Re: environmental non-noises

[Valeriy Shafiro <Valeriy_Shafiro@xxxxxxxx>]

Ferenc,

I would recommend trying to spectrally smear your sounds with a vocoder.
This can make many environmental sounds unrecognizable (at least without
training) while preserving some of their original acoustic characteristics.
Depending on your specific stimuli, this may work better for some sounds
than for others.  You can get an idea of what it may sound like here:
http://www.rushu.rush.edu/cds/arl/DEMOS/CIwebdemo/  Additional info can be
found in my dissertation (pardon the plug) that can be downloaded here
http://www.rushu.rush.edu/cds/arl/Publications/Shafiro_dissertation.pdf or
in Brian Gygi's 2004 JASA article (the abstract can be viewed here:
http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=JASMAN000115000003001252000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes)


Hope this helps,

Valeriy




-------------------------------------------------------------
Valeriy Shafiro
Communication Disorders and Sciences
Rush University Medical Center
Chicago, IL

office (312) 942 - 3298
lab    (312) 942 - 3316
email: valeriy_shafiro@xxxxxxxx



-----AUDITORY - Research in Auditory Perception <AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote: -----


To: AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: Honbolygó Ferenc <hf@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent by: AUDITORY - Research in Auditory Perception
<AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 03/22/2007 07:51AM
Subject: environmental non-noises

Dear List members,

We are currently working on an experiment about the semantical
processing of environmental noises. We are trying to do a similar task
as the lexical decision task with words and nonwords, but with
environmental noises and "non-noises". The problem is that we have a
hard time creating non-noises which are quite environmental noise-like,
but are not recognizable. We tried almost every distortion methods used
in the literature (reversing, spectrally-rotating, scrambling the parts)
but the sounds are always pretty much recognizable by most people.
Does anyone have any idea on how to create such non-recognizable
non-noises based on existing environmental noises? Or is this idea just
not feasible, because people will always think that what they heard is
something real?
Thanks,
Ferenc Honbolygó

--
Ferenc Honbolygó

Research Institute for Psychology, HAS
Department of Psychophysiology
Research Group of Developmental Psychophysiology
H-1394 Budapest, P.O.Box 398.

Web: http://humlab.cogpsyphy.hu/
E-mail: hf@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Tel:     +361 354-2390
Fax:    +361 354-2416