Finding the Right Tools to Interpret Crowd Noise at Sporting Events with AI

Jason Bickmore – jbickmore17@gmail.com

Instagram: @jason.bickmore
Brigham Young University, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Provo, Utah, 84602, United States

Popular version of 1aCA4 – Feature selection for machine-learned crowd reactions at collegiate basketball games
Presented at the 188th ASA Meeting
Read the abstract at https://eppro01.ativ.me/appinfo.php?page=Session&project=ASAICA25&id=3868450&server=eppro01.ativ.me

–The research described in this Acoustics Lay Language Paper may not have yet been peer reviewed–

A mixture of traditional and custom tools is enabling AI to make meaning in an unexplored frontier: crowd noise at sporting events.

The unique link between a crowd’s emotional state and its sound makes crowd noise a promising way to capture feedback about an event continuously and in real-time. Transformed into feedback, crowd noise would help venues improve the experience for fans, sharpen advertisements, and support safety.

To capture this feedback, we turned to machine learning, a popular strategy for making tricky connections. While the tools required to teach AI to interpret speech from a single person are well-understood (think Siri), the tools required to make sense of crowd noise are not.

To find the best tools for this job, we began with a simpler task: teaching an AI model to recognize applause, chanting, distracting the other team, and cheering at college basketball and volleyball games (Fig. 1).

Figure 1: Machine learning identifies crowd behaviors from crowd noise. We helped machine learning models recognize four behaviors: applauding, chanting, cheering, and distracting the other team. Image courtesy of byucougars.com.

We began with a large list of tools, called features, some drawn from traditional speech processing and others created using a custom strategy. After applying five methods to eliminate all but the most powerful features, a blend of traditional and custom features remained. A model trained with these features recognized the four behaviors with at least 70% accuracy.

Based on these results, we concluded that, when interpreting crowd noise, both traditional and custom features have a place. Even though crowd noise is not the situation the traditional tools were designed for, they are still valuable. The custom tools are useful too, complementing the traditional tools and sometimes outperforming them. The tools’ success at recognizing the four behaviors indicates that a similar blend of traditional and custom tools could enable AI models to navigate crowd noise well enough to translate it into real-time feedback. In future work, we will investigate the robustness of these features by checking whether they enable AI to recognize crowd behaviors equally well at events other than college basketball and volleyball games.

Pickleball Courts in a Legal Pickle #ASA186

Pickleball Courts in a Legal Pickle #ASA186

When advising on the noise associated with pickleball, loudness is just one of many concerns, and solutions require infrastructure or limitations on play.

Media Contact:
AIP Media
301-209-3090
media@aip.org

OTTAWA, Ontario, May 17, 2024 – Pickleball Legal Consultant is a job title that likely did not exist a decade ago, but as pickleball courts infiltrate neighborhoods to satiate an appetite for a sport whose namesake is a snack, communities take issue with the resulting influx of noise. Now homeowners’ associations and city councils face litigation by those whose lives are disrupted by pickleball’s din.

Charles Leahy, an attorney, retired mechanical engineer, and former HOA board member became interested in this issue after his HOA dismissed the recommendations of noise consultants and failed to install noise absorbing barriers. Litigation over noise nuisance ensued and threatens closure of the courts.

Leahy sought to understand how acoustic engineers assess the noise, how they fashion their recommendations, and what best practices engineers can employ to persuade the community that the noise is real and needs to be mitigated. He will present his work Friday, May 17, at 8:35 a.m. EDT in a session dedicated to pickleball as part of a joint meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and the Canadian Acoustical Association, running May 13-17 at the Shaw Centre located in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Pickleball

Experts recommend HOAs and communities consider the “popping” noise associated with pickleball when deciding to build courts near homes. Image credit: AIP

“Compared to tennis, pickleball is a much smaller court, easier to learn, and especially accessible to seniors,” said Leahy. “Each tennis court can become up to four pickleball courts. Tennis involves a soft and compressible ball and a racket with strings. Pickleball is a hard plastic ball and a hard paddle. Tennis produces a ‘thunk’ sound versus pickleball ’pop,’ which is louder, sharper, more piercing, and more frequent. Thus, more annoying.”

