Using Acoustic Information to Perceive Room Size: Effects of Blindness, Room Reverberation Time, and Stimulus

Kolarik, Andrew J.; Pardhan, Shahina; Cirstea, Silvia; Moore, Brian C. J.

doi:10.1068/p7555

Cited by 28 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…While the spatial resolution of the sensorwise analysis cannot determine the exact loci of the signal sources, our results are consistent with a bilateral (Alain et al, 2001; Arnott et al, 2004) account of a spatial auditory processing stream, distinguishable from auditory object identification as early as nonprimary auditory cortical regions (Ahveninen et al, 2006, 2013). Room size judgments have been found to be correlated with sound-source distance judgments (Kolarik et al, 2013); while this may suggest a shared mechanism, it is unlikely to indicate distance as a direct proxy for size: the impulse responses in our stimuli kept sound-source distance constant, and the right-lateralized temporal processing of egocentric distance (Mathiak et al, 2003) is inconsistent with the bilateral decoding pattern in our results. Still, a source/reverberant space separation operation by the auditory system would facilitate computing DRR for distance perception.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 83%

Hearing Scenes: A Neuromagnetic Signature of Auditory Source and Reverberant Space Separation

Teng

Sommer

Pantazis

et al. 2017

eNeuro

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Perceiving the geometry of surrounding space is a multisensory process, crucial to contextualizing object perception and guiding navigation behavior. Humans can make judgments about surrounding spaces from reverberation cues, caused by sounds reflecting off multiple interior surfaces. However, it remains unclear how the brain represents reverberant spaces separately from sound sources. Here, we report separable neural signatures of auditory space and source perception during magnetoencephalography (MEG) recording as subjects listened to brief sounds convolved with monaural room impulse responses (RIRs). The decoding signature of sound sources began at 57 ms after stimulus onset and peaked at 130 ms, while space decoding started at 138 ms and peaked at 386 ms. Importantly, these neuromagnetic responses were readily dissociable in form and time: while sound source decoding exhibited an early and transient response, the neural signature of space was sustained and independent of the original source that produced it. The reverberant space response was robust to variations in sound source, and vice versa, indicating a generalized response not tied to specific source-space combinations. These results provide the first neuromagnetic evidence for robust, dissociable auditory source and reverberant space representations in the human brain and reveal the temporal dynamics of how auditory scene analysis extracts percepts from complex naturalistic auditory signals.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 83%

Hearing Scenes: A Neuromagnetic Signature of Auditory Source and Reverberant Space Separation

Teng

Sommer

Pantazis

et al. 2017

eNeuro

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“…Participants in the VI group were assigned to categories 1–3 of visual loss as defined by the World Health Organization (1989): Category 1 is moderate visual impairment (distance visual acuity equal to or better than 6/60, but worse than 6/18, n = 12), category 2 is severe visual impairment (distance visual acuity equal to or better than 3/60, but worse than 6/60, n = 19), and category 3 is blindness, with remaining vision (distance visual acuity equal to or better than 1/60, but worse than 3/60, n = 2). The criteria for VI, as used in the current paper, were chosen to distinguish participants with remaining vision from those with “total” blindness, as described in previous papers (Voss et al, 2008; Kolarik et al, 2013a,c). Participants categorized as totally blind had light perception only, or no light perception, as defined by WHO criteria categories 4 and 5, respectively.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Partial Visual Loss Affects Self-reports of Hearing Abilities Measured Using a Modified Version of the Speech, Spatial, and Qualities of Hearing Questionnaire

et al. 2017

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We assessed how visually impaired (VI) people perceived their own auditory abilities using an established hearing questionnaire, the Speech, Spatial, and Qualities of Hearing Scale (SSQ), that was adapted to make it relevant and applicable to VI individuals by removing references to visual aspects while retaining the meaning of the original questions. The resulting questionnaire, the SSQvi, assessed perceived hearing ability in diverse situations including the ability to follow conversations with multiple speakers, assessing how far away a vehicle is, and the ability to perceptually segregate simultaneous sounds. The SSQvi was administered to 33 VI and 33 normally sighted participants. All participants had normal hearing or mild hearing loss, and all VI participants had some residual visual ability. VI participants gave significantly higher (better) scores than sighted participants for: (i) one speech question, indicating less difficulty in following a conversation that switches from one person to another, (ii) one spatial question, indicating less difficulty in localizing several talkers, (iii) three qualities questions, indicating less difficulty with segregating speech from music, hearing music more clearly, and better speech intelligibility in a car. These findings are consistent with the perceptual enhancement hypothesis, that certain auditory abilities are improved to help compensate for loss of vision, and show that full visual loss is not necessary for perceived changes in auditory ability to occur for a range of auditory situations. For all other questions, scores were not significantly different between the two groups. Questions related to effort, concentration, and ignoring distracting sounds were rated as most difficult for VI participants, as were situations involving divided-attention contexts with multiple streams of speech, following conversations in noise and in echoic environments, judging elevation or distance, and externalizing sounds. The questionnaire has potential clinical applications in assessing the success of clinical interventions and setting more realistic goals for intervention for those with auditory and/or visual losses. The results contribute toward providing benchmark scores for VI individuals.

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“…The perceived distance of sound sources in a room, such as a human speaking from a podium, is useful in placing a lower bound on room size. 27 In our study, the rooms were quiet, and there were no consistent sound sources to aid in size judgments. The only external sound source was the voice of the experimenter, who always stood near the subjects.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Indoor Spatial Updating With Impaired Vision

Legge

Granquist

Baek

et al. 2016

Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci.

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PurposeSpatial updating is the ability to keep track of position and orientation while moving through an environment. We asked how normally sighted and visually impaired subjects compare in spatial updating and in estimating room dimensions.MethodsGroups of 32 normally sighted, 16 low-vision, and 16 blind subjects estimated the dimensions of six rectangular rooms. Updating was assessed by guiding the subjects along three-segment paths in the rooms. At the end of each path, they estimated the distance and direction to the starting location, and to a designated target. Spatial updating was tested in five conditions ranging from free viewing to full auditory and visual deprivation.ResultsThe normally sighted and low-vision groups did not differ in their accuracy for judging room dimensions. Correlations between estimated size and physical size were high. Accuracy of low-vision performance was not correlated with acuity, contrast sensitivity, or field status. Accuracy was lower for the blind subjects. The three groups were very similar in spatial-updating performance, and exhibited only weak dependence on the nature of the viewing conditions.ConclusionsPeople with a wide range of low-vision conditions are able to judge room dimensions as accurately as people with normal vision. Blind subjects have difficulty in judging the dimensions of quiet rooms, but some information is available from echolocation. Vision status has little impact on performance in simple spatial updating; proprioceptive and vestibular cues are sufficient.

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Using Acoustic Information to Perceive Room Size: Effects of Blindness, Room Reverberation Time, and Stimulus

Cited by 28 publications

References 9 publications

Hearing Scenes: A Neuromagnetic Signature of Auditory Source and Reverberant Space Separation

Hearing Scenes: A Neuromagnetic Signature of Auditory Source and Reverberant Space Separation

Partial Visual Loss Affects Self-reports of Hearing Abilities Measured Using a Modified Version of the Speech, Spatial, and Qualities of Hearing Questionnaire

Indoor Spatial Updating With Impaired Vision

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