Acoustical properties of wood in string instruments soundboards and tuned idiophones: biological and cultural diversity

The acoustical properties of wood for instruments have mostly been studied on a few archetypal woods in Western musical instruments. The objective of this paper is to extend knowledge on the diversity in wood properties and uses in instruments from different geo-cultural areas. A wide set of data has been collected on vibrational properties of 452 species, through experiments and literature survey. Property distributions within broad categories confirm the known characteristics of softwoods, but also evidence specificities of tropical hardwoods compared to temperate-zone species. A relational database has been created to link wood properties and uses in musical instruments of the world. Two case studies on acoustically important functions in different geo-cultural areas show contrasted trends: (i) species used for xylophone bars and slit-drums in different continents all share a very low internal friction, (ii) on the contrary, the only characteristic common to soundboards' woods is a lower than average density, whereas their acoustical properties differ widely between them and with the "Western" standard in wood choice. All these materials being nevertheless adapted to their context, cultural specificities in the structure, playing mode and "sonority" preferences should also be taken into account.     

Polyspectral technique for the analysis of stress-waves characteristics and species recognition in wood veneers

In this work a simple technique to obtain information about the species of wood samples using stress-wave sounds in the audible range is presented. However, spectra of wood sounds generated by pendulum impact are very complex and feature extraction for classification purposes is very difficult. Polyspectral techniques have been successfully applied to several problems from radar pattern recognition to medical signal processing. Following this approach, convolution of four different sound impacts has been done. This permits to extract clear polyspectral features suitable for wood species recognition with possible applications to both human assisted and automatic wood identification systems with minimal intersample variability. Results indicate that using this technique only the two most intense polyspectral peaks are enough for species recognition.     

Auditory detection of hollowness

The airborne sounds produced by freely vibrating hollow and solid bars were synthesized according to the equations of bar motion from theoretical acoustics, and were presented to listeners over headphones. In a two-interval, forced-choice task, listeners were asked to distinguish between the hollow and solid bar sounds as bar length was varied at random from one presentation to the next. All other physical properties of the bar were held constant across trials. Listener decision strategies for detecting hollowness in iron, aluminum, and wood bars were determined from regression weights describing the relation between the listener's response and the frequency, intensity, and decay modulus of the individual partials comprising these sounds. The obtained weights were compared to those of a hypothetical listener that bases judgments on the acoustic relations intrinsic to hollowness, as determined from the equations for motion. Results indicate that listeners adopt roughly one of two decision strategies, either basing judgments on the appropriate acoustic relations, or basing judgments predominantly on frequency alone. The decision strategy of some listeners also changed from one type to the other with a change in bar material or upon replication of the same condition. The results are interpreted in terms of the vulnerability of the intrinsic acoustic relations to small perturbations in acoustic parameters, as would be associated with listener internal noise. They demonstrate that basic limits of human sensitivity can have a profound effect on the identification of rudimentary source attributes from sound, even in conditions where acoustic variation is largely dictated by physical variation in the source.     

听觉感知中的噪声特性语义描述及其分析

基于听觉感知的噪声语义描述是噪声声品质研究的基础性问题,已有研究未将语义描述与噪声来源、频谱特性以及产品运行状态等物理信息联系起来。该文分别针对飞机舱内噪声、车辆噪声和空气净化器噪声这3组典型噪声开展了主观评价实验,并通过多维尺度分析和主成分分析描述了3组噪声的语义空间,系统分析了不同类型噪声的描述词,同时解释了描述词与噪声物理属性之间的联系。研究发现：飞机舱内噪声、车辆噪声以及空气净化器噪声可以由4维、4维和3维语义空间进行描述;不同类型噪声在语义描述中具有共性与个性,3组噪声语义的主要维度均与嘈杂感相关,而噪声的个性描述词与其声源的物理属性密切相关;进行声品质建模及应用时,应同时考虑噪声共性和个性描述词对听觉感知的影响,采取有针对性的措施以提升产品声品质。该文从听觉感知的角度进行了噪声特性的语义描述和分析,研究结果可为产品声品质以及噪声控制研究提供帮助。     

