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A Method to Study Adaptation to Left-Right Reversed Audition

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Effects of interaural decoherence on sensitivity to interaural level differences across frequency.

Andrew D Brown¹, Daniel J Tollin²

¹Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, 1417 Northeast 42nd Street, Seattle, Washington 98105, USA.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

|July 9, 2021

Summary

Human sensitivity to interaural level differences (ILD) is affected by sound frequency and correlation. Decorrelated sounds, especially at lower frequencies, significantly impair ILD perception, suggesting covert interaural time difference (ITD) cues may play a role.

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Area of Science:

Auditory perception
Psychoacoustics
Neuroscience

Background:

Interaural level difference (ILD) is crucial for sound localization.
ILD sensitivity is known to be influenced by stimulus frequency and interaural correlation.
Previous research indicates ILD sensitivity can persist even when interaural time difference (ITD) cues are degraded.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how interaural correlation and frequency interact to affect human ILD sensitivity.
To quantify ILD discrimination thresholds across a range of frequencies (250-4000 Hz) and correlation levels.
To explore the influence of stimulus envelope fluctuations on ILD perception.

Main Methods:

Two experiments were conducted using narrowband noise stimuli with varying interaural correlations.
Experiment 1 measured ILD discrimination thresholds and subjective lateralization for correlated, half-correlated, and uncorrelated noise.
Experiment 2 utilized low-fluctuation noise tokens to isolate the effect of interaural decoherence across frequencies.

Main Results:

ILD discrimination thresholds were higher and subjective lateralization reduced for decorrelated stimuli compared to correlated ones.
In decorrelated conditions, thresholds were frequency-independent in Experiment 1, potentially due to envelope fluctuations.
Experiment 2 revealed a frequency-dependent effect of interaural decoherence, with greater impact at lower frequencies.

Conclusions:

Interaural decoherence significantly impairs ILD sensitivity, particularly at lower frequencies.
Findings align with neural integration times in ILD-sensitive neurons.
The results suggest that covert ITD cues may influence tasks primarily attributed to ILD processing.