Lay Language Papers
168th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America
Indianapolis Indiana
October 27-31, 2014
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Halloween Fun at Indy
Photo gallery from the 168th Meeting of ASA...
2pAB9 – Vocal behavior of Southeast Alaskan humpback whales: context matters – Michelle Fournet
Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) were made famous by the discovery that male whales sing long complex songs on the breeding grounds[1]. Humpbacks, however, also produce a wide range of sounds throughout their range—purrs, shrieks, whups, moans, and more—that...
4pAAa2 – Uncanny Acoustics: Phantom Instrument Guides at Ancient Chavín de Huántar, Peru – Miriam Kolar, Ph.D.
Excavated from Pre-Inca archaeological sites high in the Peruvian Andes, giant conch shell horns known as “pututus” have been discovered far from the tropical sea floor these marine snails once inhabited. {Fig. 1a: Excavation of a Chavín pututu at Chavín de Huántar,...
4pAAa13 – Impact of Room Acoustics on Emotional Response – Martin Lawless, Michelle C. Vigeant
Background Music has the potential to evoke powerful emotions, both positive and negative. When listening to an enjoyable piece or song, an individual can experience intense, pleasurable “chills” that signify a surge of dopamine and activations in certain regions in...
4pAAa12 – Hearing voices in the high frequencies: What your cell phone isn’t telling you – Brian B. Monson
Ever noticed how or wondered why people sound different on your cell phone than in person? You might already know that the reason is because a cell phone doesn’t transmit all of the sounds that the human voice creates. Specifically, cell phones don’t transmit very...
4pAAa1 – Auditory Illusions of Supernatural Spirits: Archaeological Evidence and Experimental Results – Steven J. Waller
Introduction: Auditory illusions The ear can be tricked by ambiguous sounds, just as the eye can be fooled by optical illusions. Sound reflection, whisper galleries, reverberation, ricochets, and interference patterns were perceived in the past as eerie sounds...
4aSCb16 – How your genes may help you learn another language – Han-Gyol Yi
For many decades, speech scientists have marveled at the complexity of speech sounds. In English, a relatively simple task of distinguishing "bat" from "pat" can involve as many as 16 different sound cues. Also, English vowels are pronounced so differently across...
2aSC8 – Some people are eager to be heard: anticipatory posturing in speech production – Sam Tilsen
Consider a common scenario in a conversation: your friend is in the middle of asking you a question, and you already know the answer. To be polite, you wait to respond until your friend finishes the question. But what are you doing while you are waiting? You might...
4pAAa10 – Eerie voices: Odd combinations, extremes, and irregularities. – Brad Story
The human voice is a pattern of sound generated by both the mind and body, and carries with it information about about a speaker’s mental and physical state. Qualities such as gender, age, physique, dialect, health, and emotion are often embedded in the voice, and can...
CHARACTERIZATION OF AN ELECTROMAGNETIC LITHOTRIPTER USING TRANSIENT ACOUSTIC HOLOGRAPHY – Oleg A. Sapozhnikov
In focused ultrasound surgery (FUS), an ultrasound source radiates pressure waves into the patient's body to achieve a desired therapeutic effect. FUS has already gained regulatory approval in the U.S. for treating uterine fibroids and pain palliation for bone...
4pPP3 – Traumatic brain injuries – Melissa Papesh
Traumatic brain injuries from blast exposure have been called the “signature injury” of military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is largely due to our enemies’ unprecedented reliance on explosive weaponry such as improvised explosive devices (IED) (Figure 1)....
1aAB11 – A New Dimension to Bat Biosonar – Rolf Müller
Sonar is a sensing modality that is found in engineering as well as in nature. Man-made sonar systems can be found in places that include the bows of nuclear submarines and the bumpers of passenger cars. Likewise, natural sonar systems can be found in toothed whales...
2aID11 – A transducer not to be ignored: The siren – J. D. Maynard
The siren is a source of sound (or sound transducer) which captures our attention because we know it may emanate from a police vehicle, fire engine, tornado warning tower or other danger warning system. However, there is another reason to heed the siren: it can be a...
3aPA8 – Using arrays of air-filled resonators to reduce underwater man-made noise – Kevin M. Lee
Many marine and aquatic human activities generate underwater noise and can have potentially adverse effects on the underwater acoustical environment. For instance, loud sounds can affect the migratory or other behavioral patterns of marine mammals [1] and fish [2]....
