Abstract:
Based upon a model of auditory pathways which consists of the autocorrelation and the interaural cross-correlation mechanisms [Ando, Concert Hall Acoustics (Springer-Verlag, New York, 1985)], perceptions of music and speech as well as subjective responses of sound field in rooms are well described. This paper reviews some subjective attributes from recent investigations. The factors extracted from the autocorrelation function (ACF) of source signals include: (1) the energy of sound signal; (2) the effective duration of the normalized ACF; and (3) peaks as a function of its delay. These factors are deeply related to (1) loudness, (2) subjective attributes of the temporal structure of sound field, (3) the missing fundamental of complex sounds, respectively. Factors which may be extracted from the interaural cross-correlation function are included: (1) the IACC, the maximum value in the range of the interaural delay time; (2) (tau)[inf IACC], the delay of the IACC; (3) W[inf IACC], the width of IACC. The first factor well describes the clarity of speech as well as subjective preference of sound field. The second factor may be related to the apparent source width (ASW), and the last one is related to the image shift of sound source.