bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Quantifying phonetic variation: A large-scale corpus analysis of coronal segments in English infant-directed speech
Authors: Khlystova Ekaterina A. , Chong Adam J. , Sundara Megha
Published: November 2021

Phonetic variation poses a challenge for language learners tasked with identifying the abstract sound categories (phonemes) of their target language(s). However, relatively little is known about the full extent of phonetic variability in naturalistic infant-directed speech (IDS), and how much of this variation can be explained by positional allophony. We phonetically annotated ∼31 000 tokens of coronal segments (/t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, and /n/) in naturalistic English IDS from the Providence Corpus (Demuth et al., 2006) in order to quantify the degree of phonetic variation present in the everyday speech directed to infants. We found that canonical variants are the most frequent variants for /d/, /s/, /z/, and /n/, but not for /t/. Additionally, every segment had more canonical instances in word-initial compared to word-final position. We are currently comparing the distribution of phonetic variants in specific phonological environments (e.g., tapping environments) in IDS with naturalistic adult-directed speech. We discuss the implications of these results for infants’ ability to identify the canonical (phonemic) variant from a set of phones, and uncover when and where positionally governed phonetic variants must surface.
Interactions of culture and depression in infant-directed speech
Authors: Bright-Agindotan Favour , Ramsay Gordon
Published: November 2021

Infant-directed speech (IDS) is a change in voice register adopted by adults when speaking to young children. Maternal depression is known to affect IDS, resulting in a lower fundamental frequency (f0) range that can in turn affect infant response. However, there is little information regarding the interaction of culture and language with depression. The goal of this study was to determine if significant differences in IDS exist between Spanish- and English-speaking mothers and to explore potential interactions with the severity of depression. Whole-day audio recordings were collected in the home from 14 mother-infant dyads, 7 English-speaking and 7 Spanish-speaking, all with infants 6 months of age. 10 examples of adult-directed speech and infant-directed speech were segmented from each recording andthe f0 mean and range were measured for each speaker, normalizing infant-directed by adult-directed values to account for speaker variation. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) was used to determine maternal depression levels. A weak negative correlation was found between depression scores and f0, confirming that depression adversely impacts IDS, but there was no effect or interaction regarding language, suggesting that the mechanism may be common across cultures.
Does F3-F2 distance predict transcriptions of preschoolers’ /r/ productions?
Authors: Ancel Elizabeth , Smith Michael L. , Rao V. N. Vimal , Munson Benjamin
Published: November 2021

Children learning to speak American English are highly variable in early productions of /r/, often producing [w] as an error. One acoustic indicator of /r/ goodness is the difference between the second (F2) and third formant (F3), with smaller F3-F2 differences being associated with a ‘better’ /r/. This study analyzed the effectiveness of this acoustic measure in characterizing children's productions of the /r/-/w/ contrast on acoustic information extracted automatically from a large data set, where hand measurements are infeasible. LPC formant measures were extracted using Praat from productions of /r/- and /w/-initial words (n = 19) by 3.5- to 4.5-year old monolingual preschoolers (n = 136). These were rated by naive adult listeners (n = 142) on a visual-analog scale of phoneme goodness, and were narrowly transcribed by trained researchers into four categories: [r], [w], and two intermediate categories. Data visualization showed a weak relationship between F3-F2 measures, transcriptions, and ratings. Generalized linear mixed effects regressions found that the F3-F2 difference only modestly predicted transcription categories (R2 = 0.39) and listener ratings (R2 = 0.34). Hence, a description of preschoolers’ mastery of the /r/-/w/ contrast based on automatic analyses should include additional measures beyond the F3-F2 measures.
Automated vowel space measurement of young children
Authors: Speights Atkins Marisha , MacAuslan Joel , Agyarko Maame
Published: November 2021

Vowel formant frequencies are frequently reported as a measure of the articulatory workspace and have been used to study speech development and speech disorders across the lifespan. It is widely acknowledged that the measurement of F1/F2 frequencies for Vowel Space Area (VSA) estimation is a cumbersome task, wrought with challenges and uncertainties. Although there have been advancements in automated approaches, many of these tools continue to be challenged by child speech due to the anatomical differences and dynamic changes of the supraglottal, glottal, and subglottal regions of the airway during the years of speech development. This study examines automated VSA estimation in 4-year-old children using models that have been adapted to manage the higher fundamental frequencies, wider formant bandwidths, and higher amplitudes of subglottal resonances detected in child speech. The speech of six, native American English-speaking, four-year-old children with no history of hearing or speech disorders were included in this investigation. 48 words, including eight American English vowels, were analyzed using traditional manual methods and the SpeechMark MATLAB toolbox automated VSA estimator. The toolbox automates the generation of a convex hull enclosing the child VSA and computation of the area while accounting for the anatomical/acoustic differences that occur during early speech development.
The challenges and uncertainties when hand measuring F1/F2 values in child speech: Towards an automated approach
Authors: Agyarko Maame , Speights Atkins Marisha
Published: November 2021

