The contribution of static and dynamically varying ITDs and IIDs to binaural detection

Abstract

This paper investigates the relative contribution of various interaural cues to binaural unmasking in conditions with an interaurally in-phase masker and an out-of-phase signal (MoS pi). By using a modified version of multiplied noise as the masker and a sinusoid as the signal, conditions with only interaural intensity differences (IIDs), only interaural time differences (ITDs), or combinations of the two were realized. In addition, the experimental procedure allowed the presentation of specific combinations of static and dynamically varying interaural differences. In these conditions with multiplied noise as masker, the interaural differences have a bimodal distribution with a minimum at zero IID or ITD. Additionally, by using the sinusoid as masker and the multiplied noise as signal, a unimodal distribution of the interaural differences was realized. Through this variation in the shape of the distributions, the close correspondence between the change in the interaural cross correlation and the size of the interaural differences is no longer found, in contrast to the situation for a Gaussian-noise masker [Domnitz and Colburn, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 59, 598-601 (1976)]. When analyzing the mean thresholds across subjects, the experimental results could not be predicted from parameters of the distributions of the interaural differences (the mean, the standard deviation, or the root-mean-square value). A better description of the subjects' performance was given by the change in the interaural correlation, but this measure failed in conditions which produced a static interaural intensity difference. The data could best be described by using the energy of the difference signal as the decision variable, an approach similar to that of the equalization and cancellation model.