Sensitivity to haptic sound-localisation cues
Sensitivity to haptic sound-localisation cues
Hearing aid and cochlear implant (CI) users often struggle to locate and segregate sounds. The dominant sound-localisation cues are time and intensity differences across the ears. A recent study showed that CI users locate sounds substantially better when these cues are provided through haptic stimulation on each wrist. However, the sensitivity of the wrists to these cues and the robustness of this sensitivity to aging is unknown. The current study showed that time difference sensitivity is much poorer across the wrists than across the ears and declines with age. In contrast, high sensitivity to across-wrist intensity differences was found that was robust to aging. This high sensitivity was observed across a range of stimulation intensities for both amplitude-modulated and unmodulated sinusoids and matched across-ear intensity difference sensitivity for normal-hearing individuals. Furthermore, the usable dynamic range for haptic stimulation on the wrists was found to be around four times larger than for CIs. These findings suggest that high-precision haptic sound-localisation can be achieved, which could aid many hearing-impaired listeners. Furthermore, the finding that high-fidelity across-wrist intensity information can be transferred could be exploited in human-machine interfaces to enhance virtual reality and improve remote control of military, medical, or research robots.
Fletcher, Mark
ac11588a-fafe-4dbb-8b3c-80a6ff030546
Zgheib, Jana
3bdf6c36-e556-42b7-a329-a7532b1c727d
Perry, Samuel William
f2686c41-9b38-426e-a9b5-10b717e9f8dd
11 January 2021
Fletcher, Mark
ac11588a-fafe-4dbb-8b3c-80a6ff030546
Zgheib, Jana
3bdf6c36-e556-42b7-a329-a7532b1c727d
Perry, Samuel William
f2686c41-9b38-426e-a9b5-10b717e9f8dd
Fletcher, Mark, Zgheib, Jana and Perry, Samuel William
(2021)
Sensitivity to haptic sound-localisation cues.
Scientific Reports, 11 (1), [312].
(doi:10.1038/s41598-020-79150-z).
Abstract
Hearing aid and cochlear implant (CI) users often struggle to locate and segregate sounds. The dominant sound-localisation cues are time and intensity differences across the ears. A recent study showed that CI users locate sounds substantially better when these cues are provided through haptic stimulation on each wrist. However, the sensitivity of the wrists to these cues and the robustness of this sensitivity to aging is unknown. The current study showed that time difference sensitivity is much poorer across the wrists than across the ears and declines with age. In contrast, high sensitivity to across-wrist intensity differences was found that was robust to aging. This high sensitivity was observed across a range of stimulation intensities for both amplitude-modulated and unmodulated sinusoids and matched across-ear intensity difference sensitivity for normal-hearing individuals. Furthermore, the usable dynamic range for haptic stimulation on the wrists was found to be around four times larger than for CIs. These findings suggest that high-precision haptic sound-localisation can be achieved, which could aid many hearing-impaired listeners. Furthermore, the finding that high-fidelity across-wrist intensity information can be transferred could be exploited in human-machine interfaces to enhance virtual reality and improve remote control of military, medical, or research robots.
Text
Fletcher et al 2021
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Accepted/In Press date: 2 December 2020
Published date: 11 January 2021
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
Our warmest thanks to Devyanne Bele for her unique and highly effective approach to participant recruitment, to Ahmed Bin Afif for assistance in the piloting of an earlier version of this study, and to Ben Lineton for useful discussion on the experiment design. Our sincerest thanks to Gary Parker and Peter Russell for technical support, to Professor Carl Verschuur for moula, and to Helen and Alex Fletcher for their patience and support during the writing of this manuscript. Salary support for author MDF was provided by The Oticon Foundation, salary support for author JZ was provided by Oticon Medical, and salary support for author SWP was provided the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (UK).
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© 2021, The Author(s).
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
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Local EPrints ID: 445999
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/445999
ISSN: 2045-2322
PURE UUID: 291b047d-abe7-4b2e-902e-807ab16a0bb3
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Date deposited: 18 Jan 2021 17:33
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 10:12
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Jana Zgheib
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