Material sound source localization through headphones

In the present paper a study of sound localization is carried out, considering two different sounds emitted from different hit materials (wood and bongo) as well as a Delta sound. The motivation of this research is to study how humans localize sounds coming from different materials, with the purpose of a future implementation of the acoustic sounds with better localization features in navigation aid systems or training audio-games suited for blind people. Wood and bongo sounds are recorded after hitting two objects made of these materials. Afterwards, they are analysed and processed. On the other hand, the Delta sound (click) is generated by using the Adobe Audition software, considering a frequency of 44.1 kHz. All sounds are analysed and convolved with previously measured non-individual Head-Related Transfer Functions both for an anechoic environment and for an environment with reverberation. The First Choice method is used in this experiment. Subjects are asked to localize the source position of the sound listened through the headphones, by using a graphic user interface. The analyses of the recorded data reveal that no significant differences are obtained either when considering the nature of the sounds (wood, bongo, Delta) or their environmental context (with or without reverberation). The localization accuracies for the anechoic sounds are: wood 90.19%, bongo 92.96% and Delta sound 89.59%, whereas for the sounds with reverberation the results are: wood 90.59%, bongo 92.63% and Delta sound 90.91%. According to these data, we can conclude that even when considering the reverberation effect, the localization accuracy does not significantly increase.     

Estimation of annoyance due to low level sound

The concept of sound character is introduced as a physical attribute responsible for any systematic differences in annoyance due to different sounds at the same A-weighted equivalent sound level. It is thought that this sound character is more important at low sound levels than at high ones. A pilot experiment with refrigerator sounds indicated a clear effect of sound character. In particular, sharp onsets were shown to worsen the character of such sounds.     

Factors influencing the sound preference in urban open spaces

In this paper, based on a large scale survey in Europe and China as well as corresponding laboratory studies, the influencing factors on the sound preference evaluation, considering social, demographical, physical, behavioural and psychological facets, have been systematically examined based on statistical analyses for each of the 19 case study sites. Various sound types have been considered, including natural, human, mechanical and instrumental sounds. In terms of social/demographical factors, the results suggest that age and education level are two factors which universally influence the sound preference significantly, although the influence may vary with different types of urban open spaces and sounds. With increasing age or education level, people tend to prefer natural sounds and are more annoyed by mechanical sounds in general. It has also been found that gender, occupation and residence status generally would not influence the sound preference evaluation significantly, although gender has a rather strong influence for certain sound types such as bird sounds, especially at certain case study sites. In terms of physical factors (season, time of day), behavioural factors (frequency of coming to the site, reason for coming to the site), and psychological factors (site preference), generally speaking, their influence on the sound preference evaluation is insignificant, except for limited case study sites and certain sound types. The influence of home sound environment, in terms of sounds heard at home, on the sound preference has been found to be generally insignificant, except for certain sounds. It is noted that there are some correlations between social/demographical factors and the studied physical/behavioural/psychological factors, which should be taken into account when considering the influence of individual factors on sound preference.     

Enhancement, adaptation, and the binaural system

In a test sound consisting of a burst of pink noise, an arbitrarily selected target frequency band can be "enhanced" by the previous presentation of a similar noise with a spectral notch in the target frequency region. As a result of the enhancement, the test sound evokes a pitch sensation corresponding to the pitch of the target band. Here, a pitch comparison task was used to assess enhancement. In the first experiment, a stronger enhancement effect was found when the test sound and its precursor had the same interaural time difference (ITD) than when they had opposite ITDs. Two subsequent experiments were concerned with the audibility of an instance of dichotic pitch in binaural test sounds preceded by precursors. They showed that it is possible to enhance a frequency region on the sole basis of ITD manipulations, using spectrally identical test sounds and precursors. However, the observed effects were small. A major goal of this study was to test the hypothesis that enhancement originates at least in part from neural adaptation processes taking place at a central level of the auditory system. The data failed to provide strong support for this hypothesis.     

