TC Chair Julianna Simon says, “In the last few years, there has been significant discussion over how to relate measured acoustic cavitation signals to the desired bioeffects. This paper compares optical imaging to broadband hydrophone and narrow-band receive signals from a dedicated histotripsy therapy array in three common tissue-mimicking hydrogels. Stiffness was varied for each hydrogel composition and bubble radii, lifespan, and shock wave amplitudes were compared for each of the three cavitation monitoring mechanisms. Results from this and other papers in the last year will help determine which cavitation features best map to the desired bioeffect for different tissue types.”

TC Chair Jonas Braasch says, “Stephen McAdams, Etienne Thoret, Grace Wang, Marcel Montrey (2023) Timbral cues for learning to generalize musical instrument identity across pitch register is an interesting study investigating how novices can learn to identify individual musical instruments in an orchestra,  even though each of them sounds different throughout their range of over two octaves. The study used a listening test with non-musicians to learn what features they would use to learn to identify orchestral instruments over time. The results show that listeners predominantly used those parameters that remained stable over the whole range of the instrument while paying lesser attention to cues that vary with pitch. The paper provides insight into how we listen to orchestras, a topic that is of interest to a wider readership.”

TC Chair Alexandra Loubeau says, “There were several good papers, but this one stood out with a topic of the most general interest.  As part of the special collection on COVID-19 Pandemic Acoustic Effects, this paper discusses the indoor and outdoor acoustic environments in communities across India, and how various lockdowns affected the public’s perception of the environment and their well-being.  An online survey was used to gather responses, and analyses shed light on current preferences for remote education and work.”

TC Chair Christopher Stecker says, “This paper reconceptualizes the nature of peripheral auditory channels (they are not ‘filters’ but in fact complex dynamic systems) to explain a fundamental mystery in the perception of concordant pitches: Specifically, why do perfect octaves (2:1 frequency relationship) sound less natural than slightly stretched octaves (>2:1)? And why is it harder to detect positive mistuning (>2:1) than negative mistuning (<2:1) of the octave?  The paper is important not only for answering those questions using a simple mechanism [cancelation filtering, see de Cheveigné 2023 JASA 153(6):3350], but for also for challenging the obsolete conceptualization of auditory channels as simple ‘filters.’”

The “Editors Pick” for a JASA cover article is decided by the EIC on the basis of being an article that would have broad appeal to the Acoustical Society and beyond. So articles that have social relevance, topics of current interest, or topics that are just fun to consider in general tend to get some preference. This month’s cover article, “Addressing Diversity in Speech Science Courses,” addresses topics that most certainly are of broad interest these days: Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Education. The article is of the “Forum” category in JASA, meaning it is a peer-reviewed opinion article. Any facts quoted must be referenced, and any opinions made must be stated as such, and also be deemed reasonable by the review process. This helps to ensure that any debate that the article poses is a reasoned one. I think this month’s Editor’s Pick article is a great example of this, and whether you agree or disagree with the authors, their article will stimulate thought about an important topic, not just for our Speech Technical Committee, but for society in general. We hope you enjoy it!

Some other research was also highlighted on the July JASA cover:

• From Computational Acoustics, “Feature selection for a continental-scale geospatial model of environmental sound levels” by Katrina Pedersen, Mark K. Transtrum, Kent L. Gee, Shane V. Lympany, Michael M. James, and Alexandria R. Salton.
• From Engineering Acoustics, “Moving sound source localization and tracking for an autonomous robot equipped with a self-rotating bi-microphone array,” by Deepak Gala and Liang Sun.
• From Psychological and Physiological Acoustics, “Randomizing spectral cues used to resolve front-back reversals in sound-source localization,” by William A. Yost.
• From Signal Processing, “Time reversal imaging of complex sources in a three-dimensional environment using a spatial inverse filter,” by Adam D. Kingsley, Andrew Basham, and Brian E. Anderson.