted listening test, it is observed that lower IC generally corresponded to a wider audio configuration. However, assessing frontal externalization proved challenging. Among the tested configurations, the two BRIR models achieved the most width, with the unsmoothed version performing slightly better. This suggests a tradeoff between externalization and colouration, as the smoothed BRIR model excelled in spectral colouration and preference. For the HRIR, adding room acoustics slightly increased the width. It received lower ratings regarding spectral colouration and was not preferred over the HRIR model without room acoustics. This reinforces the significance of preserving the original spectral characteristics. / Denna avhandling hade som mål att klargöra de väsentliga faktorer som är involverade i att externalisera ljud över hörlurar. Omfattande forskning genomfördes, där binaurala ledtrådar och de senaste framstegen inom området undersöktes. Ett nytt tillvägagångssätt föreslogs, där HRIRs och BRIRs applicerades på en Mid-Sid-uppdelning. Målet var att förbättra frontal externalisering i kombination med mer kontroll över centrerade och sido-justerade element. Den föreslagna metoden genomgick rigorösa tester i olika inställningar, åtföljda av objektiva och subjektiva utvärderingar. Objektiva mätningar korrelerades sedan med resultaten från de subjektiva utvärderingarna. Analysen av interaural koherens visade att BRIR hade lägre övergripande koherensvärden än HRIR. Detta var väntat eftersom BRIR fångar upp rumslig akustik som påverkar ljuduppfattningen jämfört med anekoiska förhållanden. Att införa enkla rumsliga akustikegenskaper, såsom tidiga reflektioner och efterklangssvansar, minskar signifikant koherensen i högre frekvenser för HRIR. Genom att koppla samman dessa resultat med de genomförda lyssningstesterna kan man observera att lägre interaural koherens generellt korresponderade med en bredare ljudkonfiguration. Dock visade det sig vara utmanande att bedöma frontal externalisering. Bland de testade konfigurationerna uppnådde de två BRIR-modellerna störst bredd, där en icke spektrum-justerad version presterade något bättre. Detta tyder på en avvägning mellan externalisering och färgning, eftersom den slätade BRIR-modellen presterade bra i både färgning av ljud och preferens. För HRIR ökade bredden något genom att lägga till rumslig akustik. Den fick lägre betyg avseende spektralfärgning och föredrogs inte framför HRIR-modellen utan rumslig akustik. Detta understryker vikten av att bevara de ursprungliga spektrala egenskaperna.

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