Spring 2021 Volume 17, Issue 1 An Acoustical Society of America publication

Global Positioning Systems:

Over Land and Under Sea
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 An Acoustical Society of America publication

Spring 2021 Volume 17, Issue 1

8 From the Editor Sound Perspectives

Featured Articles 61 Awards and Prizes Announcement

10 Computational Methods and

Techniques Across Acoustics
62 Ask an Acoustician:
Zoi-Heleni Michalopoulou
Grant C. Eastland Zoi-Heleni Michalopoulou and Micheal L. Dent

18 Ultrasonic Hearing in Cats and Other

Terrestrial Mammals
65 A Sound Plan for Attracting
Students of Color
M. Charlotte Kruger, Carina J. Sabourin, Tyrone Porter
Alexandra T. Levine, and Stephen G. Lomber
67 Hearing and Speech Research
26 The Ins and Outs of Baby Talk at the NIDCD
Linda Polka and Yufang Ruan Debara L. Tucci

35 Psychoacoustics of Tinnitus:
Lost in Translation Departments
Christopher Spankovich, Sarah Faucette,
Celia Escabi, and Edward Lobarinas 71 Obituaries
James David Miller | 1930–2020

43 One Singer, Two Voices Jeffrey A. Nystuen | 1957–2020

Ann Kristen Syrdal | 1945–2020
Johan Sundberg, Björn Lindblom,
and Anna-Maria Hefele
74 Advertisers Index, Business Directory,
Classifieds
52 Global Positioning Systems:
Over Land and Under Sea
Lora J. Van Uffelen

About the Cover

Depiction of positioning of a GPS receiver using trilateration. Graphic copyright ©2021
Mark B. Weinberg, Potomac, MD. All rights reserved. More of the artist’s work can be seen at
www.facebook.com/lordofretirement.

4 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

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Editor Acoustical Society of America
Arthur N. Popper | [email protected] The Acoustical Society of America was founded in
1929 “to generate, disseminate, and promote the
Associate Editor
knowledge and practical applications of acoustics.”
Micheal L. Dent | [email protected]
Information about the Society can be found on
Book Review Editor the website:
Philip L. Marston | [email protected] www.acousticalsociety.org
Membership includes a variety of benefits, a list of
AT Publications Staff
which can be found at the website:
Kat Setzer, Editorial Associate | [email protected]
www.acousticalsociety.org/asa-membership
Helen A. Popper, AT Copyeditor | [email protected]
Liz Bury, Senior Managing Editor | [email protected] Acoustics Today (ISSN 1557-0215, coden ATCODK)
Spring 2021, volume 17, issue 1, is published quarterly
ASA Editor In Chief by the Acoustical Society of America, Suite 300, 1305
James F. Lynch Walt Whitman Rd., Melville, NY 11747-4300. Periodi-
Allan D. Pierce, Emeritus cals Postage rates are paid at Huntington Station, NY,
and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send
Acoustical Society of America
address changes to Acoustics Today, Acoustical Society
Diane Kewley-Port, President
of America, Suite 300, 1305 Walt Whitman Rd., Mel-
Stan E. Dosso, Vice President
ville, NY 11747-4300.
Maureen Stone, President-Elect
Joseph R. Gladden, Vice President-Elect Copyright 2021, Acoustical Society of America. All rights reserved.
Judy R. Dubno, Treasurer Single copies of individual articles may be made for private use or re-
Christopher J. Struck, Standards Director search. For more information on obtaining permission to reproduce
content from this publication, please see www.acousticstoday.org.
Susan E. Fox, Executive Director

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Daniel Farrell | [email protected]
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Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 7
From the Editor
Arthur N. Popper

Our goal for Acoustics Today (AT) work described, and the amazing sound files are of her
is that each article be interesting to, special singing. Although the article focuses, to a degree,
and readable by, every member of the on the fascinating topic of how one singer can produce
Acoustical Society of America (ASA). two voices at the same time, it also is a wonderful intro-
Thus, I encourage everyone to take a duction to the singing voice in general.
look at each article and each “Sound Perspectives” essay
in this issue. I trust most people will find something of The final article is by Lora Van Uffelen. Lora talks about global
interest and/or value in each. positioning systems (GPSs) and how positioning is done over
land and in the water. Considering that most every reader of
The first article by Grant Eastland discusses computa- AT carries a device using GPS with them most of the time,
tional methods in acoustics. Grant provides an insightful this article provides insights into how such systems work.
introduction to the topic and explains complex issues
in ways that will help many readers appreciate that the This issue also has three “Sound Perspectives” essays. “Ask
techniques discussed could apply to their own research. an Acoustician” is by Zoi-Heleni Michalopoulou. Eliza (as
she is known to friends and colleagues) shares insights
We then have a very substantial switch in topics to an into her wonderful career that spans a number of ASA
article on ultrasonic hearing in non-flying terrestrial mam- technical committees including Acoustical Oceanography,
mals. The article, written by three students, M. Charlotte Signal Processing in Acoustics, and Underwater Acoustics.
Kruger, Carina Sabourin, and Alexandra Levine, and their
mentor, Stephen Lomber, points out that ultrasonic hear- The second essay is by Tyrone Porter, chair of the Commit-
ing is actually quite common for many mammals, and tee to Improve Racial Diversity and Inclusivity (CIRDI).
that such sounds are used for communication. It is also Tyrone introduced this committee in the December 2020
interesting to note that this article may have more student issue of AT (available at bit.ly/348Gbyk), and he will continue
authors than any other article in the history of AT. I point to report on this very important work in subsequent issues.
this out to encourage future authors to consider engaging In this issue, he tells us about one of the first CIRDI initia-
students in articles they write for the magazine. tives, working toward getting more people of color to enter
the field of acoustics. As part of this article, Tyrone shares
Our third article is by Linda Polka and Yufang Ruan. Linda a personal story about how he became an acoustician and
and Yufang write about “baby talk.” But this is not what uses this to make the point that young people need great
you would immediately think of, baby language. Instead, the opportunities and great mentors to bring them into our field.
authors delve into the fascinating topic that a large number
of ASA members are familiar with, how adults talk to babies. The final essay is part of what I hope will be a series over
the next few years about how acoustics research is funded.
The fourth article also addresses an issue that should be These are in recognition of the fact that a significant number
familiar to many (especially older) ASA members, tinnitus. of ASA members pursue funding from various sources for
Christopher Spankovich, Sarah Faucette, Celia Escabi, and their work, including agencies of the US government. These
Edward Lobarinas discuss this very common affliction of agencies often have compelling missions that connect to
the auditory system and explain some of its etiology and the diverse work of many of our ASA members. Thus, over
describe how tinnitus is studied using animal models. the next year or two, we will invite senior leaders of these
agencies to submit essays with insights about their work
The fifth article by Johan Sunderg, Björn Lindblom, and and passions and, where possible, information about fund-
Anna-Maria Hefele has another first for AT. Anna-Maria ing opportunities. The goal is not only to share information
is not only an author but is also the subject of much of the about interesting funding organizations but perhaps also to

8 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

introduce members to agencies that they might not know to suggest that you do an article. The only ground rules
about but that might actually be a source of funding for their
are that the article must provide a broad overview of a
work or perhaps collaborative work with other members. program or agency that funds a large number of ASA
members, perhaps across multiple technical committees.
The first of these essays is by Debara L. Tucci, director of And I’d be glad to have an essay about foundations and
the National Institute on Deafness and Other Commu- funders outside of the United States as long as they have
nication Disorders (NIDCD) at the National Institutes an impact on a substantial number of ASA members.
of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, MD. The NIH is an agency
within the US Department of Health and Human Services. I also want to emphasize the interest of AT in having more
I invited Dr. Tucci to contribute this lead essay in part essays on diversity and accessibility. This can be about ASA in
because the NIDCD provided me funding for much of my particular or generally in relationship to STEM issues. If any
career but mostly because the NIDCD has supported many member has a topic that they would like to write about, please
ASA members, including a number of our past presidents get in touch with me. I am particularly interested in getting
and our current president. I am therefore quite familiar essays that discuss personal experiences, as Tyrone wrote in
with the NIDCD’s research on hearing and speech sci- his essay in this issue, but other topics are most welcome.
ences as well as the NIDCD’s research on communication
disorders and in the areas of taste and smell. The NIDCD Finally, I am announcing a one-time AT “contest.” Some-
has a profound impact on ASA members as the source of where in this issue is an advertisement that is in another
research and training funds to many members in animal language about books. The first person to find that
bioacoustics, physiological and psychological acoustics, statement and send the correct translation (as per the
and speech acoustics. translation provided by the author of the statement) to
the AT editor ([email protected]) will be mentioned in
I would also like to invite ASA members to suggest other this column (along with the translation) in the summer
funding agencies we might invite to provide essays. Or, issue and receive a small prize (a gift card) from the ASA.
if anyone reading this issue of AT is a funder, feel free Good hunting!

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 FEATURED ARTICLE

Computational Methods and

Techniques Across Acoustics
Grant C. Eastland

Sound in the World acoustics, often requiring solving the acoustic wave equa-
Throughout human history, people and cultures have cre- tion. Indeed, there is potential for advancement in new
ated sound for more than simple communication. For areas of research not contained in the traditional areas
example, early humans likely made music using primitive by employing computational acoustics. This is already
flutes (Atema, 2014) and considered sound integral in seen from the great developments and advancements in
the design of cities (e.g., Kolar, 2018). Furthermore, the all areas of acoustics over several decades where the com-
Mayans designed structures at the ruins at Chichen Itza plexity has required extensive use of numerical methods,
in Mexico that used sound for worship (Declercq et. al., optimization, computational modeling, and simulation.
2004). Specifically, clapping in front of the stairs of the
El Castillo pyramid creates a sound resembling a highly Like the relationships of computational physics to math-
revered bird by way of a series of reflections up the stairs ematics and computer science, the relationship between
(available at bit.ly/3jPfOTk). acoustics, mathematics, and computer science define
computational acoustics as described by the Venn-type
In addition to an interest in making sound, sound and diagram shown in Figure 1.
vibration have also been thoroughly investigated by either
empirical methods or philosophical arguments since as far The Wave Equation Explained
back as Pythagoras (550 BCE), who applied his discoveries The wave equation enables the expression of motion in a
in mathematics to the harmonic ratios in music. He dis- wave, and it shows itself in every area of physics includ-
covered that stringed instruments could be tuned, using ing acoustics, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics,
small integer ratios of string length, so that they would and optics, to name a few. The equation provides the
consistently produce layered consonant musical intervals.

The interest and desire to study our acoustic environ- Figure 1. Venn diagram showing the concept relationship
ment continues to this day, but the methods we use have of computational acoustics, indicating how it connects
changed dramatically, and continue to change as new traditional acoustics with mathematics and computer science.
technologies emerge. Beginning in the seventeenth cen-
tury with Robert Boyle, empirical investigation showed
that sound is a vibration of conceptualized fluid particles
transmitting energy from one place to another. Theoreti-
cal and empirical investigations are essential but more
often require additional help to solve the problems at
hand. Indeed, applying sophisticated computational
methods, the basis of this article, provides a valuable tool
in understanding and analyzing acoustics phenomena.

The Need for Computational Acoustics

The need for computational acoustics shows itself in the
difficulty in most real-world physical investigations in

10 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021 | Volume 17, issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2021.17.1.10

mathematical relationship between the variables of inter- performed simulations on ballistics and particle evo-
est in acoustics, often the acoustic pressure or particle lution for the development of the atomic bomb.
velocity and the speed of a wave. The equation relates the
temporal and spatial changes to these variables, including Monte Carlo Simulation
dependence on the wavelength and frequency of the wave. Several techniques and algorithms were developed at the
As a consequence, the equation is a second-order partial Los Alamos (NM) National Laboratory by Jon von Neu-
differential equation of pressure or particle velocity and mann as part of his work on the atomic bomb, leading to
is three-dimensional. The pressure or particle velocity is what we now know as Monte Carlo simulations. As one
dependent on three spatial directions and time. might expect, Monte Carlo applications involve any phe-
nomena that could be modeled as random or spontaneous,
In all areas of physics, solutions to problems involving the such as playing games of chance at a casino. Some phenom-
wave equation require specifying additional boundary ena that are modeled this way include radioactive decay
conditions that depend on the geometry of the problem. and the random nature of thermal motion (Landau and
Only in specific ideal cases with simple conditions and Price, 1997). Additionally, Monte Carlo simulations can
geometry are analytical solutions even possible. However, be used to model sound propagation in the atmosphere
the wave equation is a powerful and useful tool for inves- (Burkatovskaya et. al., 2016) where multiple scattering and
tigating the physics involved. the turbulent nature of the atmosphere (Blanc-Benon et
al., 2002) can be taken into consideration.
For most real problems of interest, the geometry involved
is much too complicated to solve by any other means than Continued work in computational physics led to the dis-
by computational methods. For example, if one wanted covery of chaotic behavior in nonlinear dynamics where
to simulate the propagation of sound through the ear deterministic mechanical systems exhibited seemingly
canal (Puria, 2020), the geometric structure would not random states of motion. The theoretical underpinnings
be simple and defining real boundary conditions would of mechanics had existed for nearly half a century before
make the problem too complicated to be solved any other computer technology made it possible to make the com-
way than by numerical solution of the wave equation. plicated computations needed to simulate the interactions.

Propagation of acoustic waves in a variety of environments isEarly Use of Computers in Acoustics

well understood and documented, but any real environment An early mention of using computers in acoustics is provided
is overly complex and prediction of sound fields becomes by a talk given at the 62nd meeting of the Acoustical Soci-
impossible to solve analytically. For example, one may wish to
ety of America by Schroeder (1961) on novel uses in room
determine the acoustic pressure field in a large area underwater
acoustics. In his abstract, Schroeder spoke of using digital
in the ocean (e.g., Duda et al., 2019) where the environment,computers to simulate complicated transmission of sound
boundary conditions and spatial distributions of fluid prop- in rooms and simulation of spatial and frequency responses
erties are complicated. To solve a wave equation with such in rooms using Monte Carlo techniques. Schroeder’s insight
complexity, the problem is reduced to numerical solutions. revolutionized architectural acoustics. Computational
methods have proven enormously powerful in predicting
There are a bevy of techniques discussed in this article for acoustic performance of interior spaces and have enhanced
solution of the wave equation in various situations. Several the ability of the specialist to design spaces acoustically, such
of these techniques are numerical methods applied to solve as in concert halls (Sviolja and Xiang, 2020).
the equations directly without approximations, whereas
others require a successive approximation of results. The decades of improvement in computer technology and
computational performance have allowed greater use of
The Emergence of Computational Methods such numerical methods for acoustic wave propagation,
Since its invention in the 1930s, the digital computer scattering, radiation, and other acoustically related phe-
has been used to solve difficult problems in physics. nomena. This, in turn, has enhanced discovery and problem
Early uses were in areas of nuclear physics where they solving. Simulations of different phenomena have provided

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 11

COMPUTATIONAL ACOUSTICS METHODS

Table 1. Some relevant articles published in Acoustics Today same techniques used in those areas can be applied in
other areas (see Table 1 for articles in Acoustics Today
Authors Topic that discuss the use of similar techniques).
Ahrens et. al., 2014 Sound field synthesis
In addition, applications of machine learning (ML) that
Bruce, 2017 Speech intelligibility, are being used in artificial intelligence research and
signal processing
areas of data science are also being exploited to advance
Bunting et. al., 2020 Computational acoustics research into areas including acoustic oceanography,
Burnett, 2015 Computer simulation of scattering engineering acoustics, and signal processing. This is by
Candy, 2008 Signal processing, model-based no means an exhaustive list, but it brings a familiarization
machine learning beginnings to the areas and applications of computational acoustics
Duda, et. al., 2019 Ocean acoustics and the methods found therein.
Greenberg, 2018 Deep learning, languages
Modern Computational Methods
Hambri and Structural acoustics,
Fahnline, 2007 modeling methods
The numerical methods of computational acoustics are
focused on taking the continuous equations and differ-
Hawley et. al., 2020 Musical acoustics
ential equations from calculus and turning them into
Puria, 2020 Bioacoustics, hearing
linear algebraic equations, which are amenable to solu-
Stone and Speech production, modeling, tion on digital computers. In the case of a concert hall
Shadle, 2016 computational fluid dynamics with complex geometries that are not open to an ana-
Treeby, 2019 Biomedical acoustics lytic solution, computational acoustics would enable an
Vorländer, 2020 Virtual reality and music acoustics engineer to compute a numerical solution to
Wage, 2018 Array signal processing the wave equation to help the engineering design process,
and localization as discussed recently by Savioja and Xiang (2020).
Wilson et. al., 2015 Atmospheric acoustic propagation
Two of the more popular methods are the finite-differ-
Zurk, 2018 Underwater acoustic sensing
ence method (FDM) and finite-element method (FEM).
These papers have either a computational focus or The FDM is a class of numerical techniques related to a
computational relationship. general class of numerical methods known as Galerkin
methods (Jensen et al., 2011; Wang et. al., 2019) that treat
derivatives as algebraic differences and the continuous
ways to investigate interactions that previously were unap- function in question, such as the sound field, is calculated
proachable due to the complex nature of acoustics. at various points of space (Botteldooren, 1994).

Computational acoustics, which is a combination of math- For example, Figure 2 shows how to break up the space
ematical modeling and numerical solution algorithms, has with a grid where the sound field is calculated t as an
recently emerged as a subdiscipline of acoustics. The use individual element in space. Each point is calculated
of approximation techniques to calculate acoustic fields through iteration via a computational algorithm. The
with computer-based models and simulations allows for calculations are often simple enough that they could be
previously unapproachable problems to be solved. performed with pencil and paper or a basic calculator.
However, if the procedure needs to be applied to many
The increasing computational nature of acoustics, points, there may need to be thousands to millions of
especially in all the traditional areas, has provided a computations, thereby requiring a digital computer.
cross-disciplinary opportunity. The purpose of this paper
is to show an overview of the various techniques used in In contrast to the FDM, the FEM is another numerical tech-
computational acoustics over several of the traditional nique used for calculating sound fields based on dividing up
areas. I am more familiar with applications in under- a space or structure into individual elements, each of which
water acoustics and physical acoustics, but many of the is assumed to be constant. The space/structure is broken

12 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

 performing simulations of systems where multiple kinds of
physics are involved, like a problem involving sound trans-
mission through living tissue where there could be heating,
density variations, and fluids in motion. Often what is
required is a very precise numerical resolution due to the
large changes in the length of the scales between acoustic
and flow variables due to fluids in motion. The use of direct
numerical simulation is often computationally challenging
and is unfitting for most applications without the use of
high-performance computing.
Figure 2. Finite-difference method (FDM), a computational
discrete grid concept to compute a sound field. The space is broken Although direct numerical simulation may be a limitation,
into a grid of boxes called elements where the sound is considered it is often the first approach to use on a variety of problems.
constant in each element and is summed over all space. One such application is calculating the compressional and
shear speeds of elastic waves in a material of interest utilizing
measured backscattered acoustic data from a sphere made
up into a mesh, which looks like a wire grid applied to the of the material. The compressional and shear speeds are
structure of various shapes, often triangles. The points of related to the scattered sound in a complicated way but can
the chosen mesh shape are called nodes, and these define be determined for spherical objects. I am not going into the
the shape of the mesh. The goal of the method is to sum the complex mathematics behind the calculations; however, the
contribution of each element to the sound field. Figure 3 method is to compute the theoretical backscattering func-
shows the conceptualization of dividing up a structure with tion (Faran, 1951; Chu and Eastland, 2014). This function
a simple grid using a triangular mesh instead of the square has discontinuities, called nulls, that are related to the com-
boxes in Figure 2 that divide up a structure. Although the pressional and shear speeds of sound in the material. The
method seems complicated, the main idea is simple. null locations and separations are dictated by these speeds.

For real-life problems, the FDM and FEM are not exclu- Beginning with an initial guess of the speeds, the backscat-
sive, and they are often applied at the same time on ter form function is determined. Backscattering data from
modern high-performance computing platforms. The the target are then matched to the form function by relating
FDM is simple in its application but requires some ini- the error in the null locations and separations. Based on the
tial knowledge of conditions. The FEM is more adaptable selection of arbitrary nulls in the data using any nonlin-
and accurate but often requires more input data to apply. ear least squares method (e.g., Levenberg-Marquardt), an

Direct Numerical Simulation

The complete mathematical treatment of complex Figure 3. Finite-element method (FEM), a computational
acoustic problems in fluids begins with a set of partial element mesh concept to compute a sound field. Each
differential equations known as the compressible Navier- triangular division is part of the structure where the sound
Stokes equations. These equations describe both the flow field can be computed assuming the triangular division is
of the fluid and the aerodynamically/hydrodynamically considered constant.
generated sound field. These equations are statements
of conservation of momentum and mass in the fluid,
describing all the dynamics.

Due to this coupling of fluid dynamics and acoustics, both

fluid variables and acoustic variables may be solved directly
by rewriting the equations into a form that can be fully sim-
ulated via a computer program or software package such as
COMSOL or ANSYS. These types of packages are good at

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 13

COMPUTATIONAL ACOUSTICS METHODS

field is calculated with small changes in the field based on

the nearest grid points in the space. The solution is found
by solving numerically using small steps in space and time.
This technique is used in multiple areas and works well for
wave propagation and scattering problems.

By way of an illustration (see Bunting et. al., 2020), the

application of the wave equation and discretization
shows the power of computational acoustics. Assuming
harmonic time dependence of pressure and applying the
wave equation, one obtains the Helmholtz equation. The
Helmholtz equation describes steady-state wave propaga-
Figure 4. Dashed black curve, theoretical target strength tion in physics and relates to acoustic wave propagation
determined from the form function; blue solid curve, through either the particle velocity or pressure in a fluid.
backscattered data-determined target strength of a 64-mm
copper sphere, comparing theory and experiment; red circles,There are multiple methods utilizing a known result of the
acoustic wave equation to compute the acoustic field of a
the three chosen nulls to be matched to the data, determining
the compressional and shear sound speeds in the material sound source. A general solution for wave propagation can
to within at least 6% accuracy. Work was done on sonar be written as an integral over all present sources, which are
calibration for biomass estimated acoustic surveys by the summarized as integral methods. The origin of the acous-
author at Northwest Fisheries Science Center (Seattle, WA). tic source must be determined a priori from some other
method (e.g., a FEM simulation of a mechanical structure).
The integral is taken over all sources relative to the time of
optimization process is selected. The goal is to minimize the source of the signal. The sound wave arrives later at a
the error in the fitting of the data by iteratively updat- given receiving position. Common to all integral methods
ing the form function. The initial guess of the speeds is is that changes in the speed of sound between the source
updated and used to recompute the form function until
the desired level of error in the cost function is achieved.
As one can imagine, this is a brute force method and can Figure 5. a: Array of acoustic point sources arranged as
be computationally demanding. However, it is effective. several hexagonal distribution where cross-range is the lateral
An example of the data output is shown in Figure 4. left/right dimension and elevation is the up/down vertical
dimension as a demonstration of the method. b: An acoustic
The simulation proved to be accurate in the predicted color plot of the simulated acoustic sound pressure level
values to within 6% on the shear speed and less than measured at a location 10 m from a source array of 31 point
5% on the compressional speed with only 22 iterations. sources being driven in unison at 10 kHz. Yellow is louder
The computational time using MATLAB on a personal than darker blue to a level in decibels relative to 1 μPa of
computer took nearly 10 minutes. If a higher precision is acoustic pressure.
desired, the minimum error can be adjusted to get more
iterations but will take much longer.

The first of these various numerical methods often used to

determine the sound pressure in a computational acous-
tics problem is the FDM. The method takes the continuous
differential equation that describes the phenomena and
breaks it in to a finite algebraic set of equations. The details
are left out in this article for brevity; however, the useful-
ness of this method is hard to deny. The method is used by
breaking up the space into a grid of points, and the sound

14 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

and receiver positions cannot be justified by utilizing the
theoretical solution of the wave equation.

An example application of an integral method is to calculate

the acoustic field from a hexagonal array of sources treated
as point sources. Figure 5a shows an example of an array
of 31 sources arranged as a grouping of hexagons. The loca-
tions are determined computationally, with each node being
treated as an acoustic point source. The field is summed over
all sources, and the level is calculated at a given range. This
could be done over time to create a movie of the acoustic Figure 6. Possible spatial division, called discretization, of
field that can provide insight into how the acoustic wave a Helmholtz resonator in the form of a vase. Each rectangle
propagates. The simulation is assumed to be underwater is treated as an individual point where the sound field is
with a source frequency of 10 kHz. An example might be a considered constant.
source array, but the problem is easily simulated using inte-
gral methods. The array used in Figure 5a has the output
given as a color plot in Figure 5b, respectively. application of the FEM (Everstine and Henderson, 1990).
This is another example of integral methods, but it solves
Kirchhoff Integral the field by direct integration over the surface. The goal
Kirchhoff and Helmholtz were able to show that sound is to split the computational area into different regions
radiating from a localized source in a limited area can be so that the central acoustic equations can be solved with
described by enclosing this source area by an arbitrarily different sets of equations and numerical techniques.
envisioned surface. The sound field inside or outside the
chosen surface is calculated using the Helmholtz equa- For instance, simulating an idealized Helmholtz resona-
tion. The solution can be determined by the sum of a set tor (such as a violin or guitar) as a flower vase and solving
of “basis” functions related to the geometry of the problem the wave equation with boundary conditions becomes
that can be used. The difficulty in the problem is determin- difficult due to the odd shape of the boundary. To solve
ing the functions that work and is not described here due this, therefore, the boundary is broken up into smaller
to being out of scope of this article. The calculated field on pieces, and the acoustic field is calculated for each indi-
the surface directly follows from the wave equation. vidual piece of the boundary. A concept figure showing
what the boundary would look like is shown in Figure 6.
A variation of the scheme allows one to calculate the pres-
sure on the arbitrary surface using the normal particle The method would then employ breaking up the vase into
velocity, which is the mechanism involved in acoustic trans- physical elements, as in Figure 3, where all the corners of
mission. The particle velocity perpendicular to the surface the element are broken into nodes. The method just sums
could be given by a FEM simulation of a moving structure. the acoustic field from each individual element for each
However, the modification of the method to avoid utilizing node in space, assuming some constant coefficient given as
the acoustic pressure directly on the surface leads to snags, for each element, approximated from the boundary and
with enclosed volumes being driven at their resonant fre- field equations. Each element would be given as some shape
quencies. This is a major issue in the implementation of the function given as , which was a triangle in Figure 3. The
technique. To get around this limitation, the sound pressure total acoustic field is determined as a sum of each individual
is determined on the surface of the object first and then contribution such as p(x,y,z)≈ =1 , , where x, y, and z
imaginary sources are added on its surface to cancel the are the obligatory spatial variables.
normal particle velocity on the surface of the object.
Machine Learning and Other Contributions
An instance of the use of the Kirchhoff integral is to Several significant contributions have been made in dif-
divide the physical domain into a smaller simpler set of ferent areas of investigation with the applications of
parts for a more complex problem, which introduces the computational acoustics. One of these is the incorporation

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 15

COMPUTATIONAL ACOUSTICS METHODS

of acoustic simulation methods into virtual reality systems model where the model can be improved based on additional
(Vorlander, 2013, 2020). These types of systems can have inputs of data. The computer algorithm from the system
real-time performance due to the advances in technology using it essentially “learns” and incorporates that knowledge
and have become paramount in the entertainment industry. into its dataset. Although much of the research into ML and
techniques are done in areas of computer science, the appli-
Additionally, virtual and augmented realities have been cations of the methods into acoustics have driven some of
employed in training and as a diagnostic tool. In the past, the more recent advances. A major method of ML, called
there used to be latency or slowing down of simulations deep learning, based on artificial neural networks that work
due to the huge amounts of data being generated. However, through several layers, train systems to do everything from
this is not as significant problem anymore given advances synthesizing music to being able to perform better than the
in computer technology. As a result, sound synthesis and human ear for recognition (Hawley et al., 2020).
production of indoor/outdoor surroundings can be com-
bined with three-dimensional stereoscopic display systems Summary and Conclusions
through data fusion (e.g., Vorlander, 2020). The research The large variety of methods and applications outlined here
and design applications have led to improved reality for is hardly an exhaustive depiction of computational acoustics.
video games and similar systems. The user experience is Due to limitations in my knowledge and the space and time
enhanced by adding accurately synthesized sound and to do so, only a brief introduction to the field could be given.
allowing the listener to be able to move unrestrictedly, e.g., However, hopefully, I was able to make the case for the need
turn the head, to be able to perceive a more natural situation. for the field of computational acoustics and the variety of
areas of application. The uses of computational methods
Moreover, the improved synthesis algorithms (e.g., Gao et have driven discovery and improved understanding in a
al., 2020) can be used to provide more realistic conditions variety of areas of acoustics including sound synthesis, voice
for psychoacoustic tests. Sound synthesis algorithms based recognition, modeling of acoustic propagation, and source
on deterministic-stochastic signal decomposition have identification. Several techniques have been used to aid in
been applied to synthesize pitch and time scale modifica- the design of new automotive technologies by modeling the
tions of the stochastic or random component of internal mechanical interactions of structures with different moving
combustion engine noise (Jagla et al., 2012). The method parts and the fluids involved.
uses a pitch-synchronous overlap-and-add algorithm,
used in speech synthesis, that exploits the use of recorded Several of these methods are not only being used in engi-
engine noise data and the fact that the method does not neering acoustics, but they are also being employed for
require specific knowledge of the engine frequency. The space design for concert halls and classrooms. This type
data-based method used for speech synthesis, noise analy- of modeling has improved noise suppression in a variety
sis, and synthesis of engine noise just mentioned is similar of mechanical systems. Computational techniques are
to what is used in ML. Applications of ML seem to have being used in modeling and simulation in signal process-
no limits in the data-driven world of today. ing to utilize ML methods in the investigation of acoustic
source identification and classification. The methods are
ML methods are based on statistics and are excellent at detect- being applied to areas of animal bioacoustics to aid in
ing patterns in large datasets. Applications in acoustics are species identification for population monitoring, avoid-
fertile ground for research into ML for things such as voice ing direct interaction with the animals. The methods and
recognition, source identification, and bioacoustics (e.g., applications of computational acoustics are only going to
Bianco et al, 2019). With technologies like Alexa or Google grow over years to come and have become a fruitful and
Home, voice recognition investigations are needed to allow rewarding area of research.
the technology to work with people having different accents
or pronunciations or speaking different languages. The algo- Disclaimer
rithms must utilize huge datasets of recorded voices to teach The opinions and assertions contained herein are my private
the computer system to “learn” based on input. Models are opinions and are not to be construed as official or reflecting
developed of voices pronouncing certain common words the views of the United States Department of Defense, spe-
used for searching. Variations are compared statistically to the cifically, the US Navy or any of its component commands.

