The Auditory System

Lecturer:	Prof. Dr.-Ing. Bernhard U. Seeber,
Assistant:	Maryam Bajool, MSc.
Turnus:	Winter semester only
Target group:	Core module in area Bio- and Neuroengineering in Master EI, Elective in Master EI
ECTS:	5
Schedule:	2/2/0 (Lecture/Exercise course/Practical course)
Language:	Englisch
Exam	Oral. Sign up slots for the individual oral exam will be posted on Moodle. Candidates for repeat exams in the summer semester are asked to contact us well in advance to arrange an individual exam time.
Time & Place:	Lecture: Tuesday, 09:45 - 11:15, N3815 Exercise course: Tuesday, 11:30 - 13:00, N3815

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:

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

J. Blauert	Spatial Hearing. MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 1996.
H. Fastl , E. Zwicker	Psychoacoustics - Facts and Models. Springer-Verlag, 3rd Edition, 2007.
D.M. Green, J.A. Swets	Signal Detection Theory and Psychophysics. Peninsula Publishing, Los Altos Hills, Calif., USA, 1988.
N.A. Macmillan, C.D. Creelman	Detection Theory: A User's Guide. Psychology Press, 2nd Edition, New York, London, 2009.
B.C.J. Moore	An Introduction to the Psychology of Hearing. Emerald Group Publishing, 6th Edition, London, 2012.
B.C.J. Moore	Cochlear Hearing Loss: Physiological, Psychological and Technical Issues: John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester, UK, 2007.
E. Terhardt	Akustische Kommunikation. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, 1998.
J.O. Pickles	An Introduction to the Physiology of Hearing, Emerald publishing, Bingley, UK, 2008.