Spatial hearing as a function of growth: how adults differ from children
Keywords:
Audiology, Hearing Research, Auditory ResearchAbstract
Spatial hearing, and how we hear noise and sound, is strongly dependent on our individual head-related transfer functions (HRTF). In order to obtain spatial noise measures arti cial heads are used. Spatial cues, such as the interaural time and level differences can be deduced from the HRTF. The first varies a lot depending on the head width and whether the effect of the second cue is more complex. Many investigations showed that there exist numerous individual differences between the HRTFs of adults caused by the differences in the head geometries. It becomes evident that children and adults differ tremendously as far as their respective head-related transfer functions are concerned. Differences in the anatomy of children and adults thus result in different binaural cues. The individual anthropometric parameters, however, affect the binaural cues to a varying extent. These new ndings open up new possibilities to develop arti cial child heads and couplers for hearing aids that are suitable for children.
References
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