16 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

Acknowledgments Hawley, S. H., Chatziioannou, V., and Morrison, A. (2020). Synthesis of
I thank Arthur N. Popper for all his insight and feedback in musical instrument sounds: physics-based modeling or machine learning?
Acoustics Today, 16(1), 20-28. https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2020.16.1.20.
developing the manuscript. I also thank my loving wife Janelle Jagla, J., Maillard, J., and Martin, N. (2012). Sample-based engine noise
for all her support, which I would not be able to do without. synthesis using an enhanced pitch-synchronous overlap-and-add method.
Moreover, I acknowledge the love and support of my family The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 132(5), 3098-3108.
Jensen, F. B., Kuperman, W. A., Porter, M. B., and Schmidt, H. (2011). Com-
and friends, Sabina Macy for helping me with editing, and
putational Ocean Acoustics, 2nd ed. Springer-Verlag, New York, NY.
Venus Larson, both keeping me from losing my mind. Kolar, M. A., (2018). Archaeoacoustics: Re-sounding material culture.
Acoustics Today 14(4), 28-37.
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Ahrens, J., Rabenstein, R., and Spors, S. (2014). Sound field synthesis Solving with Computers. John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York, NY.
for audio presentation. Acoustics Today 10(2), 15-25. Puria, S. (2020). Middle ear biomechanics: Smooth sailing. Acoustics
Atema, J. (2014). Musical origins and the Stone Age evolution of flutes. Today 16(3), 27-35. https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2020.16.3.27.
Acoustics Today 10(3), 25-34. Savioja, L., and Xiang, N. (2020). Simulation-based auralization of room acous-
Bianco, M. J., Gerstoft, P., Traer, J., Ozanich, E., Roch, M. A., Gannot, tics. Acoustics Today 16(4), 48-56. https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2020.16.4.48.
S., and Deledalle, C. A. (2019). Machine learning in acoustics: Theory Schroeder, M. R. (1961). Novel uses of digital computers in room
and applications. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 146, acoustics. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 33, 1669.
3590-3628. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.5133944. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.1936681.
Blanc-Benon, P., Lipkens, B., Dallois, L., Hamilton, M. F., and Blackstock, Stone, M., and Shadle, C. H. (2016). A history of speech production
D. T. (2002). Propagation of finite amplitude sound through turbulence: research. Acoustics Today 12(4), 48-55.
Modeling with geometrical acoustics and the parabolic approximation. Treeby, B. E. (2019). From biology to bytes: Predicting the path of ultra-
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 111, 487-498. sound waves through the human body. Acoustics Today 15(2), 36-44.
Botteldooren, D. (1994). Acoustical finite-difference time-domain sim- https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2019.15.2.36.
ulation in a quasi-Cartesian grid. The Journal of the Acoustical Society Vorländer, M. (2013). Computer simulations in room acoustics: Concepts and
of America 95, 2313-2319. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.409866. uncertainties. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 133, 1203-1213.
Bruce, I. C. (2017). Physiologically based predictors of speech intel- Vorländer, M. (2020). Are virtual sounds real? Acoustics Today 16(1),
ligibility. Acoustics Today 13(1), 28-35. 46-54. https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2020.16.1.46.
Bunting, G., Dohrmann, C. R., Miller, S. T., and Walsh, T. F. (2020). Solv- Wage, K. E. (2018). When two wrongs make a right: combining aliased
ing complex acoustic problems using high-performance computations. arrays to find sound sources. Acoustics Today 14(3), 48-56.
Acoustics Today 16(2), 22-30. https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2020.16.2.22. Wang, H., Sihar, I., Munoz, Raul P., and Hornikx, M. (2019). Room acoustics
Burkatovskaya, Y. B., Belov, V. V., Krasnenko, N. P., Shamanaeva, L. G., and modeling in the time-domain with the nodal discontinuous Galerkin method.
Khaustov, P. A. (2016). Monte Carlo method in atmospheric acoustics. Pro- The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 145(4), 2650-2663,
ceedings of the International Multi-Conference of Engineers and Computer Wilson, D. K., Pettit, C. L., and Ostashev, V. E. (2015). Sound propagation
Scientists 2016 Vol II, IMECS 2016, Hong Kong, March 16-18, 2016. in the atmospheric boundary layer. Acoustics Today 11(2), 44-53.
Burnett, D. S. (2015). Computer simulation for predicting acoustic scattering Zurk, L. (2018). Physics-based signal processing approaches for
from objects at the bottom of the ocean. Acoustics Today, 11(1), 28-36. underwater acoustic sensing. Acoustics Today 14(3), 57-61.
Candy, J. V. (2008). Signal processing in acoustics: Science or science
fiction? Acoustics Today 4(3), 6-15.
Chu, D., and Eastland, G. C. (2014). Calibration of a broadband About the Author
acoustic transducer with a standard spherical target in nearfield.
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 137, 2148-2157.
Declercq, N. F., Degrieck, J., Briers, R., and Leroy, O. (2004). A theo- Grant C. Eastland
retical study of special acoustic effects caused by the staircase of the [email protected]
El Castillo pyramid at the Maya ruins of Chichen-Itza in Mexico.
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 116, 3328-3335. Naval Undersea Warfare Center
https://doi.org/10.1121/1.1764833. Division, Keyport
Duda, T., Bonnel, J., and Heaney, K. D. (2019). Computational acoustics 610 Dowell Street
in oceanography: The research roles of sound field simulations. Acous- Keyport, Washington 98345, USA
tics Today 15(3), 28-37. https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2019.15.3.28.
Grant C. Eastland received his PhD in
Everstine, G. C., and Henderson, F. M. (1990). Coupled finite element/
physics from Washington State University (Pullman) in 2012
boundary element approach for fluid-structure interaction. The Jour-
under the direction of Philip L. Marston, studying scattering
nal of the Acoustical Society of America 87, 1938-1947.
boundary effects in acoustic imaging. He did postdoctoral
https://doi.org/10.1121/1.399320.
Faran, J. J., Jr. (1951). Sound scattering by solid cylinders and spheres. research at the NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 23, 405-418. in Seattle from 2012 to 2015, working on acoustic target
Gao, H., Shen, Yuchen, Feng, X. and Shen, Yong (2020). Sound field calibration techniques. Currently, he is a physicist in test and
synthesis of arbitrary moving sources using spectral division method. evaluation at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division, Key-
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 148, EL247-EL252. port (WA). His primary fields of interest are ocean acoustic
https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0001944. propagation, scattering, and acoustic imaging. His research
Greenberg, S. (2018). Deep language learning. Acoustics Today 14(4), 19-27. can be considered phenomenological, including theoretical,
Hambric, S. A., and Fahnline, J. B. (2007). Structural acoustics tuto- computational acoustic modeling, and empirical investigations.
rial — part 2: Sound — structure interaction. Acoustics Today 3(2), 9-27.

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 17

 FEATURED ARTICLE

Ultrasonic Hearing in Cats and

Other Terrestrial Mammals
M. Charlotte Kruger, Carina J. Sabourin, Alexandra T. Levine,
and Stephen G. Lomber

What is the first thought that comes to your mind when Despite not being able to hear ultrasound, humans often
you read the word “ultrasound”? Most readers of Acous- capitalize on its presence. The most familiar use would be
tics Today might associate ultrasound with pregnancy clinical applications of ultrasound (e.g., Ketterling and Sil-
or perhaps specialized detection technology on ships verman, 2017). These include pregnancy scans, observation
and airplanes. Some might also think about echolocat- of pathology progression, and treatments such as the elimi-
ing animals. But what about terrestrial mammals? The nation of kidney stones (Simon et al., 2017). In industrial
ones that walk the earth among us? Although the use environments, ultrasound is used as a nondestructive test to
of ultrasound in echolocating mammals (e.g., bats, dol- measure the thickness and quality of objects. Even though
phins, and whales) is well-known, our understanding of ultrasound can be useful for humans in a variety of settings,
ultrasonic perception in nonflying terrestrial mammals public exposure to airborne ultrasound is suggested to also
is limited. Here we discuss the frequencies perceived cause adverse effects, such as nausea, dizziness, and failure
and the biological importance of ultrasound for four to concentrate (Leighton et al., 2020). However, this is not
land-dwelling mammals as well as what is currently the case for many animals. Long before humans started
known about the various areas in the brain that allow utilizing ultrasonic frequencies, animals have been using
these animals to process ultrasound. ultrasound for various beneficial reasons.

What We Know About Ultrasound Signals containing ultrasound play a pivotal role in the
Ultrasonic sounds differ from “regular” sounds because lives of many species. Well-known uses include prey
their frequencies are too high for humans to detect. The detection, finding mates, and communicating with con-
upper hearing limit for humans is considered to be 20 specifics. High frequencies have very short wavelengths
kHz, and sounds with a frequency above 20 kHz are con- and therefore attenuate more rapidly when traveling
sidered ultrasonic. This is the agreed on definition, yet through air compared with lower frequencies. Therefore,
this distinction is subjectively based on the range that we, ultrasonic production and hearing create a private com-
as humans, can hear and has no biological basis per se. munication channel that subverts detection by prey as

Figure 1. Frequencies for the hearing abilities of

mice and rats (Mus musculus and Sigmodon
hispidu, respectively; Masterson and Heffner,
1980), elephants (Elephas maximus; Heffner and
Heffner, 1982), domestic cats (Felis catus; Heffner
and Heffner, 1985), domestic dogs (Canis lupus
familiaris; Heffner, 1983), and short-tailed fruit
bats (Carollia perspicillata; Koay et al., 2003) at
60 dB sound pressure level (SPL) as well as familiar
human applications of ultrasound (Jensen, 2007;
Carovac et al., 2011; Harvey et al., 2014).

18 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021 | Volume 17, issue 1 ©2021 Acoustical Society of America. All rights reserved.
https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2021.17.1.18
well as by predators that are unable to hear the higher
frequencies (Ramsier et al., 2012). Examples of animals
that can hear ultrasound include cats, dogs, bats, mice,
and rats (Figure 1). Through technological advances, we
have been able to detect, observe, study, and utilize these
signals found outside our perceptual capabilities (Arch
and Narins, 2008). By investigating different animals that
can hear ultrasound, we better our understanding of the
physiological and anatomical mechanisms behind their
ability to perceive these high-frequency sounds.

The Auditory Pathway and Ultrasound

The auditory system provides animals with the ability to
detect and perceive sounds over a wide range of frequen- Figure 2. A behavioral audiogram for the mouse (Mus
cies and intensities. Sound waves travel through the outer musculus; Ehret, 1974), ferret (Mustela putorius furo; Kelly
and middle ear before being transferred to the cochlea in et al., 1986), human (Homo sapiens; Sivian and White,
the inner ear. The cochlea deconstructs sounds of differ- 1933), rat (Kelly and Masterson, 1977), and cat (Felis catus;
ing frequencies and intensities into electrical signals that Heffner and Heffner, 1985). Dashed vertical line, beginning
can be interpreted by the brain. These electrical signals of the ultrasonic range (20 kHz). Data represent the lowest
travel up the auditory pathway from the cochlea, passing sound level detected at each frequency.
through the brainstem, until eventually being relayed by
the nuclei in the thalamus to their final destination, the
auditory cortex. are examined. Psychoacoustics, one form of psychophys-
ics, analyzes the relationship between auditory stimuli and
Neurons in the auditory cortex are generally arranged neural events by employing various conditioning tech-
according to the frequency at which they respond with niques (Dent, 2017). The results of the different conditions
the greatest sensitivity, namely their characteristic fre- tested are often depicted using an audiogram (Figure 2).
quencies. In many animals, the characteristic frequencies
of neurons progress linearly along the cortical surface as Biological Importance
a tonotopic map (Moerel et al., 2014). This organization Rodents
allows the identification of neurons responsible for con- Small rodents such as rats and mice emit and perceive
veying specific kinds of information such as ultrasound. ultrasonic sounds to communicate with conspecifics for
As such, it is important to consider where these specific a variety of social communicative interactions, including
neurons for encoding ultrasonic frequencies are found courtship and mating, aggression and territoriality, repro-
within the cortices of terrestrial mammals and what the duction, and to alert conspecifics (Arch and Narins, 2008).
relevance and benefits associated with the ability to detect
ultrasound might be. Male mice produce ultrasonic vocalizations between 48
and 79 kHz in response to female pheromones to attract
Measuring the Audible Frequency Range them as a potential mate (Gourbal et al., 2004) and emit
Audiometry experiments can provide insight into the vocalizations up to 75 kHz when sniffing or mounting
ultrasonic abilities of different species. The point at which female mice (Matsumoto and Okanoya, 2016). Further-
a sound is detected is known as the audibility threshold. more, mouse pups produce isolation calls with frequencies
As described in a previous issue of Acoustics Today (Dent, between 50 and 80 kHz when they are separated from their
2017), psychophysical approaches are often employed to nest (Hofer et al., 2001). Because mice can hear frequen-
measure perceptual thresholds in nonhuman species. Psy- cies between 1.5 and 92 kHz at 60 dB sound pressure level
chophysical approaches encapsulate experimental designs (SPL; Heffner et al., 2001), the pup vocalizations reliably
where a physical stimulus is presented to a subject and the elicit a retrieval response from the mothers (Dunlap and
neural and/or sensory responses evoked by the stimulus Liu, 2018). The frequencies used in courtship vocalizations

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 19

ULTRASONIC HEARING IN TERRESTRIAL MAMMALS

produced by male mice to attract females shows the sex- Phillips and colleagues (1988) determined that ferrets
specific relevance of ultrasound production and hearing. (Mustela putorius furo) can detect sounds from 40 Hz to
approximately 40 kHz. Ferrets provide a useful model for
Similar to mice, adult rats have two main purposes for investigating the development, organization, and plastic-
emitting ultrasonic vocalizations as a form of commu- ity of the auditory cortex because the onset of hearing
nication: alarm calls at 22 kHz to warn conspecifics of in ferrets occurs late compared with other mammals
danger and calls at 50 kHz for social cooperation and (Moore, 1982). Before their ear canals open, newborn fer-
affiliative behavior (Wright et al., 2010). Rats generally rets, known as kits, produce high-frequency vocalizations
emit vocalizations with frequencies that fall within their often above 16 kHz. Lactating female ferrets respond to
hearing range (between 250 Hz and 80 kHz). For exam- these kit vocalizations (Shimbo, 1992) similar to the
ple, infant rats can emit vocalizations between 40 and 65 rodent behavior described in Rodents. Overall, ferrets
kHz when they are separated from their nest, and adult provide useful models for investigating different aspects
rats can emit ultrasonic calls to solicit sexual behavior of hearing and hearing loss, given that their hearing
from the opposite sex (Portfors, 2007). On hearing the range largely overlaps that of humans (Fritz et al., 2007).
50 kHz vocalizations from male rats, females display a
series of attracting behaviors, increasing the likelihood Another common carnivore model used for auditory
of the male approaching and copulating (Portfors, 2007). research is the domestic cat (felis catus). The sensitive hear-
Rodents therefore rely on ultrasound for their survival ing range of cats is commonly believed to be between 5 and
whether it is for communicating with conspecifics, 32 kHz, although there are notable discrepancies in the
attracting mates, or evading predators. literature regarding their hearing range limits (Figure 3).
The literature agrees that cats can hear ultrasonic frequen-
Carnivores cies, but the full extent of their perception remains unclear.
Unlike rodents, there are only limited data available on The lower limit of hearing is generally reported as approxi-
the evolution and biological importance of ultrasonic mately 125 Hz, but the upper limit is not well defined.
hearing in carnivores. Carnivores, aside from carnivo-
rous rodents like the northern grasshopper mouse Most sources report the upper limit as the maximum fre-
(Onychomys leucogaster), are seldom known to pro- quency tested. As such, the upper hearing limit of cats is
duce or use ultrasonic frequencies for communication not commonly described as greater than 60 kHz (Figure
(Brown et al. 1978; Farley et al., 1987). Even so, many 3), and, in some cases, the reported upper limit corre-
carnivores can perceive sounds with ultrasonic frequen- sponds to the highest frequency of sound tested in the
cies. It is thought that perhaps, at one point in history, the respective study. This is true for both electrical stimula-
common ancestor of carnivores used ultrasound for prey tion experiments, where electrical impulses are applied to
detection (Heffner and Heffner, 1985; Kelly et al., 1986). neurons in the auditory pathway, and behavioral experi-
However, as discussed in Rodents, prey (such as mice or ments. One exception is a study by Heffner and Heffner
rats) primarily communicate at frequencies above the (1985) who tested frequencies up to 92 kHz and reported
hearing range of carnivores (Kelly and Masterton, 1977). the upper hearing limit as 85 kHz. Therefore, it is possible

Figure 3. Various reported

hearing ranges for cats
compared with the range of
frequencies of the presented
stimuli in each respective
study, all of which are cited
in References.

20 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

 Figure 4. The tonotopic
organization of the auditory
cortex of four mammals. A:
mouse; B: rat; C: ferret; D: cat.
The brains are shown in the
sagittal plane and show the
primary auditory field (A1),
secondary auditory field (A2),
anterior auditory field (AAF),
dorsoposterior field (DPF),
ultrasonic field (UF), posterior
auditory field (PAF), ventral
auditory field (VAF), suprarhinal
auditory field (SRAF), posterior
pseudosylvian field (PPF),
posterior suprasylvian field (PSF),
and ventroposterior auditory
field (VPAF).

that the upper hearing limit of cats exceeds 60 kHz and The mouse was the first animal where a specialized cortical
that there could be neurons present in the cortex special- region for processing ultrasonic frequencies was identified
ized for these ultrasonic frequencies. (Hofstetter and Ehret, 1992). Frequencies between 40 and
70 kHz are represented in the UF, with approximately 50%
Cortical Representation of Ultrasonic of neurons responding to frequencies between 50 and 60
Frequencies kHz. However, unlike the A1 and AAF, the UF is not tono-
Mice, rats, ferrets, and cats are commonly used as topically organized (Stiebler et al., 1997), and it is still not
animal models for acoustic research. The biological clear whether the UF should be considered a part of the
importance of ultrasound to these mammals is further primary auditory fields alongside the A1 and AAF.
reflected by the allotment of cortical space for ultrasonic
sound perception in their respective auditory cortices. Tsukano and colleagues (2015) showed that the dorsome-
As such, it is crucial to validate as well as expand our dial field (DM), previously thought to be part of dorsal
current understanding of their hearing abilities, espe- A1, is a separate area specialized for ultrasonic perception.
cially the neural correlates underlying the perception of This region contains neurons highly responsive to vocal-
ultrasonic frequencies. izations, with frequencies above 40 kHz, demonstrating
how certain neurons in mouse cortex respond best to
Mice frequencies of behaviorally relevant sound features. This
In the mouse brain (Figure 4A), five auditory cortical type of cortical organization can also be seen in other
fields can be delineated in both hemispheres: primary rodents that rely on ultrasound for survival.
auditory field (A1), anterior auditory field (AAF), sec-
ondary auditory field (A2), dorsoposterior field (DPF), Rats
and ultrasonic field (UF) (Stiebler et al., 1997). The A1 The central auditory system of rats is comparable to that of
and AAF regions are both tonotopically organized but mice in both anatomical and functional organization. Five
with reverse gradients. The properties of the neurons distinct cortical fields have been identified in the rat brain,
within these two fields are similar. For example, the fre- and high-frequency neurons can be found in the following
quency ranges for neurons found in both the A1 and AAF regions: A1, AAF, posterior auditory field (PAF), ventral
are between 2 and 45 kHz. auditory field (VAF), and suprarhinal auditory field (SRAF).

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 21

ULTRASONIC HEARING IN TERRESTRIAL MAMMALS

In terms of tonotopic organization, the A1 shows a progres- Cats

sion of characteristic frequencies from low (~1 kHz) to high Similar to ferrets, the cat auditory cortex can be divided
(~60 kHz) along a posterior-to-anterior gradient (Polley et into one or more primary areas and several secondary
al., 2007). The tonotopic gradient then reverses in a mirror- areas (Bizley et al., 2005). To help describe the func-
like fashion at the posterior and anterior borders of the A1 tional and tonotopic organization of the cat auditory
to form the boundaries of the PAF and AAF, respectively cortex, Reale and Imig (1980) analyzed how clusters of
(Figure 4B) (Rutkowski et al., 2003; Polley et al., 2007). neurons (and sometimes single neurons) respond to vari-
ous frequencies. In addition to describing the tonotopic
Unlike mice, an ultrasonic field has not been identified in organization of the core auditory region, the A1 and AAF,
rats, although, because the tonotopic organization in the rat Reale and Imig (1980) also described the presence and
is comparable to that of the mouse, Kalatsky and colleagues tonotopic organization of the PAF and the ventroposte-
(2005) hypothesized that a distinct region representing rior auditory field (VPAF). Furthermore, they delineated
ultrasonic frequencies might likely also be present in rats. the belt auditory region into the A2, temporal area (T),
Overall, despite the similarities between the suggested cor- dorsoposterior area (DP), and ventral area (V).
tical maps, further investigation is needed to improve our
understanding of ultrasonic representations in the auditory More recently, Hall and Lomber (2015) confirmed the
cortex of rodents. This could potentially lead to discoveries four functionally distinct tonotopic areas within the
that could, in turn, be extended to other mammals. cat auditory cortices (A1, AAF, PAF, and VPAF) and
reported a reversal in tonotopic gradients between neigh-
Ferrets boring regions (Figure 4D). In the cat, the A1 increases
Like the auditory cortex of other mammals, the ferret in its tonotopic gradient as it extends from the anterior
auditory cortex is divided into multiple subregions. division of the posterior ectosylvian sulcus (PES) to
These include the two primary areas, the A1 and AAF the posterior portion of the anterior ectosylvian sulcus
(Bajo et al., 2006) and the secondary areas: anterior (AES). At the posterior edge of the PES, the A1 reaches
dorsal field, posterior pseudosylvian field (PPF), and the minimal values of its tonotopic gradient, forming a
posterior suprasylvian field (PSF). The PPF and the PSF low-frequency reversal border as it nears the PAF (Hall
are found immediately ventral to the A1 (Figure 4C). and Lomber, 2015). High-frequency reversal borders
Bizley and colleagues (2005) described the functional also exist at the A1-AAF and PAF-VPAF borders and
organization of the different regions within the ferret are likely a location where ultrasonic selective neurons
auditory cortex and subsequently mapped the tonotopic may be found.
organization of these areas.
Ultrasonic-Selective Neurons in the Cat
As discussed for mice and rats and also for most other Auditory Cortex
mammals, the frequencies in these fields are organized Following the principles of tonotopic organization, it
from high to low in a rostrocaudal manner, with fre- seems that neurons with the highest characteristic fre-
quency reversals taking place at the borders between quencies could potentially be located at the periphery of
adjacent fields (Bizley et al., 2005). However, this each auditory region. Neurons can be classified as being
reversal pattern is not present in ferrets. Instead, the either broadly or narrowly tuned, responding maximally
frequencies are organized where the gradients of the A1 to a large range or a narrow range of frequencies, respec-
and AAF meet dorsally and decrease ventrally (Figure tively. This classification provides insight into the type of
4C) (Kaas, 2011). Therefore, the A1 and AAF are orga- sensory input the neurons convey and their roles within
nized tonotopically, with higher frequencies represented a specific cortical field. High-frequency selective neu-
toward the dorsal tip. The physiological properties of rons have been found to be narrowly tuned (Phillips and
the ferret A1 (such as tonotopic organization and neu- Irvine, 1982), supporting the claim that high-frequency
ronal properties) are similar to those seen in the cat A1 reversal borders (e.g., between the A1 and AAF) contain
(Kaas, 2011), but when comparing audiograms of ferrets mostly such neurons. For example, Carrasco and Lomber
and cats, the ferret’s audiogram is shifted toward lower (2010) identified neurons selective for frequencies reach-
frequencies (Figure 2). ing 60 kHz around the border between the A1 and AAF.