Communities looking to invest in – and those facing lawsuits because of – the courts often seek out engineering consultants to advise them. Leahy examined over 70 pickleball consultant noise reports and compared their recommendations with the American National Standard Institute. He found many reports considered only the decibels associated with the noise, but other factors are important too.

“It’s not just the loudness, it’s the impulsive sharpness and randomness of the ‘pops,’” said Leahy. “It’s the persistence and repetition of the random noises over many hours a day, usually seven days a week.”

His best recommendation is to build courts far from homes, at least 600-800 feet away to allow the sound to naturally dissipate. Less desirable (or more difficult or costly) solutions include enclosing the courts within a building or wall barriers or using less noisy paddles and balls.

“Pickleball has a highly impulsive noise, with each court generating about 900 pop noises per hour,” said Leahy. “It’s incompatible with residential living. Cities can also locate pickleball in industrial and commercial neighborhoods rather than close to homes.

“The benefits of pickleball to the players are undeniable, and the demand for more pickleball courts is real and genuine. However, there needs to be more research, more planning and prevention, and more effort to avoid ending up in front of the judge and jury.”

———————– MORE MEETING INFORMATION ———————–
​Main Meeting Website: https://acousticalsociety.org/ottawa/    
Technical Program: https://eppro02.ativ.me/src/EventPilot/php/express/web/planner.php?id=ASASPRING24

ASA PRESS ROOM
In the coming weeks, ASA’s Press Room will be updated with newsworthy stories and the press conference schedule at https://acoustics.org/asa-press-room/.

LAY LANGUAGE PAPERS
ASA will also share dozens of lay language papers about topics covered at the conference. Lay language papers are summaries (300-500 words) of presentations written by scientists for a general audience. They will be accompanied by photos, audio, and video. Learn more at https://acoustics.org/lay-language-papers/.

PRESS REGISTRATION
ASA will grant free registration to credentialed and professional freelance journalists. If you are a reporter and would like to attend the in-person meeting or virtual press conferences, contact AIP Media Services at media@aip.org. For urgent requests, AIP staff can also help with setting up interviews and obtaining images, sound clips, or background information.

ABOUT THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
The Acoustical Society of America is the premier international scientific society in acoustics devoted to the science and technology of sound. Its 7,000 members worldwide represent a broad spectrum of the study of acoustics. ASA publications include The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (the world’s leading journal on acoustics), JASA Express Letters, Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, Acoustics Today magazine, books, and standards on acoustics. The society also holds two major scientific meetings each year. See https://acousticalsociety.org/.

ABOUT THE CANADIAN ACOUSTICAL ASSOCIATION/ASSOCIATION CANADIENNE D’ACOUSTIQUE

  • fosters communication among people working in all areas of acoustics in Canada
  • promotes the growth and practical application of knowledge in acoustics
  • encourages education, research, protection of the environment, and employment in acoustics
  • is an umbrella organization through which general issues in education, employment and research can be addressed at a national and multidisciplinary level

The CAA is a member society of the International Institute of Noise Control Engineering (I-INCE) and the International Commission for Acoustics (ICA), and is an affiliate society of the International Institute of Acoustics and Vibration (IIAV). Visit https://caa-aca.ca/.

To Sound like a Hockey Player, Speak like a Canadian #ASA186

To Sound like a Hockey Player, Speak like a Canadian #ASA186

American athletes tend to signal their identity as hockey players through Canadian English-like accents.

Media Contact:
AIP Media
301-209-3090
media@aip.org

OTTAWA, Ontario, May 16, 2024 – As a hockey player, Andrew Bray was familiar with the slang thrown around the “barn” (hockey arena). As a linguist, he wanted to understand how sport-specific jargon evolved and permeated across teams, regions, and countries. In pursuit of the sociolinguistic “biscuit” (puck), he faced an unexpected question.

