Acoustics Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Wohllebengasse 12-14, A-1040 Vienna, Austria.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2013 Sep;134(3):2148-59. doi: 10.1121/1.4816543.
Sound localization in the sagittal planes, including the ability to distinguish front from back, relies on spectral features caused by the filtering effects of the head, pinna, and torso. It is assumed that important spatial cues are encoded in the frequency range between 4 and 16 kHz. In this study, in a double-blind design and using audio-visual training covering the full 3-D space, normal-hearing listeners were trained 2 h per day over three weeks to localize sounds which were either band limited up to 8.5 kHz or spectrally warped from the range between 2.8 and 16 kHz to the range between 2.8 and 8.5 kHz. The training effect for the warped condition exceeded that for procedural task learning, suggesting a stable auditory recalibration due to the training. After the training, performance with band-limited sounds was better than that with warped ones. The results show that training can improve sound localization in cases where spectral cues have been reduced by band-limiting or remapped by warping. This suggests that hearing-impaired listeners, who have limited access to high frequencies, might also improve their localization ability when provided with spectrally warped or band-limited sounds and adequately trained on sound localization.
在矢状平面上进行声音定位，包括区分前后的能力，依赖于头部、耳廓和躯干的滤波效应所产生的频谱特征。人们认为重要的空间线索编码在 4 到 16 kHz 的频率范围内。在这项研究中，在一个双盲设计中，使用涵盖整个 3-D 空间的视听训练，正常听力的听众每天接受 2 小时的训练，持续三周，以定位被限制在 8.5 kHz 以下的声音，或者从 2.8 到 16 kHz 的范围被频谱扭曲到 2.8 到 8.5 kHz 的范围的声音。扭曲条件下的训练效果超过了程序性任务学习的效果，这表明由于训练，听觉可以稳定地重新校准。训练后，对限带声音的表现优于对扭曲声音的表现。结果表明，在通过限带或扭曲减少频谱线索的情况下，训练可以提高声音定位能力。这表明，对于高频听力有限的听力障碍者，当提供频谱扭曲或限带声音并对声音定位进行充分训练时，他们也可以提高自己的定位能力。