22 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

However, it is possible that the high-frequency reversal Dunlap, A. G., and Liu, R. C. (2018). Rodent ultrasonic vocalization
borders also contain broadly tuned subpopulations of as a window into auditory cortical processing and plasticity. In S. M.
Brudzynski (Ed.), Handbook of Behavioral Neuroscience. Academic
neurons, functioning to integrate a wide range of ultra- Press, London, UK, pp. 83-93.
sonic sensory input for both the A1 and AAF. Researchers Ehret, G. (1974). Age-dependent hearing loss in normal hearing mice. Natur-
sometimes avoid probing these regions near the borders to wissenschaften 61, 506-507. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00622976.
prevent “contamination” from the accidental recording of Ehret, G., and Romand, R. (1981). Postnatal development of absolute
auditory thresholds in kittens. Journal of Comparative and Physiolog-
neurons from neighboring regions (Carrasco et al., 2015). ical Psychology 95, 304-311. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0077770.
Due to this precaution, studies may fail to record from the Elliott, D. N., Stein, L., and Harrison, M. J. (1960). Determination
neurons with the highest characteristic frequencies, lim- of absolute‐intensity thresholds and frequency‐difference thresh-
iting our understanding of the cortical representation of olds in cats. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 32, 380-384.
https://doi.org/10.1121/1.1908071.
ultrasonic stimuli in cats and other terrestrial mammals. Farley, S. D., Lehner, P. N., Clark, T., and Trost, C. (1987).
Vocalizations of the Siberian ferret (Mustela eversmanni) and com-
Conclusion parisons with other mustelids. Journal of Mammalogy 68, 413-416.
https://doi.org/10.2307/1381487.
Ultrasound is essential to the lives of many animals, evi-
Fritz, J. B., Elhilali, M., David, S.V., and Shamma, S. A. (2007). Does
denced by the magnitude of cortical space allocated attention play a role in dynamic receptive field adaptation to chang-
specifically for ultrasound in some species. Despite the ing acoustic salience in A1? Hearing Research 229(1-2), 186-203.
biological importance of ultrasound, researchers might https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heares.2007.01.009.
Gerken, G. M., and Sandlin, D. (1977). Auditory reaction time and
have been underestimating the ultrasonic hearing abilities absolute threshold in cat. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
of many terrestrial mammals. It is therefore also possible 61, 602-606. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.381306.
that the extent of the ultrasonic abilities of some terrestrial Gerken, G. M., Saunders, S. S., Simhadri-Sumithra, R., and Bhat, K. H. V. (1985).
mammals, as discussed in this article, has not yet been Behavioral thresholds for electrical stimulation applied to auditory brain-
stem nuclei in cat are altered by injurious and noninjurious sound. Hearing
conclusively established. Until this matter is clarified, the Research 20, 221-231. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-5955(85)90027-9.
location in the brain where these frequencies are encoded Gourbal, B. E. F., Barthelemy, M., Petit, G., and Gabrion, C. (2004).
also remains uncertain. Further investigations may elu- Spectrographic analysis of the ultrasonic vocalisations of adult
male and female BALB/c mice. Naturwissenschaften, 91(8), 381-385.
cidate uncertainties in our understanding of the role of
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-004-0543-7.
ultrasonic frequencies in auditory neuroscience as a whole. Hall, A. J., and Lomber, S. G. (2015). High-field fMRI reveals tono-
topically-organized and core auditory cortex in the cat. Hearing
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cortex in the ferret (Mustela putorius): Neural response properties
and topographic organization. Brain Research 443, 281-294.
https://doi.org/10.1016/0006-8993(88)91622-8. M. Charlotte Kruger
Pienkowski, M., and Eggermont, J. J. (2010). Intermittent exposure [email protected]
with moderate-level sound impairs central auditory function of Department of Physiology
mature animals without concomitant hearing loss. Hearing Research McGill University
261(1-2), 30-35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heares.2009.12.025. Montréal, Québec H3G 1Y6, Canada
Polley, D. B., Read, H. L., Storace, D. A., and Merzenich, M. M. (2007).
M. Charlotte Kruger graduated from
Multiparametric auditory receptive field organization across five cor-
the University of Western Ontario
tical fields in the albino rat. Journal of Neurophysiology 97, 3621-3638.
(London, ON, Canada) with a BSc Honors Specialization
https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.01298.2006.
in Biology in 2019. She is a current graduate student in the
Portfors, C. V. (2007). Types and functions of ultrasonic vocalizations
Cerebral Systems Laboratory at McGill University (Montréal,
in laboratory rats and mice. Journal of the American Association for
QC, Canada). She is investigating the ultrasonic hearing abil-
Laboratory Animal Science 46, 28-34.
ities of the cat and the location where ultrasonic frequencies
Rajan, R., Irvine, D. R. F., and Cassell, J. F. (1991). Normative N1 audiogram
might be encoded in the cat brain, to better understand the
data for the barbiturate-anaesthetised domestic cat. Hearing Research 53,
role of ultrasonic hearing in auditory neuroscience.
153-158. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-5955(91)90222-U.

24 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

 Carina J. Sabourin ultrahigh-field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), including
[email protected] structural and functional differences in the brain resulting from
hearing loss and neural correlates of behavioral advantages
Department of Physiology
seen in such individuals. She received her BSc in psychology
McGill University
and cognitive neuroscience from The University of Not-
Montréal, Québec H3G 1Y6, Canada
tingham (University Park, Nottingham, UK) and her MSc in
Carina J. Sabourin graduated from cognitive neuroscience and PhD in cognitive neuroscience and
Queen’s University (Kingston, ON, neuroimaging from the University of York (UK).
Canada) with BSc Honors Specialization in Life Sciences. She
recently joined the Cerebral Systems Laboratory at McGill Uni-
versity (Montreal, QC, Canada) as a graduate student pursuing Stephen G. Lomber
an M.Eng in Biological and Biomedical Engineering. She is using [email protected]
awake electrophysiological recording techniques to investigate Department of Physiology
the auditory cortex in animal models. She is currently using McGill University
system identification methods to model the temporal modulation Montréal, Québec H3G 1Y6, Canada
of auditory neurons in response to biologically important sounds.
Stephen G. Lomber is a professor of
physiology at McGill University (Mon-
Alexandra T. Levine tréal, QC, Canada) where he holds the Canada Research Chair
[email protected] in Brain Plasticity and Development. Dr. Lomber received his
BSc from the University of Rochester (NY) and his PhD from
Department of Psychology
the Boston University School of Medicine (MA), both in neu-
Western University
roscience. Dr. Lomber’s laboratory (www.cerebralsystems.ca)
London, Ontario N6A 3K7, Canada
uses an integrated approach of psychophysics, electrophysi-
Alexandra T. Levine is a postdoctoral ological recording, neuroanatomical approaches, and functional
associate in the Neuroplacity in Sen- imaging to examine multisensory processing in auditory cortex.
sory Systems Lab (NiSSL) at Western University (London, Work in the laboratory examines cortical plasticity in the pres-
ON, Canada) researching brain plasticity following sensory ence and absence of acoustic input and following the initiation
loss. She is currently working on a range of projects involving of auditory processing through the use of cochlear prosthetics.

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i-ince half page landscape PTB.indd 1 Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today

05.03.2019 25
15:45:30
 FEATURED ARTICLE

The Ins and Outs of Baby Talk

Linda Polka and Yufang Ruan

It is usually no secret when there is a baby in the room.

Although producing IDS with a baby is a simple and
Infants attract our attention, and we immediately and natural task, researchers have worked long and hard to
instinctively change our speech when we engage with describe the distinct acoustic properties of IDS. This
them. “Baby talk” fills the air. This distinct speech article shows that a great deal of progress has been made.
register, also known as motherese or more formally as Some acoustic properties of IDS, including aspects of
infant-directed speech (IDS), has been observed across vocal pitch and rhythm, are now well-established. Other
diverse languages and cultures. Babies demonstrate a acoustic properties that pertain to the vocal resonances
clear preference for IDS. The strong endorsement of IDS of the speech signal, are less well understood and are
by infants continues to fuel the curiosity of scientists,
currently a focus of intense research attention and debate.
clinicians, and caregivers about this common speech Explaining exactly how specific properties of IDS impact
form and how it shapes infant development. infant development is another challenge that continues
to drive research activity. In this article, we also outline
In the research world, “infant” is often defined as a some of the knowledge gaps that are energizing research-
child under 2 years of age. In recent years, scientific ers to reach for a deeper understanding of the unique
interest in IDS has increased dramatically. Figure 1 acoustic properties of IDS and to explore how IDS is con-
shows that the number of publications on the topic nected with infant speech. As we learn more about IDS
of IDS and citations of this work increased markedly and why babies thrive on it, we are also finding ways to
since 2006. In 2019, the Acoustical Society of America leverage this knowledge to promote infant development.
sponsored two well-attended special sessions devoted
to IDS (see acousticstoday.org/ASA177TuesAbstracts, Infants Prefer Infant-Directed Speech
pages 1728-1731 and 1763-1767). IDS is undeniably IDS has captivated scientists precisely because it is so effec-
a hot topic. tive in enticing infant attention. Across many studies in

Figure 1. Publications (blue) and citations (orange) of papers on infant-directed speech (IDS) from 1990 to 2020. From the Web of Science.

26 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021 | Volume 17, issue 1 ©2021 Acoustical Society of America. All rights reserved.
https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2021.17.1.26
which infants are presented a choice to listen to samples of to the tube formed by the vocal folds on one end and
IDS and adult-directed speech (ADS), infants (even new- the mouth at the other end. Movements of the tongue,
borns) repeatedly show a clear and strong preference to jaw, and lips vary the length and shape of the vocal tract,
listen to IDS, with few studies deviating from this pattern. which determines the resonances of the vocal tract.
A meta-analysis found that the average listening time dif-
ference between IDS and ADS (or “the effect size of IDS The acoustic patterns formed by the vocal resonances cre-
preference” in statistical terms) was significant and large ated when we speak are referred to as formants and are
(Dunst et al., 2012). numbered in ascending frequency value (the lowest is
the 1st formant [F1], next is the 2nd formant [F2], etc.).
Infant preference for IDS, being recognized as one of the The formants are essentially narrow frequency regions
most robust behaviors measured in infancy, was selected as where acoustic energy is increased because these frequen-
the target behavior in a large-scale study designed to under- cies vibrate most easily within the associated vocal tract
stand how subject variables and testing methodologies affect space. The first three formants contain critical acoustic
the measurement of infant behavior. This study, conducted information for speech communication.
by the ManyBabies Consortium, involved 67 laboratories
across North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. The The vocal resonances and associated formant frequencies
findings provided further conclusive evidence of infants’ are higher for the short vocal tract of an infant or child
preference for IDS over ADS (ManyBabies Consortium, compared with the longer vocal tract of an adult. Talkers
2020). There is no doubt that infants are attracted to IDS. modify the resonance of the vocal tract to create different
vowel sounds by moving their articulators to create dif-
Acoustic Properties of Infant- ferent vocal tract shapes, such as by adjusting the degree
Directed Speech and location of constrictions along the vocal tract.
What is it about IDS that babies like? Studies show that
when caregivers talk to their infant, they modify their An extensive body of research has concentrated on describ-
speech on multiple levels. This includes basic speech pat- ing the acoustic structure of IDS. This work has considered
terns that play a broad role in communication and can each component, typically by comparing samples of IDS
be observed across different languages (conveying emo- with comparable samples of ADS (Soderstrom, 2007).
tion and talker information and basic units such as vowels,
consonants, and word forms) as well as acoustic cues that Voice Pitch and Rhythmic Properties of
mark specific lexical, grammatical, and pragmatic features Infant-Directed Speech
that are important in a specific language. Our focus here is The distinct vocal source properties of IDS are well-estab-
on basic acoustic speech patterns that have a broad impact lished (see Multimedia 1-5 at acousticstoday.org/polkamedia
and are more likely to be universal across languages. for audio examples in English and in Turkish; see video
example at bit.ly/3m3ecHh). Overall, higher voice pitch,
To understand the acoustic properties of IDS, it is useful to wider voice pitch range and greater pitch variability have
know that the acoustic speech signal has two independent been found in IDS (compared with ADS) in a variety of
components, referred to as the source and the filter. The languages, including both nontonal languages (Fernald et al.,
vocal source component is determined by how fast the 1989) and tonal languages (Liu et al., 2009). Several studies
vocal folds vibrate, which determines the voice pitch or have shown that high voice pitch is the primary acoustic
fundamental frequency (see article on singing by Sund- determinant of the infants’ preference for IDS (Fernald and
berg et al. on pages 43-51). The voice pitch of an infant or Kuhl, 1987; Leibold and Werner, 2007). Research focused on
child is much higher than that of an adult because their the speech movements that occur during IDS have observed,
short, light vocal folds vibrate faster compared with the as expected, that adults produce faster vocal fold vibrations
longer and thicker vocal folds of an adult. Talkers also vary and also raise their larynx when they talk to young infants
their voice pitch by adjusting the tension of the vocal folds. (Ogle and Maidment, 1993; Kalashnikova et al., 2017).
Larynx raising naturally occurs when vocal fold tension
The vocal filter component refers to the effects of the increases (which raises voice pitch) and can also shorten
length and shape of the vocal tract, the term used to refer the overall vocal tract length.

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 27

BABY TALK

It is widely held that the primary goal or intention in infancy and supports early word learning. The list of
guiding these characteristic voice pitch properties is the positive effects of IDS rhythm on speech processing,
conveying emotion to the young infant (Saint-Georges which includes supporting better discrimination and
et al., 2013). Understanding the emotional expression in tracking of syllable patterns and detection of speech in
IDS led researchers to explore the pitch contours found noise, continues to grow (Soderstrom, 2007).
in IDS. Fernald and Simon (1984) observed that most
utterances in IDS had either rising or falling pitch con- Vocal Resonance Properties of Infant-
tours. Stern and colleagues (1982) identified the social Directed Speech
and linguistic context where these pitch contours were Research on IDS has also considered the other funda-
used. For example, a rising contour was frequently used mental component of speech, the filter or resonance
when mothers tried to engage in eye contact with an inat- properties. The focus here has been on vowel sounds.
tentive baby. Studies also show that creating “happy talk” Early research by Kuhl and colleagues (1997) reported
is the fundamental goal of IDS and that positive affect is that vowels are produced in an exaggerated form in IDS;
what drives infant preference (Singh et al., 2002). Thus, this hyperarticulation of vowels expands the vowel space,
understanding pitch contours in IDS can help us decode a standard graphic display that captures how vowel artic-
the affective function of IDS. ulation and formant patterns are related.

In terms of rhythmic features, IDS universally contains In the classic vowel space (Figure 2), F1 increases as
shorter utterances and longer pauses between words; in the tongue/jaw height decreases and F2 increases as the
some languages, including English and Japanese, there tongue constriction moves to the front of the mouth.
is also an enhanced lengthening of words or syllables at Importantly, three vowel sounds found in every spoken
the end of a phrase or utterance (Fernald et al., 1989; language, “ee,” “aw,” and “oo,” form the corners of this
Martin et al., 2016). This is helpful because natural fluent F1/F2 vowel space. These corner vowels are associated
speech typically lacks pauses between words, something with gestural extremes that define the full range of
you notice when encountering an entirely foreign lan- movements that we use to create vowel sounds: "ee" has
guage. This also highlights an initial challenge for babies, the most high and front constriction of the vocal tract,
learning which speech patterns are reoccurring words, "oo" has the most high and back constriction of the vocal
aka word segmentation. Infants begin to acquire word tract, and "aw" has the most open and unconstricted
segmentation skills at around 6 months, through expe- posture of the vocal tract. All other vowel sounds fall
rience listening to a specific language and before they within the limits defined by these corner vowel sounds.
attach meaning to each word they hear (Jusczyk, 1999).

Overall, the tempo of IDS provides the infant with a Figure 2. The articulatory/acoustic vowel space corresponding
speech stream that is easier to track with clearer cues to vowels produced by an adult female in ADS (squares) and
marking word boundaries and other syntactic units. in IDS (circles), and by an infant (triangles). F1 and F2, 1st
Consistent with this, the most prominent rhythm in and 2nd formants, respectively.
the acoustic speech signal, which matches the timing
of stressed syllables, was observed to be stronger in IDS
compared with ADS (Leong et al., 2017). This speech
rhythm was also prominent (and synchronized) in
mother and infant brain patterns when they watched a
nursery rhyme video together (Santamaria et al., 2020).

The enhanced temporal properties of IDS likely explains

the positive effects of IDS on infant speech processing.
For example, IDS facilitates infant word segmenta-
tion performance (Thiessen et al., 2005), an important
language-specific speech-processing skill that emerges

28 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

The finding that the vowel space is larger, with the shortens the vocal tract) and slower speaking rate that
corner vowels spaced further apart in IDS compared characterizes this speech style rather than being shaped
with ADS, is also illustrated schematically in Figure 2. by the parents’ direct effort to clarify speech patterns
(McMurray et al., 2013). For example, in her study of
Increasing the acoustic distance between vowels IDS in Dutch, Benders (2013) observed a reduced rather
enhances recognition of distinct vowel sounds. Moreover, than an expanded vowel space, and she also observed
even in ADS, a larger vowel space is typically associated an overall rise in all formant frequencies for IDS vowels
with more intelligible speech (Bradlow et al., 1996). An relative to ADS vowels. This pattern is noteworthy given
expanded vowel space was observed for IDS vowels pro- that smiling, which shortens the vocal tract length, is
duced in several languages, suggesting this is a universal known to shift formants upward and further apart in
feature of IDS (Kuhl et al., 1997). Moreover, infants with frequency (Shor, 1978). Thus, Benders claimed that care-
a mother who expanded her vowel space when producing givers modify their vowel sounds in IDS, especially with
IDS also performed better in a speech sound discrimi- young infants, to communicate positive emotion rather
nation task (Liu et al., 2009). Other work suggests that than to provide clearer speech. Meanwhile, Miyazawa
early exposure to vowel expansion in IDS is associated and colleagues (2017) observed that IDS had a breathier
with better expressive and receptive language skills at two voice quality compared with ADS vowels, an effect also
years (Hartman et al., 2016). associated with communicating emotion.

The idea that caregivers expand their vowel space to make

Yet another perspective emerged from a study by Kalash-
speech clearer is consistent with the finding that adults
nikova and colleagues (2017) that directly examined the
do not expand their vowel space when speaking to a pet tongue and lip movements that caregivers make when
with little or no capacity for acquiring language skillsthey produce IDS and ADS, which are the source of
even though pet-directed speech typically contains the these formant patterns. In this study, special sensors were
characteristic pitch properties of IDS that convey affect
strategically placed on eight moms to track their lip and
as outlined above (Burnham et al., 2002). IDS appears totongue movements while they produced IDS with their
be a form of hyperarticulated speech that promotes lan- 11-month-old infants and ADS with the experimenter.
guage development by clarifying and enhancing speech Surprisingly, when the moms produced the corner
segments (e.g., vowels and consonants). vowels in IDS, their tongue and lips movements were
not exaggerated or hyperarticulated as the researchers
We now see this view as incomplete. As work advanced, expected, even though simultaneous acoustic recordings
an expanded vowel space in IDS has not been found showed expansion of the IDS vowel space.
in all languages, in all interactions, or at all infant
ages (see Hartman et al., 2016). Vowel expansion has Through an analysis that combined lip movement and
also been absent when studies relied on samples of vowel formant measures, Kalashnikova et al. (2017)
natural spontaneous speech instead of the structured inferred that the IDS speech was produced with a shorter
laboratory-recorded samples used in earlier studies vocal tract and higher pitch, which mothers can create
(Martin et al., 2015). In a study of IDS in Japanese, by raising their larynx. They concluded that expansion
Miyazawa and colleagues (2017) observed vowel space of the F1/F2 acoustic vowel space in IDS is not created
expansion when average formant values were consid- by the mother’s intentional efforts to produce clearer
ered. However, the IDS vowel sounds were actually not vowel sounds using exaggerated articulatory movements.
more distinct because there was much more acoustic Instead, mothers are speaking with the unintentional
variability and overlap among different vowels pro- purpose of sounding smaller and thus unthreatening
duced in IDS, which makes recognizing distinct vowel and nonaggressive.
sounds more, not less, difficult.
This speaking style can also be viewed as the mother trying
Actually, some researchers suggested that vowel space to imitate her infant. Moreover, this form of vocal social
expansion in IDS is an unintended side effect of the convergence is observed in other species and is regarded as
increased pitch (which also raises the larynx and a mechanism for creating a close emotional bond between

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 29

BABY TALK

adult and infant, presumably to ensure that infant offspring interaction, speech convergence is typically associated
survive and thrive. Kalashnikova et al. (2017) claim that with liking or holding a positive attitude toward your
in early infancy, any benefits of IDS related to clarifying conversational partner (Pardo, 2013).
speech units are secondary to this basic social/emotional
bonding goal, and, as in evolution, these linguistically Other findings point to an important connection between
motivated patterns likely emerge later in development and IDS and infant speech. First, there are indeed clear paral-
piggy-back on to this social bonding function. lels between IDS and infant speech. With respect to vocal
source properties, infant speech and IDS have similar
Overall, what is happening to the resonance component voice pitch values, particularly when IDS is produced
of the speech signal when caregivers use IDS is not fully by a female adult/mother. Figure 3 shows voice pitch
resolved. Caregivers may be modifying their speech to values across the life span, including voice pitch values
clarify speech units and boost language development, to for IDS produced by female adults. Figure 3, pink box,
convey positive emotions, to sound smaller and build highlights the range in which voice pitch values overlap
social bonds, or some combination of these effects. across infant speech and speech produced by an adult
Although the details remain unclear, understanding how female using IDS.
these modifications impact infant development contin-
ues to ignite and steer ongoing research. Although voice pitch values can overlap across IDS and
infant speech, the vocal filter properties of infant speech
Infant-Directed Speech and Infant and IDS are more distinct. When an adult female raises
Speech: An Important Connection? her larynx and spreads her lips to shorten her vocal tract
As outlined in Vocal Resonance Properties of Infant- length, she will sound like a smaller person. Neverthe-
Directed Speech, there are different viewpoints less, a mother cannot shorten her vocal tract enough to
regarding what motivates the use of IDS. One idea to match the vocal tract length of her infant. Infant speech
emerge recently is that when mothers use IDS, they are has much higher vocal resonances, reflected in the for-
altering their speech to sound smaller and more like an mant frequencies uniquely associated with a talker with
infant. Although this is a new perspective on IDS, the act a very short vocal tract. This results in higher formant
of unconsciously adapting your speech to mirror or imi- frequency values for infant speech compared with adult
tate features of your conversational partner is not a new speech which are shown by a spectrogram of the vowel
observation. This has been noted and studied extensively "ee" produced by an infant and a female adult (Figure 4).
in adult speech communication and is often referred to These differences are also apparent in the vowel space
as phonetic convergence. Moreover, in adult-to-adult shown in Figure 2, where you can see that the corner

Figure 3. Typical average voice pitch (f0) values for speakers across the life span. Blue lines, observed range of values observed within each
group. Pink box, voice pitch range where infant and adult female IDS values overlap. Data from Masapollo et al., 2016, Table 1.

30 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

 and recognition performance (Polka et al., 2014). It seems
that infant speech sounds grab and hold infant attention in
ways that help babies recognize important speech catego-
ries. Overall, these findings suggest that vocal convergence
in IDS may play a broader role beyond social bonding.
Vocal convergence may also help the infant discover that
their own vocalizations are part of this vocal social space
and motivate them to explore and refine their vocal skills.

Infants’ attraction to infant speech sounds raises new ques-

Figure 4. Example spectrograms of “ee” vowels showing the tions. Are mothers instinctively aware of this bias? Does
formant patterns produced by an infant (left) and an adult this motivate them to sound more infant-like when using
female (right). IDS? Then again, maybe mothers are shaping this bias
by using vocal convergence? Is there an important con-
nection between IDS and infant speech that will help us
vowels found in infant speech are acoustically distinct understand how infants acquire spoken language? These
from those found in adult female ADS or IDS vowels. intriguing questions drive current research and promise
That being said, when mothers use IDS, they do their to shed new light on the role of IDS in infant development.
best to alter each component of speech to approximate
or converge with the properties of an infant talker. Multitasking with Infant-
Directed Speech
Notably, these changes in IDS align very well with what Although we have learned a great deal about the acoustic
infants like when it comes to speech. Infants not only properties of IDS and how it affects infant speech pro-
favor IDS, they also are attracted to infant speech. In cessing, we are just beginning to understand how IDS
listening preference tests, young infants listened longer to impacts infant development. As noted in Vocal Pitch and
vowels sounds produced by an infant over vowel sounds Rhythmic Properties of Infant-Directed Speech, Vocal
produced by a female adult (Masapollo et al., 2016). To Resonance Properties of Infant-Directed Speech, and
measure this, researchers created vowel sounds that Infant-Directed Speech and Infant Speech: An Impor-
simulate a 6-month-old talker using a special speech tant Connection?, a range of functions for IDS has been
synthesizer (examples are shown in Figure 4). This study proposed, including attracting and holding infant atten-
also showed that infants prefer each component of infant tion, highlighting and enhancing linguistic segments and
speech; infants prefer the high voice pitch of an infant structure, communicating emotion, strengthening infant/
and also the high-frequency vocal resonances produced caregiver social bonds, and stimulating vocal exploration
by a small-infant vocal tract. Importantly, this means that (Saint-Georges et al., 2013; Golinkoff et al., 2015).
infants have a distinct preference for infant talkers; they
are not simply favoring a high voice pitch that is known It is widely agreed that IDS is a powerful multitasking
to be an attractive property of IDS. tool that caregivers flexibly adapt to meet the moment-
to-moment needs of their infant. This adaptability is ideal
It was also noted in this study (Masapollo et al., 2016) that for meeting parent and infant needs but presents chal-
some infants vocalized and smiled more when they lis- lenges for scientific investigation. In specific contexts, the
tened to infant vowel sounds compared with adult vowel diverse functions shaping IDS are often intertwined in
sounds, suggesting that the strong attraction to infant complex ways (Saint-Georges et al., 2013). For example,
speech may stimulate and reward vocal exploration in modifications that communicate positive affects can
young infants. Another study (Polka et al., 2014) examined promote social bonding while also facilitating speech
the infants’ ability to recognize the same vowel when it is processing by enhancing attention.
produced by different talkers (e.g., man, woman, child, and
infant). Including infant vowel sounds in this task made it Moreover, these different functions are not equally
more challenging, but it also boosted infant listening times prominent in any given interaction or across all ages or

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 31

BABY TALK

developmental stages. For example, in IDS with young infants (Kaplan et al., 2001). Infants’ learning is affected
infants (<12 months), communicating emotion is often when maternal depression persists over an extended
more prominent than clarifying linguistic structures. In period (Kaplan et al., 2011). However, infants of depressed
IDS with older children (>12 months), the reverse occurs, mothers remain responsive to IDS from nondepressed
such that highlighting linguistic structure is often more fathers and the quality of IDS is soon improved when the
prominent than communicating emotion and building mother’s depression is lifted (Kaplan et al., 2004). On the
social bonds. No doubt, IDS is best understood in the con- infant side, the preference for IDS is absent or reduced
text of infant/caregiver interaction and when the needs of among children with autism spectrum disorder, presum-
the child and the intentions of the caregiver are identified. ably reflecting difficulties in processing the heightened
emotional content of IDS (Kuhl et al., 2005).
Contingency and Synchrony
Are Fundamental New Directions
IDS is recognized to be dynamic and actively shaped by Going forward, research is moving quickly to expand
both the infant and caregiver. Contingent and synchro- our knowledge of IDS. Although we have learned a great
nized responding between mother and infant is a core deal about the acoustic properties of IDS, we need to
feature of IDS. Although an IDS speaking style can be learn more about the speech movements that give rise
simulated by an adult, IDS production is facilitated by to IDS signals. This type of work is technically challeng-
the presence of a baby. The salience of caregiver respon- ing but critical for understanding exactly what caregivers
siveness is demonstrated by the finding that adults can are doing when they adapt their speech for their infant,
readily identify audio recordings of IDS recorded with especially with respect to vocal resonance properties.
and without an infant present (Trehub et al., 1997).
Future research will also continue to build a more com-
Saint-Georges and colleagues (2013) proposed that IDS plete understanding of the social, emotional, cognitive,
creates an interactive communication loop connecting and linguistic benefits of IDS for the developing child.
the infant and the caregiver in a synergistic way. This Research exploring the physiological responses of interact-
idea has motivated researchers to search for physi- ing caregivers and infants will play a central role by helping
ological markers of enhanced synchrony during IDS. us identify and understand the contingent and synchro-
Synchronous activity has been observed in heart rate nous processes that are mediated by IDS. Each new finding
and respiration measures (McFarland et al., 2019) and pushes our curiosity to a higher level. We are confident
gaze patterns (Santamaria et al., 2020) recorded during that IDS will hold the interest of infants, caregivers, and
parent/infant interactions where IDS is commonly used. scientists for a long time and can help us understand con-
ditions that compromise parent/infant connection and
The powerful role of dynamic social interaction is also identify new ways to optimize infant development.
reinforced by research showing that infants can readily
learn to discriminate consonants from a foreign language Acknowledgments
in a live interaction involving IDS but not from audio- We thank Claire Ying Ying Liu for preparing Figure 2
visual recordings (Kuhl et al., 2003). It is also intriguing and Sandra Trehub and the ManyBabies Consortium for
to consider how the musical quality of IDS (which is sharing infant-directed speech samples.
enhanced in infant-directed singing) shapes this parent-
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About the Authors

Linda Polka
[email protected]
School of Communication Sciences
and Disorders
Centre for Research on Brain,
Language, and Music
Faculty of Medicine and
Health Sciences
McGill University
2001 McGill College Avenue
Montréal, Quebec H3A 1G1, Canada
Linda Polka is professor and graduate program director
in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders,
McGill University (Montréal, QC, Canada) and director of the
McGill Infant Speech Perception Lab. She is also a fellow of
the Acoustical Society of America and was recently (2019)
chair of the Technical Committee for Speech Communica-
tion. Her work explores how infant speech perception is
shaped by universal biases and language experience in both
monolingual and bilingual infants. FOLLOW THE ASA ON
SOCIAL MEDIA!
Yufang Ruan
[email protected]
School of Communication Sciences
@acousticsorg
and Disorders
Centre for Research on Brain,
Language, and Music @acousticsorg
Faculty of Medicine
and Health Science
McGill University The Acoustical Society of America
2001 McGill College Avenue, Room 845
Montréal, Quebec H3A 1G1, Canada
AcousticalSociety
Yufang Ruan is a doctoral student in the Infant Speech
Perception Lab, McGill University (Montréal, QC, Canada).
Her research interests concern language development and AcousticalSocietyofAmerica
developmental disorders. She received her MSc from Beijing
Normal University (China) and her BA from Dalian University
acousticstoday.org/youtube
of Technology (China).

