Page 77 - Fall_DTF

HLln‘ar‘ and less, thedbttflok does cor3‘a_.in a fweilth t:ffintte}:estingtinforrn;-l
_ _ on, an ere is some ing o in eres or e grea majori
Hearing: Extracting ofpeople who are interested in hearing.
Fran‘ Generally, the text is authoritative and comprehensive. How-
ever, there are some parts that are a bit imprecise. For example,
I Author: Richard F. Lyon Lyon is not always careful to distinguish between frequency
I h"”|‘l " Publisher: Cambridge Univer- and fundamental frequency (physical attributes of sound) on
I "l“ A l my press, Cambridge_ UK_ 2017, the one hand and pitch (a subjective attribute of sound) on
“-11 hlllt 557 the other hand. On p. 25 he talks about “the coding of per-
. - Pl7- - - ) ll . . .
l lL‘r|l'lIlg . ceived pitch frequency’ and says that the pitch of a sinusoid
' Pu“: £5439 is equal to its frequency,” whereas it would be more accurate
ISBN‘ 978'1'107'007535 to say that the pitch is primarily determined by the frequency,
although sound level also has a small influence. The phon (the
Richard (Dick) Lyon, a Princi- unit of loudness level) is initially not precisely defined, but is
pal Research Scientist at Google, described as “. .. just a dB scale of intensity that is warped to
_~_l_“” I’ __ is well known for his work on correlate better with loudness for frequencies away from 1
models of the auditory system, kHz.” In the section on “Hearing Aids and Cochlear Implants”
particularly cochlear models, Lyon states that modern hearing aids “make decisions about
and for developing analog and digital implementations of what is the signal of interest and present it in a way that makes
those models. in hardware and software. Although he has up for the listener’s particular hearing deficit.” while this is a
published extensively, this is. as far as I know, his first book. drea.m of many researchers, hearing aids are not yet capable of
Although the book can be purchased in hardback form. all deciding what signals are of interest and they are far less than
parts of the book are available free from the web site of the perfect in compensating for specific hearing deficits. Also,
publisher—acousticstodayorg/lyonbook—and from Lyorfs while the coverage is generally comprehensive, I found it sur-
own web site—machinehearing.org. prising that the book does not mention the work of Houtgast
This is a very long and comprehensive book, covering many $972’ 1373410“ lateral salljp RS510“ m Pffirmg (zilfullhé W02: of
aspects of hearing, including the analysis of sounds in the baatimfi Co Zjgligsggnb 6 Concept 0 6 mo anon tar
peripheral auditory system, human auditory perception, ( an El “ a‘ )‘
methods of analyzing sounds» linear svstenis digital reP- Despite these minor quibbles this book is an impressive
"5e“t““°“5 °f 5139315» dlgnal “Sm-I l7"°C955mgi “°“lme” achievement presenting a huge range of material on human
systems, automatic gain control, models of the cochlea, and machine hearing in 3 Comprehensive mmmen I would
Wodels °f _“e“ml t“'“sd“Cfi°“' the represenlatlon of sound not recommend it as a text book, but it should be a valuable
in the auditory nerve and cochlear nucleus, binaural hear- resource for my researcher in the field ofheannge
ing, auditory scene analysis, and several aspects of machine
learning and its uses for sound classification, speech recog-
nition, searching for sounds, and melody matching. This is a References
very impressive range of topics for one person to cover.
. D ,T.»Kol_l.m' ,3» dKli.l Cl1,A.(1997 ).Mdl' (lit
The sanaiai arrwach °i the '>°°i< is “_a“=“ai-_ Paiiiars =_V=n 0f:l:;lltL|(l:ll111Dd|l0la\l:l‘:fI. Detection :nd ,f.si.'.?§,Zli. rill
3 i°“C_h =C_Ci’-Ii‘-i'i_Ci M?“ Cl'IaPti’-1'5 C°i_ita1Ii 3 "“X_ °f h_‘5‘°"‘C“1 rowband carriers. The Ieimiul Hf the Aceusticul Society efAmerica 102,
material (including historical quotations) and didactic mate- 2g9Z_2g05_ h“pS.,,d‘,;_0,g/10_1111,1_4m344_
rial. While the historical material is interesting and entertain- Daii, 1., Kollmeier, 5., and Kohlrausch, A. (l997b). Modeling auditory
ing, those who wish to learn about a specific topic may find it processing of amplitude modulation. II. Spectral and tempoml integra-
frustrating to have to read through this material in order to tion. The Imlrnal of the Acoustical Suciety ej America 102, 2906-2919.
get to the real “meat.” In the Preface, Lyon states “. .. interest in liliPS=//doi-Org/10-1111/l-420343
sound comes {mm People of many diffe‘-en‘ disdplines with Houtgast, T. (1972). Psychophysical evidence for lateral inhibition in
complementary backgrounds and sometimes inmmpauble hearing. The Ioimiulejzhe Acourtimlseciety ofAmerim51, 1885-1894.
terminology and concepts. I want all of these people as my au- l‘”P“l/d°"°'gl10'11Zm'1913D‘}fl' _ .
. ,, . . .r . Houtgast, T. (1973). Psychopliysical experunents on “tiining curves” and
dience. He adds that the target audience includes electrical «M . . . . ,, .
. . . . . . . 0-tone Inlilbltlfllla A£llSfX£l1 19, 163-179.
engineers, computer scientists, physicists, physiologists, au-
diologists, musicians, psychologists, and others. ...” This is an R . _
. . . . . . eview by.
ambitious goal and I think that Lyon achieves it only partially Brim C 1 Moore
Some parts of the book will be very heavy going for audiolo- D ‘ ‘ . . .
. . . . . epartment of Psychology, University of Cambridge
gists and musicians without a technical background, and stu- D . .
. _ owning Street, Cambridge CB2 3EB, UK
dents or researchers who want to learn about a specific topic
may find it frustrating that the relevant information is spread [Published online August 2, 2018, The Iournal of the Acousti-
across chapters a.rid mixed with historical detail. Neverthe- cal Society of America, 144(2)]
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