4pBA1 – Ultrasound Helps Detect Cancer Biomarkers – Tatiana Khokhlova
The clinical evaluation of solid tumors typically includes needle biopsies, which can provide diagnostic (benign vs. cancer) and molecular information (targetable mutations, drug resistance, etc). This procedure has several diagnostic limitations, most notably, the...
4aSCb8 – How do kids communicate in challenging conditions? – Valerie Hazan
Kids learn to speak fluently at a young age and we expect young teenagers to communicate as effectively as adults. However, researchers are increasingly realizing that certain aspects of speech communication have a slower developmental path. For example, as adults, we...
Cervical Assessment with Quantitative Ultrasound – Timothy J Hall
The cervix, which is the opening into the uterus, is a remarkable organ. It is the only structure in the entire body that has diametrically opposed functions. The normal cervix stays stiff and closed throughout most of pregnancy while the baby develops and then...
1aNS2 – How an acoustic metamaterial can make a better sound absorber – Matthew D. Guild
From listening to music to seeing an ultrasound of a baby in the womb, sounds are all around us and are an integral part of our daily life. Many of the sounds we want to hear - such as speaking with a friend at a restaurant - but other sounds (such as conversations at...
4pBA3 – Focusing Sound to Disrupt Microorganisms – Timothy A Bigelow
During the civil war, the risk of lethal infection drove surgeons to perform multiple amputations on wounded soldiers. The loss of life from the infection outweighed the loss of the limb. In modern medicine, the occurrence of amputations is much less due to the...
1pAA1 – Audible Simulation in the Canadian Parliament – Ronald Eligator
If the MP’s speeches don’t put you to sleep, at least you should be able to understand what they are saying. Using state-of-the-art audible simulations, a design team of acousticians, architects and sound system designers is working to ensure that speech within the...
EVALUATING KIDNEY STONE SIZE IN CHILDREN USING THE POSTERIOR ACOUSTIC SHADOW – Barbrina Dunmire
Stone disease in the children is becoming more commonplace. Over the past 25 years the incidence has increased approximately 6-10% annually and is now 50 per 100,000 adolescents 1. The diagnosis of kidney stones in children, as in adults, relies primarily on...
2pBA14 – Waves by Ultrasound help better Breast Cancer Diagnosis – Max Denis
Currently, a large number of patients with suspicious breast masses undergo biopsy, more than half of which turn out to be benign. The huge number false positive cases results in an enormous unnecessary cost plus psychological and physical trauma to patients. To avoid...
5aNS6 – The Perceived Annoyance of Urban Soundscapes – Adam Craig
The term ‘soundscape’ is widely used to describe the sonic landscape and can be considered the auditory equivalent of a visual landscape. Current soundscape research looks into the view of sound assessment in terms of perception and has been the subject of large scale...
1aSC9 – Challenges when using mobile phone speech recordings as evidence in a court of law – Balamurali B. T. Nair
When Motorola’s vice president, Martin Cooper, made his first call from a mobile phone device, which priced about four thousand dollars back in 1983, one could not have imagined then that in just a few decades mobile phones would become a crucial and ubiquitous part...
1aAB4 – What does a Greater Prairie-Chicken sound like? It’s not your typical cock-a-doodle-doo! – Cara Whalen
It is 5 o’clock in the morning and only a hint of sunlight is visible on the horizon. Besides the sound of a light breeze swirling through the grass, all is quiet on the Nebraska prairie. Everything seems to be asleep. Then, suddenly, “whhooo-doo-doooohh” breaks the...
Acoustic absorption of green roof samples commercially available in southern Brazil – Stephan Paul
Investigations into the benefits of green roofs have shown that such roofs provide many environmental benefits, such as thermal conditioning, air cleaning and rain water absorption. Analysing the way green roofs are usually constructed suggests that they may have also...
4aAAa1 – Speech-in-noise recognition as both an experience- and signal-dependent process – Ann Bradlow
Real-world speech understanding in naturally “crowded” auditory soundscapes is a complex operation that acts upon an integrated speech-plus-noise signal. Does all of the auditory “clutter” that surrounds speech make its way into our heads along with the speech? Or,...