Auditory localization research needs to be performed in more realistic testing environments to better capture the real-world abilities of listeners and their hearing devices. However, there are significant challenges involved in controlling the audibility of relevant target signals in realistic environments. To understand the important aspects influencing target detection in more complex environments, a reverberant room with a multi-talker background was simulated and presented to the listener in a loudspeaker-based virtual sound environment. Masked thresholds of a short speech stimulus were measured adaptively for multiple target source locations in this scenario. It was found that both distance and azimuth of the target source have a strong influence on the masked threshold. Subsequently, a functional model was applied to analyze the factors influencing target detectability. The model is comprised of an auditory front-end that generates an internal representation of the stimuli in both ears, followed by a decision device combining information across time, frequency and both ears. The model predictions of the masked thresholds were overall in very good agreement with the experimental results. An analysis of the model processes showed that head shadow effects, signal spectrum, and reverberation have a strong impact on target audibility in the given scenario.
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
March 2016
March 24 2016
Auditory masking of speech in reverberant multi-talker environments
Tobias Weller;
Tobias Weller
Department of Linguistics,
Macquarie University
, New South Wales 2109, Australia
Search for other works by this author on:
Jörg M. Buchholz;
Jörg M. Buchholz
b)
Department of Linguistics,
Macquarie University
, New South Wales 2109, Australia
Search for other works by this author on:
Virginia Best
Virginia Best
Boston University Hearing Research Center
, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA
Search for other works by this author on:
a)
Electronic mail: [email protected]
b)
Also at: National Acoustic Laboratories, Australian Hearing, Macquarie University, New South Wales 2019, Australia.
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 139, 1303–1313 (2016)
Article history
Received:
June 30 2015
Accepted:
March 05 2016
Citation
Tobias Weller, Jörg M. Buchholz, Virginia Best; Auditory masking of speech in reverberant multi-talker environments. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 1 March 2016; 139 (3): 1303–1313. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.4944568
Download citation file:
Pay-Per-View Access
$40.00
Sign In
You could not be signed in. Please check your credentials and make sure you have an active account and try again.
Citing articles via
All we know about anechoic chambers
Michael Vorländer
A survey of sound source localization with deep learning methods
Pierre-Amaury Grumiaux, Srđan Kitić, et al.
Performance study of ray-based ocean acoustic tomography methods for estimating submesoscale variability in the upper ocean
Etienne Ollivier, Richard X. Touret, et al.
Related Content
The influence of informational masking in reverberant, multi-talker environments
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (August 2015)
The effect of nearby maskers on speech intelligibility in reverberant, multi-talker environments
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (March 2017)
A talker-independent deep learning algorithm to increase intelligibility for hearing-impaired listeners in reverberant competing talker conditions
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (June 2020)
Auditory spatial analysis in reverberant multi-talker environments with congruent and incongruent audio-visual room information
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (September 2022)
The impact of reverberation on speech intelligibility in cochlear implant recipients
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (August 2018)