COMPLEX HUMAN AUDITORY PERCEPTION AND SIMULATED SOUND PERFORMANCE PREDICTION

This paper reports an investigation into the degree of consistency between three different methods of sound performance evaluation through studying the performance of a built project as a case study. The non-controlled office environment with natural human speech as a source was selected for the subjective experiment and ODEON room acoustics modelling software was applied for digital simulation. The results indicate that although each participant may interpret and perceive sound in a particular way, the simulation can pre- dict this complexity to some extent to help architects in designing acoustically better spaces. Also the results imply that architects can make valid comparative evaluations of their designs in an architecturally intuitive way, using architectural language. The research acknowledges that complicated engineering approaches to subjective analysis and to controlling the test environment and participants is difficult for architects to comprehend and implement

Complex human auditory perception and simulated sound performance prediction: A case study for investigating methods of sound performance evaluations and corresponding relationship

© 2016, The Association for Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA), Hong Kong. This paper reports an investigation into the degree of consistency between three different methods of sound performance evaluation through studying the performance of a built project as a case study. The non-controlled office environment with natural human speech as a source was selected for the subjective experiment and ODEON room acoustics modelling software was applied for digital simulation. The results indicate that although each participant may interpret and perceive sound in a particular way, the simulation can predict this complexity to some extent to help architects in designing acoustically better spaces. Also the results imply that architects can make valid comparative evaluations of their designs in an architecturally intuitive way, using architectural language. The research acknowledges that complicated engineering approaches to subjective analysis and to controlling the test environment and participants is difficult for architects to comprehend and implement

A preliminary investigation on the sound field properties in the Sagrada Familia Basilica

This paper reports on a preliminary investigation of the sound field properties inside a large Roman Catholic Church in Barcelona, the Sagrada Familia Basilica, which is a World Heritage Site although its construction has not been completed. The impulse responses were measured at 5 sound source positions combined with 14 measurement locations inside the Sagrada Familia Basilica, and the Impulse response to Noise Ratios (INR) were examined to check the reliability of the measured impulse responses. The room acoustic parameters were calculated and the following 5 sound field properties in the Sagrada Familia Basilica were analysed: reverberation, spaciousness, loudness, warmth and clarity. No optimal values of room acoustic parameters for such large volume churches have been found in the literature; thus, the preferred values of the reverberation time (T20) and the Early Decay Time (EDT) for small volume churches, and the preferred values of the middle frequency strength of sound (Gmid), the low frequency strength of sound (G125), the clarity (C80) and the binaural quality index (1 - IACCe) for concert halls were compared with the measurement results to illustrate a primary impression of the listening experience in the Sagrada Familia Basilica. The reverberation time (T20) and the EDT in the Sagrada Familia Basilica are much higher than the preferred values, while the middle frequency strength of sound (Gmid), the low frequency strength of sound (G125) and the clarity (C80) are less than the preferred values. The binaural quality index (1 - IACCE) is just above the typical satisfactory value

Towards Biomechanics-Aware Design of a Steerable Drilling Robot for Spinal Fixation Procedures with Flexible Pedicle Screws

Towards reducing the failure rate of spinal fixation surgical procedures in osteoporotic patients, we propose a unique biomechanically-aware framework for the design of a novel concentric tube steerable drilling robot (CT-SDR). The proposed framework leverages a patient-specific finite element (FE) biomechanics model developed based on Quantitative Computed Tomography (QCT) scans of the patient's vertebra to calculate a biomechanically-optimal and feasible drilling and implantation trajectory. The FE output is then used as a design requirement for the design and evaluation of the CT-SDR. Providing a balance between the necessary flexibility to create curved optimal trajectories obtained by the FE module with the required strength to not buckle during drilling through a hard simulated bone material, we showed that the CT-SDR can reliably recreate this drilling trajectory with errors between 1.7-2.2%Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, Accepted for Publication at the 2023 International Symposium on Medical Robotic

A study of human vocal effort in response to the architectural auditory environment

© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This paper examines human auditory interaction with an architectural design hypothesized to decrease users’ vocal effort and thus enhance their speech privacy. This detailed design increased sound scattering in semi-enclosed meeting rooms within open plan offices. To achieve desirable speech intelligibility, a live sound environment is strongly recommended for meeting rooms. The research explores the hypothesis that by adding early reflections to the direct sound energy with an integrated design, the speaker as a self-listener might benefit from perceiving their own voice with more clarity. This can cause adaptive changes to subconscious vocal effort and increase the corresponding speech privacy of the space. An architecture-driven talker-quality experiment in a natural situation has been conducted in two rounds and in two different acoustic environments with 20 participants. The results implied the importance of human visual and spatial perception of privacy over auditory interaction with the environment on decreasing vocal effort. Such factors could thus be considered within the architectural design process