Influence of two-dimensional sonic crystal on auditory depth perception for pink noise filtered bands

IGNACIO SPIOUSAS; PABLO E. ETCHEMENDY; ESTEBAN R. CALCAGNO; MANUEL C. EGUÍA

Huerta Grande (Córdoba)

Congreso; XXVII Congreso Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Neurociencias; 2012

Sociedad Argentina de Neurociencias

There are a number of cues that the human auditory system uses that result in a perception of depth for an acoustical source. The most prominent is intensity level at the position of the listener. Other cues include the energy ratio between direct and reverberant sound (D/R ratio), the spectral content and dynamical and binaural cues. Among binaural cues, interaural cross-correlation (IACC)provides a cue of depth because this magnitude is much higher for the direct sound than for the reverberant field. In this work, we study how intensity, D/R ratio and IACC cues can be modified by purely acoustic means for a particular sound field: the transmitted field of an acoustic source through a sonic crystal (an acoustic metamaterial formed by an array of rigid cylinders in air), and how these changes can affect the perception of depth. Human participants underwent an experiment in a virtual environment to evaluate the acoustic depth for pink noise filtered bands passing and not passing through a sonic crystal for several frequencies and listener positions. We show that the presence of the sonic crystal slab have a noticeable effect on the auditory depth perception and we are able to determine the relative influence of intensity, D/R ratio and IACC on that percept.