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Re: [AUDITORY] Localizing smoke detectors - why is it so hard?
Isn't the problem that the "chirp" is simply of such a short duration that by the time you are aware it is happening, you simply have no time to track down the source. I have something like 15 of the damn things in my house… I can always tell if it is one on the 1st or 2nd floor. But since the 'chirp' only sounds once every 2 minutes for perhaps 1 second, I have to move upstairs/downstairs and then wait for the next one and then home in on the room, and finally once I am underneath the damn thing I can confirm I have found the culprit.
It the chirp was longer or perhaps a sequence of chirps say 10 seconds long, I think you'd have a good chance of nailing it in one or two hops. For me it's at least 3 currently…
- Neil Waterman
On Jun 25, 2013, at 5:40 AM, Leslie Smith <l.s.smith@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I wonder if the fact that it's above your head makes a difference - people are generally better at localisation in azimuth horizontally than at altitude…
>
> --Leslie Smith
>
> On 25 Jun 2013, at 09:46, Jennifer M. Groh wrote:
>
>> Dear List,
>>
>> I am writing a book for a general audience on how the brain processes spatial information ("Making Space"). The chapter on hearing covers many topics in sound localization, but there is one that I'm currently still quite puzzled about: why it is so hard to localize a smoke detector when its battery starts to fail? Here is what I have considered so far:
>>
>> - To my ear, the chirp sounds high frequency enough that ILD cues should be reasonably large.
>>
>> - At the same time, it seems to have a broad enough bandwidth, and in any case it has onset-and-offset cues, that ITD cues should be usable.
>>
>> - A possibility is that the chirp is too brief, and that limits dynamic feedback, i.e. changes in ITD and ILD as the head turns during a sound. However, in my laboratory we have obtained excellent sound localization performance in head-restrained monkeys and human subjects localizing sounds that are briefer than the reaction time to make an orienting movement.
>>
>> - An additional possibility is that we have too little experience with such sounds to have assembled a mental template of the spectrum at the source, so that spectral cues are of less use than is normally the case.
>>
>> I'm leaning towards a combination of the last two factors, which together would render the cone of confusion unresolved for these stimuli.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> --Jennifer Groh
>>
>> --
>> Jennifer M. Groh, Ph.D.
>>
>> Professor
>> Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
>> Department of Neurobiology
>> Center for Cognitive Neuroscience
>>
>>
>> B203 LSRC, Box 90999
>> Durham, NC 27708
>>
>> 919-681-6536
>> www.duke.edu/~jmgroh
>
> Professor Leslie S. Smith B.Sc. Ph.D. SMIEEE,
> Head, Institute of Computing Science and Mathematics, School of Natural Sciences
> University of Stirling,
> Stirling FK9 4LA, Scotland
> l.s.smith@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Tel (44) 1786 467435 Fax (44) 1786 464551
> www http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~lss/
>
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> --
> The University of Stirling is ranked in the top 50 in the world in The Times Higher Education 100 Under 50 table, which ranks the world's best 100 universities under 50 years old.
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