主观空间分离下的汉语信息掩蔽效应

基于听觉优先效应中的融合现象,探讨了主观空间分离下的汉语信息掩蔽效应。实验用左右两个扬声器来播放目标言语信号和掩蔽声音,并通过改变两个扬声器之间的延迟来操作掩蔽声音的主观空间位置。结果显示,尽管言语信号和掩蔽声音都由同样的扬声器播放而没有实际的空间分离,这种利用优先效应所产生的主观空间分离却可以提高言语识别的正确率。在信息掩蔽条件下由主观空间分离所造成的言语识别的改善显著地高于在能量掩蔽条件下的改善。这些结果为如何分离对言语信号的能量掩蔽与信息掩蔽,以及为相关的建筑声学和通讯技术的研究与应用提供了听觉心理学的参考。     

基于不相似度评价的水下声目标分类与听觉特征辨识

本文旨在探索人类被试对水下声目标的感知分类及在该过程中所利用的听觉特征.首先设计了成对比较实验.然后利用CLASCAL算法对实验获得的不相似度评分进行建模,获得感知空间,并分析了3个公共维度、特异性和3个被试潜类各自的特性及其在目标感知分类中所起的作用.最后,基于Gammatone听觉滤波器组对声样本进行分析,发现了能够有效描述3个公共维度以及节拍特性的听觉特征,并利用它们构造决策树对新样本实现了分类,从而为实际中如何应用这些特征提供了指导.     

《空间声原理》

正谢菠荪著科学出版社,北京,2019年6月,818页,定价:249元听觉是我们感知外界信息的重要途径之一。人的听觉中,除了对声音的响度、音调和音色等主观属性的感觉外,还包括对声音的空间听觉,也就是对声音空间属性或特性的感知。这赋予了我们的听觉系统在一定的条件下,可以对声源进行定位,可以产生对周围声学环境的空间印象的可能。空间声的目的是重放声场的空间信息,给倾听者产生特定的空间听觉事件或感知。近年来,其应用已由传统的影院和家用声重放等文化娱乐领域,拓展到听觉心理和生理、室内声学设计、通信、互联网与计算机、多媒体与虚拟现实、医学等科学研究及工程技术领域。可见应用价值之重要。     

非线性物理破解神经编码机制

信息在神经系统中以脉冲点序列的形式传输和处理，神经系统如何通过脉冲点序列对所表达的信息进行编码，一直是一个谜．人们曾普遍认为，神经可能通过发放率（单位时间发放脉冲出现的次数）对信息编码，也有人猜测，神经可通过脉冲点序列的时序编码．由于神经发放的随机性，这就使得任何编码机制都面临着被表达信息的确定性与表达该信息的信号的随机性的矛盾．通过神经非线性随机动力学模型，文章作者发现，神经点序列的发放率对点序列的时序信息传输的影响，揭示了神经点序列时序信息在神经非线性传输中的随机共振特征．由此预期，并进一步通过听觉心理物理实验观察到，在一定条件下噪声对听觉的增强作用．从而通过非线性物理揭示了听觉时序编码机制的存在以及在时序编码中随机性噪声的积极作用．     

基于支持向量机增量学习和LPBoost的人体目标再识别算法

摄像机间目标关联是无重叠视域多摄像机目标持续跟踪的关键.提出了一种只利用人体目标外观,完全不依赖于空时关系的人体目标再识别算法,利用识别结果直接进行跨摄像机间人体目标关联,而不依赖于目标的捕获时间和路径限制.对跟踪视频前景图像序列提取互补性视觉单词树直方图和全局颜色直方图二种特征,采用支持向量机增量学习在线训练二种特征的人体外观辨别模型,再利用多类线性规划增强算法对二种特征的支持向量机模型进行在线自适应融合.实验结果表明,本文算法具有较强的在线学习能力,能增量式表达人体目标辨别性外观模型,特征融合后的模型区别性更强,有效地降低多方面条件变化的影响,获得了高识别率,且能够实现快速实时实现,相对于现有方法有了明显提升.     

