W15 What Audio Engineers Should Know About Human Sound Perception (Tutorial)
Presenters:
Durand Begault, NASA Ames Research Center, USA
Armin Kohlrausch, Philips Research, Eindhoven, Netherlands
Summary
Audio engineering professionals are intimately familiar with the art of producing acoustical phenomena to achieve specific psychoacoustic goals for applications such as music, multimedia, speech reinforcement, etc. However, they may be less familiar with the underlying mechanisms of hearing and perception that influence their everyday decisions.
This tutorial will review fundamental concepts of human sound perception, first from monaural hearing perspective, and then from a spatial hearing perspective. Topics will include pitch, loudness, timbre, sensitivity to phase; temporal resolution and temporal integration; masking; spatial perception; the perceptual effects of rooms; and differences between headphone and loudspeaker reproduction. Questions and comments from the audience will be encouraged.
