Oregon Hearing Research Center, Department of Otolaryngology, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, Oregon 97239, USA.
Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2024 Oct 1;156(4):2395-2408. doi: 10.1121/10.0030476.
Despite the growing interest in studying binaural fusion, there is little consensus over its definition or how it is best measured. This review seeks to describe the complexities of binaural fusion, highlight measurement challenges, provide guidelines for rigorous perceptual measurements, and provide a working definition that encompasses this information. First, it is argued that binaural fusion may be multidimensional and might occur in one domain but not others, such as fusion in the spatial but not the spectral domain or vice versa. Second, binaural fusion may occur on a continuous scale rather than on a binary one. Third, binaural fusion responses are highly idiosyncratic, which could be a result of methodology, such as the specific experimental instructions, suggesting a need to explicitly report the instructions given. Fourth, it is possible that direct ("Did you hear one sound or two?") and indirect ("Where did the sound come from?" or "What was the pitch of the sound?") measurements of fusion will produce different results. In conclusion, explicit consideration of these attributes and reporting of methodology are needed for rigorous interpretation and comparison across studies and listener populations.
尽管人们对研究双耳融合越来越感兴趣，但对于其定义或如何最好地衡量它，尚未达成共识。本综述旨在描述双耳融合的复杂性，强调测量挑战，为严格的感知测量提供指导，并提供一个包含这些信息的工作定义。首先，有人认为双耳融合可能是多维的，可能在一个领域发生而不在其他领域发生，例如在空间域而不在频谱域发生融合，或者反之亦然。其次，双耳融合可能发生在连续的尺度上，而不是二进制的尺度上。第三，双耳融合反应具有高度的个体差异，这可能是由于方法学的原因，例如特定的实验指令，这表明需要明确报告所给出的指令。第四，直接（“你听到一个声音还是两个声音？”）和间接（“声音来自哪里？”或“声音的音高是多少？”）测量融合的方法可能会产生不同的结果。总之，需要明确考虑这些属性，并报告方法学，以便在研究和听众群体中进行严格的解释和比较。