Analysis and modelling of overtone singing in the sygyt style

Overtone singing, also called biphonic singing, xöömij or chant diphonique in french; is a special singing style that exhibits two or more separate sounds - one “drone” sound of relatively low pitch and one or more high pitch melody sounds. The perceived pitches of the upper tones are multiples of the drone sound, i.e. taken from its overtone scale. Compared to voiced sounds of western style singers, the relative amplitude of the melody pitches is quite high, and the formant bandwidth of overtone sounds is small. This paper tries to answer the question of how these formant properties are achieved. Experimental investigations and numerical calculations prove the existence of two closely neighboured formants for the production of the melody sound in the sygyt style.     

红外光谱和热重分析法评估三种加固剂对“小白礁Ⅰ号”考古木材微力学性能的影响

随着社会对木质文物重视程度的提高和现代考古技术的进步,饱水木质文物得到不断发掘和保护。饱水木质文物木材的细胞形态和化学结构普遍发生非均匀降解或变化,成为了不同于健康木材的“新材料”。PEG法和糖法作为国际通用的脱水加固方法可避免饱水木质文物干燥过程中收缩变形。本研究选用“小白礁Ⅰ号”沉船主要用材树种柚木（Tectona sp.）为试验对象,分别使用PEG、三氯蔗糖和海藻糖加固,并在开发的适用于脆弱木质文物的非包埋式纳米压痕样品制备方法的基础上,通过纳米压痕力学技术（NI）评估了三种饱水木质文物常用加固处理方法对考古木材微力学性能的影响;同时,结合红外光谱法（FTIR）和热重分析（TGA）方法,进一步揭示了加固剂种类影响考古木材微力学性能的原因。研究结果表明：使用非包埋法制备的纳米压痕样品,可准确获取加固处理后考古木材细胞壁的纵向弹性模量和硬度;PEG法、三氯蔗糖法和海藻糖法均可显著提高考古木材木纤维细胞壁的纵向弹性模量和硬度,三种方法加固处理后的木材的弹性模量比未处理样品分别增加了6.9%,25.4%和29.1%,硬度比未处理样品分别增加了9.3%,25.9%和13.6%。红外光谱试验结果表明PEG、三氯蔗糖和海藻糖均进入了考古木材细胞腔等内部组织结构,热重分析结果证实部分加固剂进入了木材细胞壁,是细胞壁强度提高的主要原因。总之,三氯蔗糖和海藻糖较适用于饱水考古木材的脱水加固,加固效果优于PEG,其中三氯蔗糖的加固效果最佳。研究结果为饱水木质文物加固性能的准确评估提供了方法参考,为沉船等饱水木质文物的加固与保护提供了科学依据。     

Manipulations of listeners' echo perception are reflected in event-related potentials

To gain information from complex auditory scenes, it is necessary to determine which of the many loudness, pitch, and timbre changes originate from a single source. Grouping sound into sources based on spatial information is complicated by reverberant energy bouncing off multiple surfaces and reaching the ears from directions other than the source's location. The ability to localize sounds despite these echoes has been explored with the precedence effect: Identical sounds presented from two locations with a short stimulus onset asynchrony (e.g., 1-5 ms) are perceived as a single source with a location dominated by the lead sound. Importantly, echo thresholds, the shortest onset asynchrony at which a listener reports hearing the lag sound as a separate source about half of the time, can be manipulated by presenting sound pairs in contexts. Event-related brain potentials elicited by physically identical sounds in contexts that resulted in listeners reporting either one or two sources were compared. Sound pairs perceived as two sources elicited a larger anterior negativity 100-250 ms after onset, previously termed the object-related negativity, and a larger posterior positivity 250-500 ms. These results indicate that the models of room acoustics listeners form based on recent experience with the spatiotemporal properties of sound modulate perceptual as well as later higher-level processing.     

