Understanding language competition and extinction is an interdisciplinary challenge, and math models provide a tool for interpreting linguistic census data and possibly predict the language shift trend at the population scale. In this study, new data from previously examined areas were modeled, specifically Catalan and Spanish in Catalonia, Spanish and English in Houston, Texas, Dutch and French in Brussels, Euskera and Spanish in Spain and French and English in Canada. Three mathematical models of the language competition have been validated. The first is the Abrams-Strogatz model, which treats populations as having two monolingual groups. The second is the Castelló model, which considers bilingual speakers. The third is the Mira model, which considers language competition when the two languages have high similarities. It was found that the some of the data matched Abrams-Strogatz original model, but some divergences could still be addressed. It was also found that the Mira model needs some improvement in how it treats the differences between languages.
Object distance perception can be influenced both by auditory and visual cues. This work seeks to examine the influence of both perceptual domains for familiar and unfamiliar auditory and visual stimuli. For example, an alarm clock is a familiar object and a generic vibrating sphere is an unfamiliar object because the distance cannot be estimated from known dimensions. A Wave Field Synthesis (WFS) system and a stereoscopic large screen display using shutter glasses was used to create the virtual objects. Utilizing WFS allowed for sources to be placed virtually behind and in front of the speaker array. Cues were presented audio only, visual only or audio and visual simultaneously. Participants were asked for the estimated depth of the object while randomizing the above scenarios. This work expands upon a previous study [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 137, 2374] that suggested that the visual cues tend to dominate perception even when auditory cues are available. One goal of the new study is to investigate if finding holds true and if the listener is presented with more salient cues that also allow for head movements. In the previous study, the virtual environment was based on static Head-Related Transfer Functions (HRTFs).
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