Vowels serve a critical role in understanding the acoustic properties of speech. Since they appear early in speech development, they can be used to assess important speech milestones. Prior literature provides the empirical foundation for understanding expected F1/F2 values for typically developing children. Although the traditional measurement of the first and second formant frequencies is a widely accepted practice, its clinical use is limited because of the challenges and uncertainties that are encountered during the process. Automated tools have been developed to address these limitations, however many of these tools have been reported to have inconsistencies when identifying F1/F2 values for child speech. This study explores the use of three semi-automated measurement methods: Wavesurfer Linear Predictive Coding, Praat formant tracking, and a lab-developed approach. The speech of six, native English-speaking, four-year-old children with no history of hearing or speech disorders was analyzed. 48 words, including eight American English vowels, were measured using the three approaches by two researchers, an undergraduate researcher, and an experienced research mentor. The challenges, procedural observations, and accuracy of the methods are discussed. This project was supported by the SURIEA summer research internship program.
The role of cue weighting and contextual information in speech perception by younger and older adults
Authors: Cheng Ruoqian , Jongman Allard
Published: November 2021

Normal-hearing older listeners are as accurate as younger listeners when perceiving native English words in quiet despite challenges in temporal processing. Older listeners may compensate for the declined use of fine-grained temporal cues by reducing the weight of temporal cues (VOT) and increase the reliance on other acoustic correlates (F0) of the sound contrast. In Experiment 1, younger (age 18–25) and older (age 55–65) normal-hearing listeners participate in an online 2AFC identification task with /d/-/t/ contrast varying in both VOT and F0. We predict that, while both younger and older listeners rely more on VOT than on F0, older listeners, because of their reduced temporal processing abilities, rely on F0 to a larger degree than younger listeners. Temporal processing not only involves local durational cues of the target segments, but also global contextual cues such as speaking rate. In Experiment 2, the same listeners complete another online 2AFC identification task with /dɑ/-/tɑ/ syllables that vary in VOT and vowel duration (short versus long). We predict that older listeners exhibit a smaller shift in the /d/-/t/ category boundary between the long and short vowel durations than younger listeners since older adults are less sensitive to contextual temporal information.
Evidence for short temporal atmospheric (tropospheric) variations observed by infrasonic signals
Authors: Averbuch Gil , Giannone Miro R. , Arrowsmith Stephen , Anderson Jacob
Published: November 2021

Infrasound monitoring is used in the forensic analysis of events, to study the physical processes of sources of interest and to probe the atmosphere. The dynamical nature of the atmosphere and the use of infrasound as a forensic tool lead to the following questions: (1) what is the time-scale of atmospheric variability that affects infrasonic signals? (2) can we link variations of infrasound signals to specific atmospheric phenomena? This study addresses these questions by monitoring a repetitive infrasound source and its corresponding tropospheric returns 54 km away. Source-receiver empirical Green's functions are obtained every 20 s and used to demonstrate the effect of atmospheric temporal variability on infrasound propagation. In addition, observations are compared to predicted simulated signals based on realistic atmospheric conditions. It is shown that infrasound properties change within tens of seconds. Particularly, phases can appear and disappear, the propagation time decreases, and the signals' energy fluctuates. Furthermore, the similarity between the predicted and observed signals varies significantly within a few minutes. The observed changes are related to variations in temperature and wind, which are coupled to dynamic processes such as radiation, gravity waves, and turbulence. Therefore, this study highlights the potential of high temporal infrasound-based atmospheric sounding.
Behavior, brain, the ear and development, and back again
Authors: Rubel Edwin
Published: November 2021

I am humbled and immensely honored to be awarded the 2020 William and Christine Hartmann Prize in Auditory Neuroscience. This talk will be composed of three stories, designed to honor the dedicated people who have shared my enthusiasm for trying to more fully understand development of the ear, the brain and hearing during the past half century. Story 1 will trace some of the questions we’ve pursued and why; from fundamental studies on behavior and brain development in neonatal chickens, to development of cochlear frequency maps, to hair cell death and regeneration and to understanding new details of binaural processing. Story 2 will discuss the rationale and some of the results underlying the 40 + years of studies on the biological interactions between the ear and the brain during development; interactions whereby activity shapes the structural and functional architecture of auditory pathways in the brain. Finally, Story 3 will describe our foray into the world of translational pharmacology, developing a new model to more fully understand hair cell death and using it to discover a new drug that may prevent hearing and balance disorders due to ototoxic medicines.
The system loss factor in sound and vibration
Authors: McDaniel James
Published: November 2021

