David Sundström, Paul Calamia, Sebastian Prepeliţă, Sebastià Amengual Garí, Andrew Francl
{"title":"Predicting perceptual discriminability of room impulse responses at similar source-receiver distances using optimal transport.","authors":"David Sundström, Paul Calamia, Sebastian Prepeliţă, Sebastià Amengual Garí, Andrew Francl","doi":"10.1121/10.0046755","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0046755","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Quantifying the perceptual distance between room impulse responses (RIRs) is essential for evaluating room acoustic models in augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) applications. While distances based on late-reverberation statistics are widely used, late-reverberation cues are typically weak for RIRs from the same room at similar source-receiver distances, whereas early-reflection timing differences remain. This letter studies the unbalanced optimal transport distance between RIR magnitude distributions as a predictor of perceptual discriminability in this regime. Evaluation on two independently collected discrimination datasets totaling 218 participants shows that the optimal transport distance correlates strongly with empirical discrimination rates.</p>","PeriodicalId":73538,"journal":{"name":"JASA express letters","volume":"6 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149119563","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Y M Barkley, J L K McCullough, S Fregosi, E M Oleson
{"title":"From signals to species: Improving acoustic classification reliability for North Pacific false killer whales.","authors":"Y M Barkley, J L K McCullough, S Fregosi, E M Oleson","doi":"10.1121/10.0046774","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0046774","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study presents an automated pre-classification data filtering method that increases confidence in the classification of cetacean acoustic events lacking visual verification, while minimizing bias and reducing the need for manual review. The study tests the approach on false killer whale (Pseudorca crassidens) acoustic data from the North Pacific Ocean. A minimum-data requirement derived from sensitivity analyses, combined with filters based on species-specific acoustic characteristics, defines objective criteria for excluding acoustic events before classification. This framework is a practical tool for systematic, dataset-specific quality control to support the acoustic classification workflow and, ultimately, cetacean population assessment and conservation efforts.</p>","PeriodicalId":73538,"journal":{"name":"JASA express letters","volume":"6 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149119598","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Application of synchrosqueezed spectrograms to speaker verification via formant identification by visual observation.","authors":"Masahiro Okada","doi":"10.1121/10.0046805","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0046805","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Speaker identification and verification via the measurement of formant frequencies from a sound spectrogram are often based on rules of thumb. In this Letter, we investigate the effectiveness of synchrosqueezed spectrograms, which can make formants clearer, for speaker verification using an experiment involving human participants. In the experiment, 88 participants were presented with pairs of synchrosqueezed spectrograms and asked to determine whether each pair was produced by the same speaker or different speakers. It was found that synchrosqueezing improved the performance of speaker discrimination by significantly reducing mistakes for different speakers and is thus useful for speaker verification using spectrograms.</p>","PeriodicalId":73538,"journal":{"name":"JASA express letters","volume":"6 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149119579","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Esteban Avilés, Michael Oelze, Roberto Lavarello, Andres Coila
{"title":"Closed-form weak-wave propagation pressure amplitudes for arbitrary power-law attenuation.","authors":"Esteban Avilés, Michael Oelze, Roberto Lavarello, Andres Coila","doi":"10.1121/10.0046858","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0046858","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Biological tissues exhibit power-law frequency dependence of the attenuation coefficient. We derive closed-form weak-wave expressions for fundamental, second-, and third-harmonic pressure amplitudes of monochromatic acoustic plane waves in homogeneous media with arbitrary power-law attenuation to extend classical expressions for quadratic attenuation. For linear frequency dependence of attenuation, one-dimensional simulations using the k-Wave k-space pseudospectral solver yielded 35%-42% (classical) and 0%-2% (proposed) normalized root mean square errors for fundamental-band depletion. This extension supports improved fundamental-band B/A estimation for quantitative ultrasound tissue characterization. A proof-of-concept through-transmission application in phantoms with nearly linear attenuation yielded experimental B/A estimation errors of 23.7%-52.7% (classical) and 4.0%-5.9% (proposed).</p>","PeriodicalId":73538,"journal":{"name":"JASA express letters","volume":"6 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149221082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Communication-aware Hankel singular value decomposition denoising method for underwater acoustic communication.","authors":"Dawei Yin, Yanan Tian, Yanjun Liu, Derui Li, Haiyuan Peng, Yu Li","doi":"10.1121/10.0046665","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0046665","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This Letter proposes a communication-aware Hankel singular value decomposition denoising method (CA-HSVD) for underwater acoustic communication. The received passband signal is decomposed into singular components, whose communication relevance is evaluated using the normalized correlation-peak prominence of a known training sequence and mapped to continuous reconstruction weights through a sigmoid function. Semi-physical simulations using simulated communication signals, a measured sea-trial channel, and measured underwater acoustic noise show that CA-HSVD achieves the lowest bit error rate (BER) over the tested signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) range and provides a SNR gain of approximately 2 dB over training-guided hard-Hankel singular value decomposition at the same BER level.</p>","PeriodicalId":73538,"journal":{"name":"JASA express letters","volume":"6 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149240694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