34 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

 FEATURED ARTICLE

Psychoacoustics of Tinnitus:
Lost in Translation
Christopher Spankovich, Sarah Faucette, Celia Escabi, and Edward Lobarinas

Tinnitus: What Is It? at more central segments of the pathway. These changes
Tinnitus is the perception of sound without an exter- include (1) an increase spontaneous neural activity of
nal source, often experienced as a constant or frequent excitatory neurons/neurotransmitters and a reciprocal
ringing, humming, or buzzing. Tinnitus is reported by decrease in activity of inhibitory neurons/neurotransmit-
more than 50 million people in the United States alone ters, resulting in central gain; (2) distortions in frequency
(Shargorodsky et al., 2010); conservatively 1 in 10 US representation as input to more central regions is
adults has tinnitus (Bhatt et al., 2016). It is estimated that restricted due to peripheral damage; and (3) nonauditory
20-25% of patients with tinnitus consider the symptoms pathway/structure recruitment, suggesting a multisensory
to be a significant problem (Seidman and Jacobson, 1996). and distributed brain network implicated in mediating
tinnitus perception and reaction. Simply stated, tinnitus
Various nomenclature has been applied to describe tinnitus, is the attempt of the brain to fill in the reduced peripheral
including terms such as subjective or objective tinnitus and input (Spankovich, 2019).
the more recent recommended terms primary and second-
ary tinnitus (Tunkel et al., 2014). Primary tinnitus refers to Perception Versus Reaction to Tinnitus
tinnitus that is idiopathic and may or may not be associated A critical distinction is the perception of tinnitus versus
with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL; hearing loss (HL) the reaction to tinnitus. The tinnitus percept or phantom
related to dysfunction of the inner ear and auditory nerve). sound itself has minimal repercussions for morbidity or
Secondary tinnitus refers to tinnitus that is associated with mortality. Conversely, the reaction or emotional response
a specific underlying cause other than SNHL or an identifi- to tinnitus can have a substantial effect on a person’s
able organic condition such as pulsatile tinnitus (heartbeat functional status (Jastreboff and Hazell, 1993). Almost
perception in ear). Our discussion here is focused on pri- everyone with tinnitus, whether bothersome or not, would
mary tinnitus, which is the more common variant. want the percept eliminated if possible (Tyler, 2012).

Causes of Tinnitus Clearly, tinnitus is not perceived as a positive experience.

The understanding of the physiological source of primary The onset of tinnitus perception does not generally evoke
tinnitus has significantly expanded over the past 30 years.
a feeling of improved health or well-being. For example,
Numerous portions of the auditory pathway and nonau- if you hear a grinding noise in your car engine one day,
ditory neural pathways have been implicated in tinnitus your first reaction is not positive in nature. The reaction to
perception and reaction. Still, the exact mechanisms tinnitus may further be influenced by events related to its
underlying tinnitus remain elusive. onset, where the tinnitus becomes a reminder of that expe-
rience (Fagelson, 2007). For example, a person with an
Contemporary research points to both peripheral and acoustic neuroma (tumor of the auditory-vestibular nerve)
central factors that underlie tinnitus. In other words, and its associated tinnitus may experience an enhanced
peripheral changes to the auditory part of the inner ear awareness to tinnitus changes and an exacerbated reac-
and auditory neural integrity, most commonly result- tion due to concern that it is a sign the tumor is growing
ing from noise exposure, ototoxic drugs, and age-related larger or more invasive. A soldier who has experienced
factors, result in compensatory changes/neural plasticity tinnitus during or following an active engagement may be

©2021 Acoustical Society of America. All rights reserved. Volume 17, issue 1 | Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 35
https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2021.17.1.35
PSYCHOACOUSTICS OF TINNITUS

reminded of that experience by the presence of the tinnitus,

reinforcing in their mind that they cannot escape the tin-
nitus nor escape or leave the past behind them.

Is There a Cure for Tinnitus?

Despite decades of research there is no “cure” for tinnitus.
Indeed, no medication or surgery can remove the tinnitus
perception from the brain. In the absence of a cure, medi-
cal interventions focus on mitigating the tinnitus reaction.
Treatment options generally include some form of counsel-
ing (e.g., education on the neuroscience of tinnitus) and use
of sound enrichment (e.g., hearing aids) to help diminish
the tinnitus perception and reaction (Tunkel et al., 2014).
Figure 1. Audiogram and tinnitus match. An audiogram is
The most common side effects of tinnitus are sleep dis- a graphical representation of hearing thresholds at different
turbances, concentration issues, loss of quiet/feeling of frequencies. The frequency of the signal is plotted against the
inability to escape the tinnitus, and emotional/stress-based level required for the patient to detect the sound stimulus. Gray
issues (Tyler and Baker, 1983). Although rare, tinnitus can bars, variable levels of hearing loss (HL). Levels less than 15 dB
result in suicidal ideation and suicide (Szibor et al., 2019). It HL are considered normal hearing and greater than 15 dB HL
is also common for persons with tinnitus to attribute their corresponds to escalating levels of HL severity. This tinnitus patient
hearing difficulties to their tinnitus perception (Henry et (right ear only) has normal low-frequency hearing, sloping to a
al., 2015). This is in general unsupported; tinnitus does high-frequency HL or a moderate level. Red T represents the pitch
not cause HL, but, rather, HL causes tinnitus. Nonetheless, and loudness match for the patient. In brief, this patient matched
tinnitus can affect concentration that can impact listening their tinnitus pitch at 4,000 Hz and loudness at 55 dB HL or 10
(Burns-O'Connell et al., 2019) and speech understanding dB sensation level to their threshold (45 dB HL).
with competing noise (Oosterloo et al., 2020).

Measuring Tinnitus in Humans to measure tinnitus that has translation between animal
There is currently no widely accepted or validated method models and humans would be most efficacious to empower
to identify the presence of primary tinnitus and quantifi- development of diagnostic and treatment approaches.
cation of its perceptual characteristics other than what is
reported by the patient. An objective measure of primary Recommendations for the psychophysical assessment
tinnitus by the clinician, a long-held goal, is complicated of tinnitus were postulated over 20 years ago by the
by the relationship among tinnitus, HL, and hyperacusis Ciba Foundation and the National Academy of Sciences.
(sound sensitivity related to increased central neural activ- Methods for administering the psychoacoustic battery for
ity compensating for reduced peripheral input) and a lack tinnitus assessment have been reviewed (Henry, 2016). To
of sensitivity and specificity from electrophysiological date, standardization of these procedures is still not rec-
measures or imaging studies. Developing objective mea- ognized; however, generalized clinical methods are briefly
sures of tinnitus has been challenging in studies in both described here.
human and animal.
Pitch match (PM) measures the patient’s perceived tin-
Then again, perhaps an objective measure to rule-in or rule- nitus pitch (perception of sound frequency) by matching
out the presence of tinnitus is not necessary. For example, the tinnitus to a specific frequency or range of frequencies.
the gold standard for assessment of hearing sensitivity is PM is typically measured, although crudely, using an audi-
the pure-tone audiogram (Figure 1), which indicates the ometer where two sounds are played, and the person with
lowest sound level a human or animal can detect at different tinnitus chooses the pitch closer to their tinnitus percept.
frequencies. The audiogram is, however, a psychophysical Most patients with peripheral hearing deficits match their
measure that is nonobjective in nature. Of course, a method tinnitus pitch at frequencies respective to their HL.

36 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

Loudness match (LM) measures the perceived loudness Tinnitus or No Tinnitus?
level of the tinnitus and is typically reported in sensa- In 2006, Jim Henry and colleagues at the National
tion level (SL), that is, the level relative to the individual’s Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research (NCRAR)
auditory threshold. LM is measured by presenting a tone in Portland, OR, described an automated system for the
or noise and asking the patient to indicate if the tone is psychoacoustic assessment of tinnitus. The system was
softer or louder than their tinnitus. The intensity of the a self-assessment tool using on-screen instructions that
tone is then adjusted until the patient reports the tone is allowed the individual with tinnitus to alter frequency
a comparable loudness to their tinnitus. and intensity parameters to match the psychoacoustic
attributes of their tinnitus percept.
To determine the ability of external sounds as a means of
tinnitus suppression (i.e., masking), the minimum masking In an interesting twist, the study design included a group
level (MML) is often assessed. The MML is the minimum of participants with comparable hearing status but that
level of external acoustic stimulation, typically a noise, did not report tinnitus, rather they were instructed to
needed to cover up the patient’s tinnitus perception. In this feign a tinnitus percept. Henry et al. (2006) reported
assessment, a low-level broadband noise (BBN) is presented significant differences in outcomes between the tinnitus
to the patient via an audiometer. The intensity of the noise and the no-tinnitus group. First, the loudness matches
is slowly raised until the patient reports they can no longer for the tinnitus group were two to four times greater
hear their tinnitus. This measure can be useful in prescrib- than the no-tinnitus group. Second, the PM was nearly
ing sound therapy-based recommendations to patients. an octave higher for the tinnitus group relative to the
no-tinnitus group. Reliability between sessions was not
Last, many patients report that tinnitus suppression may different for the LM, but the no-tinnitus group showed
persist after the masker has been turned off, a phenomenon greater variance for PM. The authors proposed develop-
known as residual inhibition (RI). RI is a measure of the ing a statistical method to determine the probability an
duration of patient-reported tinnitus suppression after a individual has tinnitus based on variance of the measures.
patient has been presented with masking noise. Noise is
presented at 10 dB above MML for 60 s. After the procedure, Perception Versus Reaction
the patient is asked if they experience any difference in their
An additional limitation of the psychophysical assessment
tinnitus. If their tinnitus is suppressed, the duration of sup-
of tinnitus is the lack of correlation to tinnitus reaction
pression is timed; this often only lasts for seconds to minutes.
or functional impact (Manning et al., 2019). Numerous
Use of this procedure is cautioned, however, because it can scales exist to measure tinnitus reaction (Meikle et al.,
exacerbate tinnitus in some patients. 2012). Although the relationship between measures of
tinnitus perception and reaction is weak, this does not
The use of these subjective tinnitus measurements is not eliminate their relative potential for determining the
ubiquitous among audiologists The reliability of such presence of tinnitus and identifying the affective and
measurements is often questioned, as is their purpose, functional impact, respectively. Finally, visual numeric
and none of these measurements are recommended in rating scales (NRS) and visual analog scales (VAS) to
the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and assess tinnitus loudness are additional methods to quan-
Neck Surgery (AAO-HNS) (Tunkel et al., 2014) nor the tify tinnitus perception. However, studies suggest that
US Department of Veterans Affairs (Henry and Manning, rather than correlating to loudness, these measures are
2019) clinical guidelines. At best, the tinnitus assessment more reflective of the tinnitus reaction (Hall et al., 2017).
serves to provide a quantification of a person’s tinni-
tus perception, which, in turn, may provide a tool in Measuring Tinnitus in Animals
counseling and considerations of sound-based therapy. Animal models of tinnitus are important for more inva-
Nonetheless, the tinnitus assessment does not necessarily sive measures to determine physiological changes related
differentiate persons with tinnitus and those feigning a to tinnitus perception and development of potential
tinnitus perception. Furthermore, the results of the tin- therapeutics. Early animal studies (Jastreboff et al., 1988)
nitus assessment described have limited correlation with used high doses of sodium salicylate, the active ingre-
tinnitus reaction (Manning et al., 2019). dient in aspirin, to induce transient tinnitus. Aspirin at

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 37

PSYCHOACOUSTICS OF TINNITUS

high doses has been shown to reliably induce tinnitus in rats were conditioned to associate a mild but unavoidable
humans but is also usually reversible and again limited foot shock that occurred after a continuous sound was
to high doses; a baby aspirin is unlikely to cause tinnitus. turned off. This resulted in suppressed licking from a water
spout in preparation of the imminent shock. Following
Given that tinnitus is a phantom auditory perception, conditioning, rats in the experimental group were given a
how can it be measured in animals? The simple answer high dose of sodium salicylate, whereas the control group
is that patients cannot perceive quiet while tinnitus is received a placebo. During this phase, the foot shock was
present, and neither can animals. Across studies, animals eliminated but the sound conditions remained. Rats in
are trained to exhibit one set of behaviors (e.g., pressing the control group continued to suppress licking when
levers, moving from one side of the chamber to another, the sound was turned off because the lack of sound was
climbing a pole) when there is no sound in the environ- associated with foot shock. In contrast, rats treated with
ment and another set of behaviors when sound is on in sodium salicylate continued to lick even when the sound
order to obtain food or avoid punishment. Among the was turned off. Simply put, the animals could not tell that
animal models (Brozoski and Bauer, 2016), the most the sound was turned off (presumably due to presence of
common approach is to have animals (usually rodents) tinnitus) and continued to lick from the waterspout.
detect a gap in a continuous sound. When tinnitus is
present, animals make more errors detecting gaps in A number of subsequent animal models have shown
continuous sound, especially if the frequency of the con- results consistent with the presence of tinnitus and consis-
tinuous sound is similar in pitch to their tinnitus. tent with Jastreboff ’s lick suppression model (Eggermont
and Roberts 2015). Other models have used either avoid-
Several of these animal studies have shown that the pat- able shock or positive reinforcement with food whereby
tern of results supports the presence of tinnitus after high animals have to differentiate between trials with sound
doses of sodium salicylate, quinine (an antimalarial drug and trials with no sound. Although interrogative assess-
known to induce tinnitus in humans), and noise expo- ments in animal models are crucial for investigating
sure. Importantly, the pitch of the tinnitus is consistent perceptual correlates of tinnitus, it is important to note the
with the adjusted frequency range (relative to peripheral considerable challenges in interrogative models because
HL) reported in humans. behavioral conditioning requires lengthy and consistent
training schedules (Brozoski and Bauer, 2016), and even
To effectively test animals for the presence of tinnitus, then, some animals may not respond as expected due to
several fundamental features are necessary for rigorous inability to do the task or lack of motivation.
investigation. These include the use of well-established
behavioral response paradigms for determining the phan- Given the challenges associated with interrogative
tom sound of tinnitus, known and reliable inducers of models, reflexive models for tinnitus assessment have
tinnitus, and/or reliable physiological responses consistent been widely used for determining the presence of tin-
with the presence of tinnitus. Psychophysical assessment of nitus. The acoustic startle reflex (ASR) is a large-motor
tinnitus is typically categorized either as an interrogative response akin to a jumping/jolt-like response that can be
model, which evaluates changes in behavioral outcomes as readily elicited in rodents using a loud startling acoustic
a function of tinnitus, or as a reflexive model, which assess stimulus. The ASR can be easily measured in rodents
changes in automatic, lower-order processing responses using pressure sensitive platforms to record the ampli-
consistent with the perception of a phantom sound. tude and duration of the reflex (Turner et al., 2006).

Interrogative models require that the animal voluntarily Interestingly, the ASR can be attenuated by presenting an
respond to the acoustic environment indicating the pres- acoustic cue before the startling acoustic stimulus. For
ence of silence or the presence of an auditory stimulus. example, a 50-ms tone before the loud startling stimulus
Early preclinical behavioral measures of tinnitus used will result in a reduction in the ASR. Because of the com-
interrogative methods, operant conditioning, and response pressed time frame, the changes in the ASR are believed
suppression to detect and characterize the presence of tin- to involve rapid lower level auditory processing before
nitus (Jastreboff et al., 1988). In the first animal model, the startle elicitor; in other words, the animal did not

38 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

need to think it over before startling. For the purposes It is also worth noting that these animal models of tin-
of assessing tinnitus, a continuous sound is played in the nitus all focus on the perception; no animal models of the
background and a brief gap is presented before the loud affective/emotional reaction to tinnitus are well accepted.
startling stimulus, called gap prepule inhibition of an Here we will consider two tinnitus-related phenomena
acoustic startle (GPIAS). However, if tinnitus is present that have been lost in translation between animals and
and the background continuous sound is similar in pitch humans: (1) tinnitus filling in a silent gap and (2) how
to the tinnitus, the animals will be unable to reliably detect peripheral hearing damage creates tinnitus.
the gap and there will be no reduction or smaller reduc-
tions in the ASR. This paradigm can be used to assess both Tinnitus “Filling in the Gap”
the presence of tinnitus as well as the frequency range of The application of gap detection and suppression of a
the tinnitus. For example, Lobarinas et al. (2015) dem- startle reflex has become a common high-throughput
onstrated that rats with evidence of noise-related tinnitus model of tinnitus assessment in animals. In simple terms,
based on the ASR showed an improved startle response the paradigm suggests that the presence of tinnitus dis-
(i.e., less tinnitus filling gap) when treated with the drug rupts the ability of the animal to detect the silent gap, and
cyclobenzaprine (a tricyclic antidepressant). thus the startle response is less suppressed. Attempts to
translate this measure to humans has been less promising.
Reflexive models such as the GPIAS have the main advan-
tage of precluding overt and long behavioral training. For example, Fournier and Hebert (2013) used a GPIAS
However, these models are not without their limitations, model measuring reflexive eye blink activity in participants
such as habituation of the ASR (Lobarinas et al., 2013a) with tinnitus compared with controls. They observed that
and loss of reactivity to loud startling stimuli following participants with tinnitus had decreased inhibition of eye
unilateral HL. Although these drawbacks have called the blink activity when it was preceded by a silent gap in noise
widespread use of the GPIAS into question, it remains compared with control participants. Nonetheless, despite
the most popular paradigm used in preclinical models of all tinnitus participants reporting high-pitch ringing tin-
tinnitus. One way to overcome one of the limitations of nitus, the decreased inhibition was found for both low- and
the GPIAS is to elicit the startling response with a tactile high-frequency noise stimuli. In other words, the decreased
stimulus. Thus, an acoustic stimulus can be used to cue the inhibition was not limited to gaps in noise reflective of the
imminent startling stimulus without concerns of the effi- tinnitus perception (high frequency). The findings contra-
cacy of an acoustic startle elicitor. Lobarinas et al. (2013a) dicted the assertation that tinnitus is simply filling in the
demonstrated success using an air puff to the animal’s back gap and frequency-specific deficits observed in some animal
to elicit a robust startle response. Cuing the air puff with models but did show altered ASR of eye blinking.
an acoustic stimulus reduced the startle response to the
air puff. Using a tactile stimulus such as the air puff has In the same year, Campolo et al. (2013) performed a simi-
allowed the model to be used to study unilateral and bilat- lar study of tinnitus filling in the gap but alternatively
eral tinnitus as well as other auditory phenomena such focused on perception of a silent gap than on an effect on
as hearing in noise and suprathreshold deficits associated an ASR. Applying methods comparable to animal experi-
with subclinical HL (Lobarinas et al., 2017). ments (50-ms silent intervals in varying noise bands),
they observed no deficits in detecting the silent gap in
Lost in Translation persons with or without tinnitus. Similar findings were
Animal and human findings relative to tinnitus often reported by Boyen et al. (2015), including no difference
have conflicting results. For example, the idea that in detecting shorter gap durations.
tinnitus fills in perception of a silent gap works in
animals but is not so clear that it does so in humans. The difference in findings of these studies may be explained
Continued improvements in animal models will make by different neural circuits underlying reflexive responses
it possible to evaluate physiological correlates and and behavioral-/perception-based responses. Fournier and
basic mechanisms under controlled tinnitus-inducing Hebert (2013) were relying on a startle reflex (eye blink)
conditions as well as to evaluate hypotheses generated compared with a conscious perception of a sound (or silent
from studying human participants. gap) as in Campolo et al. (2013) and Boyen et al. (2015).

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 39

PSYCHOACOUSTICS OF TINNITUS

Loss of Tuning not perceive tinnitus even with severe IHC loss. Thus, IHC
One of the earliest proposed theories of tinnitus initia- damage alone does not seem sufficient to generate tinnitus
tion was the discordant damage theory. According to this and support the discordant dysfunction theory of tinnitus
theory (an extension of theories proposed by Tonndorf or a combination of OHC and IHC/synapse injury at play.
1981a,b), the outer hair cells (OHCs) of the mammalian
cochlea are more prone to damage than the inner hair cells Changes to psychophysical tuning curves may offer
(IHCs), resulting in imbalanced activity via type I and type insight into differentiating OHC vs. IHC/synaptic contri-
II afferent fibers that, respectively, carry signals from the butions to the onset of tinnitus but are currently limited
ear to the dorsal cochlear nucleus (DCN), the first audi- to humans in regard to tinnitus effects. A psychophysical
tory center in the brain. The alteration of input to the DCN tuning curve is a method that can be used to generate
results in loss of inhibition and compensatory mechanisms comparable data to the physiological frequency threshold
at more central sites, including bursting neural activity, curve for a single auditory nerve fiber. A narrowband
mapping reorganization, decreased inhibition, and central noise of variable center frequency is used as a masker,
gain mentioned in Tinnitus: What Is It?. and a fixed frequency and fixed-level pure tone at about
20 dB HL is commonly the target. The level of masker is
Kaltenbach and Afman (2000) showed that significant found that just masks the tone for different masker fre-
IHC damage can prevent the onset of hyperactivity in quencies. With OHC damage, the tuning curve becomes
the DCN. Tonndorf ’s (1981) original model suggested a flattened and less sharp due to loss of sensitivity.
decoupling of stereocilia (the hair-like projections from
the cell) between the OHCs and the tectorial membrane For example, Tan et al. (2013) examined psychophysical
(a membrane floating above the hair cells) that leads to tuning curves in persons with HL and tinnitus and in per-
loss of energy and increased noise at the level of the hair sons with HL and no tinnitus. Both groups were compared
cell underlying tinnitus generation. Tonndorf ’s follow-up with a reference group of persons with normal hearing.
theory (1987) suggested that tinnitus was equivalent to The normal-hearing group showed expected patterns of
chronic pain in the somatosensory system and a result low thresholds and sharp tuning curves; these patterns are
of preferential damage to the OHCs and established an thought to reflect the nonlinearity of the OHCs. Interest-
analogy of tinnitus to chronic pain. ingly, the HL group with tinnitus showed better thresholds,
greater residual compression, and better tuning than the
In contrast to the discordant damage theory, cochlear no-tinnitus group in the midfrequency range. This was
insults that commonly lead to chronic tinnitus in humans likely reflective of the greater high-frequency HL of the
have been found to produce a long-term decrease in the tinnitus group relative to the no-tinnitus group that had
auditory neuronal spontaneous activity (Liberman and a wider array of patterns. Thus, the finding could simply
Dodds, 1984). Tinnitus is strongly correlated with HL reflect differences in hearing thresholds; however, after
and cochlear damage as a result of ototoxicity or noise matching participants based on HL, the pattern persisted.
exposure. Specifically, IHC/synaptic loss has been specu- Tan et al. suggested that the findings may be explained by
lated to produce tinnitus. the tinnitus group having residual OHC function and a
preferential loss of IHCs or afferents.
To explore this relationship, a behavioral gap detection
task was used to determine the presence of tinnitus in a The difference in the animal model of widespread loss of
chinchilla model with selective IHC loss following adminis- IHCs and lack of tinnitus evidence compared with psy-
tration of carboplatin. Carboplatin is an ototoxic anticancer choacoustic tuning curves in humans implicating IHCs/
drug known to cause significant IHC loss (>80% loss) while synapse may also be explained by the discordant damage
leaving OHCs largely intact (<5% loss) in the chinchilla, theory. The carboplatin model creates a pure loss of
an effect unique to the chinchilla model (Lobarinas et al., IHCs/synapses without damage to OHCs. Still, humans
2013b). Preliminary data showed overall poorer gap detec- may still have some level of damage to their OHCs not
tion performance when tested at lower presentation levels, reflected in their tuning curves. In other words, it would
but the findings were not frequency specific. The absence of be parsimonious to suggest that there is likely a ratio of
frequency-specific deficits suggested that these animals did damage to both hair cell types involved and necessary