In 1930, Kimball wrote a paper entitled "The damping factor in vibrations" that appeared in the journal Product Engineering. That paper proposed a damping factor based on the decrement of a vibrating system with exponential decay. Kimball showed that the proposed damping factor was proportional to the ratio of the energy dissipated per cycle to the total vibrational energy. The total vibrational energy was defined as the maximum potential energy over a cycle. Since that time, the definition of total vibrational energy has been more thoroughly examined because the total vibrational energy varies within a cycle due to damping. In this presentation, a new definition is proposed that defines the total vibrational energy as the temporal average of the total vibrational energy over a cycle. This definition has the advantage of reducing the system loss factor to the modal loss factor under certain limits. Since 1930, Kimball's damping factor has appeared in various forms under various names, the most common of which is the system loss factor. This presentation discusses these appearances in order to understand energy losses in dynamic systems caused by a wide array of physical mechanisms. The presentation concludes with a discussion of the system loss factor in present-day numerical simulations, highlighting its independence from eigenvalue information. [Work supported by ONR under Grant N00014-19-1-2100.]
Perception and task performance under two simulated office background noise conditions
Authors: Zhou Zhi , Vigeant Michelle C. , Dittberner Andrew
Published: November 2021

The acoustics of an open-office environment play an important role in people’s working performance. This study was conducted to investigate how task performance is affected by two simulated office noise environments: (1) recorded HVAC noise and (2) a series of intermittent noises, e.g., conversations, phone ringing, etc. These conditions were reproduced over a 32-loudspeaker array in an anechoic chamber to include realistic spatial placement of sound sources. Each subject was seated at the center of the array and asked to perform five cognitive tasks to evaluate effects on memory, reasoning, planning, and attention. The tasks were digit span, grammatical reasoning, tower of London, attention network test, and mental arithmetic. After each noise condition, the participants rated several items including annoyance and perceived performance. Heart rate variability (HRV) was also recorded using ECG sensors as a physiological measure of arousal. Baseline measurements were first obtained in silence, followed by a task training set in silence, and an actual test set in silence. A statistical analysis was used to investigate possible correlations between the acoustic conditions and the cognitive task results, perceptual ratings, and HRV data, respectively. Study details and the findings will be presented.
The art of stereo reproduction—A test engineer's perspective
Authors: Weir James
Published: November 2021

Stereophonic reproduction is an art form often at odds with analytical testing. The author presents a breakdown of the aspects of stereo reproduction, including musical acoustics and the electroacoustics, to room acoustic assessment and the psychoacoustics used in the assessment and enjoyment of this common art form. This goal is to provide a holistic overview and encourage discussion and improvements in the processes used in the production of the art, as well as the analysis and dialog of the consumers of the art.
The effects of acoustical ceiling panel type and penetrations forservices on vertical sound isolation inside buildings
Authors: Madaras Gary
Published: November 2021

Attenuation of sound transmitting between rooms oriented over one another inside buildings is studied. Transmission loss and sound transmission class were measured by an independent, accredited, acoustics laboratory with and without a variety of modular acoustic ceilings suspended under a baseline concrete floor structure. Ceiling panel material types include stone wool, fiberglass and mineral fiber. Ceilings were tested with and without the presence of service penetrations for supply air diffusers, return air grilles and light fixtures. Some ceilings were also scanned with a sound intensity probe and the resulting color sound maps are used as supplemental method of evaluating both isolation and absorption performance of the individual components of the ceiling systems. Results show that while the effects of ceiling panel type on absorption performance, and thus room acoustics, is substantial, the material type and weight of the ceiling panels do not substantially affect the overall isolation performance of the floor-ceiling assembly.
Acoustic effects of face masks on speech: Impulse response measurements between two binaural mannikins
Authors: Anderson Victoria R. , Stecker G. Christopher , Wang Lily M.
Published: November 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in widespread use of facial masks that cover the nose and mouth areas to prevent viral transmission. While masks have helped provide protection from spreading illness, they have also had an impact on how people communicate, with many finding it more difficult to understand speech from those who are wearing masks. Facial masks affect the directivity and sound levels of the wearer’s verbal communication, and if opaque, they also cover visual cues that aid understanding. Studies have documented the effect of different mask types on speech intelligibility, speech transmission index, talker directivity, and resulting speech features. This talk presents the first of measurements towards composing a corpus of impulse responses gathered between two head and torso simulators (HATS) in an anechoic chamber at varying directional positions and distances. One HATS with a mouth simulator serves as the talker and is outfitted with different mask types, including cloth, N95, and surgical paper masks, in combination with face shields. The resulting impulse response data base may be used by researchers to simulate masked verbal communication scenarios such as in virtual soundfield environments, allowing systematic testing of how masks impact speech perception in numerous situations.
Sound properties in pre-Roman Etruria: an archaeoacoustic analysis of the Etruscan tomb space
Authors: Ortoleva Jacqueline K. , Barnard Andrew R.
Published: November 2021

