Remote testing for psychological and physiological acoustics: Initial report of the P&amp;P Task Force on Remote Testing

Peng, Zhao; Buss, Emily; Shen, Yi; Bharadwaj, Hari; Stecker, G. Christopher; Beim, Jordan A.; Bosen, Adam K.; Braza, Meredith D.; Diedesch, Anna C.; Dorey, Claire M.; Dykstra, Andrew R.; Freyman, Richard L.; Gallun, Frederick J.; Goldsworthy, Raymond L.; Gray, Lincoln; Hoover, Eric C.; Ihlefeld, Antje; Koelewijn, Thomas; Kopun, Judy G.; Mesík, Juraj; Richards, Virginia M.; Shub, Daniel E.; Venezia, Jonathan H.; Waz, Sebastian

doi:10.1121/2.0001409

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, only the subjective experiment was carried out, and not as it is usually done under controlled laboratory conditions. As recently reported by the technical committee of the Acoustical Society of America on Psychological and Physiological Acoustics, online experiments can provide access to larger sample sizes and ecologically valid responses, but at the cost of compromising the calibration process and finding inconsistencies in participant experiences [ 47 ]. Although the statistical tests reported in Section 4 confirmed consistency in participant responses, the results presented in this paper should be interpreted with caution, and important caveats should be considered:…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigation of Metrics for Assessing Human Response to Drone Noise

Torija

Nicholls

2022

IJERPH

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Novel electric air transportation is emerging as an industry that could help to improve the lives of people living in both metropolitan and rural areas through integration into infrastructure and services. However, as this new resource of accessibility increases in momentum, the need to investigate any potential adverse health impacts on the public becomes paramount. This paper details research investigating the effectiveness of available noise metrics and sound quality metrics (SQMs) for assessing perception of drone noise. A subjective experiment was undertaken to gather data on human response to a comprehensive set of drone sounds and to investigate the relationship between perceived annoyance, perceived loudness and perceived pitch and key psychoacoustic factors. Based on statistical analyses, subjective models were obtained for perceived annoyance, loudness and pitch of drone noise. These models provide understanding on key psychoacoustic features to consider in decision making in order to mitigate the impact of drone noise. For the drone sounds tested in this paper, the main contributors to perceived annoyance are perceived noise level (PNL) and sharpness; for perceived loudness are PNL and fluctuation strength; and for perceived pitch are sharpness, roughness and Aures tonality. Responses for the drone sounds tested were found to be highly sensitive to the distance between drone and receiver, measured in terms of height above ground level (HAGL). All these findings could inform the optimisation of drone operating conditions in order to mitigate community noise.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigation of Metrics for Assessing Human Response to Drone Noise

Torija

Nicholls

2022

IJERPH

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“…As for both of those studies, the tests described here (other than audiometric procedures) were conducted on an iPad running the PART application with calibrated Sennheiser HD 280 Pro headphones. These relatively inexpensive headphones were calibrated by the experimenters prior to use with a low-cost microphone and another iPad running a Sound Level Meter app, as in Gallun et al [ 10 ]. Participants were seated in a comfortable chair in either a quiet room or a sound booth and were instructed to take breaks whenever necessary.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…PART is an example of recent efforts to harness accessible technologies for hearing assessment in basic science and clinical telemedicine contexts, a current summary of which was recently created by the Acoustical Society of America’s Task Force on Remote Testing [ 10 ]. The PART application has already been used successfully to collect data both in the laboratory [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 ] and remotely with participant-owned equipment in their own homes [ 15 , 16 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relating Suprathreshold Auditory Processing Abilities to Speech Understanding in Competition

et al. 2022

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(1) Background: Difficulty hearing in noise is exacerbated in older adults. Older adults are more likely to have audiometric hearing loss, although some individuals with normal pure-tone audiograms also have difficulty perceiving speech in noise. Additional variables also likely account for speech understanding in noise. It has been suggested that one important class of variables is the ability to process auditory information once it has been detected. Here, we tested a set of these “suprathreshold” auditory processing abilities and related them to performance on a two-part test of speech understanding in competition with and without spatial separation of the target and masking speech. Testing was administered in the Portable Automated Rapid Testing (PART) application developed by our team; PART facilitates psychoacoustic assessments of auditory processing. (2) Methods: Forty-one individuals (average age 51 years), completed assessments of sensitivity to temporal fine structure (TFS) and spectrotemporal modulation (STM) detection via an iPad running the PART application. Statistical models were used to evaluate the strength of associations between performance on the auditory processing tasks and speech understanding in competition. Age and pure-tone-average (PTA) were also included as potential predictors. (3) Results: The model providing the best fit also included age and a measure of diotic frequency modulation (FM) detection but none of the other potential predictors. However, even the best fitting models accounted for 31% or less of the variance, supporting work suggesting that other variables (e.g., cognitive processing abilities) also contribute significantly to speech understanding in noise. (4) Conclusions: The results of the current study do not provide strong support for previous suggestions that suprathreshold processing abilities alone can be used to explain difficulties in speech understanding in competition among older adults. This discrepancy could be due to the speech tests used, the listeners tested, or the suprathreshold tests chosen. Future work with larger numbers of participants is warranted, including a range of cognitive tests and additional assessments of suprathreshold auditory processing abilities.

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Effect of Realistic Test Conditions on Perception of Speech, Music, and Binaural Cues in Normal-Hearing Listeners

2023

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Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the feasibility of online testing in a quiet room for three auditory perception experiments in normal-hearing listeners: speech, music, and binaural cue. Method: Under Experiment 1, sentence perception was measured using fixed signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs: +10 dB, 0 dB, and −10 dB) and using adaptive speech reception threshold (SRT) procedures. The correct scores were compared between quiet room and soundproof booth listening environments. Experiment 2 was designed to compare melodic contour identification between the two listening environments. Melodic contour identification was assessed with 1, 2, and 4 semitone spacings. Under Experiment 3, interaural level difference (ILD) and interaural time differences (ITD) were measured as a function of carrier frequency. For both measures, two modulated tones (400-ms duration and 100-Hz modulation rate) were sequentially presented through headphones to both ears, and subjects were asked to indicate whether the sound moved to the left or right ear. The measured ITD and ILD were then compared between the two listening environments. Results: There were no significant differences in any outcome measures (SNR- and SRT-based speech perception, melodic contour identification, and ITD/ILD) between the two listening environments. Conclusions: These results suggest that normal-hearing listeners may not require a controlled listening environment in any of the three auditory assessments. As comparable data can be obtained via the online testing tool, using the online auditory experiments is recommended.

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Remote testing for psychological and physiological acoustics: Initial report of the P&P Task Force on Remote Testing

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Investigation of Metrics for Assessing Human Response to Drone Noise

Investigation of Metrics for Assessing Human Response to Drone Noise

Relating Suprathreshold Auditory Processing Abilities to Speech Understanding in Competition

Effect of Realistic Test Conditions on Perception of Speech, Music, and Binaural Cues in Normal-Hearing Listeners

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