40 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

to generate tinnitus perception. Currently, animal-based Brozoski, T. J., and Bauer, C. A. (2016). Animal models of tinnitus.
versions of psychophysical tuning curves are lacking. Hearing Research 338, 88-97.
Burns-O’Connell, G., Stockdale, D., and Hoare, D. J. (2019). Soldier-
Development of this paradigm in preclinical models ing on: a survey on the lived experience of tinnitus in aged military
would provide an opportunity to further advance tin- veterans in the UK. Medical Humanitarian 45(4), 408-415.
Campolo, J., Lobarinas, E., and Salvi, R. (2013). Does tinnitus "fill in"
nitus research and enhance translation.
the silent gaps? Noise and Health 15(67), 398-405.
Eggermont, J. J., and Roberts, L. E. (2015). Tinnitus: Animal models
Challenge to Psychoacousticians and findings in humans. Cell Tissue Research 361(1), 311-336.
Fagelson, M. A. (2007). The association between tinnitus and posttrau-
Psychophysical measures of tinnitus are numerous. In matic stress disorder. American Journal of Audiology 16(2), 107-117.
general, these measures have been applied to match Fournier, P., and Hebert, S. (2013). Gap detection deficits in humans
attributes of tinnitus, determine the affective impact of with tinnitus as assessed with the acoustic startle paradigm: Does
tinnitus fill in the gap? Hearing Research 295, 16-23.
tinnitus, and identify the site of lesion and subtyping of Hall, D. A., Mehta, R. L., and Fackrell, K. (2017). How to choose
tinnitus physiological origin. It is apparent that most psy- between measures of tinnitus loudness for clinical research? A report
choacoustic measures such as PM, LM, and MML do on the reliability and validity of an investigator-administered test and
a patientreported measure using baseline data collected in a phase
not reliably correlate with measures of tinnitus reaction. IIa drug trial. American Journal of Audiology 26(3), 338-346.
The use of numerical rating scales, visual analog scales, Henry, J. A. (2016). “Measurement” of tinnitus. Otology and Neurotol-
and questionnaires on affective elements appear to best ogy 37(8), e276-e285.
Henry, J. A., and Manning, C. (2019). Clinical protocol to promote
capture elements of tinnitus reaction. standardization of basic tinnitus services by audiologists. American
Journal of Audiology 28(1S), 152-161.
Henry, J. A., Griest, S., Zaugg, T. L., Thielman, E., Kaelin, C., Galvez,
Tools to assess affective elements have been established G., and Carlson, K.F. (2015). Tinnitus and hearing survey: a screen-
in humans but represent a challenge for animal models. ing tool to differentiate bothersome tinnitus from hearing difficulties.
The important question is, do animals experience tin- American Journal of Audiology 24(1), 66-77.
Henry, J. A., Rheinsburg, B., Owens, K. K., and Ellingson, R. M.
nitus related distress? From clinical data, the majority of (2006). New instrumentation for automated tinnitus psychoacous-
individuals who experience tinnitus are not disabled by tic assessment. Acta Oto-Laryngologica 126(Suppl. 556), 34-38.
it. It is thus reasonable to expect only a minority of ani- Jastreboff, P. J., and Hazell, J. W. (1993). A neurophysiological approach to
tinnitus: clinical implications. British Journal of Audiology 27(1), 7-17.
mals will be debilitated by tinnitus. To address this issue, Jastreboff, P. J., Brennan, J. F., and Sasaki, C. T. (1988). An animal
a large number of animals would be needed in studies model for tinnitus. Laryngoscope 98(3), 280-286.
of tinnitus-related distress, with careful consideration of Kaltenbach, J. A., and Afman, C. E. (2000). Hyperactivity in the dorsal
cochlear nucleus after intense sound exposure and its resemblance
confounding variables (e.g., housing, animal handling). to tone-evoked activity: A physiological model for tinnitus. Hearing
Research 140(1-2), 165-172.
The overarching question, given the state of the science, is Liberman, M. C., and Dodds, L. W. (1984). Single-neuron labeling and
chronic cochlear pathology. II. Stereocilia damage and alterations
how can we use principles from psychophysics to identify of spontaneous discharge rates. Hearing Research 16(1), 43-53.
one or several measures of tinnitus using perceptual attri- Lobarinas, E., Blair, C., Spankovich, C., and Le Prell, C. (2015). Par-
tial to complete suppression of unilateral noise-induced tinnitus in
butes of tinnitus that can differentiate individuals who rats after cyclobenzaprine treatment. Journal of the Association of
actually experience tinnitus from persons with reported Research in Otolaryngology 16(2), 263-272.
tinnitus but no actual tinnitus perception? Furthermore, Lobarinas, E., Hayes, S. H., and Allman, B. L. (2013a). The gap-startle
paradigm for tinnitus screening in animal models: Limitations and
how can we use psychophysical experiments to better optimization. Hearing Research 295, 150-160.
inform our understanding of the tinnitus neurophysi- Lobarinas, E., Salvi, R., and Ding, D. (2013b). Insensitivity of the
ology. With improved models, further progress can be audiogram to carboplatin induced inner hair cell loss in chinchillas.
Hearing Research 302, 113-120.
attained to lead to novel therapeutics for the manage- Lobarinas, E., Spankovich, C., and Le Prell, C. G. (2017). Evidence of “hidden
ment of tinnitus. hearing loss” following noise exposures that produce robust TTS and ABR
wave-I amplitude reductions. Hearing Research 349, 155-163.
Manning, C., Thielman, E. J., Grush, L., and Henry, J. A. (2019). Per-
References ception versus reaction: Comparison of tinnitus psychoacoustic
Bhatt, J. M., Lin, H. W., and Bhattacharyya, N. (2016). Prevalence, measures and tinnitus functional index scores. American Journal of
Severity, Exposures, and Treatment Patterns of Tinnitus in the Audiology 28(1S), 174-180.
United States. Journal of the American Medical Association Otolar- Meikle, M. B., Henry, J. A., Griest, S. E., Stewart, B. J., Abrams, H. B.,
yngology-Head & Neck Surgery 142(10), 959-965. McArdle, R., Myers, P. J., Newman, C. W., Sandridge, S., Turk, D. C.,
Boyen, K., Baskent, D., and van Dijk, P. (2015). The gap detec- and Folmer, R. L. (2012). The tinnitus functional index: Develop-
tion test: Can it be used to diagnose tinnitus, Ear and Hearing ment of a new clinical measure for chronic, intrusive tinnitus. Ear
36(4), 138-145. and Hearing 33(2), 153-176.

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 41

PSYCHOACOUSTICS OF TINNITUS

Oosterloo, B. C., Homans, N. C., and Goedegebure, A. (2020). Tin-

nitus affects speech in noise comprehension in individuals with Sarah Faucette
hearing loss. Otology & Neurotology 41(9), e1074-e1081. [email protected]
Seidman, M. D., and Jacobson, G. P. (1996). Update on tinnitus. Oto-
laryngology Clinics of North America 29(3), 455-465. Department of Otolaryngology —
Shargorodsky, J., Curhan, G. C., and Farwell, W. R. (2010). Prevalence Head and Neck Surgery
and characteristics of tinnitus among US adults. American Journal University of Mississippi Medical Center
of Medicine 123(8), 711-718. Jackson, Mississippi 39216, USA
Spankovich, C. (2019). Tinnitus and Sound Sensitivity 3rd ed. In J. A. Galster
Sarah Faucette earned both her PhD in
(Ed.),: Audiology Treatment Thieme. New York, NY,, pp. 328-355.
communication sciences and disorders and her AuD from East
Szibor, A., Makitie, A., and Aarnisalo, A. A. (2019). Tinnitus and
suicide: An unresolved relation. Audiology Research 9(1), 222. Carolina University (Greenville, NC). She is an assistant profes-
Tan, C. M., Lecluyse, W., McFerran, D., and Meddis, R. (2013). Tinni- sor of audiology in the Department of Otolaryngology — Head
tus and patterns of hearing loss. Journal of the Association of Research and Neck Surgery, University of Mississippi Medical Center
in Otolaryngology 14(2), 275-282. (Jackson). She also has an appointment in the Memory Impair-
Tonndorf, J. (1981a). Stereociliary dysfunction, a case of sensory hear- ment and Neurodegenerative Dementia (MIND) Center, where
ing loss, recruitment, poor speech discrimination and tinnitus. Acta she is the lead research audiologist for the Aging and Cogni-
Oto-Laryngologica 91(5-6), 469-479. tive Health Evaluation in Elders (ACHIEVE) trial. Her research
Tonndorf, J. (1981b). Tinnitus and physiological correlates of the interests include amplification, tinnitus, and hearing loss in the
cochleo-vestibular system: Peripheral; central. Journal of Laryngol- aging population.
ogy Otology Supplement 4, 18-20.
Tonndorf, J. (1987). The analogy between tinnitus and pain: A sugges-
tion for a physiological basis of chronic tinnitus. Hearing Research Celia D. Escabi
28(2-3), 271-275. [email protected]
Tunkel, D. E., Bauer, C. A., Sun, G. H., Rosenfeld, R. M., Chan-
drasekhar, S. S., Cunningham, E. R., Jr., Archer, S. M., Blakley, B. School of Behavioral and
W., Carter, J. M., Granieri, E. C., and Henry, J. A. (2014). Clinical Brain Sciences
practice guideline: Tinnitus. Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery University of Texas at Dallas
151(Suppl. 2), S1-S40. Dallas, Texas 75235, USA
Turner, J. G., Brozoski, T. J., Bauer, C. A., Parrish, J. L., Myers, K., Celia D. Escabi earned both her
Hughes, L. F., and Caspary, D. M. (2006). Gap detection deficits bachelor’s degree and AuD from the University of South
in rats with tinnitus: A potential novel screening tool. Behavioral
Florida (Tampa). She is currently pursuing a PhD in hear-
Neuroscience 120(1), 188-195.
ing science at the University of Texas at Dallas. Celia is a
Tyler, R. S. (2012). Patient preferences and willingness to pay for tin-
certified and licensed audiologist for the state of Texas
nitus treatments. Journal of the American Academy of Audiology
23(2), 115-125. and works as a research audiologist under her research
Tyler, R. S., and Baker, L. J. (1983). Difficulties experienced by tinnitus mentors Colleen Le Prell and Edward Lobarinas. Her cur-
sufferers. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders 48(2), 150-154. rent research goals include advancing her basic science
skills and bridging them together with her clinical experi-
ences. Celia’s primary research interests include auditory
About the Authors cognitive neuroscience and pharmacological interventions
for acquired auditory disorders.

Christopher Spankovich
[email protected] Edward Lobarinas
Department of Otolaryngology — [email protected]
Head and Neck Surgery School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences
University of Mississippi Medical Center University of Texas at Dallas
Jackson, Mississippi 39216, USA Dallas, Texas 75235, USA
Christopher Spankovich is an associate Edward Lobarinas earned a bachelor’s
professor and vice chair of research in the Department of Oto- degree from Rutgers University (New
laryngology — Head and Neck Surgery, University of Mississippi Brunswick, NJ) and a master’s degree and PhD from the State
Medical Center (Jackson). He obtained his MPH from Emory University of New York at Buffalo. He has had faculty appoint-
University (Atlanta, GA), AuD from Rush University (Chicago, ments in audiology programs at the University at Buffalo, the
IL), and PhD from Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN). He is a University of Florida (Gainesville), and the University of Texas
clinician-scientist with a translational research program focused at Dallas. He is trained as a clinical audiologist and a basic
on the prevention of acquired forms of hearing loss, tinnitus, researcher. His research interests include tinnitus, tinnitus treat-
and sound sensitivity. He continues to practice clinically, with a ments, perceptual changes associated with the selective loss of
special interest in tinnitus, sound sensitivity, ototoxicity, hearing inner hair cells, and machine learning applications for assistive
conservation, and advanced diagnostics. He serves as an associ- listening devices. His work has been funded by the National
ate editor for the International Journal of Audiology. Institutes of Health, private foundations, and industry.

42 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

 FEATURED ARTICLE

One Singer, Two Voices

Johan Sundberg, Björn Lindblom, and Anna-Maria Hefele

Introduction: Rendering Melodies of air below the vocal folds; (2) vocal fold vibration, quasi-
with Overtones periodically chopping airflow from the subglottal region;
A single singer but two voices? Experience that situa- and (3) filtering of the acoustic signal of this pulsatile airflow.
tion by visiting world-voice-day.org/EDU/Movies and
check the second movie with the title “Sehnsucht nach The overpressure of air below the folds throws them apart,
dem Frühlinge (Mozart) — Anna-Maria Hefele (AMH). thus allowing air to pass through the slit between them.
There, coauthor AMH sings a song by Mozart, first with Then, aerodynamic conditions reduce the air pressure
her singing voice and then with two simultaneous voices, along the folds, which, together with the elasticity of their
a drone (a low-pitched, continuously sounding tone) plus tissue, closes the slit. The same pattern is then repeated,
a whistle-like high-pitched tone that renders the melody. thus generating vocal fold vibration.
How is this possible? That is the question that we pose
here. Let us start by recalling how sounds are created by The vibration generates a pulsatile airflow as seen in Figure
the instrument AMH is playing, the human voice. 2A, producing sound, the voice source. The pitch is deter-
mined by the vibration frequency, whereas the waveform
Vocal Sound Generation is far from sinusoidal. Hence, this airflow signal is com-
Figure 1 shows a frame from the movie mentioned above. posed of a number of harmonic partials. In other words,
It shows a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with the the frequency of a partial number (n) = n × fo, where fo is
various parts of the voice organ labeled. Voice production the frequency of the lowest partial, the fundamental or
is the summed result of three processes: (1) compression vibration frequency. The amplitudes of the partials tend
to decrease with their frequency; the amplitude of n tends
to be something like 12 dB stronger than the amplitude of
Figure 1. Magnetic resonance (MR) image of Anna-Maria n × 2. The spectrum envelope of the voice source is rather
Hefele’s (AMH’s) head and throat, taken from the video where smooth and has a negative slope as seen in Figure 2B.
she performs a Mozart melody in overtone singing technique.
The voice source is injected into the vocal tract (VT),
which is a resonator. Hence it possesses resonances at
certain frequencies. Partials with frequencies close to a
VT resonance frequency are enhanced and partials fur-
ther away are attenuated (see Figure 2C). Therefore, the
spectrum envelope of the sound radiated from the lip
opening (Figure 2A) contains peaks at the VT resonance
frequencies and valleys in-between them. In this sense,
the VT resonances form the spectrum envelope of the
sound emitted to the free air. Probably for this reason, VT
resonances are frequently referred to as formants.

The frequencies of the formants are determined by the

shape of the resonator composed of the pharynx and the
mouth cavities, the VT. For example, the VT length has

©2021 Acoustical Society of America. All rights reserved. Volume 17, issue 1 | Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 43
https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2021.17.1.43
ONE SINGER, TWO VOICES

pharynx to the hard palate. Also, the jaw and lip open-
ings contribute to determining the VT shape. As a result,
the formant frequencies can be varied within quite wide
ranges: the first formant between about 150 and 1,000 Hz,
the second from about 500 and 3,000 Hz, and the third
from about 1,500 Hz and 4,000 Hz.

Overtone Singing
What is overtone singing, then? The term covers several
different styles. Overtone singing was described as early
as the nineteenth century by a famous singing teacher
Manuel Garcia (Wendler, 1991) and has attracted the
interest of several researchers. Smith and colleagues
(1967) described “throat singing,” a type of chant per-
formed by Tibetan Lamas, (see, e.g., s.si.edu/37QCSOZ).
It is produced by males with special types of vocal fold
vibrations, referred to as vocal fry register. Its pitch is
stable and very low and is produced by a vocal fold
vibration pattern in which every second or third airflow
pulse is attenuated. Consequently, the pitch period of this
drone is doubled or tripled. A similar type of phonation
often occurs in phrase endings in conversational speech
but is then typically aperiodic. In throat singing, two
Figure 2. A and B: typical waveform and spectrum, of the overtones are quite strong, and audible, thereby
respectively, of the glottal airflow during phonation. C and together giving the impression of a “chord.” Throat sing-
D: vocal tract transfer function for the vowel /ae/ and the ing is regarded as sacred in some Asian cultures.
corresponding radiated spectrum, respectively.
The overtone singing demonstrated by AMH in the above
link can be produced by both females and males. How-
a strong effect on these frequencies and protruding the ever, the fundamental frequency of the drone is not as
lips makes the VT longer, thus lowering the formant fre- low as in throat singing. In AMH’s case, it is in the range
quencies. The shape of the VT can be varied within wide typical of female speaking voices. The melody is played
limits. Moreover, by bulging the tongue more or less and in a much higher pitch range by very strong overtones.
in various directions, the VT can be narrowed or widened Figure 3 shows some examples where overtones number
in almost any place along its length axis from the deep 9, 7, and 4 are the strongest in the spectrum.

Figure 3. Examples of spectra produced in overtone singing by AMH. FE, frequency of the enhanced overtone.

44 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

In everyday listening, overtones are not perceived indi-
vidually. Instead, the patterning of their amplitudes,
determined by the resonance characteristics of the VT,
collectively contributes to what our auditory system per-
ceives as the “timbre” or vocal “color” of what is sung or
spoken. The reason why overtones normally escape us is
linked to the way our hearing works. It processes spectral
contents by averaging the information in broad frequency
bands, the so-called critical bands (Moore, 2012).

Characteristics of Overtone Singing

Against this background, we may be forgiven for finding
overtone singing a rather puzzling phenomenon. Here we
present an attempt to shed some light on its phonatory, Figure 4. Schematic illustration of singer AMH’s overtone
articulatory, and acoustic bases. singing performance of a Mozart song. A: the musical score.
B: partials used for the melody tones (red lines) and for the
We begin with a sample from AMH’s rendering of the drone (blue and black lines). C: wideband spectrogram of
Mozart melody. Figure 4A presents the first few bars of the performance.
the beginning of Mozart’s theme in musical notation. Let
us take a moment to consider what it would take to sing
this sequence using overtones? However, in the third bar in Figure 4A with chord tones
C E G Bb, the pitch G appears. The series just mentioned
Figure 4 gives an answer in-principle. The format of the does not provide an equally convenient choice for that note.
musical score is used to indicate the timing and pitch of Looking ahead to AMH’s performance (Figure 4B), we see
each overtone. Along the frequency scale, the first eight how she handles the situation: She lowers the fundamental
harmonics are drawn at equidistant intervals. Hypotheti- of the drone so as to produce an overtone whose relation-
cally, let us suppose that the singer selects a fundamental ship to 1,200 Hz is that of a major second or about 1,125 Hz!
frequency near 300 Hz for the drone. That implies a Our harmonic score includes that approach as illustrated
“keyboard” of the following frequencies of the first eight by a shift in the fundamental and harmonics of the drone.
overtones: #2, 600 Hz; #3, 900 Hz; #4,1,200 Hz; #5,1,500;
#6, 1,800 Hz; #7, 2,100 Hz; and #8, 2,400 Hz. Figure 4C shows real data, a spectrogram of one of
AMH’s overtone singing versions of the song. To enhance
Note the following ratios: (1) 1,500/1,200 = 1.25; (2) the display of the overtones, we show a wideband filter-
1,800/1,200 = 1.5; (3) 2,400/1,200 = 2. Relative to the first ing that portrays the overtones as dark patches. To help
note at 1,200 Hz, the ratios correspond to a major third, a interpret their positions, we added black short lines that
perfect fifth, and an octave, respectively. Those intervals are indicate the expected frequency values on the assump-
the ones needed to produce the notes of the first two bars. tion that the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th harmonics of a 300-Hz
fundamental serve as the melodic building blocks.
For readers who find that result just a little too convenient,
we should point out that it is no accident. Our musical We note that these predictions parallel AMH’s overtones
scales and their intervals bear a very close evolutionary rather well. However, the black marks slightly underesti-
relationship to the physical structure of periodic sounds. mate the observed values. Why? AMH used a fundamental
Such sounds are constituted by the partials, the frequen- frequency slightly lower than our hypothetical 300 Hz.
cies of which form a harmonic series (Gill and Purves,
2009). This implies that the musical intervals octave, fifth, This example illustrates the fact that overtone singing
fourth, major third, and minor third appear between the derives from the lawful way in which the harmonics
six lowest spectrum partials. Hence, it is possible to play are organized in periodic sounds. Overtone singers are
melodies with the partials of a constant drone tone. able to exploit this patterning. They have developed a

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 45

ONE SINGER, TWO VOICES

way of selecting and amplifying the harmonics and have with the standard source-filter model (Fant, 1960). This
refined their VT motor skills to be able, with great pre- theory treats the envelope as the sum of formant curves
cision in time and frequency, to produce harmonics as and the constant contributions of source and radiation
melodic sequences. Next, we test the hypotheses that (1) characteristics, which are not shown in Figure 5. The
enhancing and selecting a single partial is the result of bandwidths are secondary aspects, being determined
VT shapes producing clustering of formants; and (2) that mainly by the frequencies of the formants (Fant, 1972).
overtone singing is produced with a regular sound source.
In Figure 5, F1 was fixed at 600 Hz while F2 was varied.
Acoustic Theory When F1 and F2 approach almost identical frequencies
Enhancing Single Harmonics (Figure 5, right), creating, as it were, a double formant,
How can formants produce the excessive amplitudes of their individual peaks merge into a single maximum,
the single overtones illustrated in Figure 3? Mathemati- with a significant increase in the amplitude of the clos-
cally, the spectral envelope, the function determining the est partial. In other words, acoustic theory states that
amplitudes of the overtones, is the sum of formant reso- formant amplitudes are predictable and thus suggests an
nance curves (which vary with changes in VT shape) and answer to the question asked in the first sentence of this
certain factors such as glottal source and radiation char- section. Enhancing the amplitude of individual overtones
acteristics (which do not depend on articulatory activity). is possible: Move two formants close to each other in fre-
The only input to the calculation is the frequencies and quency. Create a double formant!
bandwidths of the formants. The latter factor generally
varies with the former factor in a predictable manner Measurements and Modeling
so formant amplitudes need not be specified. Figure 5 Vocal Tract Shapes
illustrates this predictability. As shown above, if the formant frequencies are deter-
mined by the shape of the VT, so what was the shape
Figure 5 shows three line spectra with the cardinal shapes of AMH’s VT? This has actually been documented in
of the resonance curves for the first and second formants another dynamic (MRI) video published by the Freiburg
(henceforth F1 and F2). The amplitudes of the partials Institute of Musician’s Medicine, Naturtonreihe in Zun-
and their spectral envelopes were derived in accordance gentechnik (see youtu.be/-jKl61Xxkh0). It was taken
when AMH performed overtone singing, enhancing,
one by one each overtone of a drone with a fundamen-
Figure 5. Schematic illustration of the spectrum effects of tal frequency of 270 Hz (pitch about C4), in a rising
moving the frequencies of two formants closer together. followed by a descending sequence. Henceforth, the
Vertical lines, partials of a drone with a fundamental frequencies of the enhanced overtones will be referred
frequency of 100 Hz; blue and red curves, first (F1) and to as FE. All overtones, from the 4th, FE = 1,080 Hz, up
second (F2) formants, respectively. Left: F1 = 600 Hz, F2 = to the 12th, FE ≈ 3,200 Hz, were enhanced.
1,400 Hz. Center: F1 = 600 Hz; F2 = 2,150 Hz. Right: F1 =
600 Hz; F2 = 650 Hz, thus creating a “double formant,” that The MRI video shows her entire VT in a midsagittal lat-
creates a very strong partial (arrow). eral profile. Figure 6 shows tracings of the VT for each
of the enhanced overtones in the ascending and the
descending series.

Voice Source
Is formant clustering an exhaustive explanation of over-
tone singing? Fortunately, the transfer function of the
VT can be predicted given its formant frequencies. Thus,
a vowel spectrum can be analyzed not only with respect
to the formant frequencies, which appear as peaks in the
spectrum envelope, but also with respect to the voice
source. The trick is simple, inverse filtering!

46 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

 during a concert when you want to tell something to the
person sitting next to you without disturbing the per-
formance. Pressed phonation is typically used when you
speak in excited anger or when you attempt to say some-
thing when carrying something very heavy.

Figure 7 shows two examples of AMH’s voice. Compared

with her conversational speech, the source spectrum
envelope slopes less steeply in overtone singing. Fur-
thermore, the waveform has a longer closed phase and
contains sharp knees, typical signs of an increase of vocal
fold adduction. The ripple during the closed phase on
overtone singing does not correspond to a formant fre-
quency, but to a 900-Hz periodicity, an artifact frequently
Figure 6. Tracings of the lateral midsagittal articulatory observed in glottal flow waveforms.
profiles observed in the MR images of the subject while
producing the indicated values of FE in the ascending (blue) The frequencies of the three lowest formants used for the
and descending (black) sequences. inverse filtering are plotted as function of FE in Figure 7,
right. The trend lines show that F2 and F3 have similar
slopes and intercepts differing by about 185 Hz. Thus
On its way from the glottis to the lip opening, the voice source F2 and F3 are closely clustered around FE, suggesting an
has been filtered by the transfer function of the VT. Inverse affirmative answer to the question raised above, if formant
filtering means that the radiated spectrum is filtered by the clustering is the sole explanation of overtone singing. As
VT transfer function (Figure 2C) turned upside down. formant frequencies are controlled by the shape of the
VT, the next question then is how AMH shapes her VT to
The transfer function itself can be computed from the formant achieve this distribution of formant frequencies.
frequencies. This may sound a bit circular, but it is not. Glot-
tal airflow must be zero when the glottis is closed. Hence the Estimating Vocal Tract Shapes
closed phase of the voice source waveform contains no ring- The resonances of the VT are determined by its shape,
ing at a formant frequency if the inverse filter exactly equals and we have excellent tools for varying this shape within
the transfer function. Moreover, it is well-known that the
spectrum envelope of the voice source has a smooth spec-
trum envelope, so peaks and valleys close to the formant Figure 7. Examples of AMH’s voice in conversational speech
frequencies are signs of inaccurate tuning of the inverse filters. (left) and during overtone (OT) singing (center). Top: radiated
Thus fine tuning of the inverse filters is a condition for reach- spectra. Center: voice source spectra; Bottom: glottal airflow
ing an accurate result. Errors reveal themselves in terms of waveforms. Right: the three lowest formant frequencies used
ringing during the closed phase and/or a spectrum envelope for the inverse filtering of AMH’s overtone singing as functions
peak and/or a trough near the formants. of FE. Lines and equations represent trend lines.

The voice source can be varied along three dimensions.

By stretching and tensing the vocal folds, the fundamen-
tal frequency increases, resulting in an increase in pitch.
By increasing the overpressure of air in the respiratory
system, the amplitude of the voice source increases, which
causes vocal loudness to increase. By changing vocal fold
adduction, which results in squeezing the glottis, the voice
timbre varies along a dimension that ranges from breathy
to pressed. Breathy phonation is what you typically use

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 47

ONE SINGER, TWO VOICES

very wide limits. We can vary the shape of the tongue tip and a neck formed by the rather narrow lip opening
body, the position of the tongue tip, the jaw and lip open- (Sundberg and Lindblom, 1990; Granqvist et al., 2003).
ings, the larynx height, and the position and status of the
gateway to the nose, the velum. The area of the lip opening was measured in a front video
recorded when AMH produced the same overtone series as
Let us now more closely examine the shape of AMH’s for the MRI video. The length of the lip opening was docu-
VT as documented in the MRI video. It is evident from mented in the MRI video. These measures plus the frequency
Figure 6 that AMH produced overtone singing with a of the third formant used for the inverse filtering analysis
lifted tongue tip, so the tongue tip divided the VT into a allowed us to use the Helmholtz equation for calculating the
front cavity and a back cavity. Our first target is the back front cavity volume. The validity of this approximation was
cavity posterior to the raised tongue tip. corroborated in terms of a strong correlation between the
measured length and the volume of the front cavity.
The formant frequencies associated with a given VT
shape can be estimated from the VT contour. Several The formant frequencies of the entire VT could be calcu-
investigations have examined the relationship between lated by a custom-made software, Wormfrek (Liljencrants
the sagittal distance separating the VT contours and the and Fant, 1975). Figure 8 shows the transfer functions
associated cross-sectional area at the various positions with the formant frequencies for three FE values: 1,096,
along the VT length axis (see, e.g., Ericsdotter, 2005). 2,166, and 3,202 Hz. In Figure 8, the arrows highlight
Hence it was possible to describe the shape of the back the close proximity of F2 and F3. In Figure 8, bottom, F1,
cavity for each FE in terms of an area function that lists F2, and F3 are plotted as a function of FE. The trend lines
the cross-sectional area as a function of the distance to show that F2 and F3 have similar slopes and intercepts
the vocal folds. differing by about 220 Hz.