D Keith Wilson, Vladimir E Ostashev, Chris L Pettit
{"title":"Solution of the second-moment parabolic equation in a refractive medium by the alternating-direction implicit method.","authors":"D Keith Wilson, Vladimir E Ostashev, Chris L Pettit","doi":"10.1121/10.0046857","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0046857","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The second-moment parabolic equation (PE) simultaneously incorporates refraction, turbulent scattering, and ground interactions. Direct numerical solution of this equation circumvents the need for creating and propagating sound through a large ensemble of randomized turbulence calculations. In previous research, numerical methods were proposed for solving the second-moment PE based on perturbative methods and Cholesky factorization. Here, an efficient computational approach based on the alternating-direction implicit (ADI) method is described. For large ensembles, averages converge on the second-moment ADI calculations. Hence, the ADI calculation can provide a useful benchmark for wave propagation calculations in random media.</p>","PeriodicalId":73538,"journal":{"name":"JASA express letters","volume":"6 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149278213","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Beyond the audiogram: Maternal education is associated with speech perception in noise in young adults with clinically normal hearing.","authors":"Bhamini Sharma","doi":"10.1121/10.0047002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0047002","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Speech perception in noise varies among individuals with clinically normal hearing and is not fully explained by peripheral hearing sensitivity. This study examined whether maternal education, an indicator of socioeconomic status, is associated with Quick Speech-in-Noise (QuickSIN) performance in 63 young adults with normal hearing. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that higher maternal education was associated with better speech perception in noise performance, while controlling for pure-tone average, age, and sex. Pure-tone hearing sensitivity was not associated with QuickSIN performance. These findings suggest that maternal education is associated with individual differences in speech perception in noise beyond peripheral hearing sensitivity and may warrant consideration when examining factors related to auditory performance.</p>","PeriodicalId":73538,"journal":{"name":"JASA express letters","volume":"6 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149247831","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Donghyeon Kim, Ying-Tsong Lin, William S Hodgkiss, Brian T Hefner, Dajun Tang
{"title":"Vertical line array observations of the angles of intromission into a layered shallow water seabed.","authors":"Donghyeon Kim, Ying-Tsong Lin, William S Hodgkiss, Brian T Hefner, Dajun Tang","doi":"10.1121/10.0046787","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0046787","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Bottom-reflected acoustic arrivals from muddy seabeds can exhibit incident grazing angle-dependent reflection loss associated with the angle of intromission. Previous studies investigated this phenomenon through bottom-reflection measurements on individual hydrophones. In this Letter, acoustic transmissions from a towed source in two mid-frequency bands (3.5-4.5 and 5.5-6.5 kHz) are analyzed using vertical line array hydrophones deployed on the Washington shelf. Weak bottom-reflected arrivals are observed, exhibiting more complex frequency-dependent behavior than predicted by a homogeneous muddy halfspace. Guided by sub-bottom profiler measurements, a preliminary multilayer analysis shows that interference among reflections from multiple sediment layers provides a plausible explanation.</p>","PeriodicalId":73538,"journal":{"name":"JASA express letters","volume":"6 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149119549","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hugo Eduardo Ferreira, Maria Eduarda Araújo Rêgo, Kaio Matheus Lopes de Oliveira, Jonathan Cleilson Penha Gomes, Renata S Sousa-Lima
{"title":"Acoustic repertoire and vocal activity of three juvenile female cerrado red-nosed mice, Wiedomys cerradensis (Rodentia: Cricetidae).","authors":"Hugo Eduardo Ferreira, Maria Eduarda Araújo Rêgo, Kaio Matheus Lopes de Oliveira, Jonathan Cleilson Penha Gomes, Renata S Sousa-Lima","doi":"10.1121/10.0046922","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0046922","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We describe and classify the vocal repertoire of three juvenile female Wiedomys cerradensis from 144 h of continuous recordings. We identified 42 260 calls, categorized into six distinct vocalization types: quaver, flat, varied, sustained, sweep, and scream. A supervised Random Forest algorithm mathematically validated these classifications with high accuracy (98.12%; Kappa = 0.96), identifying frequency modulation and spectral structure as the most informative parameters for discrimination. Preliminary analysis revealed daily activity peaks across the 24 h cycle. This preliminary study characterizes a complex vocal repertoire in three juvenile female W. cerradensis, addressing knowledge gaps in Neotropical rodent bioacoustics.</p>","PeriodicalId":73538,"journal":{"name":"JASA express letters","volume":"6 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149229507","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Harnessing time: Leveraging chronotype asynchrony to promote efficient speech learning.","authors":"A L van Zelst, F S Earle","doi":"10.1121/10.0046951","DOIUrl":"10.1121/10.0046951","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study examined chronotype synchrony effects on learning a nonnative speech contrast. Fifty-nine young adult native speakers of American English completed a circadian preference questionnaire and trained on producing a Danish vowel contrast in the morning or evening. Perceptual change (discrimination and identification, n = 26) and production change (acoustic distance from a native model, n = 59) were assessed. Identification improved with training, but improvement did not depend on circadian preference or training time. Production gains were greater when training occurred outside learners' preferred time, although the effect was small, suggesting that speech-motor learning may benefit from reduced executive control.</p>","PeriodicalId":73538,"journal":{"name":"JASA express letters","volume":"6 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149278144","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}