EN2100 Course Description

Aim

After passing this course, participants should

• understand in some detail how human hearing works
• be able to assess how sound perception affects the usefulness of technical systems for sound reproduction
• be able to apply basic psychoacoustic testing methods to measure hearing or to evaluate the sound quality of reproducing systems
• be able to use computational models for estimating subjective properties of sounds and systems, such as loudness and speech intelligibility
• have some knowledge of the consequences of hearing impairments and limitations in technical aids for the hearing impaired

Description

The course is about human hearing and gives basic knowledge about design requirements for technical sound presentation and sound transmission systems, with regard for human auditory perception.

Which sounds can we hear? How small differences between sounds can we perceive? How does background noise affect our ability to perceive other sounds? We study how humans perceive speech in various sound environments, and how we perceive the distance and direction to sound sources.

The course gives an overview of psychoacoustic test methods used to measure auditory abilities objectively and to evaluate the subjective sound quality of sound reproduction systems. Consequences of impaired hearing are discussed.

Prerequisites

Basic differential and integral calculus.
SF1901, Probability Theory and Statistics, or equivalent.

Course requirements

Written examination, homework assignment, and one laboratory experiment.

See separate exam page.

Required Reading

See separate page.

Teaching

Lectures: 12x2 hours. Tutorial: 6x2 hours. Lab experiment: 1x2 hours, plus homework. Compulsory homework assignment, about 20 h.