Claudia Arias

Human echolocation: The ECOTEST system

Abstract The ECOTEST (EChOlocation TEST) is one of the modules of a PC based system — Rousettus — developed in order to study the human echolocation process, i.e. the ability for auditive perception of obstacles without the use of vision. The ECOTEST allows, rapidly and in a flexible way, the construction and management of specially designed auditive perception tests in order to analyse the psychoacoustic aspects of echolocation. Efficient construction of the tests, using real or artificial echolocation signals as sound stimuli, was achieved through the implementation of a specific computational language. The results, which are based on an experiment carried out with 30 sighted subjects and one blind person, indicated that the ECOTEST is a potentially valuable tool for the evaluation, prediction and training of the echolocation ability by the visually handicapped person through auditive perception tests .

Spatial Hearing in Reverberant Environments: Main Theoretical Aspects

In recent years there has been a growing interest in the study of listener’s abilities to function in reverberant spaces where a sound propagates in multiple directions and is reflected from nearby surfaces. This article deals with theoretical considerations of spatial audition in the presence of reflections, in particular with the precedence effect. It is considered as a strategy that listeners unconsciously employ to cope with multiple arrays of directional cues in reverberant spaces. It refers to the auditory phenomenon that occurs when two similar sounds are presented from different locations with a brief delay between them and only one sound is heard whose perceived location is dominated by the first arriving sound.

CINTRA: from an interdisciplinary centre on acoustics towards an intra-inter synergetic network

Acoustics is an inherently interdisciplinary science involved in the study and remediation of very hot social topics. For its part, the university has a crucial role in knowledge generation with social responsibility heading to an equalitarian society. Argentinean scientific policy, promotes: a) interdisciplinary and inter institutional scientific teams, b) an unified national system of science and technology and c) the linkage of this system with educational and productive sectors. At the same time, new paradigms of higher education give a central place to the student learning process of research abilities. In such complex scenario a research center has a key role in achieving these goals. Nowadays CINTRA (Centro de Investigacion y Transferencia en Acustica) is involved in a collective construction pointing towards innovative dynamics encouraging the emergence of synergetic networks in which theory-practice and research-technology are naturally joined. This paper describes three CINTRA’s ongoing programs...