Wave propagation in a wooden bar

In this paper we will present a method to determine the material properties of a wooden bar with rectangular cross-section using guided waves in the measurement. We modelled the wood as an orthotropic material with nine independent constants. We determined the dispersion curves theoretically in the three-dimensional case using a semi-analytical finite element method. In our laboratory we excited transversal and longitudinal waves in wooden bars of 2.5-4 m length by piezoceramic transducers. We measured the displacement or the velocity of the surface of the bar by a laser-interferometer. The dispersion curves of the bar are determined from the measurement by the linear prediction method. We related the dispersion curves and the material properties. We found the material properties by parametric model fitting.     

Custom made wireless systems for interactive footstep sounds synthesis

This paper describes both the hardware and software development of three custom made wireless systems used for the interactive synthesis of footstep sounds. The data collected from the detection of the feet movements of a walker are used for real-time control of physical models for the auditory display of different ground textures and shoe types. The first system is based on a wooden plank under which an array of microphones is placed. The second system exploits the motion capture technology. The third system consists of a pair of sandals enhanced with two force sensitive resistors and two 3-axes accelerometers for each shoe. The characteristics of the three architectures are discussed and compared. The developed locomotion interfaces find application in several contexts, such as augmented reality, virtual reality, or entertainment, as well as in perceptual studies investigating the influence of interactive sounds on locomotion performance usable for training and rehabilitation purposes.     

The psychomechanics of simulated sound sources: material properties of impacted bars

Sound can convey information about the materials composing an object that are often not directly available to the visual system. Material and geometric properties of synthesized impacted bars with a tube resonator were varied, their perceptual structure was inferred from multidimensional scaling of dissimilarity judgments, and the psychophysical relations between the two were quantified. Constant cross-section bars varying in mass density and viscoelastic damping coefficient were synthesized with a physical model in experiment 1. A two-dimensional perceptual space resulted, and the dimensions were correlated with the mechanical parameters after applying a power-law transformation. Variable cross-section bars varying in length and viscoelastic damping coefficient were synthesized in experiment 2 with two sets of lengths creating high- and low-pitched bars. In the low-pitched bars, there was a coupling between the bar and the resonator that modified the decay characteristics. Perceptual dimensions again corresponded to the mechanical parameters. A set of potential temporal, spectral, and spectrotemporal correlates of the auditory representation were derived from the signal. The dimensions related to mass density and bar length were correlated with the frequency of the lowest partial and are related to pitch perception. The correlate most likely to represent the viscoelastic damping coefficient across all three stimulus sets is a linear combination of a decay constant derived from the temporal envelope and the spectral center of gravity derived from a cochlear representation of the signal. These results attest to the perceptual salience of energy-loss phenomena in sound source behavior.     

Subjective evaluations of sound radiated by impacted plates, using the design of experiments method

This study combines physical and subjective approaches to evaluate the sound quality of impacted plates. A numerical model, based on the Hertz law of contact, has been used to determine the sound pressure level at any point in space resulting from an impact. Sounds synthesized using this model and those from experiments can then be exploited in a physical analysis and/or a subjective analysis of the effects associated with variations in parameters. Here the influence of certain physical parameters on the sound perception of impacted plates is evaluated through a design of experiments method and a subjective test of preference. The subjective test is based on an estimate of preference between two pairs of synthetic sounds by varying several structural parameters at the same time. This differs from other studies that vary only one parameter at a time and fix the other parameters.     

Nonconscious control of fundamental voice frequency

The aim of this paper is to answer the question whether "perception-action" dissociation, which is well documented in vision, may also be found in auditory information processing. Trained singers were asked to produce vowel sounds into a microphone. The sound that each singer produced was fed back to their ears via headphones. Two seconds after the sound production had begun, the auditory feedback was shifted in pitch by a certain degree (9, 19, 50, or 99 cents in either direction). In every set of sounds, instances without any pitch shifts also appeared. After each trial, participants reported whether they were aware of a pitch change or not. It was found that even though the participants were unaware of subtle pitch changes, the fundamental frequency of their vowel production was found to shift slightly in the opposite direction to the pitch shift. These results show that auditory information is processed by two separate systems: one for perception and one for action. They also show that the function of the auditory control system differs from the visual control system. The latter is used to control bodily movements while the function of the former is a nonconscious, instant control of vocalization.     