基于支持向量机增量学习和LPBoost的人体目标再识别算法

摄像机间目标关联是无重叠视域多摄像机目标持续跟踪的关键.提出了一种只利用人体目标外观,完全不依赖于空时关系的人体目标再识别算法,利用识别结果直接进行跨摄像机间人体目标关联,而不依赖于目标的捕获时间和路径限制.对跟踪视频前景图像序列提取互补性视觉单词树直方图和全局颜色直方图二种特征,采用支持向量机增量学习在线训练二种特征的人体外观辨别模型,再利用多类线性规划增强算法对二种特征的支持向量机模型进行在线自适应融合.实验结果表明,本文算法具有较强的在线学习能力,能增量式表达人体目标辨别性外观模型,特征融合后的模型区别性更强,有效地降低多方面条件变化的影响,获得了高识别率,且能够实现快速实时实现,相对于现有方法有了明显提升.     

听觉障碍患者的空间听觉*

空间听觉是对声音空间属性或特性的主观感觉,包括对声源的定位、对环境反射声的主观感觉等。复杂声学环境下的语言获取也和空间听觉密切相关。听觉障碍通常会包括空间听觉能力的下降甚至缺失,影响语言的获取能力。人工听觉是治疗听觉障碍的手段,理想情况下应能恢复或改善患者的空间听觉能力。该文综述了听觉障碍患者的空间听觉及其人工恢复方面的研究、进展及存在的问题。     

复杂谐波信号中响度和谱质心的相互影响——响度和谱质心辨别阈的实验研究

根据阈值测量实验和变化一致性测量实验,在单自变量干扰和双自变量干扰两种情况下量化分析响度和谱质心之间的交互关系。研究发现:(1)复杂谐波信号中谱质心对响度的影响强于响度对谱质心的影响;(2)声音的变化方向对被试判断响度和谱质心的阈值存在影响。研究结果进一步呈现了响度和谱质心的定量特征,为听觉属性交互关系的深入研究提供了新的思路。      

人耳辨识非语言声目标能力的实验研究

以主观听觉测试实验为手段,研究人耳听觉系统辨识能力与声音特性、评价主体训练程度及噪声干扰的关系.实验结果发现：人耳辨识声音能力主要由声信号的谱时结构决定,人耳对于谐音信号的辨识能力明显强于非谐音,对于稳态信号的辨识能力略强于瞬态信号;评价主体的训练可以提高辨识效果及准确性,但与声音特性密切相关;不同的噪声干扰对人耳目标辨识能力的影响主要取决于声音频谱结构;比对测听方式能提高非受训人员的辨识准确性,但不影响受训人员的辨识效果. 关键词： 听觉系统 主观听觉测试 目标辨识     

空间混沌序列的加密特性研究

提出一个基于空间混沌系统的伪随机序列发生器,对空间混沌产生的伪随机位序列进行了FIPS140-1统计性检验和相关性分析,并应用空间混沌产生的各态历经矩阵实现图像的加密解密,实验的结果表明这种基于空间混沌系统的伪随机序列产生器具有优良的随机性,巨大的密钥空间和敏感性. 关键词： 伪随机序列 空间混沌系统 图像加密     

Children's detection of pure-tone signals: informational masking with contralateral maskers

When normal-hearing adults and children are required to detect a 1000-Hz tone in a random-frequency multitone masker, masking is often observed in excess of that predicted by traditional auditory filter models. The excess masking is called informational masking. Though individual differences in the effect are large, the amount of informational masking is typically much greater in young children than in adults [Oh et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 109, 2888-2895 (2001)]. One factor that reduces informational masking in adults is spatial separation of the target tone and masker. The present study was undertaken to determine whether or not a similar effect of spatial separation is observed in children. An extreme case of spatial separation was used in which the target tone was presented to one ear and the random multitone masker to the other ear. This condition resulted in nearly complete elimination of masking in adults. In young children, however, presenting the masker to the nontarget ear typically produced only a slight decrease in overall masking and no change in informational masking. The results for children are interpreted in terms of a model that gives equal weight to the auditory filter outputs from each ear.     

The "proportion-of-the-total-duration rule" for the discrimination of auditory patterns.

