PERIPHERAL AUDITORY DISPLAY FOR 3D-PRINTING PROCESS MONITORING

When monitoring an industrial process, extreme sensory conditions can make it difficult to rely solely on direct observation. In this paper, we describe the development of an alternative display method for the production criteria of a wire-arc 3D-printing process using sonification. We made this display mostly ambient, as it is preferable in order to avoid fatigue in long-term usage. The sounds were chosen to be cognitively distinct progressive alarms so they would be easier to identify. The evaluation consists in a dual-task identification trial, so as to measure the proper communication of critical information as well as account for the level of distraction from other tasks. The results show that the attentional pull is rather minor and still allows for above-random criteria recognition rates. Though, there seems to be an occasional cognitive overlap between the sounds representing local and global overheating. The droning tone for the height of the part also tends to be drowned out in some cases. Both flaws will need to be addressed in future iterations

Sonification for 3D Printing Process Monitoring

In order to monitor a 3D printing industrial process in a context of sensory overload and potential inattentional deafness, we designed a sonification of the information sent in by the printer. This sonification focuses not only on proper communication of the system's state, but also on lowering the amount of stress usually induced by prolonged listening. To this end, we made use of a combination of synthetic and natural sounds whose perceptual properties were modulated according to the data influx using parameter mapping. Then an experiment was conducted on the recognition of various normal and abnormal behaviours, also allowing the participants to assess the amount of stress they experienced upon listening. The results are quite promising, but also highlight a confusing overlap in the natural sounds used, which will need to be fixed in future iterations. For now, tester opinion is mostly positive on the stressful aspect. However, listening times may need to be longer in further experimentation to better assess how stressful this sonification is

Nature versus nurture in the detection of sour notes

Culturally prominent musical scales such as the diatonic major scale make use of the simple frequency ratios 2:1, 3:2, and 4:3 between notes. Are these ratios intrinsically advantageous for the perceptual encoding of melodies? We trained 48 young adults to detect "sour notes" in isochronous melodies of pure tones based on various musical scales, including novel ones. Frequency ratio simplicity was manipulated in three experiments employing overall eight scales. On each trial, two successive melodies were presented. Melody 1 randomly ordered the notes defining a certain standard scale, in a randomly selected frequency range. Melody 2 was another random ordering of the same tones, with or without a 1-semitone error in one tone. Listeners had to indicate if melody 2 contained an error or not. The standard scale was fixed within each test session, and feedback was provided on each trial. At least 10 successive test sessions – more than 2000 trials, up to 5280 in some cases – were run for each standard scale. For most of the scales, including the diatonic major scale, practice largely improved performance. Performance was also systematically favored by frequency ratio simplicity. Crucially, the benefit of frequency ratio simplicity was not smaller at the end of practice, when for each scale performance was presumably optimal or nearly optimal, than in the initial test sessions. Thus, frequency ratio simplicity appeared to be intrinsically (i.e., naturally) advantageous, at odds with the idea that its benefit might stem from a musical acculturation process pre-existing to this study

The perceptual enhancement of tones by frequency shifts

In a chord of pure tones with a flat spectral profile, one tone can be perceptually enhanced relative to the other tones by the previous presentation of a slightly different chord. "Intensity enhancement" (IE) is obtained when the component tones of the two chords have the same frequencies, but in the first chord the target of enhancement is attenuated relative to the other tones. "Frequency enhancement" (FE) is obtained when both chords have a flat spectral profile, but the target of enhancement shifts in frequency from the first to the second chord. We report here an experiment in which IE and FE were measured using a task requiring the listener to indicate whether or not the second chord included a tone identical to a subsequent probe tone. The results showed that a global attenuation of the first chord relative to the second chord disrupted IE more than FE. This suggests that the mechanisms of IE and FE are not the same. In accordance with this suggestion, computations of the auditory excitation patterns produced by the chords indicate that the mechanism of IE is not sufficient to explain FE for small frequency shifts

Enhancement of increments in spectral amplitude:further evidence for a mechanism based on central adaptation

The threshold for detecting a tone in a multitone masker is lower when the masker-plus-signal stimulus is preceded by a copy of the masker. One potential explanation of this "enhancement" phenomenon is that the -precursor stimulus acts as a "template" of the subsequent masker, thus helping listeners to segregate the signal from the masker. To assess this idea, we measured enhancement for precursors that were perceptually similar to the masker and for precursors that were made dissimilar to the masker by gating their components asynchronously. We found that the two types of precursor produced similar amounts of enhancement. This was true not only when the precursor and the subsequent test stimulus were presented to the same ear but also when they were presented to opposite ears. In a second experiment, we checked that the precursors with asynchronously gated components were perceptually poor templates of the subsequent maskers. Listeners now had to discriminate between test stimuli -containing the same components as the precursor and test stimuli containing all but one of the precursor components. We found that in this experimental situation, where enhancement could play no role, gating the precursor components asynchronously disrupted performance. Overall, our results are inconsistent with the hypothesis that precursors producing enhancement are beneficial because they are used as perceptual templates of the masker. Our results are instead consistent with an -explanation of enhancement based on selective neural adaptation taking place at a central locus of the auditory system

Etude psychophysique des systèmes visuels magnocellulaire et parvocellulaire dans le vieillissement normal et proposition de réhabilitation des déficits (une approche en neuropsychologie cognitive)

