This research will examine how listeners combine auditory spatial information across different types of binaural cues (interaural time differences [ITD] and interaural level differences [ILD]), over time, and across frequency in order to better understand the dynamic processes underlying spatial hearing in reverberant environments. ITD and ILD provide the major set of cues that allow listeners to localize sounds in space and to segregate competing sound sources. In ideal situations, the cues agree across frequency and between the two cue types, and therefore provide redundant information about auditory space. Echoes and reverberation, however, distort these cues over time, degrading localization and speech understanding. Whereas the normal binaural system compensates by emphasizing robust aspects of the sound (such as ITD at onset), listeners who are aging, hearing-impaired, or using cochlear implants continue to experience difficulty in the presence of echoes and reverberation. Identifying the specific nature of these auditory processing deficits is difficult because so little is known about the compensatory mechanisms at work in normal-hearing listeners. Past research has investigated how the influence of spatial cues varies over the time-course of a sound (thereby emphasizing sound onsets), and across its frequency spectrum (typically emphasizing spatial information carried by low frequencies) but a key question remains unanswered: does the time-course of binaural processing vary across frequency or when multiple frequencies are present? Conversely, do the relative contributions of high and low frequencies change over the duration of a stimulus? The specific aims of the proposed study address this question by mapping the time-course of listeners' sensitivity to interaural differences for sounds varying in frequency, bandwidth, and the agreement of binaural cues across frequency. Listeners will judge the spatial positions of sounds with time-varying ITD and/or ILD, and multiple regression will be used to measure the dependence of those judgments on ITD and/or ILD. Regression coefficients will be used to construct temporal weighting functions (TWFs) that illustrate the dynamics of neural mechanisms for integration of ITD and ILD over time and across frequency. Parallel experiments will use neuroimaging of the auditory cortex and inferior colliculus, along with computer models of the auditory periphery, in an effort to identify at what level of auditory processing these effects take place.
Because a number of patient populations (aging, hearing impaired, cochlear implant users) are impaired when listening in noisy and reverberant environments, an improved understanding of the mechanisms that allow normal-hearing individuals to deal with echoes and reverberation will improve (a) theoretical descriptions of auditory processing deficits, and (b) algorithms for signal processing in hearing aids and cochlear implants. Specifically, mapping the time-course of sensitivity to ITD and ILD across frequency could guide the distribution of digital signal-processing resources to most effectively preserve relevant spatial information and de-emphasize potentially misleading information.
| Stecker, G Christopher (2018) Temporal weighting functions for interaural time and level differences. V. Modulated noise carriers. J Acoust Soc Am 143:686 |
| Stecker, G Christopher; Moore, Travis M (2018) Reverberation enhances onset dominance in sound localization. J Acoust Soc Am 143:786 |
| Stecker, G Christopher (2018) Temporal binding of auditory spatial information across dynamic binaural events. Atten Percept Psychophys 80:14-20 |
| Higgins, Nathan C; McLaughlin, Susan A; Da Costa, Sandra et al. (2017) Sensitivity to an Illusion of Sound Location in Human Auditory Cortex. Front Syst Neurosci 11:35 |
| Higgins, Nathan C; McLaughlin, Susan A; Rinne, Teemu et al. (2017) Evidence for cue-independent spatial representation in the human auditory cortex during active listening. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 114:E7602-E7611 |
| McLaughlin, Susan A; Higgins, Nathan C; Stecker, G Christopher (2016) Tuning to Binaural Cues in Human Auditory Cortex. J Assoc Res Otolaryngol 17:37-53 |
| Bibee, Jacqueline M; Stecker, G Christopher (2016) Spectrotemporal weighting of binaural cues: Effects of a diotic interferer on discrimination of dynamic interaural differences. J Acoust Soc Am 140:2584 |
| Brown, Andrew D; Jones, Heath G; Kan, Alan et al. (2015) Evidence for a neural source of the precedence effect in sound localization. J Neurophysiol 114:2991-3001 |
| Stecker, G Christopher; McLaughlin, Susan A; Higgins, Nathan C (2015) Monaural and binaural contributions to interaural-level-difference sensitivity in human auditory cortex. Neuroimage 120:456-66 |
| Brown, Andrew D; Stecker, G Christopher; Tollin, Daniel J (2015) The precedence effect in sound localization. J Assoc Res Otolaryngol 16:1-28 |
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