A principle of auditory perception that governs the detectability of changes in components in unfamiliar sequences of tones is demonstrated in four experiments. The proportion-of-the-total-duration (PTD) rule can be stated as follows: Each individual component of an unfamiliar sequence of tones is resolved with an accuracy that is a function of its proportion of the total duration of the sequence or "pattern." An adaptive-tracking frequency-discrimination task was used in all experiments. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the PTD rule holds over a wide range of total pattern durations, numbers of components, and component durations. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the PTD rule governs discrimination performance despite variation in the relative durations of context and target tones. Experiment 3, using a variable temporal position for the target, confirmed that the PTD effect does not require that a listener be able to anticipate the temporal location of the target tone. Experiment 4, using two target tones, showed that the PTD rules applies to the proportional duration of individual components within patterns and not to the total proportional duration of nonadjacent components within the pattern. These findings are incompatible with performance limitations based on a fixed-duration short-term memory capacity and with versions of informational limitations in which the amount of information in a pattern varies either with the number of components or with the total pattern duration. The PTD rule appears to reflect the way listeners distribute their attention when presented with unfamiliar complex sounds that have no structural properties (other than proportional duration) that significantly increase the salience of individual components.     

Informational processing of complex sound. III: interference.

In this study, theoretical results from information theory and detection theory are applied to provide a formal analysis of the interaction of target and context uncertainty on the discrimination of brief multitone sequences. The experiments employ a sample-discrimination task in which the performance of an ideal observer is held constant while the relative variability of the target sigmaT and context sigmaC is varied. Listener performance in these experiments was less than ideal but increased monotonically with sigmaT/sigmaC whether the task was to discriminate the frequency or the intensity of the target. Performance was also constant for a constant sigmaT/sigmaC regardless of the target's position in the sequence. The results are consistent with a class of models in which the decision variable is a weighted sum of the tone values comprising the sequence. Weighting functions computed from the trial-by-trial date suggest that limits in performance result from trial-by-trial variability in the weights. The decision variable also serves as the basis for an analysis in which performance is linearly related to the information rate of the context independent of target position or task. In this analysis, target and context uncertainty contribute additively to the overall uncertainty associated with the decision variable.     

Evidence for direction-specific channels in the processing of frequency modulation.

Evidence is provided for the existence of at least three feature-specific channels in the auditory system. Thresholds for the detection of small repetitive or nonrepetitive frequency changes were measured following various adapting stimuli using a 2IFC procedure in two subjects at 1 kHz. Thresholds for single linear upward frequency sweeps (up sweeps) were increased by a factor of 2 to 3 following exposure to repetitive (8 Hz) up sweeps but not following exposure to down sweeps or tone bursts; correspondingly, thresholds for down-sweep stimuli were increased only by down sweeps. Sinusoidal FM test stimulus thresholds were elevated by both up-sweeps and down-sweeps and to a lesser extent by tone bursts. These results suggest the existence in the auditory system of channels specific to upward FM, downward FM, and probably repetition rate.     

Hands help hearing: facilitatory audiotactile interaction at low sound-intensity levels

Auditory and vibrotactile stimuli share similar temporal patterns. A psychophysical experiment was performed to test whether this similarity would lead into an intermodal bias in perception of sound intensity. Nine normal-hearing subjects performed a loudness-matching task of faint tones, adjusting the probe tone to sound equally loud as a reference tone. The task was performed both when the subjects were touching and when they were not touching a tube that vibrated simultaneously with the probe tone. The subjects chose on average 12% lower intensities (p < 0.01) for the probe tone when they touched the tube, suggesting facilitatory interaction between auditory and tactile senses in normal-hearing subjects.     

Detection of interaural phase shift between a subaudible and an audible tone

Can a shift in interaural phase between a subthreshold signal and an audible contralateral probe tone affect perception of the probe? To obtain an answer, an 800-Hz tone was presented to both ears. The tone was presented continuously to one ear (-25 to + 10 dB SL) and in a sequence of four bursts per trial to the other ear (+ 10 dB SL). Interaural phase was reversed for either the second or the fourth burst in a 2 AFC task. Interaural phase-shift detection threshold (65% correct) varied with the intensity of the continuous signal; across subjects, this threshold varied from -21 to + 1 dB SL. When a 300-or 500-Hz masking tone was added to the ear with the continuous signal, phase-shift detection accuracy depended primarily upon the sensation level of the signal rather than its sound pressure level. These findings demonstrate temporal encoding at signal levels well below hearing threshold.     

