Francisco, Zandro M.

June 28, 2014

Mendoza, Lawrence L.

Experiment no. 4
Auditory Perception
Introduction:


Everytime you hear the croaking of a frog or even the angry voice of your mother,
how do you know where the sound is coming from? The basilar membrane tells us
about the frequency and complexity of a sound, but it doesnt tell us where a sound is
located.


Objective:

To be able to locate the source of the sound and discriminate the presence of
obstacles.

Apparatus:

-Bell (impulse)
-Scarf (blindfold)
-Chair

Procedure:

*Part 1
E and S should become familiar with the following directions:
Upper front (UF)
Upper Left (UL)
Upper Back (UB)
Front (F)
Down Left (DL)
Upper Right (UR)
Down Front (DF)
Right (R)
Right Back (RB)
Left (L)
Down Right (DR)
Down Back (DB)

Blindfold S and make him/her sit on chair provided with a chair rest in the center of a
room (or just go to the quite place). E rings the bell from each of the positions listed
above. The bell should originate at a standard distance of 3 feet. The ringing of the bell
is repeated ten times from each location in random order. Ask S to report where the
source of the sound came from. The recorder takes note of the position of the bell and
Ss right or wrong responses. All the observation must maintain complete silence during
the entire duration of the experiment.
Do not give the subject any additional cues in locating the sound
Mark with a check the correct responses and X for errors.
Results:
Directions

Upper front (UF)

Front (F)

Down Front (DF)

Left (L)

Upper Left (UL)

Down Left (DL)

Right (R)

Down Right (DR)


Upper Back (UB)



Upper Right (UR)


Right Back (RB)

Down Back (DB)


Discussion:
1. Explain the external factors that could hinder the accuracy of sound location.

- Humans often have difficulty localizing a sound that is coming from a source
directly in front of them because it reaches both ears simultaneously.
Compared with some animals, humans arent very accurate at locating
sounds (Marlin, 1988). For example, bats are able to hunt insects at night
because of their highly developed sensitivity to their own echoes. They emit
sounds and listen to the echoes coming back. This system is called as
echolocation -- which in the case of humans, doesnt suit well.

2. What are the effects of placing scarf on the eyes?

- Vision and audition are senses that perform aesthetically. These senses help
humans to fully actualize their environment. Removing one from the other will
cause disorientation for the subject. Localizing the sound wont be as easy as
the subject can see it.




3. What do you mean by facial vision?

- Facial vision is the manner of sensing the proximity of objects by the nerves of
the face, presumed in the case of the blind and also in sighted people who are in
darkness.

4. Discuss why Ss have difficulty in disseminating the source of the sound.

- Having two ears serve a great help in localizing the source of the sound but
hearing the same thing simultaneously is a different thing. The difficulty of the
subject to determine the source of the sound began as soon as it was
blindfolded. It is followed by a sound shadow of the listeners head. The
subjects head formed a barrier that reduced the sounds intensity making it
hard for the subject to pin-point the sound source. This happens because the
other ear receives the auditory information sooner and more intense rather
than other ear.

5. Suggest ways and means of improving the experiment.
- Theories like the Place theory and Frequency theory can also be applied in
the experiment. Choosing an enclosed room where one can hear a drop of a
pin may also serve a great help.


Sound localization refers to a listener's ability to identify the location or origin of a
detected sound in direction and distance. The sound localization mechanisms of the
mammalian auditory system have been extensively studied. The auditory system uses
several cues for sound source localization, including time- and level-differences
between both ears, spectral information, timing analysis, correlation analysis, and
pattern matching.
The poorer performance for auditory localization maybe one reason that it has
often been considered a secondary sense to vision. When visual and auditory spatial
cues are put into conict, the spatial location determined by the visual system tends to
win out.
The human outer ear, i.e. the structures of the pinna and the external ear canal,
form direction-selective filters. Depending on the sound input direction in the median
plane, different filter resonances become active. These resonances implant direction-
specific patterns into the frequency responses of the ears, which can be evaluated by
the auditory system (directional bands) for vertical sound localization. Together with
other direction-selective reflections at the head, shoulders and torso, they form the outer
ear transfer functions.
These patterns in the ear's frequency responses are highly individual, depending
on the shape and size of the outer ear.[citation needed] If sound is presented through
headphones, and has been recorded via another head with different-shaped outer ear
surfaces, the directional patterns differ from the listener's own, and problems will appear
when trying to evaluate directions in the median plane with these foreign ears. As a
consequence, frontback permutations or inside-the-head-localization can appear when
listening to dummy head recordings, or otherwise referred to as binaural recordings.
The precedence effect or law of the first wave front is a binaural psychoacoustic
effect. When a sound is followed by another sound separated by a sufficiently short time
delay (below the listener's echo threshold), listeners perceive a single fused auditory
image; its perceived spatial location is dominated by the location of the first-arriving
sound (the first wave front). The lagging sound also affects the perceived location.
However, its effect is suppressed by the first-arriving sound.