The field of Archaeoacoustics has grown exponentially over the past decade providing clarity regarding sound propagation across multiple cross-cultural settings in the ancient world. However, many subfields of archaeology continue to overlook acoustic constructs in the archaeological record. Nowhere is this clearer than with ancient Etruria, a Pre-Roman Italic culture from Central Italy notable for their reverence of sounds generated from natural phenomena. This paper presents acoustic data collected for the first time inside a series of 5th–3rd century chambered tombs in Etruria. The relationship of architectural constructs and specific acoustic characteristics are noted across chronologies and regions. The study demonstrates the value of acoustical fieldwork when considering the visual and spatial properties of Etruria and provides the groundwork and recommendations for future exploration of sound propagation in Pre-Roman Italy.
Auditory masking in killer whales (Orcinus orca) with realistic signals and noise
Authors: Branstetter Brian K. , Felice Mike , Robeck Todd , Accomando Alyssa W. , Holt Marla M.
Published: November 2021

Killer whales are the largest delphinid odontocete, a top predator and are globally distributed. Southern resident killer whales, which inhabit the Pacific coastal region of the northwest United States and Canada, are listed as endangered. Anthropogenic noise has been identified as a major threat to this populations of killer whales. This paper will cover recent results from killer whale auditory masking experiments using a variety of signals and noise types. Signal types included pure tones and recordings of killer whale calls. Noise types included Gaussian noise and recordings of seismic surveys and continuous active sonar. Potential auditory mechanisms that govern the resulting masking patterns, including dip listening, off-frequency listening, and comodulation masking release are discussed. These data will help to better understand and predict how killer whales can acoustically communicate, navigate, and locate prey in an increasingly noisy environment.
Promises and challenges of fisheries acoustics: When biology collides with physics
Authors: Horne John
Published: November 2021

Active acoustic technologies have been used in fisheries resource management and ecological research since the 1920s. Since the first applications, both technological and analytic advances have been developed, vetted, and then rapidly adopted once a science or data need has been identified. In parallel, increased availability of off-the-shelf data acquisition and processing tools has broadened the traditional fisheries acoustics community from engineers, mathematicians, and physicists to include biologists and statisticians. The resulting wider availability of acoustic technologies, integration of instrument packages, and a more diverse user community has increased the number of acoustic-based studies. But like any other sampling tool, acoustics in isolation does not provide a definitive solution to mapping, counting, and/or identifying distributions and dynamics of interacting aquatic populations. Challenges of identifying spatial and temporal population distribution boundaries in response to evolving environmental conditions are amplified as management mandates and research scopes expand. Despite the challenges, integration of technological and data processing advances applied to study design and analytic workflow continues to increase the range of acoustic applications that address both research and management goals.
Riding the wave of oceanography’s robot revolution to advance fisheries acoustics
Authors: Benoit-Bird Kelly
Published: November 2021

A proliferation of uncrewed surface and underwater platforms are providing new ways to obtain acoustic data in the ocean, offering increased spatial and temporal coverage and access to unexplored areas. There are challenges to effectively exploiting robotic platforms for fisheries acoustics including difficulties in integrating relatively large, high power draw scientific echosounders into these platforms and the need to provide alternative evidence for target identification in the absence of trawling vessels. Recent experiments that integrated a constellation of robotic platforms and a cabled observatory to describe the abundance, distribution, and behavior of pelagic animals illustrate both the opportunities and challenges. Echosounders were employed from a variety of uncrewed platforms, letting us examine the tradeoffs of active acoustic sensing from each platform. Echosounder sampling was complemented by targeted environmental DNA sampling and quantitative video transects from autonomous underwater vehicles to provide information on target taxa and size classes. Together, these data revealed new details on the daily vertical reorganization of life in the pelagic. Creatively exploiting the strengths of these new platforms rather than attempting to (poorly) replicate ship-based sampling is key to leveraging the robot revolution in ocean sciences.
Fisheries acoustics in Norway—Wide band data, autonomous platforms and deep learning
Authors: Handegard Nils Olav , Tonje Forland N. , Johnsen Espen , Pedersen Geir , Tenningen Maria , Korneliussen Rolf , Ona Egil
Published: November 2021