The next question concerns the front cavity, anterior to We note that the F1, F2, and F3 predictions parallel the
the raised tongue tip. The cavity between palatal constric- formant measurements made using inverse filtering
tion and the lip opening looks like, and can be regarded (Figure 7). Here, a somewhat wider distance separates F2
as, a Helmholtz resonator, a cavity in front of the tongue from F3 than what was shown in Figure 7. The common

Figure 8. Top: Wormfrek software displays of the transfer functions for the lowest, a middle, and the highest FE (left, center, and right,
respectively). Bottom: associated values of F1, F2, and F3 as a function of FE. Lines and equations refer to trend line approximations.

48 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

 Figure 9. Articulatory area function parameters plotted as functions of FE. Curves show approximations derived from trend
line equations.

denominator is the consistent identification of the double Overtone singing clearly requires an extremely high degree
formant. We feel justified in concluding that our results of articulatory precision; for each FE, two cavities need to
confirm the double formant phenomenon as a prereq- be shaped such that they produce resonance frequencies
uisite for the overtone selection and enhancement in that match each other within a few tens of Hertz. How
AMH’s overtone singing technique. can the underlying motor control be organized? It is prob-
ably relevant that some of the articulatory configurations
Conclusions shown in Figure 6 are used also in speech. The lateral pro-
Central to the present account is the “double formant” file for FE = 1,096 Hz resembles the articulation of retroflex
hypothesis, which attributes the phenomenon of over- consonants (Dixit 1990; Krull and Lindblom, 1996). A
tone singing to VT filtering. However, the inverse filtering narrow pharyngeal constriction is typical of [a]-like vowels
results also suggest that overtone singing involves a pho- and pharyngealized consonants (Ladefoged and Maddie-
nation type different from that in conversational voice, son, 1996). The VT for FE = 3,202 Hz has a “palatalized’
making the source spectrum slope less steep and thus tongue shape similar to that used for the vowel [i].
boosting the amplitudes of the higher overtones. These
findings replicate and extend previous investigations of It would also be relevant that the articulatory param-
overtone singing. Bloothooft et al. (1992) undertook an eters varied systematically with FE. This is illustrated
acoustic study of an experienced overtone singer and in Figure 9. It shows how AMH varied the lip open-
suggested formant clustering as an explanation and also ing area, length of palatal constriction, larynx height,
noted an extended closed phase of the vocal fold vibrations.
front cavity volume, and pharynx area as a function
Using impedance measurements, Kob (2004) analyzed a of FE. It is evident that the values of each individual
form of overtone singing called sygyt and interpreted the articulatory dimension are aligned along smooth con-
overtone boosting as the result of formant clustering. tours running between its values in FE = 1,096 and
3,202 Hz. This lawful patterning suggests that it would
Parallel vibrations of the ventricular folds have been be possible to derive VT shapes intermediate between
documented in throat singing (Lindestad et al., 2001). those for FE = 1,096 and 3,202 Hz by interpolation. A
How about this possibility in AMH’s overtone singing? rough description would be to say that the VT shapes
Our inverse filtering data clearly rule out the existence are located along a trajectory in the articulatory space
of a laryngeal mechanism that selectively amplifies and that runs between a retroflex and pharyngealized [a]
enhances individual partials. and an [i]-like, palatalized tongue profile.

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 49

ONE SINGER, TWO VOICES

How to Learn Overtone Singing References

Producing overtones with your own voice is relatively Bloothooft, G., Bringmann, E., van Cappellen, M., van Luipen, J. B., and
Thomassen, K. P. (1992). Acoustics and perception of overtone singing.
easy. You practice singing very slow vowel transitions The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 92, 1827-1836.
between the vowels /i/ and /u/ on a long-sustained drone Dixit, R. P. (1990). Lingotectal contact patterns in the dental and ret-
that is kept at a constant pitch. Then, overtones start to roflex stops of Hindi, Journal of Phonetics 11, 291-302.
Ericsdotter, C. (2005). Articulatory-Acoustic Relationships in Swedish Vowel
appear quite clearly from your voice, although you might Sounds, Doctoral Dissertation, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
not able to hear them yet. To hear overtones in your own Fant, G. (1960). The Acoustic Theory of Speech Production, Mouton,
voice is the key to achieving deliberate control; learning The Hague, The Netherlands.
Fant, G. (1972). Vocal tract wall effects, losses and resonance band-
to hear them is the first important part of your practice. widths. Quarterly Progress and Status Report 2(3), Department of
Speech Hearing and Music (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden, pp. 28-52.
In this article, we have analyzed an advanced technique Available at https://rb.gy/ugtss4.
Gill, K. Z., and Purves, D. (2009). A biological rationale for musical
of overtone singing, double resonator articulation. The scales. PLoS ONE 4(12): e8144.
tongue tip is retracted and elevated in the mouth as Granqvist, S., Sundberg, J., Cortes, E. E., Larsson, J., and Branderud, P. (2003).
for the American consonant /r/. This lowers the third The front and sub-lingual cavities in coronal stops: An acoustic approach to
volume estimation. Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic
formant and can bring it close to the second formant. Sciences, Barcelona, Spain, August 3-9, 2003, pp. 941-944.
As we have seen, this creates a double resonator and a Hefele, A.-M. (2020). Anna-Maria Hefele’s Website www.overtone.academy,
double formant, which results in a strong, whistling- Available at: https://rb.gy/yplwko. Accessed: October 12, 2020.
Kob, M. (2004). Analysis and modelling of overtone singing in the
like overtone. To do this requires quite an accurate and sygyt style. Applied Acoustics 65 1249-1259.
simultaneous control over the front cavity for the third Krull, D., and Lindblom, B. (1996). Coarticulation in apical con-
formant and the back cavity for the second formant. Gen- sonants: acoustic and articulatory analyses of Hindi, Swedish and
Tamil, Quarterly Progress and Status Report 2, Department of Speech
erally, it takes quite some practice to learn this technique. Hearing and Music (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden, pp. 73-76. Available
at https://rb.gy/ugtss4.
A simpler start into the fascinating world of overtone Ladefoged, P., and Maddieson, I. (1986). The Sounds of the World’s
Languages, Blackwell, Oxford, UK.
singing may be to learn to enhance overtones with Liljencrants, J., and Fant, G. (1975). Computer program for VT-reso-
vowels only, with an undivided VT cavity. Then, the VT nance frequency calculations, Quarterly Progress and Status Report
works as a single resonator, and the second formant is 4, Department of Speech Hearing and Music (KTH), Stockholm,
Sweden, pp. 15-20. Available at https://rb.gy/ugtss4.
solely responsible for overtone enhancement. Also, this Lindestad, P.-Å., Södersten, M., Merker, B., and Granqvist, S. (2001).
technique can be learned by very slowly changing the Voice source characteristics in Mongolian “throat singing” studied
articulation between /i/ and /u/, keeping a drone with with high-speed imaging technique, acoustic spectra, and inverse
filtering, Journal of Voice 15, 78-85.
constant pitch. When you manage to do this, you will Moore, B. C. J. (2012). An Introduction to the Psychology of Hearing,
discern single overtones; one by one, they first increase Emerald Group Publishing Ltd,. Bingley, UK
and then decrease in loudness as they approach the Smith, H., Stevens, K., and Tomlinson, R. (1967). On an unusual
mode of singing by certain Tibetan lamas. The Journal of the Acousti-
second formant, pass it, and then move away from it, cal Society of America 41, 1262-1264.
and soon after, the next overtone will appear and do Sundberg, J., and Lindblom, B. (1990). Acoustic estimation of the front cavity in
the same thing. apical stops The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 88, 1313-1317.
Wendler J., Dejonckere, P. H., Smit, P. H., and Cebulla, M. (1991).
Overtone singing in the view of Manuel Garcia. Proceedings of Con-
After you have learned the vowel-technique well, it is ference “New Ways of the Voice,” Service ORL et Audiophonologie,
mostly both exciting and not too difficult to learn the Besancon, France, February 14-17, 1991, p. 46.
double formant technique. Then, you may want to
explore the pleasure of shifting the drone pitch and so About the Authors
extend the melodic possibilities of overtone singing even
further. If you want to learn more, see Hefele (2020)! Johan Sundberg [email protected]
Department of Speech Music
Acknowledgments and Hearing
Bernhard Richter, Matthias Echternach, Louisa Traser, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)
SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
and Michael Burdumy at the Freiburg Institute of Musi-
Johan Sundberg studied musicol-
cian’s Medicine are acknowledged for their work with the
ogy at Uppsala University (Uppsala,
two dynamic magnetic resonance imaging videos.

50 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

Sweden). He made his dissertation research on the acous-

ASA WEBINARS
tics of organ pipes as a guest researcher in Gunnar Fant’s
department at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH;
Stockholm, Sweden). This brought him into a productive
contact with Björn Lindblom. After finishing his disserta-
tion in 1966, he founded a research group in the area of
music acoustics at the KTH and was awarded a personal The Acoustical Society of America has
chair in music acoustics there in 1979. Being an active established a Webinar Series with the goal
singer, the voice as a musical instrument has been his
to provide ongoing learning opportunities
main research theme along with the theory underlying
music performance. and engagement in acoustics by ASA
members and nonmembers throughout the
Author photo by Linnéa Heinerborg year, as a supplement to content presented
at bi-annual ASA meetings.
Björn Lindblom ASA Webinars will be scheduled monthly
[email protected] and will include speakers on topics of
Department of Linguistics interest to the general ASA membership
Stockholm University and the broader acoustics community,
SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
including acoustical sciences, applications
Björn Lindblom became an experi- of acoustics, and careers in acoustics.
mental phonetician in the early
1960s. His publications span a wide range of topics,
including the development, production, and perception
of speech. Academic experience: teaching and doing
laboratory research at the Royal Institute of Technol- Find a schedule of upcoming webinars
ogy (KTH; Stockholm, Sweden), Haskins Laboratories and videos of past webinars at
(New Haven, CT), MIT (Cambridge, MA), Stockholm
University (SU), and the University of Texas at Austin
acousticalsociety.org/asa-webinar-series
(UT). He has held endowed chairs at SU and UT. He is a
Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America and of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science
(AAAS) and is an Honorary Life Member of the Linguis-
tic Society of America (LSA). His current project is a
book: Reinventing Spoken Language — The Biological Way.
ASA Publications now
Anna-Maria Hefele
[email protected]
has a podcast!
Overtone Academy Across Acoustics highlights authors'
Saulengrainerstrasse 1
research from our four publications:
DE-87742 Dirlewang, Germany
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of
Anna-Maria Hefele has a Master of
Arts from Mozarteum Salzburg (Aus-
America (JASA), JASA Express Letters,
tria) and is a multi-instrumentalist singer and overtone Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics,
singer, performing worldwide as a soloist with different and Acoustics Today.
ensembles, choirs, and orchestras. She frequently performs
in contemporary ballet, circus, and dance theater produc-
tions. Her YouTube video “Polyphonic Overtone Singing”
went viral and has resulted in more than 17 million views
so far, followed by regular appearances in various inter-
national television shows and radio broadcasts. Headlines Streaming now at
like “A Voice as from Another World,” “The Lady with the www.buzzsprout.com/
Two Voices,” and “Polyphonic Vocalist Does the Impossible”
have spread across the world.
1537384

Author photo by Thomas Radlwimmer

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 51

 FEATURED ARTICLE

Global Positioning Systems:

Over Land and Under Sea
Lora J. Van Uffelen

Introduction Global Navigation Satellite Systems

Imagine with me a pre-COVID world. We are at an Positioning from the GNSS is available all over the globe
Acoustical Society of America (ASA) meeting in, say, to provide localization, tracking, navigation, mapping,
Chicago, IL. We’ve just enjoyed a stimulating afternoon and timing, all of which are closely related but separate
session, and our brains are fried. We need to find a coffee applications. Their availability and use have transformed
shop for a chat and some caffeine. What’s the first thing the world in which we live. The most obvious relevancy
we do? We quickly pull out our mobile phones and open of a GNSS is for the transportation industry. Mapping
a Yelp or Google Maps app to find a location within a and route-planning applications include traffic avoidance
five-minute walk of the conference venue with a four- or features that have saved millions of dollars, reduced emis-
five-star review, and we are on our way, following turn- sions, and limited time wasted in traffic. Aircraft pilots
by-turn directions until we reach the destination. This rely on the GNSS among other instruments when visual
mapping solution is delivered courtesy of a Global Navi- observations are not reliable.
gation Satellite System (GNSS).
Even the agriculture industry has been revolutionized
It is hard to imagine a world without GNSS. Even during by the GNSS. In the current age of precision agriculture,
quarantine, when we cannot be out having coffee with positioning systems in tractors and farm equipment can
our colleagues in a new and exciting city, the motivated have centimeter accuracy to ensure that all of the fields
among us still use mapping applications to chart out our are covered without driving over the same area twice.
neighborhood walk or bike ride to see how far we have Snowplow operators also use the GNSS to locate edges
gone. We can “drop a pin” or share our location with the of roads covered in snow.
push of a button and find a friend in a parking lot or in
the middle of the woods. Scientists who do field work, whether on land or at sea,
would be lost without the GNSS. We rely on these satel-
This positioning has become indispensable in the land, lite systems to locate our sensors and associate data with
air, and space domains; however, as the electromagnetic a position on the earth. Metadata for any type of dataset,
signals sent by satellite systems do not transmit well in acoustic or otherwise, typically contains time and loca-
water, they are not available for undersea applications. tion data provided by the GNSS.
Acoustic signals, however, propagate very well underwa-
ter and are commonly used for navigation of underwater The modern military uses the GNSS for guided missiles
vehicles as well as tracking marine mammals, fishes, tur- and drones to minimize collateral damage. In fact, the
tles, and even lobsters. Typically, this tracking is done at Global Positioning System (GPS), the US-based GNSS
short propagation ranges, but long-range signals can be that we used to find coffee on our hypothetical trip to
used for positioning as well. Would it be possible to have Chicago, was originally developed for military purposes.
a “Global Navigation Acoustic System” for the underwa- Before the development of the GPS, it was the task of
ter domain that would be an analogue to the GNSS that several soldiers, sailors, or pilots to navigate the troops,
we have become so reliant on? To answer this question, ships, or planes. Tasking this to a remote and automated
let’s first familiarize ourselves with the GNSS. system minimizes the number of people involved in the

52 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021 | Volume 17, issue 1 ©2021 Acoustical Society of America. All rights reserved.
https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2021.17.1.52
operations, freeing them up for other tasks as well as Force Base in Colorado. The system is young, relatively
reducing human errors. speaking. The GPS project was started in 1973, and the
first NAVigation System with Timing and Ranging (NAV-
Overview and History of the Global STAR) satellite was launched in 1978. The 24-satellite
Positioning System system became fully operational in 1995. A photograph
The GPS is owned by the US Government and is operated of a modern GPS-III satellite and a depiction of the satel-
and maintained by the US Air Force out of Shriever Air lite constellation are shown in Figure 1.

A precursor to the GPS, the Transit System, was designed

Figure 1. a: Image of Global Positioning System (GPS) III specifically to provide accurate location information to
satellite. A GPS III satellite is roughly the size of a small US Navy Polaris nuclear submarines and became the first
car and orbits approximately 20,200 km above the earth. operational satellite navigation system in 1964 (Guier and
b: Configuration of satellite constellation. The original Weiffenbach, 1998). There is not enough space here to go
constellation contained 6 orbitals with slots for 4 satellites into all of the science and technology advances that paved
each, and only 24 satellites are required to operate at any the way for the modern GPS, including the satellite geod-
given time. But, in 2011, this was expanded to accommodate esy work of Gladys Mae West (featured in Shetterly, 2016,
additional satellites to improve coverage. Source: United and the movie Hidden Figures), but the gps.gov website,
States Government (available at gps.gov/multimedia/images). maintained by the national coordination office for space-
based positioning, navigation, and timing and hosted by
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) has a wealth of useful information and links.

The US-based GPS satellites are not the only navigational

satellites orbiting the earth. Indeed, a Russian-based
GLObal NAVigation Satellite System (GLONASS)
became operational around the same time as the GPS.
The United States and Russia both started construction
of their own GNSS constellations at the height of the
Cold War. More recently, in June 2020, China launched
the final satellite in the third generation of the BeiDou
Navigation Satellite System, which now provides world-
wide coverage. Europe has launched Galileo, which has
been operational since 2019, and the complete 30-satel-
lite system is expected by the time you read this article.
Galileo is the only purely civilian system; the systems
launched by the United States, China, and Russia are all
at least partially owned or operated by the military. Most
modern smartphones have the capability to receive sig-
nals from multiple constellations.

How Does the Global Positioning

System Work?
GPS satellites continuously broadcast electromagnetic
signals that travel through the atmosphere, providing
their location and precise timing information. (I refer to
the GPS, but this can be applied more globally to other
GNSS constellations as they operate using the same
principles.) A GPS satellite transmits multiple signals,

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 53

UNDERWATER GPS

where c is the speed of light (299,792,458 m/s) and t is the

time of flight for the signal traveling through space. This
time of flight is the difference between the time the signal is
broadcast by the satellite and the time the signal is received.
Once a GPS receiver obtains the distance between itself
and at least four satellites, it can use geometry to deter-
mine its location and simultaneously correct its time.

The concept is relatively simple and is demonstrated in

Figure 2. If we know just the range from a single satel-
lite, the location of the receiver could be anywhere on an
imaginary sphere with the satellite located at its center.
Combining the ranges received from 4 satellites, along
with precise timing information, provides a single inter-
section point in 3-dimensional space that corresponds
to the position of the GPS receiver. This is referred to as
trilateration (often confused with triangulation, which
involves measuring angles rather than distances).

Apparent from Eq. 1, an inaccurate estimate of the signal

travel time will give an incorrect distance from receiver
to satellite and therefore an inaccurate position. Precise
timing is therefore vital to GPS operation. Nanosec-
onds in timing error on the satellites lead to meters of
positioning error on the ground. Each satellite has an
Figure 2. a: Depiction of positioning of a GPS receiver using atomic clock onboard, which provides precise timing
trilateration in three dimensions. Each sphere with a satellite information. These precise clocks are updated twice a day
at its center represents the distance calculated from Eq. 1. The to correct the clock’s natural drift using an even higher
four spheres intersect at the location of the GPS receiver. b: precision atomic clock based on land.
Trilateration with four satellites projected onto two dimensions
with the single point of intersection determining the location of the Underwater Positioning and Navigation
GPS receiver. Presented with permission from gisgeography.com. Using Acoustics
It is interesting to note that satellite navigation systems
were first designed with submarines in mind even though
including ranging signals and navigation messages. The the GPS is not useful beneath the sea surface. Electro-
original GPS design contained two ranging signals: a magnetic waves from the satellites travel very efficiently
coarse/acquisition (C/A) code and a restricted precision through the atmosphere but are quickly attenuated
(P) code reserved for military and government applica- underwater. Underwater vehicles and underwater instru-
tions. Each satellite transmits a C/A code with a carrier mentation are therefore unable to take full advantage of
frequency of 1,575.42 MHz. Galileo and BeiDou also the GPS infrastructure.
transmit signals at this carrier frequency, which is in the
microwave band, outside of the visible spectrum. Submarines do take advantage of underwater acous-
tic signals, and the field of underwater acoustics has
The time that it takes the signal to reach the receiver is largely been driven by military applications (Muir and
used to calculate a range or distance (d) from the satellite Bradley, 2016). Acoustic waves are mechanical pres-
with the following simple relationship sure waves and therefore do not propagate well in the
(near) vacuum of space but travel more efficiently
d=c×t ( 1) and more quickly in denser media. Because of this,

54 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

sound travels faster in seawater than in air and it is These buoys have constant access to GPS positioning so
less quickly attenuated. they do not require a survey.

The same basic relationship from Eq. 1 that is used to Short-baseline (SBL) systems operate on a smaller scale,
calculate the distance from satellites can be applied to and the SBL transducers are typically fixed to a surface
acoustic signals as well. Here, rather than multiplying the vessel. Ultrashort-baseline (USBL) systems are typically
time that the GPS signal has traveled by the speed of light, a small transducer array, also often fixed to a surface
the travel time of the signal is multiplied by the speed of vehicle, which use phase (arrival angle) information of
sound in the medium through which it is traveling. The the acoustic signals to determine the vehicle position.
speed of sound in the ocean is roughly 1,500 m/s. This is
much slower than the speed of light, and it is also quite These types of acoustic localization work in a similar way
variable because the speed of sound in seawater depends to GPS localization, with electromagnetic waves; how-
on the seawater temperature, salinity, and depth. ever, they all operate in relatively small regions. Note that
these acoustic-positioning methods have been described
Traditional Underwater Positioning and in the context of underwater vehicles, but they can be
Local Vehicle Navigation Systems used for other purposes as well, including tracking drift-
Underwater vehicles routinely get position and timing ing instrumentation or even animals underwater.
from a GPS receiver when they are at the surface, but
once they start to descend, this is no longer available. Long-Range Underwater Acoustics
Vehicles navigate underwater using some combination of Propagation in the SOFAR Channel
dead reckoning, vehicle hydrodynamic models, inertial Attenuation of acoustic signals in the ocean is highly
navigation systems (INSs), and local navigation networks dependent on frequency. The signals commonly used
(Paull et al., 2014). Positioning in the z direction, the for LBL, SBL, and USBL localization networks typi-
depth in the ocean, is straightforward with a pressure cally have frequencies of tens of kilohertz and upward.
sensor, which can reduce the dimensionality of the prob- These signals may travel for a few kilometers, but lower
lem to horizontal positioning in x and y, or longitude and frequency signals on the order of hundreds of hertz or
latitude, respectively. lower are capable of traveling across entire ocean basins
underwater. This was demonstrated in 1991 by the Heard
Dead reckoning estimates the position using a known Island Feasibility Test, where a signal was transmitted
starting point that is updated with measurements of vehi- from Heard Island in the Southern Indian Ocean and
cle speed and heading as time progresses. Larger vehicles, received at listening stations across the globe, from Ber-
such as submarines, may have an onboard INS that inte- muda in the Atlantic Ocean to Monterey, CA, in the
grates measurements of acceleration to estimate velocity Eastern Pacific Ocean (Munk et al., 1994).
and thereby position. These measurements are, however,
subject to large integration drift errors. Refractive effects of the ocean waveguide are usually
taken into account when using the acoustic-positioning
Because of the need for more position accuracy than methods described above because an acoustic arrival
afforded by the submarine systems discussed above, it often does not take a direct path from the source to the
comes as no surprise that underwater vehicles also use receiver, and often a number of arrivals resulting from
acoustics for localization. A long-baseline (LBL) acoustic- multiple propagation paths are received. The refractive
positioning system is composed of a network of acoustic effects of the ocean waveguide become even more impor-
transponders, often fixed on the seafloor with their posi- tant as ranges increase. Acoustic arrivals can be spread
tions accurately surveyed. The range measurements from out over several seconds; however, the time arrival struc-
multiple transponders are used to determine position. ture can be predicted based on the sound speed profile.
LBL systems typically operate on scales of 100 meters to
several kilometers and have accuracies on the order of a The speed of sound in the ocean increases with increasing
meter. Transponder buoys at the surface can also provide hydrostatic pressure (depth in the ocean) and with higher
positioning accuracy similar to a seafloor LBL network. temperatures that occur near the surface. This leads to

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 55

UNDERWATER GPS

a sound speed minimum referred to as the sound chan- for ocean temperature. Each ray has traveled a unique
nel axis, which exists at approximately 1,000 m depth, path through the ocean and therefore carries with it
although the depth can vary depending on where you information on the sound speed along the particular path
are on the globe (Figure 3). that it has traveled. On a very basic level, we are looking
again at the relationship from Eq. 1, but here distance and
The SOFAR channel, short for SOund Fixing And Rang- travel time are known, and we are inverting for sound
ing, refers to a sound propagation channel (Worzel et speed, which is a proxy for temperature. In ocean acous-
al., 1948) that is centered around the sound channel axis. tic tomography, the variability in these acoustic travel
Sound from an acoustic source placed at the sound speed times is measured regularly over a long period of time
minimum will be refracted by the sound speed profile, (acoustic sources and receivers often remain deployed
preventing low-angle energy from interacting with the in the ocean for a year at a time) to track how the ocean
lossy seafloor and enabling the sound rays to travel for temperature is changing. This method was described by
very long distances, up to thousands of kilometers. Worcester et al. (2005) in the very first issue of Acoustics
Today and more thoroughly in the book, Ocean Acoustic
The rays take different paths when traveling over these Tomography, by Munk et al. (1995).
long ranges, as seen in Figure 3. The arrival time at a
receiver is an integrated measurement of travel time The variability in these travel times is measured in mil-
along the path of the ray. Rays that are launched at angles liseconds; therefore, as with a GNSS, the acoustic travel
near the horizontal stay very close to the sound speed time measurements must be extremely precise. Great care
minimum. Rays that are launched at higher angles travel is taken to use clocks with low drift rates and to correct
through the upper ocean and deep ocean, and although for any measured clock drift at the end of an experiment.
they take a longer route than the lower angle rays, they
travel through regions of the ocean that have a faster The locations of the acoustic sources and receivers also
sound speed and therefore arrive at a receiver before their must be accurate because inaccuracies in either position
counterparts that took the shorter, slower road. would lead to an inaccurate calculation of distance, which
would impact the inversion for sound speed based on the
Ocean Acoustic Tomography Measurements simple relationship of Eq. 1. The sources and receivers
Ocean acoustic tomography takes advantage of the vari- used in typical ocean acoustic tomography applications
ability in measured travel times for specific rays to invert are on subsurface ocean moorings, meaning that there

Figure 3. Left: canonical profile of sound speed as a function of depth in the ocean (solid line). Right: refracted acoustic ray paths
from a source at 1,000 m depth to a receiver at 1,000 m depth and at a range of 210 km. The Sound Channel Axis (dashed line) is
located at the sound speed minimum at a depth of 1 km. Adapted by Discovery of Sound in the Sea (see dosits.org) from Munk et
al., 1995, Figure 1.1, reproduced with permission.

56 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

is an anchor on the seafloor with a wire stretched up to a RAFOS sources have been useful to track floats in open
buoy that sits below the surface to hold the line taut. The water, but when there is sea ice present and the float is
sources and hydrophone receivers are mounted on this unable to get to the surface for a GPS position, underwater
line. Additional floatation is also mounted on the line positioning becomes even more important. A recent study
to keep the mooring standing upright, but it is subject in the Weddell Gyre near Antarctica tracked 22 floats
to ocean currents, so it moves around in a watch circle under ice that were unable to surface to obtain position
about the anchor position. An instrument at the top of a from the GPS for eight months (Chamberlain et al., 2018).
5,000-m mooring could be swept several hundred meters
from the latitude and longitude position of the anchor by Similar to RAFOS, a separate long-range navigation
ocean currents. A LBL array of acoustic transponders, as system in the Arctic used surface buoys to transmit
described in Traditional Underwater Positioning and GPS positions to floats and vehicles for under-ice rang-
Local Vehicle Navigation Systems, is typically deployed ing, with an accuracy of 40 m over 400-km ranges. This
around each mooring position to track the motion of system operated at 900 Hz, with a programmable band-
the sources and receivers throughout the experiment to width from 25 to 100 Hz (Freitag et al., 2015).
correct for the changes in distance between the sources
and receivers. RAFOS signals have a bandwidth of 1.6 Hz and there-
fore less time resolution than a more broadband source.
Positioning with Long-Range Underwater Figure 4, a and b, contrast predictions of the arrival
Acoustic Measurements structure at a 1,145-km range for a RAFOS source with
The same core concepts of inferring distance from mea- a broadband source having a bandwidth of 50 Hz. In
surements of signal travel time that we see in GNSS both cases, the latest arriving energy is concentrated near
and local underwater acoustic networks can also apply the depth of the sound channel axis, corresponding to
at long ranges. Neutrally buoyant oceanographic floats rays that stayed at depths with low sound speeds. The
called swallow floats were equipped with acoustic ping- early arrivals are from rays that ventured into the higher
ers to be tracked by a nearby ship; these were adapted speed regions of the sound speed profile (in Figure 3,
to take advantage of the deep sound channel and were dark blue and green) and therefore also span more of the
subsequently known as SOFAR floats. The first SOFAR ocean depth. In both cases, we can see that the energy is
float was deployed in 1968 and was detected 846 km away spread over about 4 s, but the broadband source provides
(Rossby and Webb, 1970). better resolution.