Blindfold Improves Hearing
January 30, 2007|By WILLIAM WEIR; Courant Staff Writer

If you want to hear better, at least for a little while, try a blindfold.

Though plenty of studies have shown that blind people have enhanced hearing,
researchers in Germany now say it takes just 90 minutes of being blindfolded to bring
about better hearing.
For the study, subjects were placed in a half-circle of 21 speakers, each
randomly emitting a sound. After each sound, the subjects were instructed to turn their
head and face the direction of the sound's source. Conducted at the Leibniz Research
Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, 20 participants were tested
immediately after putting on a blindfold (actually a scuba mask with a blackened
screen). They tended to underestimate how far they needed to turn by 1 to 11 degrees,
depending on how far off to the side the speaker was.

But after 90 minutes with the blindfold on, they consistently performed better, by
about 1 degree in each case.

The improvements are similar to, though not as dramatic, as those seen in blind
people. The researcher in charge of the study, Joerg Lewald, says previous tests have
shown blind subjects to be up to 3 degrees to 4 degrees more accurate than their
sighted counterparts. However, when sounds were emitted from centrally placed
speakers, the blindfolded subjects actually did better than blind participants.

After three hours with the blindfold off, though, improvements in the subjects'
hearing had faded away.





Citations:

(Wundt and Helmholtz) Hearing in particular maintained that we directly perceive
the the locality of a sensation without having to learn of it through its connection with
movements. Behind the dispute, however, can be detected the same confusion as the
involved in Sensionalist Theory of our perception of spatial extension.
Descartes said I understand all that which so takes place in us that we
ourselves are consciously aware of it; and accordingly not only to understand, to will, to
imagine, but even to perceive are the same as to think
Like James Mill, Bain starts from sensations, which defines as mental
impressions, feelings, or states of consciousness, resulting from the action of external
things on some part of the body.
The researcher in charge of the study, Joerg Lewald, says previous tests have
shown blind subjects to be up to 3 degrees to 4 degrees more accurate than their
sighted counterparts. However, when sounds were emitted from centrally placed
speakers, the blindfolded subjects actually did better than blind participants.
``I think this aspect could, possibly, have implications for sensory training
programs in rehabilitation of blind people,'' says Lewald.
Fearn R, Carter P, Wolfe J (1999). "The perception of pitch by users of cochlear
implants: possible significance for rate and place theories of pitch".















References

Thompson, Daniel M. Understanding Audio: Getting the Most out of Your Project or
Professional Recording Studio. Boston, MA: Berklee, 2005

Wallach, H (1939). "On sound localization". Journal of the Acoustical Society of
America, 10 (4): 270274:
Lachman, Roy, Earl C. Butterfield, and Janet L. Lachman. Cognitive Psychology and
Information Processing: an Introduction. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1979.
Benade, Arthur H. Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics. New York: Oxford UP, 1976.
Banyard, Philip, Davies, Mark N.O, Norman Christine, Winder, Belinda. Essential
Psychology: SAGE, 2010
Joseph Lyons. A primer of experimental psychology. 1965
http://articles.courant.com/2007-01-30/features/0701300138_1_blind-people-blind-
participants-sound-source
http://www.ise.ncsu.edu/kay/msf/sound.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precedence_effect
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://ehs.edgemont.org/www/
edgemont_ehs/site/hosting/science%2520expo%2520abstracts/Lafayette,%2520Mariss
a.pdf