This presentation gives an overview of recent achievements in fisheries acoustics associated with the Center for Research Based Innovation in Marine Acoustic Abundance Estimation and Backscatter Classification (CRIMAC), Norway. We present a data processing pipeline from raw acoustic data to survey indices of abundance for fisheries assessments as a test bench. This includes the raw data as well as manually worked up labels for acoustic target classification (ATC). We also collect data from dedicated CRIMAC surveys and organize broadband data across a range of species, using different echo sounder setting, to find optimal settings for various standard surveys. We have trained deep neural networks on labelled acoustic data for ATC and tested this in the pipeline. Semi-supervised methods are also developed, requiring only 10% of the training data compared to the supervised models. IMR has a developed a strategy for phasing in unmanned platforms in our surveys. The process is stepwise, where we first augment existing surveys to maintain time series integrity; this approach has been tested on our sand eel and sprat surveys. We also embed our deep learning models in containers to facilitate simple deployment. This allows adaptive survey strategies, which is a step towards fully autonomous acoustic surveys.
Where do the fish come from, and where do they go? Seasonal observations of pelagic fishes from echosounder moorings in the Chukchi sea
Authors: Levine Robert , De Robertis Alex , Grunbaum Daniel , Wilson Christopher
Published: November 2021

Recent summer surveys of the Chukchi Sea determined that pelagic fishes were dominated by large numbers of age-0 Arctic cod and walleye pollock, while adult fishes are comparatively scarce. Modeling based on regional currents indicates that these age-0 fishes are likely advected to the north in fall; however, the source and fate of these fishes remains unclear as this region is seasonally ice-covered. To determine the movement and variability of this age-0 gadid population, bottom-moored multifrequency echosounders were deployed at three locations in the northeastern Chukchi Sea from 2017-2019. These observations indicate that the abundance and composition of the pelagic community on the Chukchi Sea shelf is highly variable over seasonal time scales. Fish abundance was very low in winter, increased in May, and reached peak abundance in late summer. Target strength and diel vertical migration of fishes increased in summer, indicating that this is a key period for growth. Age-0 gadids were displaced to the northeast, consistent with the dominant advection on the shelf. Fish speeds and headings were strongly correlated with local currents, providing evidence that these small age-0 fishes are primarily being passively transported and behavior plays a limited role in population distribution.
Classification with U-Net neural networks of herring, salmon, and bubbles in multifrequency echograms
Authors: Slonimer Alex L. , Dosso Stan , Albu Alexandra B. , Cote Melissa , Marques Tunai P. , Rezvanifar Alireza , Gauthier Stephane , Pearce Steve
Published: November 2021

Convolutional neural networks were used to accurately identify biological and physical phenomena in multifrequency echograms. The primary classes of interest for this study were herring and juvenile salmon. Secondary classes included gas bubbles and the air-sea interface. A collection of U-Nets were trained to apply pixel-level classification. In addition to recorded acoustic data at four frequencies (67.5, 125, 200, 455 kHz), simulated data were created to provide context for the interpretation of the echograms. This contextual data included a channel for water depth and another channel for solar elevation angle. It is demonstrated that the inclusion of these context channels improve the efficacy of the classifier. After the pixel-level classification was performed, traditional school detection methods were applied to classify distinct schools of herring and aggregations of salmon. The pixel-level classification results were refined using the mean classification score of each school. To ensure broad applicability, this network was trained to classify echograms with noise left intact. It is also demonstrated that this method is scalable and effective at classifying data with a lower sampling rate than that used for training. The best performing model classified herring, salmon, and bubble classes with F1 scores of 93.0%, 87.3%, and 86.5%, respectively.
Acoustics and temporality in an Indian classical monsoon raag
Authors: Palchoudhuri Ahona
Published: November 2021

Indian Classical Music is structured such that every raag, or scalar formation, elicits the atmosphere of a season or time of day. Yet, musicologists and theorists of sound have primarily studied the form within urban concert halls—often dislocated from the raag’s originary temporal context and its relation to the earth. My paper studies the monsoon raag “Malhar” within the seasonal soundscapes of drought-prone rural India. It focuses in particular on how Malhar is sung at a village shrine during the course of a rain-making-ritual, conducted annually at the brink of the monsoon season. My paper examines how the musical strategies of Malhar transform when it moves from concert hall to shrine. Specifically, it compares how each Malhar renders the call of the hawk-cuckoo, known across the Indian sub-continent to usher in the monsoons. My research shows that while concert hall audiences decry singers’ renditions of the cuckoo’s call as “gimmicky” and “mere mimicry,” followers at the shrine ascribe to it a ritual potency, and rely on it to evoke rain. I study this difference in musical perception as a way in which to better understand how acoustical and temporal context intersect, in concert hall and shrine, respectively, to transform the aesthetic experience of Indian Classical Music.
Investigating the origins of pitch modulation in flute vibrato
Authors: Smith Sarah R.
Published: November 2021