Memory for the locations of environmental sounds

The accuracy with which a single source of sound can be localized has been examined in many studies, but very few studies have examined the ability of participants to determine the absolute locations of multiple sources of sound. The current study assessed participants' abilities to determine and remember the locations of up to six sources of environmental sound that were positioned at a range of azimuths and elevations in virtual auditory space. In experiment 1, a sequence of one to six sounds was presented one, three, or five times in each trial and the target sound was nominated following presentation of the last sequence. In experiment 2, memory load was held constant by nominating the target sound prior to a single sequence presentation. Localization accuracy was observed to decrease as the number of sounds was increased to three or more under the conditions of experiment 1, but not those of experiment 2. In experiment 1, localization was more accurate when sequences were presented more than once. Pronounced primacy and recency effects were observed for the six sound conditions in experiment 1. An analysis of errors for those conditions indicated that immediate temporal errors, but not immediate spatial errors, were over-represented.     

The role of frequency versus informational cues in uncertain frequency detection

The role of frequency and informational cues in the detection of tones of uncertain frequency was investigated using the probe-signal method [G.Z. Greenberg and W.D. Larkin, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 44, 1513-1523 (1968)] with auditory and visual test patterns. Patterns consisted of a sequence of events, either tones or visual stimuli, preceding the tone to be detected. Both frequency and informational cues were available in the auditory patterns, whereas only informational cues were available in the visual patterns. Results indicated that observers in the auditory condition displayed trial-by-trial selective attention to one or another frequency band as a function of the cues provided by earlier pattern components. In contrast, listeners in the visual condition displayed simultaneous attention to the two separate frequency bands that could possibly contain the tone, regardless of the information provided by the cues. Results are discussed in terms of single- and multiple-band models of attention.     

Modulation of auditory evoked responses to spectral and temporal changes by behavioral discrimination training

Background  

Due to auditory experience, musicians have better auditory expertise than non-musicians. An increased neocortical activity during auditory oddball stimulation was observed in different studies for musicians and for non-musicians after discrimination training. This suggests a modification of synaptic strength among simultaneously active neurons due to the training. We used amplitude-modulated tones (AM) presented in an oddball sequence and manipulated their carrier or modulation frequencies. We investigated non-musicians in order to see if behavioral discrimination training could modify the neocortical activity generated by change detection of AM tone attributes (carrier or modulation frequency). Cortical evoked responses like N1 and mismatch negativity (MMN) triggered by sound changes were recorded by a whole head magnetoencephalographic system (MEG). We investigated (i) how the auditory cortex reacts to pitch difference (in carrier frequency) and changes in temporal features (modulation frequency) of AM tones and (ii) how discrimination training modulates the neuronal activity reflecting the transient auditory responses generated in the auditory cortex.     

Spatial and temporal bilateral filter for infrared small target enhancement

This paper presents a spatial and temporal bilateral filter (BF) to detect target trajectories, by extracting spatial target information using a spatial BF and temporal target information using a temporal BF. Background prediction when it is covered by targets is the key to small target detection. In order to apply the BF to a small target detection field for this purpose, this paper presents a novel spatial and temporal BF with an adaptive standard deviation to predict spatial background and temporal background profiles, based on analysis of the blocks surrounding a spatial and temporal filter window. In order to discriminate between the edge or object regions with a flat background and the target region spatially and temporally, spatial and temporal variances of the blocks surrounding the filter window are calculated in a spatial infrared (IR) image and temporal profile. The spatial and temporal variances adjust standard deviations of the spatial and temporal BF. Through this procedure, spatial background and temporal background profiles are predicted, and then small targets can be detected by subtracting the predicted spatial background (and temporal background profile) from the original IR image (and original temporal profile) and multiplying spatial and temporal target information. To compare existing target detection methods and the proposed method, signal-to-clutter ratio gain (SCRG) and background suppression factor (BSF) are employed for spatial performance comparison and receiver operating characteristics (ROC) is used for detection-performance comparison of the target trajectory. Experimental results show that the proposed method has a superior target detection rate and a lower false-alarm rate.