Listener Performance Modeling in Urban Environments

ABSTRACT: The goal of this project is a model capable of predicting the detectability of acoustic signals by human listeners. For the particular task of detecting aircraft in urban environments, the model must account for a wide range of temporal and spectral characteristics of targets as well as dynamic and unexpected changes in the masking background. Past efforts to develop a predictive model have been limited to conditions of long-duration target signals in steady maskers, where observers listened to a one-channel (monaural) signal. Recent work by the applicants has extended an energy detection model to conditions that include signals of any duration and bandwidth, and to listening with two ears. Proposed work will further test and refine the energy detection model. It will also seek to develop a more general model that can not only predict"energetic"masking, but that also provides a framework for predicting the"non-energetic"masking that arises from conditions of target uncertainty, masker variability, and target/masker similarity. BENEFIT: The project will produce a model for predicting the detectability of sounds for listeners. It will be useful in military applications for knowing the audibility of aircraft and other vehicles, and for minimizing the effects of noise on civilian communities and animal habitats.