The aim of this thesis was to explain therapeutic possibilities of sound in all its connections. Sound is described in relation to several disciplines. Initially, sound is presented as an acoustic and psychoacoustic phenomenon, followed by characterization of physiology of auditory system and findings from psychology of music. The focus of the thesis is anchored in the chapter dedicated to healing and corrective effects of sound - the music therapy. After short history context is presented, the characteristics and analysis of contemporary situation are discussed. Several types of sound - noise, music and sound of speech - are studied in their positive as well as negative influence on psychic and physical health of human. Current research is represented by selection of relevant papers (n=9) which are assessed by the criterion of credibility and rigidness of methodology. This aspect is also perceived as an essential one for the future research in the area of sound effect on human psychic and physical health.

This diploma thesis deals with a binaural hearing issues (it means hearing by both of ears), a human hearing ability to locate position of a sound source at three-dimensional space and parameters that affect this ability. In the second part, it focuses on psychoacoustic experiment, its main features and errors that can occur and which affect a results credibility. Method of pair comparisons is described more closely here. The last part of this thesis describes a technical solution of experiment in Java environment. The application should have a graphical interface and should be able to register a new user and perform a psychoacoustical experiment. The process of experiment is following. The aplication selects a random position of defined virtual sound source on the defined range and it plays this sound into headphones on button click. The users task is to set the application controls, representing a virtual sound source position, that way, where the user hear the sound come from. On another button click the application plays the same sound, but this sound comes from application controls set position (set by user). User compares this pair of sounds and modifies the position of second sound source until these two positions are same. The application stores these results for later processing on another button click. Principles of generating testing sound sources (sine wave, narrowband noise and sound file with wav extension) and their 3D positioning by measured head model impulse responses correlation are described thereinafter. An ability of human hearing system to locate a virtual sound source in dependence on sound parameters is discussed in conclusion.

This paper presents parameters of evaluation of acoustic quality of the space. It is divided into parts presenting physical principle of the origin and movement of the acoustic signal, principles of its processing with current technology and properties of the acoustic field. This is followed by an analysis of the musical part and notes on psychoacoustics. The document contains a description of relevant parameters of acoustic spaces and way in which we can reach desired results, including material analysis. The paper mainly focuses on description of relevant parameters of three acoustic spaces which were measured. The last part of the work is a program for elementary acoustical measurement, which can be provided by means of commonly accessible equipment such as a notebook or a personal computer.