The SOFAR float signals were originally received by the Figure 4, c and d, shows slices of these acoustic predic-
SOund SUrveillance System (SOSUS) of listening stations tions at a 2,000 m depth. The broadband signal shown
operated by the US military. This system tracked more in Figure 4d exhibits sharp peaks in the arrival that can
than just floats and enemy submarines. It also received be identified with individual ray paths.
acoustic signals from earthquakes, and there is a wonder-
ful 43-day record of passively tracking of an individual The increased bandwidth is one of the design suggestions
blue whale, nicknamed Ol’ Blue, as it took 3,200-km tour for a potential joint navigation/thermometry system
of the North Atlantic Ocean (Nishimura, 1994). addressed in Duda et al. (2006). A system of sources is
suggested with center frequencies on the order of 100-
The existing listening system was convenient, but 200 Hz and a 50-Hz bandwidth.
equipping each float with an acoustic source was tech-
nologically challenging and expensive. In the 1980s, the The acoustic sources used for ocean acoustic tomography
concept was flipped so that the float had the hydrophone applications are broadband sources designed to trans-
receiver, and acoustic sources transmitted to the floats mit over ocean basin scales. A 2010-2011 ocean acoustic
from known locations to estimate range to the float. tomography experiment performed in the Philippine Sea
The name was also flipped, and the floats are known as featured six acoustic sources in a pentagon arrangement
RAFOS, an anadrome for SOFAR (Rossby et al., 1986). and provided a rich dataset for evaluating long-range

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 57

UNDERWATER GPS

positioning algorithms. The sources used in this particu- How Feasible Is a Global Navigation
lar experiment had a center frequency of about 250 Hz Acoustic System?
and a bandwidth of 100 Hz. Because acoustic signals are able to propagate over extremely
long ranges underwater, acoustics could provide an under-
The sources were used to localize autonomous underwater water analogue to the electromagnetic GNSS signals that
vehicles that had access to a GPS at the sea surface but only are used for positioning in the land, air, and space domains.
surfaced a few times a day. Hydrophones on the vehicles There are definite differences between using an underwater
received acoustic transmissions from the moored sources acoustic positioning system and a GNSS, however. GNSS
at ranges up to 700 km, and these signals were used to esti- satellites orbit the earth twice a day and transmit continu-
mate the position of the vehicle when it was underwater ously. Acoustic sources do not need to be in orbit, but proper
(Van Uffelen et al., 2013). The measured acoustic arrivals placement of the sources would enable propagation to most
were similar to the modeled arrival shown in Figure 4d. regions in the oceans of the world.
The measurements of these peaks collected on the vehicle
were matched to predicted ray arrivals to determine range. The far reach of underwater acoustic propagation is dem-
This method takes advantage of the multipath arrivals onstrated by the International Monitoring System (IMS)
in addition to signal travel time. As with other acoustic operated by the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
methods and with the GPS, ranges from multiple sources Organization (CTBTO). The IMS monitors the globe for
were combined to obtain estimates of vehicle position. The acoustic signatures of nuclear tests with only six under-
resulting positions had estimated uncertainties less than water passive acoustic hydrophone monitoring stations
100 m root mean square (Van Uffelen et al., 2015). worldwide. Figure 5 shows the coverage of these few sta-
tions. Signals received on these hydroacoustic stations
Other long-range acoustic-ranging methods incorporate pre- were used to localize an Argentinian submarine that was
dictions of acoustic arrivals based on ocean state estimates lost in 2017 using acoustic recordings of the explosion
(Wu et al., 2019). An algorithm introduced by Mikhalevsky on IMS listening stations at ranges of 6,000 and 8,000 km
et al. (2020) provides a “cold start’ capability that does not from the site (Dall’Osto, 2019).
require an initial estimate of the acoustic arrival and has
positioning orders on the order of 60 m. These results were You may note that Figure 5 does not show much coverage
validated using hydrophone data with known positions that in the Arctic Ocean and that the sound speed structure is
received the Philippine Sea source signals. As with the afore- quite different at high latitudes because it does not have
mentioned method, this algorithm relies on the travel-time the warm surface that we see in Figure 3; however, long-
resolution afforded by the broadband source signals. range propagation has been demonstrated in the Arctic

Figure 4. Predictions of the acoustic arrival

for a 260-Hz source at a range of 1,145 km. for
a RAFOS source with a bandwidth of 1.6 Hz
(a) and for a source with a bandwidth of 50
Hz (b). The arrivals in both cases are spread
over about 4 s, with early arriving energy from
higher angle rays and later arriving energy
from rays launched at low angles that stayed
near the depth of the sound channel axis. Slices
of the plots shown in a and b were taken at
a depth of 2,000 m for the RAFOS source
(c) and broadband source (d) to contrast the
travel time resolution. Adapted from Duda et
al., 2006, with permission.

58 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

 a multipurpose acoustic observing system (Howe et al.,
2019), would transmit this information as well to enable
mobile platform positioning and navigation. Such a
system could also provide ocean acoustic tomography
measurements and passive acoustic monitoring for bio-
logical, natural, and anthropogenic sources.

Final Thoughts
The GPS satellite constellation was originally designed
to meet national defense, homeland security, civil, com-
mercial, and scientific needs in the air, in the sea, and on
Figure 5. Global coverage of the Comprehensive Nuclear land. The age of artificial intelligence and big data has
Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) International made GPS data on land incredibly useful to all of us in
Monitoring System (IMS), shown by a 3-dimensional model our everyday life. Not only can we use information on
of low-frequency (<50-Hz) propagation. The property of our own location from our cell phone to find the near-
reciprocity is invoked by placing sources at the locations of est coffee shop, we can take advantage of the location
the six IMS hydrophone listening stations (red areas) from information on many different devices to look at traf-
where the sound radiates. Colors represent transmission loss fic patterns to gauge what is the best way to get to that
with a range of 70 dB. Figure created by Kevin Heaney and coffee shop. It won’t be too long until we will be riding
reproduced from Heaney and Eller, 2019, with permission. in self-driving cars, automatically taking the best route
and precisely positioned relative to each other. All of this
happened in just the last few decades because it has been
Ocean as well. In a 2019–2020 experiment, 35-Hz signals only 25 years since GPS became fully operational.
were transmitted across the Arctic Ocean over the North
Pole (Worcester et al., 2020). An underwater analogue to a global navigation satel-
lite system would revolutionize any operations in the
The electromagnetic signals broadcast by GNSS satellites are underwater domain including oceanographic science,
outside the visible spectrum, so we do not notice the signals naval military applications, underwater vehicles, and
that are continuously emitted by the satellites. In addition even scuba diving. Acoustics is the most promising way
to the engineering challenges that would face continuous to approach this on a large scale.
acoustic transmission, the frequency band of long-range
propagation is within the hearing range of many animals, Acknowledgments
and the impacts to the environment, including potentially I extend my gratitude to Arthur Popper, Kathleen Wage, and
masking marine mammal vocalizations, would need to be Peter Worcester for their helpful suggestions and acknowl-
considered. Long-range acoustic transmissions for scien- edge the Office of Naval Research (ONR) for supporting my
tific purposes go through an intense permitting process work related to underwater acoustic positioning.
that takes into account the environment and the impacts
on marine animals in the environment. References
Chamberlain, P. M., Talley, L. D., Mazloff, M. R., Riser, S. C., Speer,
Each GNSS satellite broadcasts navigation messages that K., Gray, A. R., and Schwartzman, A. (2018). Observing the ice-
includes the date and time as well as the status of the covered Weddell Gyre with profiling floats: Position uncertainties
and correlation statistics. Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans 123,
satellite. It broadcasts ephemeris data that provide its
8383-8410. https://doi.org/10.1029/2017JC012990.
specific orbital information for more precise localiza-
Dall’Osto, D. R. (2019). Taking the pulse of our ocean world. Acoustics
tion of the GPS receiver. Localization using dedicated Today 15(4), 20-28.
networks of sources, such as the example in the Phil- Duda, T., Morozov, A., Howe, B., Brown, M., Speer, K., Lazarevich,
ippine Sea, which incorporates precise source position P., Worcester, P., and Cornuelle, B. (2006). Evaluation of a long-
and timing as necessary for localization of an acoustic range joint acoustic navigation/thermometry system. Proceedings
receiver as it is for GPS has been discussed. A vision for of OCEANS 2006, Boston, MA, September 18-21, 2006, pp. 1-6.

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 59

UNDERWATER GPS

Freitag, L., Ball, K., Partan, J., Koski, P., and Singh, S. (2015). Long
range acoustic communications and navigation in the Arctic. Pro- About the Author
ceedings of OCEANS 2015-MTS/IEEE, Washington, DC, October
19-22, 2015, pp. 1-5.
Lora J. Van Uffelen
Guier, W. H., and Weiffenbach, G. C. (1998). Genesis of satellite navi-
[email protected]
gation. Johns Hopkins APL Technical Digest 19(1), 14-17.
Heaney, K. D., and Eller, A. I. (2019). Global soundscapes: Parabolic equation Department of Ocean Engineering
modeling and the CTBTO observing system. The Journal of the Acoustical University of Rhode Island
Society of America 146(4) 2848. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.5136881. Narragansett, Rhode Island 02882,
Howe, B. M., Miksis-Olds, J., Rehm, E., Sagen, H., Worcester, P. F., and USA
Haralabus, G. (2019). Observing the oceans acoustically. Frontiers in
Lora J. Van Uffelen is an assistant pro-
Marine Science 6, 426. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2019.00426.
fessor in the Department of Ocean Engineering, University of
Mikhalevsky, P. N., Sperry, B. J., Woolfe, K. F., Dzieciuch, M. A.,
Rhode Island (Narragansett), where she teaches undergradu-
and Worcester, P. F. (2020). Deep ocean long range underwater
ate and graduate courses in underwater acoustics and leads
navigation, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 147(4),
the Ocean Platforms, Experiments, and Research in Acoustics
2365-2382. https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0001081.
(OPERA) Lab. She earned her PhD in oceanography from the
Muir, T. G., and Bradley, D. L. (2016). Underwater acoustics: A brief his-
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California,
torical overview through World War II. Acoustics Today 12(2), 40-48.
San Diego (La Jolla). Her current research projects focus on
Munk, W., Worcester, P., and Wunsch, C. (1995). Ocean Acoustic
long-range underwater acoustic propagation, Arctic acous-
Tomography. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.
tics, vehicle and marine mammal localization, and acoustic
Munk, W. H., Spindel, R. C., Baggeroer, A., and Birdsall, T. G. (1994).
sensing on underwater vehicles. She has participated in more
The Heard Island Feasibility Test. The Journal of the Acoustical Society
than 20 research cruises, with over 400 days at sea.
of America 96, 2330-2342.
Nishimura, C. E. (1994). Monitoring whales and earthquakes by using
SOSUS. 1994 Naval Research Laboratory Review, pp. 91-101.
Paull, L., Saeedi, S., Seto, M., and Li, H. (2014). AUV navigation and local-
ization: A review. IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering 39, 131-149. The Journal of the Acoustical
Rossby, T., and Webb, D. (1970). Observing abyssal motions by tracking Swal-
low floats in the SOFAR channel. Deep Sea Research and Oceanographic Society of America
Abstracts 17(2), 359-365. https://doi.org/10.1016/0011-7471(70)90027-6.
Rossby, T., Dorson, D., and Fontaine, J. (1986). The RAFOS system.
Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 3, 672-679. Reflections
Shetterly, M. L. (2016). Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the
Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win Don’t miss Reflections, The Journal of the
the Space Race. William Morrow, New York, NY. Acoustical Society of America’s series that
Van Uffelen, L. J., Howe, B. M. Nosal, E. M. Carter, G. S., Worcester, P.
takes a look back on historical articles that
F., and Dzieciuch, M. A. (2015). Localization and subsurface position
error estimation of gliders using broadband acoustic signals at long have had a significant impact on the
range. Journal of Oceanic Engineering 41(3) 501-508. science and practice of acoustics.
https://doi.org/10.1109/joe.2015.2479016.
Van Uffelen, L. J., Nosal, E. M., Howe, B. M., Carter, G. S., Worcester,
P. F., Dzieciuch, M. A., Heaney, K. D., Campbell, R. L., and Cross, P.
S.. (2013). Estimating uncertainty in subsurface glider position using
transmissions from fixed acoustic tomography sources. The Journal
of the Acoustical Society of America 134, 3260-3271.
https://doi.org/10.1121/1.4818841.
Worcester, P. F., Dzieciuch M. A., and Sagen, H. (2020). Ocean acous-
tics in the rapidly changing Arctic. Acoustics Today 16(1), 55-64.
Worcester, P. F., Munk, W. H., and Spindel, R. C. (2005). Acoustic
remote sensing of ocean gyres. Acoustics Today 1(1), 11-17.
Worzel, J. L., Ewing, M., and Pekeris, C. L. (1948). Propagation of Sound
in the Ocean. Geological Society of America Memoirs 27, Geological
Society of America, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1130/MEM27.
Wu, M., Barmin, M. P., Andrew, R. K., Weichman, P. B., White, A. W., See these articles at:
Lavely, E. M., Dzieciuch, M. A., Mercer, J. A., Worcester, P. F., and acousticstoday.org/forums-reflections
Ritzwoller, M. H. (2019). Deep water acoustic range estimation based
on an ocean general circulation model: Application to PhilSea10
data. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 146(6), 4754-
4773. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.5138606.

60 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

 Recent Acoustical Society of America
Awards and Prizes

Acoustics Today is pleased to present the names of the recipients of the various awards and prizes given out by the
Acoustical Society of America. After the recipients are approved by the Executive Council of the Society at each
semiannual meeting, their names are published in the next issue of Acoustics Today.

Congratulations to the following recipients of Acoustical Society of America medals, awards, prizes, and fellowships,
who will be formally be recognized at the Spring 2021 Plenary Session. For more information on the accolades, please
see acousticstoday.org/asa-awards, acousticalsociety.org/prizes, and acousticstoday.org/fellowships.

Gold Medal Medwin Prize in Acoustics Education

James F. Lynch Ana Širović
(Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA) (Texas A&M University,
College Station)
Helmholtz-Rayleigh Interdisciplinary Silver Medal
in Physical Acoustics and Engineering Acoustics William and Christine Hartmann Prize
Michael R. Moldover in Auditory Neuroscience
(National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST], Philip Joris
Gaithersburg, MD; retired 3/19) (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
[Catholic University of Leuven; KU Leuven],
R. Bruce Lindsay Award Leuven, Belgium)
Likun Zhang
(University of Mississippi, University)

Congratulations also to the following members who were elected Fellows in the Acoustical Society of America in
the spring 2021.
• Kathryn H. Arehart • Brian D. Simpson
(University of Colorado at Boulder) (Air Force Research Laboratory, Dayton, OH)
for contributions to the understanding of auditory for contributions to speech perception, spatial hear-
perception, hearing loss, and hearing aids ing, and the development of auditory displays
• Gregory Clement • Pamela E. Souza
(US Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, MD) (Northwestern University, Evanston, IL)
for contributions to transcranial for advancing understanding of the factors that affect
therapeutic ultrasound an individual’s response to hearing aid signal processing
• Ewa Jacewicz • Daniel J. Tollin
(Ohio State University, Columbus) (University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora)
for contributions to the understanding of spec- for multidisciplinary contributions linking acous-
tral and temporal dynamics in speech acoustics tics, physiology, and behavior to the understanding
and perception of binaural hearing
• Joan A. Sereno • Matthew W. Urban
(University of Kansas, Lawrence) (Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN)
for contributions to speech learning, perception, for outstanding contributions to the field of ultra-
and production across individuals and languages sonic assessment of biologic tissue properties

©2021 Acoustical Society of America. All rights reserved. Volume 17, issue 1 | Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 61
https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2021.17.1.61
 Ask an Acoustician:
Zoi-Heleni
Michalopoulou
Zoi-Heleni Michalopoulou and
Micheal L. Dent

Meet Zoi-Heleni Michalopoulou

This “Ask an Acoustician” essay features Zoi-Heleni
(Eliza) Michalopoulou from the Department of Math-
ematical Sciences, New Jersey Institute of Technology location as well, both of which are inherently tied with
(NJIT; Newark). Eliza is a member of the Acoustical geoacoustic inversion. Knowing the propagation environ-
Oceanography, Acoustical Signal Processing, and Under- ment, determined to a large degree by the seabed structure
water Acoustics Technical Committees of the Acoustical obtained via geoacoustic inversion, allows us to better
Society of America (ASA). She is a Fellow of the ASA and detect, identify, and localize sources of interest in the
has been a member of the College of Fellows, cochair of ocean, whether these are submarines or sound-producing
the Women in Acoustics Committee, and an associate marine life. These tasks are of paramount importance in
editor for The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. antisubmarine warfare and the study of marine life.
I will let Eliza tell you the rest in her own words.
I see my work as a combination of underwater acoustics,
A Conversation with Zoi-Heleni acoustic signal processing, and acoustical oceanography,
Michalopoulou, in Her Own Words reflected in the three ASA technical committees of which
Tell us about your work. I am a member. Recently, I have delved into machine-
I listen to the ocean! Employing both acoustic models learning methods, both for sediment characterization
and statistical signal processing, I conduct research in and source localization. I am fortunate to have colleagues
geoacoustic inversion. That is, I solve the inverse problem, who share experimental data with me, which facilitates
estimating properties of the seabed with which the sound the validation of my methods in real environments.
has interacted. The forward problem in ocean acoustics,
in simple terms, entails the modeling of the sound that Describe your career path.
travels in the ocean using mathematical relationships and I was born in Athens, Greece. Often, when I was in elemen-
relying on physics; the models connect sound propaga- tary school, I would get together with my best friend and
tion to the location of the source that transmits the sound, we would put together electrical circuits from a set that
the placement of the receivers where the sound is sensed, had been given to my brother as a present. I then attended
and ocean environment parameters such as properties of Pierce College, the high school of the American College of
the sediments. The inverse problem, on the other hand, Greece. I had the opportunity there to be exposed to a rich
uses these forward models and recorded data to move curriculum in liberal arts, science and mathematics, lan-
backward, that is, to identify the properties that gener- guages, and art. Math attracted me the most, and I decided
ated the measured sound. early on that I wanted to do something with numbers.

Geoacoustic inversion is one aspect of the inverse problem. As is often the case, I was told that girls are not made for
My interests extend to inversion for source detection and math and that only made me more determined to pursue

62 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021 | Volume 17, issue 1 ©2021 Acoustical Society of America. All rights reserved.
https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2021.17.1.62
a STEM career. I decided to study electrical engineering How do you feel when experiments/projects
at the National Technical University of Athens because do not work out the way you expected
it was the most prestigious STEM program in my home- them to?
town; the electrical circuits of my childhood may have I sometimes get frustrated, but I try to take it as a learn-
played a role in my decision! I enjoyed my studies and ing experience. I look for the reason behind the failure
decided to continue for an MS in electrical engineering in of an idea. That usually leads to a new idea that is an
the United States. My high-school years at the American alternative look at the problem I need to solve. And I
College of Greece had prepared me for this wonderful try to remind myself that progress in research is not a
adventure. I was fortunate to attend the MS program at linear process.
Duke University (Durham, NC) where I met my advisor,
Dimitri Alexandrou, who had a passion for anything that Do you feel like you have solved the work-
had to do with sound and the ocean. He inspired me, and life balance problem? Was it always
not only did I complete my MS thesis in ocean acoustic this way?
signal processing, but I decided to move forward for a Yes, as much as this is possible. I have a supportive family
doctorate in the same area. and a flexible working environment. Teaching courses
at convenient times and having family members help
Research became a passion, which led to an academic with child care so that I could attend conferences helped
career. I have been at NJIT ever since I graduated from me attain a satisfying combination of career and family
Duke, starting as a research assistant professor/postdoc- life. Having a daughter who appreciated my work and
toral fellow in the Department of Mathematical Sciences. enjoyed telling her friends about her mom searching
The environment was (and still is) full of energy and a for submarines was a bonus! The flexibility of my work
great fit. Soon after I joined, an opening for an assistant allowed me to get involved in the community. I served as
professor position came up. It was an easy decision for a volunteer for my daughter’s Girl Scout troop and unit,
me to apply and accept the offer that followed. I have and I also volunteered at her elementary school, mostly
been enjoying a fruitful career there ever since. I have helping students with math and science. I managed never
had the fortune to meet at Acoustical Society confer- to miss my daughter’s recitals, choir events, and soccer or
ences colleagues such as Ross Chapman, Alex Tolstoy, Jim volleyball games. I enjoyed travel and still do, attending
Candy, Ed Sullivan, Ellen Livingston, Leon Sibul, Leon many conferences, often with my husband and daughter,
Cohen, and many others, who mentored me in my early and I get to visit frequently my family in Greece, where I
years and to them I owe much of the satisfaction I have also enjoy collaborations with colleagues at the National
been drawing from my career. Technical University of Athens.

What is a typical day for you? What makes you a good acoustician?
I am a morning person, and my day starts very early; I I work in an applied mathematics and statistics depart-
am up at 5 a.m. with a cup of coffee, reading The New ment in a technological institute that enables me to have
York Times on my computer. But, other than that, every discussions and collaborations with researchers from
day is different. Research, teaching, and administration multiple areas in the mathematical and physical sciences
all compete for time. I try to get a good few hours of as well as engineering. I develop new ideas and a better
uninterrupted research time before delving into class understanding of acoustics problems after I become
preparation, teaching, and administration. I have fre- exposed to research advances in different disciplines.
quent meetings with my students that I look forward to And I learn from my students.
because they often lead to fresh ideas and perspectives.
I draw a firm line at around 6 p.m. Family and personal How do you handle rejection?
time start then unless deadlines are looming. Relaxed I put aside negative reviews and revisit them a couple
family dinners, classes at the Adult School of my town, of weeks later. I carefully consider critique (sometimes
and reading occupy my evenings. I agree and sometimes not) and try to use it to develop

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 63

ASK AN ACOUSTICIAN

new ideas or better arguments for my existing ones. I mentor, I realized that the first person I needed to per-
keep going. suade that I truly belonged in a challenging academic
environment was myself. Everything followed smoothly
What are you proudest of in your career? after that.
It has been a privilege to have mentored numerous
bright and talented young people, several of them from What do you want to accomplish within the
underrepresented groups in the sciences. I have had the next 10 years or before retirement?
pleasure of guiding several women in research projects, I plan to continue with all my activities: research, teach-
both during their graduate and undergraduate studies. ing, and administration. What I would particularly like
I take great pride in their accomplishments during and to accomplish is the mentoring of more undergraduate
after their time at NJIT. I follow their career paths and students in research. There is a spark when undergradu-
keep in touch; notes that they send me decorate my ates are exposed to research questions and asked to work
office. Similarly, I have found it rewarding to address alongside graduate students, postdocs, and faculty. Sev-
middle- and high-school students and to inspire them eral are inspired to go on to graduate school and some
(I hope!) about pursuing careers in STEM. On several continuing to work in acoustics. Others tell me that their
occasions, students have approached me afterward, star- research experience and participation in research teams
tled and excited about careers in math that they had in their undergraduate years enables them to work more
never imagined. effectively in groups in their jobs in industry. A worth-
while experience all around.
And, of course, I am exceedingly proud of the bright
23-year-old woman that my husband and I have raised Bibliography
in parallel to our careers, who has often inspired me to Frederick, C., Villar, S., and Michalopoulou, Z.-H. (2020). Seabed
classification using physics-based modeling and machine learning
work harder so that I could become a better role model The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 148, 859-872.
for her and her peers. Lin, T., and Michalopoulou, Z.-H. (2016). A direct method for the
estimation of sediment sound speed with a horizontal array in shal-
low water. IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering 42, 208-218.
What is the biggest mistake you’ve
Michalopoulou, Z.-H., Pole, A., and Abdi, A. (2019). Bayesian
ever made? coherent and incoherent matched-field localization and detection
Overthinking everything. Writing a paper or research in the ocean. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 146,
proposal was sometimes a particularly lengthy endeavor. 4812-4820.
Piccolo, J., Haramuniz, G., and Michalopoulou, Z.-H. (2019). Geo-
Should I include the last figure? How about adding one acoustic inversion with generalized additive models. The Journal of
more reference? And how about this email I need to the Acoustical Society of America 145, EL463-EL468.
send? How will I convey my message? Once I realized
it, I stopped it and became more efficient and effective. Contact Information

What advice do you have for budding Zoi-Heleni Michalopoulou [email protected]

acousticians? Department of Mathematical Sciences
Enjoy the journey into a multifaceted field. Attend con- New Jersey Institute of Technology
ferences and listen to talks from all areas of acoustics; 618 Cullimore
Newark, New Jersey 07102, USA
seek collaborations and cross-fertilization. Take risks and
explore new directions. Micheal L. Dent [email protected]
Department of Psychology
Have you ever experienced imposter University at Buffalo
syndrome? How did you deal with that if so? State University of New York (SUNY)
B76 Park Hall
Yes, I did, in the very beginning of my career as a faculty Buffalo, New York 14260, USA
member. With the advice of a wonderful colleague and

64 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

A Sound Plan for Attracting Students of Color
Tyrone Porter

The demographic survey completed by the Acousti- majored in electrical engineering. Similar to high school,
cal Society of America (ASA) in 2018 confirmed what the college physics course touched on acoustics and
many of us suspected, that the composition of the ASA sound waves but with very little depth.
membership does not reflect the demographics of the US
population. This is particularly true with respect to Black I was finally introduced to the fascinating world of
representation because less than 2% of the membership acoustics during a summer research experience at Duke
that responded to the survey identified as Black. University (Durham, NC). The program was funded
by the National Science Foundation, and I requested a
The ASA Committee for Improving Racial Diversity and research project in biomedical engineering to learn more
Inclusivity (CIRDI) that I chair was formed in the summer about the field. Interestingly, my summer project focused
of 2020 (Porter, 2020, acousticstoday.org/porter-16-4) on building and characterizing the performance of small
and charged with developing initiatives and activities to transformers that would be installed in measurement
address this glaring problem within the Society and, most devices for cardiac electrophysiology studies. I was and
importantly, within academic programs and professions remain to this day an innately curious person, and so I
related to acoustics. One of the first questions CIRDI would walk the hallways in the Pratt School of Engineer-
discussed was, “Why are there so few persons of color, ing at Duke and read the research posters.
particularly Blacks, in acoustics or acoustics-related
fields?” Through our conversations, we recognized I discovered that the Duke Biomedical Engineering Program
that there are few opportunities for Black students, had a very strong diagnostic ultrasound group and found
especially undergraduate students, to be exposed to the research to be accessible for an electrical engineering
acoustics in a structured format. It is more likely that student. On returning to PVAMU, I spent the year research-
a Black student will discover acoustics and careers in ing biomedical engineering graduate programs as well as
the field through their own efforts rather than through companies that produced diagnostic ultrasound systems.
a structured program (Scott, 2020, acousticstoday.org/
ScottNewNormal). I share my own experience as an The following summer, I secured an internship in the
example of what the ASA must address to diversify the Ultrasound Division of General Electric Medical Systems,
field and its membership. which is now GE Healthcare. I had a very supportive
supervisor and an extremely positive experience, which
I have been interested in physics and engineering since solidified my decision to pursue a career in biomedical
high school but was completely unaware of acoustics. ultrasound. My supervisor informed me of universities
Most of my high-school science classes focused on fun- that had strong research programs in biomedical ultra-
damentals (i.e., the biology of life across scales, Newton’s sound, including the University of Washington (UW;
Laws), and I was only introduced to sound waves in my Seattle). I was fortunate to be admitted to the bioengi-
physics class. However, the introduction was very super- neering program at the UW, and I joined the research
ficial, and the teacher never discussed careers in acoustics group led by Larry Crum. Larry recommended early in
or acoustics-related fields. my graduate career that I join the ASA, and he served as
a guide at its meetings. Larry also recommended that I
On completing high school, I enrolled at Prairie View attend programs that would provide additional instruc-
A&M University (PVAMU), which is a Historically Black tion in acoustics while also expanding my network, such
College/University (HBCU) outside Houston, TX, and as the Physical Acoustics Summer School. I completed

©2021 Acoustical Society of America. All rights reserved. Volume 17, issue 1 | Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 65
https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2021.17.1.65
ATTRACTING STUDENTS OF COLOR

my doctoral studies in 2003 and have been an active to increase interaction and communication with students
member of the ASA for more than 20 years. and professionals of color, such as working with faculty
and administrators at minority-serving institutions to
It is important to note that my training in acoustics raise awareness of acoustics-related professions; organiz-
occurred predominantly after completing my under- ing workshops and forums on topics related to diversity,
graduate degree. However, if I did not take it on myself to equity, and inclusion; and creating a webpage to highlight
learn about biomedical ultrasound as an undergraduate persons of color in acoustics and acoustics-related fields.
student, I never would have specialized in the area as a Please visit the ASA Diversity Initiatives page for more
graduate student and I never would have joined the ASA. information and for opportunities to volunteer and imple-
ment the various initiatives.
Based on my experience, the CIRDI acknowledged that
the ASA needs to create more opportunities for students References
of color to get introduced to acoustics and acoustics- Porter, T. (2020). Addressing the lack of Black members in the ASA.
Acoustics Today 16(4), 75-76.
related professions. The committee proposed that the Scott, E. K. E. (2020). The need for a new normal. Acoustics Today
ASA establish and manage a summer research and intern- 16(4), 77-79.
ship program in acoustics and acoustics-related fields for
undergraduate students of color. In addition to funding Contact Information
the students, the ASA will provide a short course in
acoustics in preparation of the summer experience.
Tyrone Porter [email protected]
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Furthermore, ASA members will host virtual gatherings for The University of Texas at Austin
the students to foster a community and discuss the academic 107 W. Dean Keeton Street
and professional pathways available in acoustics and acous- Austin, Texas 78715, USA
tics-related fields. The American Institute for Physics (AIP)
awarded the ASA seed funding from its Diversity Action
Fund to support launching the program in 2021. For many
students, the summer program may be their first substan-
tive experience with concepts, technologies, or processes
involving acoustics. A positive experience both technically
and culturally may serve as a first step toward pursuing a
career in a field related to acoustics and becoming a member
of the ASA. We are seeking mentors committed to diversi-
fying their profession to host these aspiring young scholars.
We plan to foster community among the mentors as well
by hosting workshops and virtual gatherings to discuss and
share best practices for mentoring students from under-
represented groups. Although not required, mentors and/
or companies willing to fund a student will enable the ASA
to include more students in the program. More informa-
tion about the program and expectations for mentors can
be found on the ASA Diversity Initiatives page (available at
acousticalsociety.org/diversity-initiatives). If you are inter-
ested, please contact Tyrone Porter ([email protected]).