“It was while conducting this initial study that I was asked a question that has since shaped the direction of my subsequent research,” said Bray. “‘Are you trying to figure out why the Americans sound like fake Canadians?’”  

Canadian English dialects are stereotypically represented by the vowel pronunciation, or articulation, in words like “out” and “about,” borrowed British terms like “zed,” and the affinity for the tag question “eh?” Bray, from the University of Rochester, will present an investigation into American hockey players’ use of Canadian English accents Thursday, May 16, at 8:25 a.m. EDT as part of a joint meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and the Canadian Acoustical Association, running May 13-17 at the Shaw Centre located in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

hockey

Andrew Bray, former UGA Ice Dawg, will present an investigation into American hockey players’ use of Canadian English accents at the 186th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America. Here the University of Georgia takes on the University of Florida in the 2016 Savannah Tire Hockey Classic. Image credit: University of Georgia Ice Dawgs

Studying how hockey players talk required listening to them talk about hockey. To analyze unique vowel articulation and the vast collection of sport-specific slang terminology that players incorporated into their speech, Bray visited different professional teams to interview their American-born players.

“In these interviews, I would ask players to discuss their career trajectories, including when and why they began playing hockey, the teams that they played for throughout their childhood, why they decided to pursue collegiate or major junior hockey, and their current lives as professionals,” said Bray. “The interview sought to get players talking about hockey for as long as possible.”

Bray found that American athletes borrow features of the Canadian English accents, especially for hockey-specific terms and jargon, but do not follow the underlying rules behind the pronunciation, which could explain why the accent might sound “fake” to a Canadian.

“It is important to note that American hockey players are not trying to shift their speech to sound more Canadian,” said Bray. “Rather, they are trying to sound more like a hockey player.”

Players from Canada and northern American states with similar accents have historically dominated the sport. Adopting features of this dialect is a way hockey players can outwardly portray their identity through speech, called a linguistic persona. Many factors influence this persona, like age, gender expression, social category, and as Bray demonstrated, a sport.

Going forward, Bray plans to combine his recent work with his original quest to investigate if Canadian English pronunciation and the hockey linguistic persona are introduced to American players through the sport’s signature slang.

———————– MORE MEETING INFORMATION ———————–
​Main Meeting Website: https://acousticalsociety.org/ottawa/    
Technical Program: https://eppro02.ativ.me/src/EventPilot/php/express/web/planner.php?id=ASASPRING24

ASA PRESS ROOM
In the coming weeks, ASA’s Press Room will be updated with newsworthy stories and the press conference schedule at https://acoustics.org/asa-press-room/.

LAY LANGUAGE PAPERS
ASA will also share dozens of lay language papers about topics covered at the conference. Lay language papers are summaries (300-500 words) of presentations written by scientists for a general audience. They will be accompanied by photos, audio, and video. Learn more at https://acoustics.org/lay-language-papers/.

PRESS REGISTRATION
ASA will grant free registration to credentialed and professional freelance journalists. If you are a reporter and would like to attend the in-person meeting or virtual press conferences, contact AIP Media Services at media@aip.org. For urgent requests, AIP staff can also help with setting up interviews and obtaining images, sound clips, or background information.

ABOUT THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
The Acoustical Society of America is the premier international scientific society in acoustics devoted to the science and technology of sound. Its 7,000 members worldwide represent a broad spectrum of the study of acoustics. ASA publications include The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (the world’s leading journal on acoustics), JASA Express Letters, Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, Acoustics Today magazine, books, and standards on acoustics. The society also holds two major scientific meetings each year. See https://acousticalsociety.org/.

