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UrduIn JASA, researchers from the University of Oldenburg study the impact of hearing loss on subjects’ enjoyment of different music mixes.
Tag: Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Vocal Tract Size, Shape Dictate Speech Sounds
In JASA, researchers explore how anatomical variations in a speaker’s vocal tract affect speech production. Using MRI, the team recorded the shape of the vocal tract for 41 speakers as the subjects produced a series of representative speech sounds. They averaged these shapes to establish a sound-independent model of the vocal tract. Then they used statistical analysis to extract the main variations between speakers. A handful of factors explained nearly 90% of the differences between speakers.
Telehealth Makes Hearing Health Care More Equitable
In The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, scientists explore how digital health solutions can expand audiology services in clinical and research settings. Audiology assessment via telehealth would allow patients to access care while a specialist is located hundreds of miles away and, as a research tool, telehealth would allow for more representative and decentralized data on hearing, without compromising results. The team is currently scaling up several studies they conducted in rural areas of Alaska; their mission is to close the gap on hearing health disparities.
Ultrasound Could Save Racehorses from Bucked Shins
When racehorses enter training at about 2 years old, they can develop tiny stress fractures and new bone formations in their legs. This condition, called bucked shin, occurs in about 70% of the animals. In The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, researchers have developed a method to screen for bucked shin using ultrasound. Axial transmission, in which an ultrasound emitter and receiver are placed on the skin to induce and measure wave velocities, is frequently used to study osteoporosis in humans. The method could detect bucked shin more easily and preserve the health and growth of young horses.
Update Noise Regulations to Protect Seals, Porpoises
In The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, scientists in Denmark review recent experiments and find noise regulations may need to be changed to protect porpoises, seals, and other sea-dwelling mammals. Current guidance for seals and porpoises is based on few measurements in a limited frequency range; the guidance is still valid for these frequencies, but investigators found substantial deviations in recent studies of the impact of low frequency noise on seals and high frequency noise on porpoises.
‘Urban Canyons’ Prolong Sonic Booms in Cities
Recent efforts have sought to make low-boom supersonic aircraft, but noise issues due to sonic booms may become more pronounced in cities, where buildings form canyons that distort the booms. In The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, researchers conducted simulations comparing how sonic booms reflect differently over a single building, two neighboring buildings, and multiple buildings spaced at regular intervals. The researchers found the wider the streets compared to the height of buildings, the less booms are affected. Narrower streets introduced more complex boom propagation.
To Better Understand Speech, Focus on Who Is Talking
Researchers have found that matching the locations of faces with the speech sounds they are producing significantly improves our ability to understand them, especially in noisy areas where other talkers are present. In the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, they outline a set of online experiments that mimicked aspects of distracting scenes to learn more about how we focus on one audio-visual talker and ignore others.
Voices of Reason? Study Links Acoustic Correlations, Gender to Vocal Appeal
What makes a voice attractive? The question is the subject of broad interest, with far-reaching implications in our personal lives, the workplace, and society. In The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, scientists describe research that explores the interactions between gender and articulatory precision to gauge vocal attractiveness. They were surprised to find a sizable gender difference in speech intelligibility.
Examining Correlation Between Occupational Noise, Heart Disease
Hearing conservation programs and policies aim to protect workers from noise-induced hearing loss, but it remains unclear whether stress reactions caused by noise exposure might also lead to other negative health outcomes. In The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, researchers describe how data from the Canadian Health Measures Survey do not support an association between loud noise exposure and changes in biomarkers for cardiovascular disease or outcomes.