The Auditory System

Topics

On the example of the auditory system, the course provides a thorough understanding of human perceptual mechanisms and the principles of modeling physiological and perceptual processes to students interested in bio- and neuroengineering. Based on the understanding of mechanisms and models, students learn to derive solutions for engineering applications for audio (e.g. mp3, hearables) and hearing devices (hearing aids and cochlear implants).
The course covers the following topics:

• Physiology of the auditory system: Outer and middle ear, cochlea, auditory nerve, brainstem
• Mechanisms and models of the outer and middle ear; head-related transfer functions
• The cochlea: physiology and perception, auditory filter models (DRNL, Meddis inner hair cell)
• Auditory/psychoacoustic masking: simultaneous and forward masking
• Just noticeable differences in intensity and binaural cues
• Loudness: spectral loudness models
• Binaural hearing: binaural cues, directional hearing, physiology and models, spatial unmasking, the precedence effect
• Hearing impairment: Kinds of hearing impairment, frequency selectivity and auditory filters, masking, loudness and recruitment, temporal and spectral processing, pitch perception, modeling hearing impairment
• Speech understanding: cues, models (Speech Intelligibility Index), binaural speech understanding, effect of noise and reverberation on speech understanding
• Auditory scene analysis
• Audio applications: Virtual acoustics, mp3
• Hearing aids: function and algorithms
• Cochlear implants: function, algorithms, temporal and spectral resolution, modeling the neural response, speech understanding.

Excercise course: Methods for listening tests and their evaluation; basic statistics for the evaluation of experiments; ethical considerations in clinical research with human participants; speech tests in audiometry; models of the auditory system with hands-on programming in Matlab (monaural, binaural); audio demonstrations.

Lecture videos on YouTube:

• Psychoacoustics lessons
• Methods in hearing research

Exercise course

• Methods for listening tests and their evaluation
• Basic statistics for the evaluation of experiments
• Ethical considerations in clinical research with human participants
• Speech tests in audiometry
• Models of the auditory system with hands-on programming in Matlab (monaural, binaural)
• Audio demonstrations.

Examination

Oral exams will take place. Examination dates will be announced. In addition, each student must register and sign up individually at the examination office (online portal).

References