The role of reliable interaural time difference cues in ambiguous binaural signals for the intelligibility of multitalker speech.

When listening to speech in the presence of concurrent talkers, listeners can benefit from glimpses that occur as a result of spectro-temporal modulations in the speech signals. These glimpses are characterized by a high local signal-to-noise ratio and allow listeners to collect relatively undistorted and reliable information on target speech features. A series of experiments was designed to measure the spatial advantage for binaurally presented speech when useful interaural time difference (ITD) information was provided only in glimpses of speech signals with otherwise ambiguous ITDs.

A Hypoxic Environment Attenuates Exercise-Induced Procoagulant Changes Due to Decreased Platelet Activation.

 Although physical exercise is protective against cardiovascular disease, it can also provoke sudden cardiac death (exercise paradox). Epidemiological studies suggest that systemic hypoxia at high altitude is a risk factor for venous thromboembolism. Forthcoming, this study investigated the effect of repeated exercise at high altitude on blood coagulation, platelet function, and fibrinolysis.

Sparse periodicity-based auditory features explain human performance in a spatial multitalker auditory scene analysis task.

Human listeners robustly decode speech information from a talker of interest that is embedded in a mixture of spatially distributed interferers. A relevant question is which time-frequency segments of the speech are predominantly used by a listener to solve such a complex Auditory Scene Analysis task. A recent psychoacoustic study investigated the relevance of low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) components of a target signal on speech intelligibility in a spatial multitalker situation.

Contribution of binaural masking release to improved speech intelligibility for different masker types.

In situations with competing talkers or in the presence of masking noise, speech intelligibility can be improved by spatially separating the target speaker from the interferers. This advantage is generally referred to as spatial release from masking, and different mechanisms have been suggested to explain it. One proposed mechanism to benefit from spatial cues is the binaural masking release, which is purely stimulus-driven.

Better-ear rating based on glimpsing.

The better ear of a listener is the ear that benefits most from head shadow effects in a setting with spatially separated sources. Traditionally, the better ear is considered to be the ear that receives a signal at the best signal-to-noise ratio. For a speech target in interfering speech, the concept of rating the better ear based on glimpses was explored.