Auditory model-based estimation of the effect of head-worn devices on frontal horizontal localisation

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openAccess

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Journal Title

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Volume Title

A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2022-01-06

Department

Department of Signal Processing and Acoustics

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Mcode

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Language

en

Pages

13
1-13

Series

Acta Acustica, Volume 6

Abstract

Auditory localisation accuracy may be degraded when a head-worn device (HWD), such as a helmet or hearing protector, is used. A computational method is proposed in this study for estimating how horizontal plane localisation is impaired by a HWD through distortions of interaural cues. Head-related impulse responses (HRIRs) of different HWDs were measured with a KEMAR and a binaural auditory model was used to compute interaural cues from HRIR-convolved noise bursts. A shallow neural network (NN) was trained with data from a subjective listening experiment, where horizontal plane localisation was assessed while wearing different HWDs. Interaural cues were used as features to estimate perceived direction and position uncertainty (standard deviation) of a sound source in the horizontal plane with the NN. The NN predicted the position uncertainty of localisation among subjects for a given HWD with an average estimation error of 1°. The obtained results suggest that it is possible to predict the degradation of localisation ability for specific HWDs in the frontal horizontal plane using the method.

Description

Funding Information: The authors thank Savox Communications Oy Ab (Ltd) and Ilkka Huhtakallio for collaboration. This work was part of the HUMan Optimized xR (HUMOR) Co-innovation project, funded by Business Finland. Publisher Copyright: © P. Lladó et al., Published by EDP Sciences, 2022.

Keywords

Auditory model, Head worn device, Horizontal localisation, Neural network, Subjective evaluation

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Citation

Lladó, P, Hyvärinen, P & Pulkki, V 2022, ' Auditory model-based estimation of the effect of head-worn devices on frontal horizontal localisation ', Acta Acustica, vol. 6, 2021056, pp. 1-13 . https://doi.org/10.1051/aacus/2021056