Perceptual integration between target speech and target-speech reflection reduces masking for target-speech recognition in younger adults and older adults

Precedence-effect-induced enhancement of prepulse inhibition in socially reared but not isolation-reared rats

“…In humans, the precedence-effect-induced perceived spatial separation between target speech and masker facilitates selective attention to the signal stream and improves recognition of target speech (e.g., Freyman et al, 1999;Y. Huang et al, 2008;L.…”

“…In humans, the importance of perceptual fusion of correlated sound waves for recognizing speech signals has been experimentally demonstrated (e.g., Freyman, Helfer, McCall, & Clifton, 1999;Y. Huang et al, 2008;L.…”

Adding irrelevant information to the content prime reduces the prime-induced unmasking effect on speech recognition

“…Energetic masking is produced when the masker occupies peripheral resources for processing the target (see Helfer and Freyman, 2009). Cues that do not affect energetic masking include precedence-effect-induced spatial separation between the target image and the masker image (Freyman et al, 1999;Huang et al, 2008Huang et al, , 2009Li et al, 2004;Rakerd et al, 2006;Wu et al, 2005), prior knowledge about where and/or when the target speech will occur (Best et al, 2007(Best et al, , 2008Kidd et al, 2005), knowledge/familiarity of the target talker's voice (Brungart et al, 2001;Helfer and Freyman, 2009;Huang et al, 2010;Newman and Evers, 2007;Yang et al, 2007), prior knowledge about the topic of the target sentence (Helfer and Freyman, 2008), and visual information from the talker's face (Grant and Seitz, 2000;Helfer and Freyman, 2005;Rosenblum et al, 1996;Rudmann et al, 2003;Sumby and Pollack, 1954;Summerfield, 1979). It appears that any perceptual/cognitive cues, if they facilitate the listeners' selective attention to the target speech, can improve recognition of the target speech in a masker, especially for speech-masker-induced informational masking, which is caused by confusion between the target and masker and/or uncertainty regarding the target (Helfer and Freyman, 2009) (for further discussion of the concept of informational masking, see Arbogast et al, 2002;Agus et al, 2009;Freyman et al, 1999;Kidd et al, 2005;Schneider et al, 2007).…”

Engaging concert hall acoustics is made up of temporal envelope preserving reflections

“…In contrast, the reflections coming from other directions make the sound stronger because the interaural differences diminish the perceived effect of the comb filters, as shown with the measured data. 9 Earlier studies proposed the need of lateral reflections for low interaural cross correlation to create spacious sound, but they did not discuss the detrimental effect of median plane reflections when the listener is facing the orchestra. Moreover, when the listener is not facing the orchestra the perception hardly changes, a fact that the previous studies could not explain.…”