Tone pairs constructed with the frequencies of the overtones moving in opposition to the missing fundamental frequencies they imply, produce expertise differences in the tracking of pitch direction. One interpretation of this result is that it arises as a function of rudimentary differences in the perceptual systems of musicians and non-musicians. Several experiments suggest instead a more embodied source of expertise to be found in vocal mediation such that the effect of musical experience in these tasks is the result of the most salient action of musicians: making sound. / x, 87 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm

Laminate flooring manufacturers have received negative feedback from customers on the sound quality of laminate flooring installations. Customers express a preference for the sound of traditional hardwood floors over that of laminate flooring composites. Consumers notice a difference between the sounds created by a footfall between laminate flooring and hardwood flooring. They perceive the laminate flooring sound of a footfall to be annoying and associate it to the flooring being of a lower quality. No objective test procedure exists to validate the marketing claims of the performance of these products. The objective of the work in this thesis is to develop a test method that evaluates the human perception of the sound quality of footfall noise on laminate flooring composites.

Digital audio is increasingly becoming more and more a part of our daily lives. Unfortunately, the excessive bitrate associated with the raw digital signal makes it an extremely expensive representation. Applications such as digital audio broadcasting, high definition television, and internet audio, require high quality audio at low bitrates. The field of audio coding addresses this important issue of reducing the bitrate of digital audio, while maintaining a high perceptual quality. Developing an efficient audio coder requires a detailed analysis of the audio signals themselves. It is important to find a representation that can concisely model any general audio signal. In this thesis, we propose two new high quality audio coders based on two different audio representations - the sinusoidal-wavelet representation, and the warped linear predictive coding (WLPC)-wavelet representation. In addition to high quality coding, it is also important for audio coders to be flexible in their application. With the increasing popularity of internet audio, it is advantageous for audio coders to address issues related to real-time audio delivery. The issue of bitstream scalability has been targeted in this thesis, and therefore, a third audio coder capable of bitstream scalability is also proposed. The performance of each of the proposed coders was evaluated by comparisons with the MPEG layer III coder. The first coder proposed is based on a hybrid sinusoidal-wavelet representation. This assumes that each frame of audio can be modelled as a sum of sinusoids plus a noisy residual. The discrete wavelet transform (DWT) is used to decompose the residual into subbands that approximate the critical bands of human hearing. A perceptually derived bit allocation algorithm is then used to minimise the audible distortions introduced from quantising the DWT coefficients. Listening tests showed that the coder delivers near-transparent quality for a range of critical audio signals at G4 kbps. It also outperforms the MPEG layer III coder operating at this same bitrate. This coder, however, is only useful for high quality coding, and is difficult to scale to operate at lower rates. The second coder proposed is based on a hybrid WLPC-wavelet representation. In this approach, the spectrum of the audio signal is estimated by an all pole filter using warped linear prediction (WLP). WLP operates on a warped frequency domain, where the resolution can be adjusted to approximate that of the human auditory system. This makes the inherent noise shaping of the synthesis filter even more suited to audio coding. The excitation to this filter is transformed using the DWT and perceptually encoded. Listening tests showed that near-transparent coding is achieved at G4 kbps. The coder was also found to be slightly superior to the MPEG layer III coder operating at this same bitrate. The third proposed coder is similar to the previous WLPC-wavelet coder, but modified to achieve bitstream scalability. A noise model for high frequency components is included to keep the overall bitrate low, and a two stage quantisation scheme for the DWT coefficients is implemented. The first stage uses fixed rate scalar and vector quantisation to provide a coarse approximation of the coefficients. This allows for low bitrate, low quality versions of the input signal to be embedded in the overall bitstream. The second stage of quantisation adds detail to the coefficients, and hence, enhances the quality of the output signal. Listening tests showed that signal quality gracefully improves as the bitrate increases from 16 kbps to SO kbps. This coder has a performance that is comparable to the MPEG layer III coder operating at a similar (but fixed) bitrate.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references: leaf 297-321.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, 2008. / A thesis submitted to the University of Western Sydney, College of Arts, School of Psychology, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.) --University of Montana, 2008. / Title from author supplied metadata. Description based on contents viewed on May 15, 2009. ETD number: etd-12112008-123204. Author supplied keywords: natural sounds ; recreation ; visitor experiences ; national park policy ; soundscape policy ; soundscape management ; winter visitor experiences ; wildland recreation. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of Physics, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on July 22, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 236-243). Also issued in print.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1970.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1970.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of British Columbia, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.