A test battery to assess localization ability in simulated complex acoustic 
environments

Stefan Kerber and Bernhard U. Seeber
MRC Inst. of Hearing Res., Nottingham NG7 2RD, United Kingdom

In complex acoustic environments, following a target sound is made difficult 
by the presence of noise and reverberation and especially hearing impaired 
people struggle understanding speech in such settings. Localizing the speaker 
is important in such situations to follow discussions and to gain additional 
benefit from visual cues. A test battery is proposed to quantify localization 
performance in different realistic environments and with laboratory tests when 
noise and reverberation are present. The aim is to relate real-life performance 
to that in simplified tests. In the localization tests, participants indicate 
the sound location with a visual pointer. Sounds are played in an anechoic 
chamber from loudspeakers across the frontal hemi-field. Localization 
performance  is measured in quiet, in diffuse background noise, and with 
reverberation of simulated rooms. The ability to cope with a single reflection 
is assessed in a precedence effect paradigm where participants localize a sound 
and its delayed copy for various delays and levels. The test battery is 
completed by questionnaires (e.g., SSQ), a speech, and a cognitive test. By 
cross-comparing results from the tests, we attempt to predict the performance 
in real-world environments from outcomes of simplified tests particularly in 
the presence of hearing impairment. 

PACS: 43.66.Qp

http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.3384105
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 127, Issue 3, pp. 1809-1809 (March 2010)