The representation of periodic sounds in simulated sustained chopper units of the ventral cochlear nucleus

The nature of the neural processing underlying the extraction of pitch information from harmonic complex sounds is still unclear. Electrophysiological studies in the auditory nerve and many psychophysical and modeling studies suggest that pitch might be extracted successfully by applying a mechanism like autocorrelation to the temporal discharge patterns of auditory-nerve fibers. The current modeling study investigates the possible role of populations of sustained chopper (Chop-S) units located in the mammalian ventral cochlear nucleus (VCN) in this process. First, it is shown that computer simulations can predict responses to periodic and quasiperiodic sounds of individual Chop-S units recorded in the guinea-pig VCN. Second, it is shown that the fundamental period of a periodic or quasiperiodic sound is represented in the first-order, interspike interval statistics of a population of simulated Chop-S units. This is true across a wide range of characteristic frequencies when the chopping rate is equal to the f0 of the sound. The model was able to simulate the results of psychophysical studies involving the pitch height and pitch strength of iterated ripple noise, the dominance region of pitch, the effect of phase on pitch height and pitch strength, pitch of inharmonic stimuli, and of sinusoidally amplitude modulated noise. Simulation results indicate that changes in the interspike interval statistics of populations of Chop-S units compare well with changes in the pitch perceived by humans. It is proposed that Chop-S units in the ventral cochlear nucleus may play an important role in pitch extraction: They can convert a purely temporal pitch code as observed in the auditory nerve into a temporal place code of pitch in populations of cochlear-nucleus, Chop-S with different characteristic frequencies, and chopping rates. Thus, populations of cochlear-nucleus Chop-S units, together with their target units presumably located in the inferior colliculus, may serve to establish a stable rate-place code of pitch at the level of the auditory cortex.     

采用特征融合的紫檀属内相似树种识别方法研究

紫檀属中的木材有很多属于名贵木材,不同树种之间十分相似。传统的木材识别方法多以木材解剖学为主,通过观察木材的切片结构特征对木材的树种进行判断,这类方法虽有较高的识别精度,但是其识别工艺较为复杂而且技术难度也相对较高。与木材解剖学相对应的是利用图像信息或光谱信息的木材树种识别方法,该类方法虽具有较为简单的识别工艺,但是在对同属相似木材树种进行识别时,往往不能够取得较好的识别效果。提出了一种基于木材切面光谱特征和纹理特征相融合的木材树种识别方法,该方法不仅识别工艺简单、自动化程度高,而且具有较高的识别精度。首先通过数码相机和光谱仪采集木材切面的图像信息和光谱信息,然后分别使用纹理特征提取方法和光谱特征提取方法提取两类特征的特征向量,接下来使用基于典型相关分析的特征级融合方法将这两个特征向量进行融合,最后使用支持向量机对融合后的特征向量进行分类识别。为了验证方法的有效性,以市场中常见的5种紫檀属树种的三个切面为研究对象,对这些木材树种进行了识别。实验结果显示,单独使用纹理特征的识别正确率最高为80.00%,单独使用光谱特征的识别正确率最高为94.40%,使用融合的特征最高的识别正确率可达99...     

Pitch discrimination of harmonic complex signals: residue pitch or multiple component discriminations?

Two models for pitch discrimination of harmonic complex sounds are discussed, a multiple-band probability summation model using comparisons among component frequencies, and a model in which residue pitches are compared. The second model is based on Goldstein's optimum-processor pitch theory [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 54, 1496-1516 (1973)], and is distinguished from the multiple-band model by an internal noise process. Pitch difference limens from 2I2AFC tasks show that when the test signals comprise corresponding harmonics, relative pitch difference limens are less than the smaller relative difference limens for the component frequencies, which is consistent with the multiple-band model. The absence of corresponding harmonics significantly reduces relative pitch discriminability; this effect supports the model on Goldstein's theory. It appears that residue pitch comparisons are not used for pitch discrimination between sounds with corresponding components; rather, comparisons based on residue pitch are only employed where there are no common resolved components in the signals to be discriminated.