ABOUT THE CANADIAN ACOUSTICAL ASSOCIATION/ASSOCIATION CANADIENNE D’ACOUSTIQUE

  • fosters communication among people working in all areas of acoustics in Canada
  • promotes the growth and practical application of knowledge in acoustics
  • encourages education, research, protection of the environment, and employment in acoustics
  • is an umbrella organization through which general issues in education, employment and research can be addressed at a national and multidisciplinary level

The CAA is a member society of the International Institute of Noise Control Engineering (I-INCE) and the International Commission for Acoustics (ICA), and is an affiliate society of the International Institute of Acoustics and Vibration (IIAV). Visit https://caa-aca.ca/.

Take acoustics out to the ball game!

Happy MLB Opening Day, baseball fans! To kick off the latest season, we’d like to highlight some literature about the acoustics of the humble baseball bat. The sounds a baseball bat makes connecting with a ball can vary so much in frequency that a person with enough bats on hand can create a makeshift musical instrument! In fact, Daniel Russell from The Pennsylvania State University did just that. Check out this video of him playing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” on a piano made of baseball bats:

This video comes from Russell’s article in the Winter 2017 issue of Acoustics Today, “Acoustics and Vibration of Baseball and Softball Bats.” It turns out sound and vibration feedback are incredibly helpful to players and can influence their perception of their performance. The article talks all about the physics of baseball bats and how the sounds they make when hit by a ball. You can also hear Russell talk about the acoustics of baseball bats in detail on an episode of Across Acoustics.

Russell realized that sports are a useful tool for teaching acoustics concepts. In the JASA article, “Acoustic testing and modeling: An advanced undergraduate laboratory,” he and coauthor Daniel O. Ludwigsen wrote about an instructional module in which students study the vibrational characteristics of baseball bats and other sports equipment.

The crack of the bat that heralds a home run seems even more exciting now, doesn’t it?

The sounds of March Madness

As March Madness sweeps across the nation, basketball enthusiasts eagerly anticipate the exhilarating clashes on the court. Yet, amidst the thunderous roars of the crowd and the rhythmic bounce of the basketball, there lies a hidden symphony of sound that influences both players and spectators alike. Research sheds light on the intricate relationship between sound and the game, unveiling the fascinating dynamics at play within basketball arenas.

March Madness - crowd noise

You have probably noticed how the crowd’s energy during March Madness games ebbs and flows. Researchers meticulously analyzed the acoustic signatures of basketball crowds to classify behavior based on various emotional states expressed through sound. From the jubilant cheer of a successful shot to the collective groan of a missed opportunity, each acoustic cue provides insight into the emotional pulse of the audience. Understanding these nuances not only enriches our appreciation of the game but also offers valuable insights for enhancing spectator experiences. Read “Classifying crowd behavior at collegiate basketball games using acoustic data” in POMA at https://doi.org/10.1121/2.0001061.

march madness - bounce

While spectators contribute to the symphony of sound in basketball arenas, players themselves are attuned to a different sound—the bounce of the basketball. A study published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA) explores how listeners utilize auditory cues to anticipate the trajectory of a ball. Remarkably, individuals demonstrate an ability to predict the timing of a bounce. Read “Predicting the timing of dynamic events through sound: Bouncing balls” at https://doi.org/10.1121/1.4923020.

March madness - reverberation

While basketball arenas resonate with the fervor of March Madness, these spaces are not confined solely to sporting events. In a thought-provoking article featured in Acoustics Today, the complexities of converting arenas for alternate purposes are unveiled. From transforming a raucous sporting venue into a serene place of worship, acousticians navigate a myriad of challenges to optimize sound quality and ensure a seamless transition between functions. The meticulous orchestration of sound within these dynamic spaces underscores the profound impact of acoustics on human experiences, transcending the boundaries between sports and spirituality. Read “From sprots arena to sanctuary – Taming a Texas-sized reverberations time” at https://bit.ly/3D7ypVM.

While you immerse yourself in the excitement of March Madness, take a moment to listen closely—you just might discover the hidden sounds that enrich the game beyond the final buzzer.