Like most musicians, flute players often add vibrato to their playing for expressive effect. This is accomplished by a periodic modulation of the supplied air pressure resulting in significant amplitude and timbre variations of the resulting sound. However, a sizeable modulation in pitch also results in most cases with a width ranging from 20 to 50 cents of total variation. This work investigates the physical origins of this pitch variation based on an analysis of multiple databases of flute vibrato tones. Detailed tracking of the amplitude and pitch trajectories of each overtone is used to characterize the extent of amplitude and frequency modulation of each partial as well as their relative correlation. A high degree of correlation between amplitude and frequency modulation tracks suggests that both variations are controlled by the same physical parameter. However, the mechanisms for pressure-controlled pitch modulation are not well understood and many physically modeled synthesis algorithms do not produce this pitch variation when the input pressure is modulated. As such, this work systematically modifies existing physical models to reproduce the characteristics of recorded vibrato tones and evaluate potential mechanisms that may underlay the observed pitch modulations.
Do lyrics help individuals to sing in tune?
Authors: Soleimanifar Simin , Staisloff Hannah E. , Aronoff Justin M.
Published: November 2021

Normal hearing (NH) individuals may have difficulty in accurately recreating a familiar song by manipulating recordings of a sung vowel. This could indicate that lyrics play a key role in accurately producing familiar contours. This research investigated if that is the case. Five NH adults participated in this research. Participants were recorded singing Happy Birthday once with the lyrics and once when the lyrics were replaced with the vowel /a/. The preliminary results indicated that, at the group level, there was no significant difference in the accuracy of the produced contour when singing Happy Birthday with and without lyrics. Additionally, the notes produced both with and without lyrics were significantly and highly correlated with each other. However, four out of five subjects produced more accurate songs when singing with lyrics. The results suggest that, if lyrics improve singing accuracy, the effect is small.
The effect of modeling dose uncertainty on low-boom community noise dose-response curves
Authors: Doebler William , Vaughn Aaron B. , Ballard Kathryn , Rathsam Jonathan
Published: November 2021

In logistic dose-response modeling, failing to account for uncertainty in estimated doses can cause an artificial flattening or attenuation of the slope of the summary curve. In Lee et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 147(4), 2222–2234 (2020)], data from two NASA low-amplitude sonic boom community noise survey tests were modeled using a Bayesian multilevel logistic regression (MLR) statistical model that assumed there was no uncertainty in the noise dose estimates. However, in these community tests, the noise dose uncertainty was estimated by Page et al. (NASA/CR-2014-218180 and NASA/CR-2020-220589/Volume I) using a leave-one-out method. In the current work, a term was added to extend the Bayesian MLR model to account for the estimated noise dose uncertainty quantified in the analyses of Page et al. This uncertainty term was included in two ways, either as classical or as Berkson uncertainty, and yielded similar results. When the uncertainty is accounted for in the Bayesian MLR model, the dose-response curves become 5%–10% steeper, but the difference in the noise dose that elicits a 5% highly annoyed response is small (less than 1 dB). This result is encouraging for future X-59 community tests whose survey area will be sparsely populated with noise monitors.
Experiment design considerations for longitudinal community noise surveys
Authors: Ballard Kathryn , Vaughn Aaron B. , Doebler William , Rathsam Jonathan
Published: November 2021

NASA is planning community noise surveys in the coming years to collect data that might enable the return of overland supersonic flight. Community noise surveys are typically cross-sectional, with only a single response per respondent. However, to determine community response to individual supersonic over flights, longitudinal surveys with repeated responses per respondent are more practical. The downside of repeated responses is the potential for response bias, such as a carryover effect in which previous test conditions affect current behavior. Subjective sonic boom listening test data collected at NASA Langley Research Center were reanalyzed to look for evidence of carryover effects. Initial results do not suggest strong carryover effects. This presentation will provide results and suggestions for experiment design of future community surveys.
Non-lethal flashbang effectiveness pilot study: Acoustic effects
Authors: McCallick Caylin R. , Welles Rebecca , Sammeth Carol , Rule Gregory , Argo Ted , Greene Nathaniel
Published: November 2021

Flashbang grenades distract and temporarily disable an adversary, help gain surprise advantage, or disrupt communication in physical confrontations. Such devices are designed to emit high-amplitude acoustic signals, abright light, and/or a concussive force. This pilot study evaluated the acoustic effects that accompany the detonation of these devices, namely temporary threshold shift (TTS), the acoustic startle reflex, and temporary noise-induced tinnitus. In this study, human subjects were evaluated on two tasks: (1) target localization and (2) speech-in-noise (SIN) testing. During these tasks, subjects underwent a random sequence of acoustic startle, simulated TTS, and simulated tinnitus conditions. While response accuracy and latency was monitored during these tasks, subjects’ physical startle was also evaluated with electromyography (EMG) sensors, measuring muscle activity of the eyelid, jaw, neck, and bicep. Results suggest that each independent condition affects performance on localization and SIN tasks, with maximum suppressive effect occurring with all three main acoustic effects combined. As anticipated, the acoustic startle had a profound impact on the performance of at least some of subjects’ listening ability in this pilot. Further work is necessary to fully characterize these effects in pursuit of creating a non-lethal flashbang device.
A construction for the prediction of noise-induced annoyance in the presence of auditory masking
Authors: Christian Andrew
Published: November 2021