The summer program is part of a broader strategic plan

crafted by the CIRDI to increase the representation of per-
sons of color in acoustics-related careers and in the ASA.
The plan includes various initiatives and activities designed

66 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

 Hearing and Speech Research at the NIDCD
Debara L. Tucci

Introduction of communication disorders. Current NIDCD-funded

From my position as director of the National Institute on research promises to advance science in ways that directly
Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) impact patient care. Some examples include
at the National Institutes of Health (NIH; Bethesda, MD), • developing improved treatments for otitis media
I am proud to lead an outstanding group of scientists and (middle ear infections);
administrators who share my passion for scientific discov- • identifying and characterizing genes responsible for
ery and advancing public health in three program areas: hereditary hearing impairment;
hearing and balance; taste and smell; and voice, speech, • studying genes associated with tumors affecting
and language. Our broad research portfolio of basic, trans- human communication;
lational, clinical, and public health research focuses on • investigating gene therapy for treating hearing loss
human communication and associated disorders. and dizziness;
• exploring the genetic bases of child language disorders
At least 46 million people in the United States have a hear- as well as characterizing the linguistic and cognitive
ing or other communication disorder. I have dedicated my deficits in children and adults with language disorders;
career to understanding the causes and impact of hear- • identifying biomedical and behavioral issues associ-
ing loss and to developing treatments to restore hearing. ated with communication impairment and disorders;
Over my many years of clinical practice as an otolaryn- • researching improvements to assistive device technol-
gologist surgeon-scientist, including more than 25 years at ogy that benefits those with hearing loss; and
Duke University Medical Center (Durham, NC) where I • engineering a “thoughts into speech” algorithm for
cofounded the Duke Hearing Center and directed the medi- assistive communication devices to help people with
cal center’s cochlear implant program, I was privileged to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, stroke, or neurodegen-
care for and help many individuals with ear, hearing, and erative disease regain their ability to communicate.
balance problems. I was also frustrated that our scientific
understanding was insufficient to successfully treat every
NIDCD research has informed a practice that many now
patient I encountered. As NIDCD director, it is gratifying
recognize as routine, universal newborn hearing screenings,
to me to now guide the institute’s exceptional biomedical
and has supported research that helps us better understand
workforce. I truly believe the research funded by our insti-
the role taste and smell play in nutrition and health. Our
tute will continue to improve many lives in meaningful ways.
national education campaign, “It’s A Noisy Planet. Protect
Their Hearing.”® (available at noisyplanet.nidcd.nih.gov),
NIDCD: Three Decades of Discovery and has educated millions of teens, parents, and teachers about
Advancement noise-induced hearing loss and how to prevent it. And our
Over its 32-year history (available at bit.ly/3nGuuq3), commitment to research that improves access to affordable
NIDCD-supported researchers have made seminal hearing health care will help many Americans with hearing
advances in understanding the basic biology of sensory loss who could benefit from assistive hearing devices, such
systems and disease mechanisms leading to increasingly as hearing aids, but currently can’t afford them.
effective, evidence-based treatments. Extraordinary
research opportunities have led to scientific break- NIDCD Budget and Spending Overview
throughs in the study of genes, proteins, cellular and For fiscal year (FY) 2020, Congress appropriated
molecular processes, neural circuits, and sensory and approximately $491 million to the NIDCD. This appro-
motor systems that directly affect our understanding priation represents about 1.2% of NIH’s total budget

https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2021.17.1.67 Volume 17, issue 1 | Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 67

HEARING AND SPEECH RESEARCH

physics, and mathematics — that address research ques-

tions relevant to the NIDCD's multidisciplinary mission.

Examples of NIDCD support that may interest applicants

from traditional and nontraditional biomedical fields
include the NIDCD Small Business Innovation Research
(SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR)
programs. These funding mechanisms aim to stimulate
technology and research innovation with a potential for
product commercialization. VocaliD is a personalized-
voice product designed by NIDCD voice scientists and
is now available to people with severely impaired speech.
The device blends the speech of two individuals, a donor
and a recipient, to recreate the recipient’s natural voice.
Figure 1. This chart shows National Institute on Deafness
and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) fiscal year The NIDCD establishes general guidelines for funding
(FY) 2019 spending by category: 70% research project grants; based on scientific merit, responsiveness to the institute's
16% other/miscellaneous, including administrative costs, priorities, and availability of funds. I encourage individu-
research and development (R&D) contracts, Small Business als from nontraditional and traditional biomedical areas
Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology connected to our program areas to consider NIDCD as
Transfer (STTR) contracts, Center grants, and other research a source for research support. Please see our guidelines
grants; 9% intramural research; and 5% research training/ for more information about our funding opportunities
career development grants. (available at www.nidcd.nih.gov/funding).

Training the Next Generation for Success

($41.7 billion). NIDCD FY2020 appropriations are a We continue the NIDCD’s long commitment to a research
3.4% increase over the FY2019 budget. environment that supports scientists in a variety of
related disciplines and at all stages of their professional
Figure 1 shows an overview of FY2019 spending (the latest
available) by category/funding mechanisms for intramural
and extramural research programs. Intramural research Figure 2. This chart represents the percentage of FY2019
is research conducted by scientists at NIH. Extramural funding across the 7 mission areas of the NIDCD: 54% for
research is research conducted by scientists at US and inter- hearing, 4% for balance, 5% for taste, 9% for smell, 8% for
national research centers, universities, and medical centers. voice, 6% for speech, and 14% for language.

Figure 2 notes the percentage of FY2019 intramural and extra-

mural research spending for each of our seven mission areas.

A Broad Focus for NIDCD

Funding Opportunities
The NIDCD distributes its resources among many diverse
programs and mechanisms. The institute is committed
to funding the largest number of meritorious projects
possible while allowing the flexibility needed to support
selected program priorities and respond to emerging
scientific opportunities. Our funding applicants and
grantees represent diverse professional and academic
programs, from biology and medicine to engineering,

68 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

careers. My hope is that trainees funded by the NIDCD To affirm the NIDCD’s commitment to inclusive excel-
will subsequently submit successful career development lence and our resolve to both embrace and enable the
applications and continue a trajectory to productive contributions of a diverse scientific workforce, I initi-
and fulfilling research careers. As an otolaryngologist ated several steps to ensure that our commitment has
surgeon-scientist, I am committed to training the next an impact. Together with our scientific advisory council
generation of otolaryngologist researchers (available at and other stakeholders, the NIDCD is exploring how we
bit.ly/NIDCD_OSSP) who can leverage their unique clin- can most effectively engage underrepresented minority
ical experience and research skills to address important scientists throughout their careers and support train-
questions in human disease and disorders. ing, mentoring, and leadership development programs
to ensure a robust and diverse workforce. Furthermore,
The NIDCD supports a variety of grant mechanisms that we are looking at how best to increase participation of
are tailored to support different stages of professional underrepresented minority populations in research stud-
career development. Support for investigators who have ies in our mission areas.
received their terminal education degrees within the past
10 years (early-stage investigators; ESIs) is reflective of Supporting Research Toward Affordable,
our commitment to early career development. The insti- Accessible Hearing Health Care and
tute has a long history of supporting ESIs through special Improving Global Hearing Health
programs, including the Early Career Research Award Approximately 15% of US adults report some degree of
(ECR R21), and an expedited review of predoctoral hearing loss. Untreated hearing loss is a significant public
and postdoctoral fellowship applications. Our training health issue. Higher total health care costs, a higher risk
programs are designed to support the next generation of dementia and cognitive decline, falls, depression, and a
of scientists and other professionals who will address lower quality of life have been associated with untreated
tomorrow’s expanding health care needs. I encourage hearing loss in older adults (Deal et al., 2019). As the lead
you to peruse our extensive research training and career federal agency supporting research to prevent, detect,
development opportunities at the NIDCD website (avail- and treat hearing loss, the NIDCD supports initiatives to
able at www.nidcd.nih.gov/training). improve access to affordable hearing health care (available
at bit.ly/330QIeE). One example is NIDCD’s contribu-
Commitment of the NIDCD to a Diverse tions to and major support for the National Academies
Biomedical Workforce of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine consensus study,
The NIDCD has diligently worked to increase the “Hearing Health Care for Adults: Priorities for Improving
diversity of the research pipeline across our mission Access and Affordability” (2016). Cosponsored by the
areas. When scientists and trainees from different back- NIH through the NIDCD and the National Institute on
grounds work together, their unique perspectives and Aging, as well as four other federal agencies and a non-
experiences stimulate creativity and innovation, yielding profit patient advocacy group, the study concluded that the
higher quality research than less diverse teams (available diverse needs of adults with hearing loss were not being
at bit.ly/3nJ4zhC). Importantly, diverse research teams met. As a result, one of the independent panel’s 12 recom-
are more likely to ensure that members of underserved mendations for improving adult hearing health care was
populations will support and participate in research and for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to create
that the research we invest in addresses questions that are and regulate a new category of over-the-counter (OTC)
meaningful to these communities. Increasing scientists’ hearing devices for adults with mild-to-moderate hear-
understanding of disparate groups benefits us all and is ing loss. These products are expected to come to market
at the core of the NIH mission: to uncover new knowl- soon, pending release by the FDA of the final regulations
edge that will lead to better health for everyone. Deafness for guidelines and quality standards. Additionally, a small-
and other communication disorders, after all, cross all business research grant from the NIDCD led to the first
cultural, racial, and gender boundaries. Despite these self-fitting hearing aid approved by the FDA in 2018. The
efforts, however, the proportion of investigators receiv- NIDCD remains committed to improving the landscape
ing funding in our mission areas who are members of of adult hearing health care and encourages continued
underrepresented minority groups remains small. research to fill remaining gaps.

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 69

HEARING AND SPEECH RESEARCH

Global hearing health care is another NIDCD priority National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2016).
and one that also embraces multidisciplinary approaches. Hearing Health Care for Adults: Priorities for Improving Access and
Affordability. The National Academies Press. Washington, DC. Avail-
I cochair The Lancet Commission on Hearing Loss able at https://bit.ly/3pGJbeu.
(available at globalhearinglosscommission.com), which
pursues innovative ideas that challenge the accepted
Contact Information
thinking on identification and treatment of hearing loss
worldwide. The commission seeks to develop creative
Debara L. Tucci [email protected]
approaches focused on policy solutions and the use of
Office of the Director
new technologies and programs to enable those with
National Institute on Deafness and
hearing loss worldwide to be fully integrated into society. Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
We will share our findings in spring 2022. I encourage Building 31, Room 3C02
you to learn more about the NIDCD’s commitment to 31 Center Drive, MSC 2320
Bethesda, Maryland 20814, USA
global health (available at bit.ly/3kMEhZL).

NIDCD’s Strategic Plan for 2022–2026

One current focus is the development of the institute’s stra-
tegic plan for 2022–2026. Throughout this process, we are The Journal of the Acoustical
formulating ambitious yet achievable goals for research Society of America
in our mission areas, goals that will further our scientific
understanding of basic biological systems, human disease
mechanisms, and promising treatments. We will continue
JASA Call
to prioritize accessibility of care and research dissemina- For Submissions:
tion as core components of our mission. We are committed JASA is currently accepting manuscripts for
to making treatments accessible to all, using a full range of the following Special Issues:
innovative technologies and approaches to help all popula-
tions, inclusive of gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic
• COVID-19 Pandemic Acoustic Effects
status, geographic location, and communication method.
We also value our work with the many individuals and • Additive Manufacturing and Acoustics
groups outside of the NIH who represent those affected • Education in Acoustics
by deafness and other communication disorders.
• Theory and Applications of
Acoustofluidics
Looking to the Future
I am optimistic that in the coming years we will make tre- • Ocean Acoustics in the
mendous progress in addressing the scientific and clinical Changing Arctic
challenges related to the mission areas of the NIDCD. I am
especially proud of how our workforce successfully navi- Special Issue articles are free to read for
gated pandemic-imposed challenges with dedication and one year after publication and don’t incur
spirit during my first year as NIDCD director. I am excited any mandatory page charges.
about continuing this work and commitment with my col-
leagues in the months and years ahead to apply this energy
across our mission areas. Together, we will continue to see
the quality of life improved by our research.
Find out more at
asa.scitation.org/jas/info/specialissues
References
Deal, J. A., Reed, N. S., Kravetz, A. D., Weinreich, H., Yeh, C., Lin, F. R.,
and Altan, A. (2019). Incident hearing loss and comorbidity: A lon-
gitudinal administrative claims study. JAMA Otolaryngology-Head
& Neck Surgery 145(1), 36-43. Available at https://bit.ly/3325NfZ.

70 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

Obituary
the interpretation of research findings, and his steadfast
James David Miller, 1930–2020 adherence to rigor and honesty in science. He pioneered
the use of the chinchilla in auditory research and fos-
tered the work of Robert Dooling on songbirds and
Patricia Kuhl on sensitivity to speech sounds in infants.
With anatomists Walter Covell and Barbara Bohne, he
James David (Jim) Miller, a Fellow extended his groundbreaking work on noise-induced
and member of the Executive Council deafness in animal models. As director of research, he
of the Acoustical Society of America fostered and guided a group of CID audiologists and
and prolific contributor of research in engineers who patented the first wearable digital hear-
several areas of human communica- ing aid. Jim also became interested in speech recognition
tion, died at age 90 on August 20, 2020, in Bloomington, and, with various collaborators, published a series of
IN. Jim’s career spanned a remarkable 65 years; his final studies, gradually developing what became his “auditory-
publications in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of perceptual theory of phonetic recognition.” In Jim’s final
America in 2017 and 2020 are extensive studies of speech years of research, he directed a multi-university study
recognition by hearing aid users. of speech perception training by hearing aid users plus
an application of the same principles to improving the
Born in West Allis, WI, Jim attended the University of communication skills of students of foreign languages.
Wisconsin-Madison, where he was an assistant in Harry
Harlow’s primate laboratory. He went on to graduate In addition to his remarkably full career as a scientist, Jim
work at Indiana University (Bloomington), where his dis- found time for a lifelong dedication to becoming the best
sertation on noise-induced temporary threshold shifts tennis player he could. He also firmly believed in “striv-
was supervised by James Egan. In 1958, after completing ing for a more perfect union” and did house-to-house
his PhD in experimental psychology, he was placed in campaigning in recent elections.
charge of an Air Force-funded project on noise-induced
deafness in cats. After three years, that effort resulted He is survived by his former wife Dolores; their children,
in one of the most widely cited studies of the system- Valerie, Lucia, and Harry; and granddaughter Rose.
atic influence of various levels of intense noise on the
mammalian ear, in terms of both behaviorally measured Selected Publications by James David Miller
hearing loss and damage to specific cochlear structures. Miller, J. D. (1989). Auditory-perceptual interpretation of the vowel.
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 85, 2114-2134.
Miller, J. D., Niemoeller, A. F., Pascoe, D., and Skinner, M. W. (1980).
In 1961, Jim was recruited by the Central Institute for the Integration of the electroacoustic description of hearing aids with the
audiologic description of clients. In G. A. Studebaker and I. Hoch-
Deaf (CID) in St. Louis (MO). He stayed at the CID for berg (Eds.), Acoustic Factors Affecting Hearing Aid Performance.
the next 40 years, initially as head of the animal research University Park Press, Baltimore, MD.
program and later assuming many other leadership roles. Miller, J. D., Watson, C. S., and Covell, W. P. (1963). Deafening effects
of noise on the cat. Acta Oto-Laryngologica Supplement 176, 1-91.
He retired in 2001 as Emeritus Director of Research at Miller, J. D., Watson, C. S., Leek, M. R., Dubno, J. R., Wark, D. J.,
the CID. In 2003, he was invited for a semester visit to Souza, P. E., Gordon-Salant, S., and Ahlstrom, J. B. (2017). Syllable-
Indiana University and stayed in Bloomington for the constituent perception by hearing-aid users: Common factors in
quiet and noise. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.
remaining 17 years of his life, as an adjunct faculty 141(4), 2933-2946.
member and as Principal Scientist at Communication Miller, J. D., Watson, C. S., Leek, M. R., Wark, D. J., Souza, P. E.,
Gordon-Salant, S., Ahlstrom, J. B., and Dubno, J. R. (2020). Sentence
Disorders Technology, Inc. perception in noise by hearing-aid users predicted by syllable-
constituent perception and the use of context. The Journal of the
The list of Jim’s scientific accomplishments is long, but Acoustical Society of America. 147, 273-284.
even longer is that of the many students and research Written by
collaborators who have been outspoken in describing Charles S. Watson [email protected]
his excellence as a teacher, his remarkable insights in Indiana University, Bloomington

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 71

Obituary
While as a faculty member at the Naval Postgraduate
Jeffrey A. Nystuen, 1957–2020 School in Monterey, CA, Jeff studied the sound of indi-
vidual raindrop splashes with Herman Medwin. They used
an abandoned elevator shaft as an acoustic chamber to drip
various sizes of water drops and recorded the sound gener-
ated individually. They discovered a new sound-generating
Jeffrey A. Nystuen, an admired mechanism due to the bubble entrapment and improved
colleague in the acoustics and ocean- predictions of the underwater sound produced.
ography communities, recently passed
away. Jeff was a Principal Ocean- In 1995, Jeff moved to the APL and later became an affil-
ographer at the Applied Physics iate faculty member at the School of Oceanography at
Laboratory (APL) at the University of Washington (UW), the UW. There he developed a passive acoustic recording
Seattle, from 1995 until his retirement in 2018. Jeff was system called Passive Aquatic Listeners (PALs). He advo-
the recipient of the 2003 Medwin Prize of the Acoustical cated for a smaller data size through intelligent sampling
Society of America (ASA) and was named ASA Fellow schemes. He established a field program to measure rain-
in the same year. Jeff was born in Seattle, grew up in Ann fall at sea using his acoustical technique and collaborated
Arbor, MI, and was a graduate of the University of Michi- with colleagues around the world.
gan and Scripps Institute of Oceanography/University of
California, San Diego, La Jolla. Jeff was a generous and insightful colleague, collaborator,
advisor, and mentor. His perspective gave the sound of
Jeff is widely regarded as a pioneer in acoustic rainfall rainfall a special meaning. Whenever we hear raindrops
measurement. By monitoring the sound of rain falling on on water, we think of him.
the ocean, Jeff was able to learn about patterns of rain-
fall and cloud formation over the open ocean. Knowing He is survived by his parents in Ann Arbor, sister and
more about the role of rainfall has given meteorologists brother-in-law in Massachusetts, and many friends in
a better understanding of weather phenomena such as El Seattle and around the world.
Nino and the floods and droughts that it triggers around
the world. Selected Publications by Jeffrey A. Nystuen
Ma, B. B., Nystuen, J. A., and Lien, R.-C. (2005). Prediction of under-
water sound levels from rain and wind. The Journal of the Acoustical
Jeff ’s interest in acoustic rain measurement was Society of America 117, 3555-3565.
inspired by the suggestion from his doctoral advisor Nystuen, J. A. (1986). Rainfall measurements using underwater
Robert Stewart and coadvisor Walter Munk at Scripps. ambient noise. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
79, 972-982.
The remote sensing of satellite/radar rain measure-
Nystuen, J. A. (2001). Listening to raindrops from underwater: An
ment provides large surface coverage, yet the spatial acoustic disdrometer. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technol-
resolution is poor and needs local ground truth for ogy 18, 1640-1657.
the calibration. To measure the “local” rain rate at sea Nystuen, J. A., and Medwin, H. (1995). Underwater sound produced
by rainfall: Secondary splashes of aerosols. The Journal of the Acousti-
is no easy task due to the destructive force at the air- cal Society of America 97, 1606-1613.
sea interface. The passive acoustic method provides
an alternative to measuring the rainfall away from the Written by:
Barry Ma [email protected]
air-sea interface and with a much larger surface cover-
Applied Physics Laboratory and School of Oceanography
age area than the conventional accumulation-type rain University of Washington, Seattle
gauge on a surface buoy. Because the rain pattern is Peter Leopold [email protected]
intermittent and varies spatially, the passive acoustic BioAnalyte Inc.
method is better, in theory. Portland, ME

72 Acoustics Today • Spring 2021

Obituary
eventually honored by being made an Acoustical Society
Ann Kristen Syrdal, 1945–2020 of America (ASA) Fellow. For her applied research, she
was honored as a Distinguished Member of the Technical
Staff. This work also informed a volume on applied speech
technology that sampled most evolving applications of
speech technology and reflected her particular interest
Ann Kristen Syrdal passed away on in the use of speech technology in assistive communica-
July 24, 2020, at her home in San Jose, tion aids for persons with sensory or motor deficits that
CA. In a career spanning five decades, present challenges to auditory or oral communication.
Ann made outstanding contribu-
tions to our understanding of human Later, Ann joined the AT&T Next-Gen TTS project,
speech perception and to the development of natural- developing state-of-the-art natural-sounding corpus-
sounding text-to-speech (TTS) synthesis. based speech synthesis. Ann guided the preparation of
large speech corpora, designed voices, and carried out
Ann received her PhD in psychology from the University detailed experimental evaluations that led to higher
of Minnesota (Minneapolis) in 1973, concentrating on quality. The results of the work included new high-
human speech perception. Categorical perception, the quality female voices and an African American TTS
way human listeners partition a continuum of varying voice. The system was commercialized and enjoyed
acoustic patterns into discrete linguistic categories, drove lasting success under the product name AT&T Natural
Ann’s early work as did the invariance problem: how Voices. Ann also led the ASA committee that developed
vastly different acoustic patterns such as speech uttered the American National Standards Institute (ANSI)/ASA
by a young child and an adult male can be mapped to standard on evaluating the intelligibility of TTS systems.
the same linguistic elements. Working with colleagues Ann was a wonderful friend to many AT&T colleagues
at Haskins Laboratories and in her dissertation, Ann and mentor to young researchers.
explored categorical perception for stop consonants
using speech synthesis to generate stimuli, contributing Selected Publications by Ann Kristen Syrdal
to our understanding of phoneme recognition. Addition- Beutnagel, M., Conkie, A., Schroeter, J., Stylianou, Y., and Syrdal, A. (1999).
The AT&T Next-Gen TTS system. In Proceedings of the Joint meeting of
ally, Ann collaborated with then-husband Robert Lasky, the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), European Acoustics Association
demonstrating that universal categorical perception in (EAA), and German Acoustics DAGA Conference, Berlin, Germany, March
young infants must later be “tuned” to the specifics of the 14-19, 1999, pp. 18-24. https://acousticstoday.org/SyrdalATT.
infant’s native language. Lasky, R. E., Syrdal-Lasky, A., and Klein, R. E. (1975). VOT dis-
crimination by four to six and a half month old infants from
Spanish environments. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
One of Ann’s most important contributions, supported 20(2), 215-225.
by a National Institutes of Health Career Development Mattingly, I. G., Liberman, A. M., Syrdal, A. K., and Halwes, T. (1971).
Discrimination in speech and nonspeech modes. Cognitive Psychol-
Award, addressed the invariance problem and speaker-
ogy 2(2), 131-157.
independent classification of vowels. Syrdal and Gopal Syrdal, A. K., Bennett, R. W., and Greenspan, S. L. (Eds.) (1994).
presented a model in which differences measured on a Applied Speech Technology. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.
Bark scale between a speaker's fundamental frequency Syrdal, A. K., and Gopal, H. S. (1986). A perceptual model of vowel recog-
nition based on the auditory representation of American English vowels.
and pairs of formants leads to the accurate classification The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 79(4), 1086-1100.
of vowels in the front-back and high-low dimensions
used to describe vowels in articulatory phonetic terms. Written by
H. Timothy Bunnell [email protected]
Center for Pediatric Auditory and Speech Sciences
Ann moved to AT&T Bell Labs in Naperville, IL, where Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children
she worked on aspects of speech synthesis, including 1600 Rockland Road, Wilmington, DE
duration modeling and, most importantly, developing Alistair D. Conkie [email protected]
the first female synthetic voice, work for which she was Apple, Inc., Cupertino, CA

Spring 2021 • Acoustics Today 73

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