Sound information is encoded as a series of spikes of the auditory nerve fibers (ANFs), and then transmitted to the brainstem auditory nuclei. Features such as timing and level are extracted from ANFs activity and further processed as the interaural time difference (ITD) and the interaural level difference (ILD), respectively. These two interaural difference cues are used for sound source local...

This study evaluated the effect of increasing the number of processing channels from 32- to 64-signal processing channels on subjects' loudness comfort and satisfaction, sentence recognition, and sound quality of his or her own voice. Ten experienced hearing aid users with mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss wore behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aids with Adaptive Dynamic Range Optimization...

This study evaluated the effect of increasing the number of processing channels from 32to 64-signal processing channels on subjects’ loudness comfort and satisfaction, sentence recognition, and sound quality of his or her own voice. Ten experienced hearing aid users with mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss wore behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aids with Adaptive Dynamic Range Optimization (...

The current study investigated whether bilingualism affects the processing of sub-lexical representations specifying the sound structure of words. Spanish-English bilinguals, Mandarin-English bilinguals, and English-only monolinguals repeated English tongue twisters. Twister materials had word or nonword targets (thus varying in whether lexical information did or did not support sound processin...

A vocoder-based speech synthesis system, named WORLD, was developed in an effort to improve the sound quality of realtime applications using speech. Speech analysis, manipulation, and synthesis on the basis of vocoders are used in various kinds of speech research. Although several high-quality speech synthesis systems have been developed, real-time processing has been difficult with them becaus...

In contrast with for example audiovisual speech, the relation between visual and auditory properties of letters and speech sounds is artificial and learned only by explicit instruction. The arbitrariness of the audiovisual link together with the widespread usage of letter-speech sound pairs in alphabetic languages makes those audiovisual objects a unique subject for crossmodal research. Brain i...

Digital signal processing (DSP) encompasses various applications such as convolution, censoring, and filtering. These techniques find relevance in diverse fields, including computer games consoles, tone generation for mobile cellular devices, theatrical performances. For engineers facing limited memory budgets their generating new sounds by convolving with existing or noises becomes a significa...

In this paper, we describe and demonstrate how the combined use of Wigner and STFT processing can be used to advantage in a sound understanding application. Speciically, the Wigner processing of a signal is used for alerting the signal understanding system to the possibility of inadequate time or frequency resolution in the STFT processing of the same signal. The signal understanding system may...

We present a novel noise reduction strategy that is inspired by the physiology of the auditory brainstem. Following the hypothesis that neurons code sound based on fractional derivatives, we develop a model in which sound is transformed into a ‘neural space’. In this space sound is represented by various fractional derivatives of the envelopes in a 22 channel filter bank. We demonstrate that no...

Neuromorphic systems are used in variety of circumstances: as parts of sensory systems, for modeling parts of neural systems and for analog signal processing. In the sensory processing domain, neuromorphic systems can be considered in three parts: pre-transduction processing, transduction itself, and post-transduction processing. Neuromorphic systems include transducers for light, odors, and to...