There is a large amount of evidence to suggest that people’s reactions to annoying sounds are moderated by the presence of other background sounds. One of the mechanisms of this moderation is auditory masking: when the annoying sound simply cannot be heard over the background. This presentation outlines a construction for computing a predictor of annoyance in the presence of masking. The construction is demonstrated by producing an augmentation of the common sound exposure level noise metric using one-third octave band data sampled at 2 Hz. These data allow an estimation of the probability of masking within each band at each time step. The acoustic energy within a masked band can be ‘discounted’ by this estimation before being summed in the usual equal-energy way and with the typical A-weighting corrections. In this way, backgrounds that only provide partial masking in frequency and time will produce predictions of annoyance that fall between the unmasked sound exposure value and negative infinity (the result if there was a certainty of complete masking). The application of this concept to the noise of multirotor air vehicles is discussed.
On a measurement of noise-induced hearing considering the age of both ears
Authors: Bae Myungjin , Bae Seonggeon
Published: November 2021

The noise-induced hearing loss suffered in the multimedia living environment is difficult to detect because there are few symptoms in the early stages. Existing pure tone audiometry detects the response to whether pure tones are well heard for each frequency to 250–8000 Hz sound, which is mainly used in everyday conversation, but it is inaccurate and takes a long time to measure noise-induced hearing loss. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a new measurement method that can easily and quickly self-measure noise-induced hearing loss in both ears through a smartphone APP. In this method, the age-compensated 9 pure tones for each voice subband are alternately heard in both ears at 10 kHz or higher, thereby rapidly determining one's own hearing loss. When 18 tone pulses were heard for 27 s per person, 68 out of 100 subjects in their 20 s were identified as suspected of partial hearing loss, and 27 including them were identified as having severe noise-induced hearing loss. And when the subjects were instructed on how to discriminate the number of hearings for noise-induced hearing loss, the participants themselves immediately determined whether their hearing was impaired. In the end, the noise-induced hearing loss measurement method in both ears, which took more than 10 minutes with the existing manual method, could be easily and accurately measured with our proposed method.
Speech envelope enhancement to improve cocktail-party listening
Authors: Cardosi Daniel , Baltzell Lucas , Best Virginia
Published: November 2021

A novel speech enhancement scheme is being developed in our lab with the goal of improving speech intelligibility in “cocktail party” listening environments. By manipulating the temporal envelope to increase the salience of acoustic onsets, the algorithm improves access to binaural cues sampled at these onsets. The hope is that this will lead to a more robust spatial perception and improved streaming of competing talkers that could impact a variety of applications including hearing aids and cochlear implants. The algorithm is designed to run in real time, and in order to test its efficacy in real-world environments, it must be implemented on a portable device. For this project, the algorithm is being written in the Teensyduino software and uploaded to a Tympan Rev E DSP unit fitted with a Tympan AIC CODEC daughterboard. External speech is both captured by and played back through a pair of Tympan BTE earpieces, and all processing is performed independently for each ear by the Tympan’s Teensy 4.1 microcontroller. Assuming that the algorithm is successfully implemented, speech signals delivered to the listener will have perceptibly higher crest factors (i.e., higher transient energy) than at input. The portable, bilateral, real-time implementation developed here will allow us to evaluate any associated binaural effects and their consequences in complex real-world listening tasks.
Open-source baby monitor
Authors: Lani Shane W. , Cooper Jennifer , Flynn Tyler J. , Schleif Jordan , Mookerjee Adaleena , Ott-Pietrak O. H.
Published: November 2021

New parents often want to know everything that their new little one is up to, even while they are sleeping. The easiest way to accomplish this task is to install an audio baby monitor, comprised of a baby monitor receiver unit near the child’s bed and a parental unit which can be carried about the house. These monitors can alert the parents when their bundles of joy are quite upset, but they can also alert the parents with annoying audio from white noise sound machines, lullaby tunes, as well as transient passing motorcycles and landing airplanes. Too much unwanted noise transmitted to the parental unit could lead to the parent turning down their receiver volume and later missing the true alert of their crying little one. The ideal baby audio monitor alerts the parental unit via real time audio only when the baby needs attention, and does not transmit or amplify the received audio for all other noise sources. This presentation outlines the efforts undertaken to develop and test a smart baby monitor using an open-source audio platform and includes performance comparisons of the developed system to commercially available baby monitors.
Open source audio platform ultrasound dosimeter
Authors: Cooper Jennifer , Flynn Tyler J. , Ott-Pietrak O. H. , Mookerjee Adaleena , Schleif Jordan , Lani Shane W.
Published: November 2021

