Human Echolocation for Target Detection Is More Accurate With Emissions Containing Higher Spectral Frequencies, and This Is Explained by Echo Intensity

Norman, Liam J.; Thaler, Lore

doi:10.1177/2041669518776984

Cited by 14 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 28 publications

(61 reference statements)

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“…Figure 1 shows a waveform plot of the resulting click sound as recorded in front of the speaker (see Recording Equipment and Setup). This type of sound (a sinusoid multiplied by a decaying exponential) has been suggested previously to be a good approximation of the waveform created by a human echolocator’s mouth click 13 , 14 and has been used successfully as an artificial emission in previous tasks of echolocation 12 , 15 . As background noise we used white noise recordings taken from the RSG-10_Noise database 16 ( http://www.steeneken.nl/7-noise-data-base/ ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We tested these ideas in people who were blind and had experience in echolocation, as well as in people who were blind or sighted and had no prior experience in echolocation. People with experience in echolocation make very brief clicks with spectral content in higher frequency bands, and these acoustic features of clicks are related to behavioural advantages in terms of echo perception 12 , 13 . Thus, to ensure that spectro-temporal features of emissions did not present a potential confound across participant groups we used a paradigm where participants listened to binaural recordings of echolocation sounds, and where emission intensity of these recordings was adjusted using an adaptive staircase procedure.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Increased emission intensity can compensate for the presence of noise in human click-based echolocation

Castillo-Serrano

Norman

Foresteire

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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Echolocating bats adapt their emissions to succeed in noisy environments. In the present study we investigated if echolocating humans can detect a sound-reflecting surface in the presence of noise and if intensity of echolocation emissions (i.e. clicks) changes in a systematic pattern. We tested people who were blind and had experience in echolocation, as well as blind and sighted people who had no experience in echolocation prior to the study. We used an echo-detection paradigm where participants listened to binaural recordings of echolocation sounds (i.e. they did not make their own click emissions), and where intensity of emissions and echoes changed adaptively based on participant performance (intensity of echoes was yoked to intensity of emissions). We found that emission intensity had to systematically increase to compensate for weaker echoes relative to background noise. In fact, emission intensity increased so that spectral power of echoes exceeded spectral power of noise by 12 dB in 4-kHz and 5-kHz frequency bands. The effects were the same across all participant groups, suggesting that this effect occurs independently of long-time experience with echolocation. Our findings demonstrate for the first time that people can echolocate in the presence of noise and suggest that one potential strategy to deal with noise is to increase emission intensity to maintain signal-to-noise ratio of certain spectral components of the echoes.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increased emission intensity can compensate for the presence of noise in human click-based echolocation

Castillo-Serrano

Norman

Foresteire

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

Self Cite

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“…2 The manikin was custom-made, consisting of a torso and head made of high-density foam covered with soft plastic having a skin-like texture. Anthropometric details of this manikin have been published elsewhere (Norman & Thaler, 2018). In Experiment 1 the reflecting object was a plastic bowl (diameter 28 cm; depth 11 cm); in Experiments 2 to 6 it was a 0.8-cm thick wooden disk (50-cm diameter, made from plywood, double coated with matt emulsion paint).…”

Section: Apparatus and Recording Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stimulus uncertainty affects perception in human echolocation: Timing, level, and spectrum.

Norman¹,

Thaler²

2020

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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The human brain may use recent sensory experience to create sensory templates that are then compared to incoming sensory input, that is, "knowing what to listen for." This can lead to greater perceptual sensitivity, as long as the relevant properties of the target stimulus can be reliably estimated from past sensory experiences. Echolocation is an auditory skill probably best understood in bats, but humans can also echolocate. Here we investigated for the first time whether echolocation in humans involves the use of sensory templates derived from recent sensory experiences. Our results showed that when there was certainty in the acoustic properties of the echo relative to the emission, either in temporal onset, spectral content or level, people detected the echo more accurately than when there was uncertainty. In addition, we found that people were more accurate when the emission's spectral content was certain but, surprisingly, not when either its level or temporal onset was certain. Importantly, the lack of an effect of temporal onset of the emission is counter to that found previously for tasks using nonecholocation sounds, suggesting that the underlying mechanisms might be different for echolocation and nonecholocation sounds. Importantly, the effects of stimulus certainty were no different for people with and without experience in echolocation, suggesting that stimulus-specific sensory templates can be used in a skill that people have never used before. From an applied perspective our results suggest that echolocation instruction should encourage users to make clicks that are similar to one another in their spectral content.

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“…Our aim is not about creating a video game, but rather an interactive story, but the two are Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing somehow similar that the items in the questionnaire are very relevant for us, with a few exceptions. e original IMX questionnaire consists of three parts; one that applies to all games, one that applies to games with characters, and one that applies to multiplayer games [42]. For the sake of simplicity, only the first part was used in this study, as the two others were less relevant to our purposes.…”

Section: Immersive Responsementioning

confidence: 99%

Creating an Audio Story with Interactive Binaural Rendering in Virtual Reality

Geronazzo

Rosenkvist

Eriksen

et al. 2019

Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing

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The process of listening to an audiobook is usually a rather passive act that does not require an active interaction. If spatial interaction is incorporated into a storytelling scenario, can open. Possibilities of a novel experience which allows an active participation might affect the user-experience. The aim of this paper is to create a portable prototype system based on an embedded hardware platform, allowing listeners to get immersed in an interactive audio storytelling experience enhanced by dynamic binaural audio rendering. For the evaluation of the experience, a short story based on the horror narrative of Stephen King’s Strawberry Springs is adapted and designed in virtual environments. A comparison among three different listening experiences, namely, (i) monophonic (traditional audio story), (ii) static binaural rendering (state-of-the-art audio story), and (iii) our prototype, is conducted. We discuss the quality of the experience based on usability testing, physiological data, emotional assessments, and questionnaires for immersion and spatial presence. Results identify a clear trend for an increase in immersion with our prototype compared to traditional audiobooks, showing also an emphasis on story-specific emotions, i.e., terror and fear.

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Human Echolocation for Target Detection Is More Accurate With Emissions Containing Higher Spectral Frequencies, and This Is Explained by Echo Intensity

Cited by 14 publications

References 28 publications

Increased emission intensity can compensate for the presence of noise in human click-based echolocation

Increased emission intensity can compensate for the presence of noise in human click-based echolocation

Stimulus uncertainty affects perception in human echolocation: Timing, level, and spectrum.

Creating an Audio Story with Interactive Binaural Rendering in Virtual Reality

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