Cette thèse avait pour principal objectif d étudier la dissociation du système magnocellulaire et parvocellulaire en testant l évolution de ces systèmes dans le vieillissement normal et la réhabilitation à l aide de lunettes à filtre jaune. Pour cela deux paradigmes expérimentaux dont les caractéristiques des stimuli permettaient de biaiser le traitement visuel vers l un ou l autre des deux systèmes et dont les tâches impliquaient un niveau de traitement cognitif plus ou moins élaboré ont été utilisés. A l aide d une tâche de discrimination de luminance, les travaux ont mis en évidence l apparition d un déficit parvocellulaire massif dans le vieillissement ainsi qu un déficit magnocellulaire de moindre ampleur au début du vieillissement mais qui s accentuait rapidement au-delà de 75 ans. Dans une tâche de catégorisation d objets, la présence du déficit magnocellulaire avec l âge et le grand âge a été corroborée mais aucune répercussion du déficit parvocellulaire mis en évidence à un niveau de traitement plus précoce n a été observée dans cette tâche. Concernant la réhabilitation, seul le groupe de participants très âgé (>75 ans) a vu ses performances améliorées par le filtre jaune dans la condition impliquant spécifiquement le système magnocellulaire à l épreuve de discrimination de luminance. Dans l épreuve de catégorisation, les deux groupes de participants âgés et très âgés ont montré une diminution significative de leur temps de réponse avec le filtre jaune accompagnée d une amélioration de la précision de catégorisation pour le groupe très âgé, spécifiquement dans la condition mettant en jeu le système magnocellulaire.L ensemble des résultats confirment donc la dissociation neuropsychologique entre système magnocellulaire et parvocellulaire : ils peuvent être sollicités de façon privilégiée chez l adulte jeune en faisant varier à la fois plusieurs caractéristiques de la stimulation et la tâche ; ils ne vieillissent pas au même rythme et l un d entre eux peut être spécifiquement réhabilitéThe thesis aimed at studying the dissociation between the magnocellular and the parvocellular system by testing their evolution in normal aging and their rehabilitation with yellow filter glasses. Two experimental paradigms whose specific stimuli characteristics and task allow to bias visual processing toward one or the other system and which involved a low or an elaborated cognitive processing were used.In a luminance discrimination task, the results showed a massive parvocellular and a lower magnocellular deficit at the beginning of aging, but the magnocellular deficit increased rapidly beyond 75 years old. In an object categorization task, the presence of magnocellular deficit with age and very old age was corroborated but there was no parvocellular deficit suggesting that the parvocellular deficit found at earlier stage of processing had no consequence for higher-level processes.Regarding rehabilitation, yellow filter improved sensitivity in the discrimination of luminance specifically in the condition involving the magnocellular system and for the very old group of participants (> 75 years old) only. In the categorization task, yellow filter significantly decreased response time specifically in the condition isolating the magnocellular system for both old groups and increased the accuracy for the very-old group.Taken together, the results confirm the dissociation between the magnocellular and parvocellular systems. Magnocellular system undergoes age-related changes at later stage of ageing than parvocellular system and it could be rehabilitated with yellow filterBORDEAUX2-Bib. électronique (335229905) / SudocSudocFranceF

On the perception of affect in the singing voice: a study of acoustic cues.

International audienceThis study addresses the perception of affect in vocal and glottal recordings of a singing voice. An experiment was made to rate the samples on four broad affect terms describing the two-dimensional model of emotion. A cross-tabulation between the singing expressions and affect scores revealed their relationship with affect dimensions. Prosodic as well as spectral acoustic cues were extracted and statistical analysis performed on 22 features revealed a set of cues whose means are statistically significant with respect to valence and arousal, namely SPR, F5, B1, B4, mean pitch, mean intensity, brightness, jitter, shimmer, mean autocorrelation, mean HNR, mean LTAS, RMS, SPL, LPH, and LTAS slope. Principal component analysis was made for vocal and glottal features: 2 components explained 78.1 % and 73.5 % of the original variance of prosodic cues, and 2 components explained 86.3 % and 86.7 % of the original variance of prosodic and spectral cues

The role of the singing acoustic cues in the perception of broad affect dimensions

This experiment investigated the role of acoustic correlates of the singing voice in the perception of broad affect dimensions using the two-dimensional model of affect. The dataset consisted of vocal and glottal recordings of a sung vowel interpreted in different singing expressions. Listeners were asked to rate the sounds according to four perceived affect dimensions. A cross-tabulation was done between the singing expressions and affect judgments. A one-way ANOVA was performed for 11 acoustic cues with the affect ratings. It was found that the singing power ratio (SPR), mean intensity, brightness, mean pitch, jitter, shimmer, mean harmonic-to-noise ratio (HNR), and mean autocorrelation discriminate broad affect dimensions. Principal component analysis (PCA) was performed on the acoustic correlates. Two components were retained that explained 78.1% of the total variance of vocal cues and 73.5% of that of the glottal cues

Illustration of the stimuli used in experiment 1.

<p>Listeners had to detect a 100-ms target (gray line) embedded in a 100-ms multitone masker (background). The masker-plus-target mixture could be preceded by five bursts of a synchronous precursor (top panel), five bursts of an asynchronous precursor (bottom panel), or silence (not shown). As indicated by the arrows, the time interval between the midpoint of the last precursor burst and the beginning of the masker-plus-target mixture was the same in the SYNCH and ASYNCH conditions.</p

Average enhancement magnitude in experiment 1 (±1 s.e.).

<p>The figure displays enhancement magnitude as a function of precursor laterality (<i>Ipsi</i> vs. <i>Contra</i>) and frequency region.</p