It is well known that hearing loss can occur from exposure to high intensities of sounds >80 dBA; however there is less information about hearing loss from ultrasonic frequencies. There are many commercial and industrial devices that produce ultrasonic acoustic energy ranging from humidifiers, pest and pet repellent devices, and crowd control devices. Even though there are fewer regulations with regard to ultrasound, there have been documented cases of effects including temporary or permanent threshold shifts from exposure to ultrasonic energy. However, there is not a readily available open source solution for quantifying exposure. In this work, a TYMPAN open source hearing aid development platform is used to develop and test a prototype ultrasonic dosimeter. This dosimeter works like a SPL meter, with the inclusion of the ultrasonic 1/3 octave bands, with an audible alarm emitted when the user happens to be in the presence of ultrasonic energy. From the full data recording of a test covering various environments, several key features of the exposure are highlighted. The presentation will cover the development of the algorithms, testing of the device, and post test analysis. Code will be made available via the open source libraries for future users to build upon.
Experimental validation of a switchable oscillator array
Authors: Hubbard Seth , Vignola Joseph , Sterling John , Regmi Sarthak
Published: November 2021

This presentation will discuss an experimental validation of a switchable oscillator array that can be used to absorb energy from a resonant system. The individual elements of the oscillator array are composed of thin piezocomponents that vibrate as cantilevers. Each piezocomponent is designed to have a fundamental frequency, independent of the other elements, forming a band around the primary resonance of the host structure. The system is switched by electrically shunting the individual piezocomponents, lowering the stiffness of the cantilever, which has a significant effect on the energy transfer into the oscillator array and, hence, its ability to damp the motion of the host structure. Modeling in MATLAB and COMSOL is used in the design to predict the performance of the specified system used in the experiment, as well as larger systems with more than one resonance.
An acoustic study of vowels produced by Cantonese alaryngeal speakers using clear speech
Authors: Cox Steven R. , Huang Ting , Chen Wei-rong , Ng Manwa L.
Published: November 2021

Alaryngeal speech is an alternative method of verbal communication following the removal of the larynx. Common alaryngeal speaking methods include esophageal (ES) speech, tracheoesophageal (TE) speech, and speech produced using an electrolarynx (EL). A recent study [Hui et al., in press, Folia Phoniatr Logop] demonstrated better intelligibility in Cantonese alaryngeal speakers while using clear speech (CS) compared to their everyday ‘habitual speech’ (HS). Yet the correlated change in the acoustics associated with CS is still not clear. The purpose of this study was to assess the acoustic characteristics of vowels produced by Cantonese alaryngeal speakers during HS and CS conditions. Thirty-one alaryngeal speakers (9 EL users, 10 ES speakers, and 12 TE speakers) produced sentences from the Cantonese Sentence Intelligibility Test in HS and CS. Acoustic analyses considered formants (measured by reassigned spectrogram), vowel space area (VSA) and vowel duration across alaryngeal speaking methods and styles. We also examined these acoustic differences in relation to duration of alaryngeal speech use and intelligibility. Results suggest that EL users had larger VSAs and larger increases in vowel duration while using CS compared to ES and TE speakers. Future research will examine the effects of refined CS protocols on improving acoustic and perceptual characteristics of Cantonese alaryngeal speech.
Effects of background noise on the speech acoustics of people with aphasia
Authors: Dixon Kirsten , Dromey Christopher , Harmon Tyson , Neilsen Tracianne B.
Published: November 2021

We investigated the effect of six background noise conditions (silent baseline, pink noise, monologue, lively conversation, one-sided phone call, and cocktail noise) on acoustic measures of speech during story retells in people with aphasia. Eleven individuals with aphasia and 11 age- and gender-matched control participants heard the background noise through headphones while they retold short stories. We measured mean and standard deviation of intensity and fundamental frequency (F0), and speech rate. A Matlab application computed a speaking time ratio measure (i.e., time speaking versus time pausing). With the exception of the monologue and one-sided phone call condition, both people with aphasia and control participants significantly increased their intensity and F0 in the presence of background noise, regardless of noise type. Additionally, participants with aphasia had significantly lower speaking time ratios and speaking rates than control participants. All speakers made acoustic changes while hearing background noise, likely because speech intensity rises in an effort to increase the signal-to-noise ratio, while mean F0 increases due to a presumed rise in subglottal pressure. Further research is suggested to investigate other acoustic differences, possibly at the segmental level, between speech produced in informational and energetic background noise conditions.