‘Urban Canyons’ Prolong Sonic Booms in Cities

Propagation of an N-wave sonic boom above (a) an isolated building and (b) multiple buildings. CREDIT: Didier Dragna

WASHINGTON, June 7, 2022 – Twenty years after the retirement of the Concorde, several industrial and research projects want to make supersonic flight a reality again. However, supersonic planes produce sonic booms loud enough to warrant noise concerns and regulations, limiting…click to read more

From the Journal: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Article: Sonic boom reflection over an isolated building and multiple buildings
DOI: 10.1121/10.0010452

Machine Learning Improves Human Speech Recognition

Overview of the human speech recognition model CREDIT: Jana Roßbach

WASHINGTON, March 1, 2022 — Hearing loss is a rapidly growing area of scientific research as the number of baby boomers dealing with hearing loss continues to increase as they age. To understand how hearing loss impacts…click to read more

From the Journal: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Link to article: A model of speech recognition for hearing-impaired listeners based on deep learning
DOI: 10.1121/10.0009411

Can We Perceive Gender from Children’s Voices?

Classification rates for individual talkers (ages 5-11), with numbers indicating talker age (males in circles). Voices in shaded quadrants were identified correctly based on both sentences and isolated syllables. CREDIT: Barreda and Assmann

WASHINGTON, November 23, 2021 — The perception of gender in children’s voices is of special interest to researchers, because voices of young boys and girls are very similar before the age of puberty. Adult male and female voices are often quite different acoustically, making gender…click to read more

From the Journal: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Link to article: Perception of gender in children’s voices
DOI: 10.1121/10.0006785

To Better Understand Speech, Focus on Who Is Talking

Seeing a talker’s face improves your ability to perceive speech, but only if the face and voice come from the same location in space. CREDIT: Justin Fleming

WASHINGTON, October 26, 2021 — Seeing a person’s face as we are talking to them greatly improves our ability to understand their speech. While previous studies indicate that the timing of words-to-mouth movements across the senses is critical to this audio-visual speech benefit, whether it also depends on…click to read more

From the Journal: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Link to article: Spatial alignment between faces and voices improves selective attention to audio-visual speech
DOI: 10.1121/10.0006415

Attention-Based Deep Neural Network Increases Detection Capability in Sonar Systems

ABNN’s gradual focus on specific line-spectrum features of a ship. CREDIT: Institute of Acoustics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

WASHINGTON, October 12, 2021 — In underwater acoustics, deep learning is gaining traction in improving sonar systems to detect ships and submarines in distress or in restricted waters. However, noise interference from the complex marine environment becomes a challenge when…Click here to read more.

From the Journal: JASA Express Letters
Link to article: Underwater acoustic target recognition using attention-based deep neural network
DOI: full/10.1121/10.0006299

Algorithm Finds Personalized Sound Zones in Cars for Driver, Passengers

Measured system in a car cabin. Credit: Lucas Vindrola

WASHINGTON, September 14, 2021 — Creating an individualized listening experience for each passenger has been an ambition for the auto industry for decades. The acoustically changing nature of the car cabin has hampered making…click to read more

From the Journal: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Link to article: Use of the filtered-x least-mean-squares algorithm to adapt personal sound zones in a car cabin
DOI: 10.1121/10.0005875

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