AUX: A scripting language for auditory signal processing and software packages for psychoacoustic experiments and education

Kwon, Bomjun

doi:10.3758/s13428-011-0161-1

Cited by 13 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…The former is open to the public under Academic Free License 3.0, whereas the latter requires NIC2 and NMT, both of which are available through license and a non-disclosure agreement with Cochlear Ltd. Signal preparation in Psycon V R is achieved with a new scripting language, namely AUX (AUditory syntaX). Both the program and AUX are described in detail in a recent paper (Kwon, 2012). Also, AUX codes used for the present study are available on the download website, so that readers can generate stimuli for the þMR and ÀMR conditions for their own exploration.…”

Section: Psyconmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sentence recognition in noise promoting or suppressing masking release by normal-hearing and cochlear-implant listeners

Kwon

Perry

Wilhelm

et al. 2012

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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Normal-hearing (NH) listeners maintain robust speech understanding in modulated noise by "glimpsing" portions of speech from a partially masked waveform-a phenomenon known as masking release (MR). Cochlear implant (CI) users, however, generally lack such resiliency. In previous studies, temporal masking of speech by noise occurred randomly, obscuring to what degree MR is attributable to the temporal overlap of speech and masker. In the present study, masker conditions were constructed to either promote (þMR) or suppress (ÀMR) masking release by controlling the degree of temporal overlap. Sentence recognition was measured in 14 CI subjects and 22 young-adult NH subjects. Normal-hearing subjects showed large amounts of masking release in the þMR condition and a marked difference between þMR and ÀMR conditions. In contrast, CI subjects demonstrated less effect of MR overall, and some displayed modulation interference as reflected by poorer performance in modulated maskers. These results suggest that the poor performance of typical CI users in noise might be accounted for by factors that extend beyond peripheral masking, such as reduced segmental boundaries between syllables or words. Encouragingly, the best CI users tested here could take advantage of masker fluctuations to better segregate the speech from the background.

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Section: Psyconmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sentence recognition in noise promoting or suppressing masking release by normal-hearing and cochlear-implant listeners

Kwon

Perry

Wilhelm

et al. 2012

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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“…Using a Dell Vostro 1220 laptop (Dell Technologies Inc.) with Windows Vista Business OEMAct 32 bit (Microsoft Co.) operating system, applications developed in Psycon software (Kwon, 2012) were used throughout the study. Stereophonic speech stimuli were delivered to the direct audio inputs of the HA and CI processors.…”

Section: Experimental Setup and Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bimodal Cochlear Implant Listeners’ Ability to Perceive Minimal Audible Angle Differences

et al. 2019

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Background: Bilateral inputs should ideally improve sound localization and speech understanding in noise. However, for many bimodal listeners [i.e., individuals using a cochlear implant (CI) with a contralateral hearing aid (HA)], such bilateral benefits are at best, inconsistent. The degree to which clinically-available HA and CI devices can function together to preserve interaural time and level differences (ITDs and ILDs, respectively) enough to support the localization of sound sources is a question with important ramifications for speech understanding in complex acoustic environments. Purpose: To determine if bimodal listeners are sensitive to changes in spatial location in a minimum audible angle (MAA) task. Research Design: Repeated-measures design. Study Sample: Seven adult bimodal CI users (28-62 years). All listeners reported regular use of digital HA technology in the non-implanted ear. Data Collection and Analysis: Seven bimodal listeners were asked to balance the loudness of pre-recorded single syllable utterances. The loudness-balanced stimuli were then presented via direct audio inputs of the two devices with an ITD applied. The task of the listener was to determine the perceived difference in processing delay (the inter-device delay, IDD) between the CI and HA devices. Finally, virtual free field MAA performance was measured for different spatial locations both with and without inclusion of the IDD correction, which was added with the intent to perceptually synchronize the devices. Results: During the loudness balancing task, all listeners required increased acoustic input to the HA relative to the CI most comfortable level to achieve equal interaural loudness. During the ITD task, three listeners could perceive changes in intracranial position by distinguishing sounds coming from the left or from the right hemifield; when the CI was delayed by 0.73, 0.67, or 1.7 ms, the signal lateralized from one side to the other. When MAA localization performance was assessed, only three of the seven listeners consistently achieved above-chance performance, even when an IDD correction was included. It is not clear whether the listeners who were able to consistently complete the MAA task did so via binaural comparison or by extracting monaural loudness cues. Four listeners could not perform the MAA task, even though they could have used a monaural loudness cue strategy. Conclusions: These data suggest that sound localization is extremely difficult for most bimodal listeners. This difficulty does not seem to be caused by large loudness imbalances and IDDs. Sound localization is best when performed via a binaural comparison, where frequency-matched inputs convey ITD and ILD information. Although low-frequency acoustic amplification with a HA when combined with a CI may produce an overlapping region of frequency-matched inputs and thus provide an opportunity for binaural comparisons for some bimodal listeners, our study showed that this may not be beneficial or useful for spatial location discriminati...

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“…The experimental procedure was managed using custom software for sentence testing, Token (version 1.33), which read the ".wav" files, generated, filtered, and modulated the noise, and combined the signals at the appropriate SNR as specified in the AUditory syntaX (Kwon, 2012) module included in the Token software. Stimuli were then processed with the ACE speech coding strategy using the subject's everyday clinical settings, shown in Table II, via custom software, ACEPLayer (version 1.91), based on the Nucleus MATLAB Toolbox (NMT; version 4.2) and the Nucleus Implant Communicator 2 library, from Cochlear Ltd. (Lane Cove, Australia).…”

Section: B Stimuli and Apparatusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Amplitude fluctuations in a masker influence lexical segmentation in cochlear implant users

Perry

Kwon

2015

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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Normal-hearing listeners show masking release, or better speech understanding in a fluctuating-amplitude masker than in a steady-amplitude masker, but most cochlear implant (CI) users consistently show little or no masking release even in artificial conditions where masking release is highly anticipated. The current study examined the hypothesis that the reduced or absent masking release in CI users is due to disruption of linguistic segmentation cues. Eleven CI subjects completed a sentence keyword identification task in a steady masker and a fluctuating masker with dips timed to increase speech availability. Lexical boundary errors in their responses were categorized as consistent or inconsistent with the use of the metrical segmentation strategy (MSS). Subjects who demonstrated masking release showed greater adherence to the MSS in the fluctuating masker compared to subjects who showed little or no masking release, while both groups used metrical segmentation cues similarly in the steady masker. Based on the characteristics of the segmentation cues, the results are interpreted as evidence that CI listeners showing little or no masking release are not reliably segregating speech from competing sounds, further suggesting that one challenge faced by CI users listening in noisy environments is a reduction of reliable segmentation cues.

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AUX: A scripting language for auditory signal processing and software packages for psychoacoustic experiments and education

Cited by 13 publications

References 8 publications

Sentence recognition in noise promoting or suppressing masking release by normal-hearing and cochlear-implant listeners

Sentence recognition in noise promoting or suppressing masking release by normal-hearing and cochlear-implant listeners

Bimodal Cochlear Implant Listeners’ Ability to Perceive Minimal Audible Angle Differences

Amplitude fluctuations in a masker influence lexical segmentation in cochlear implant users

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