Meeting Agenda Meeting Agenda | Date: | Jun 14th, 2006 |
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| Location: | DC 2303 |
| Time: | 12:30 PM |
| Chair: |  Jie Xu |
Bill Cowan, Elodie Fourquet, Tetsugo Inada, Celine Latulipe, Craig Kaplan, Ed Lank, Yi Lin, Gilad Israeli, Alex Kalaidjian, Robin Liu, Stephen Mann, Kevin Moule, Eoghan Sherry, Mike Terry, Martin Talbot, Jie Xu, Curtis Luk
| Date: | June 14th | June 21th | June 28th | July 5th |
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| Location: | DC 1304 | DC 1304 | DC 1304 | DC 1304 |
| Chair: |  Paul Church |
 Bill Cowan |
 Gabriel Esteves |
 Elodie Fourquet |
| Technical Presentation: |
 Michael Terry |
Jie Xu |
Paul Church |
Bill Cowan |
 Martin Talbot |
Title Abstract Users who are blind, or whose
visual attention is otherwise occupied, can benefit from an auditory
representation of their immediate environment. To create it a video
camera senses the environment, which is converted into synthetic audio
streams that represent objects. What aspects of the audio signal best
encode this information? This paper compares four encodings that allow
users to perceive the simultaneous motion of several objects.
The comparisons are experimental: subjects hear trajectories of objects moving in a virtual 2D plane, encoded as audio streams with complex frequency spectra, and identify the represented motions. One encoding uses panning for horizontal motion and pitch for vertical motion (the Pratt effect). A second uses best-fit head related transfer functions (HRTFs) to localize stream positions. The third combines the first two, using pitch to redundantly code elevation in a HRTF presentation. Finally, the fourth enhances the third, using best-fit HRTF to ~Qvertically pan~R each audio stream at constant but unique elevations, for superior audio segregation. The fourth method outperforms the other three according to two measures, the accuracy of subjects~R perceptions, and the number of replays needed to achieve those perceptions. With it subjects can perceive up to three different simultaneously-presented motions after minimal practice. The results show that the Pratt effect is a more robust method than HRTF for representing vertical motion, and that, combined with the Pratt effect, vertical panning using a HRTF improves motion perception. |
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