Journal article
Headphone screening to facilitate web-based auditory experiments
Attention, perception & psychophysics, Vol.79(7), pp.2064-2072
10/2017
DOI: 10.3758/s13414-017-1361-2
PMCID: PMC5693749
PMID: 28695541
Abstract
Psychophysical experiments conducted remotely over the internet permit data collection from large numbers of participants but sacrifice control over sound presentation and therefore are not widely employed in hearing research. To help standardize online sound presentation, we introduce a brief psychophysical test for determining whether online experiment participants are wearing headphones. Listeners judge which of three pure tones is quietest, with one of the tones presented 180° out of phase across the stereo channels. This task is intended to be easy over headphones but difficult over loudspeakers due to phase-cancellation. We validated the test in the lab by testing listeners known to be wearing headphones or listening over loudspeakers. The screening test was effective and efficient, discriminating between the two modes of listening with a small number of trials. When run online, a bimodal distribution of scores was obtained, suggesting that some participants performed the task over loudspeakers despite instructions to use headphones. The ability to detect and screen out these participants mitigates concerns over sound quality for online experiments, a first step toward opening auditory perceptual research to the possibilities afforded by crowdsourcing.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Headphone screening to facilitate web-based auditory experiments
- Creators
- Kevin Woods - 000000041936754X grid.38142.3c Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology Harvard University 260 Longwood Ave Boston MA 02115 USAMax Siegel - 0000 0001 2341 2786 grid.116068.8 Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences MIT 77 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge MA 02139 USAJames Traer - 0000 0001 2341 2786 grid.116068.8 Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences MIT 77 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge MA 02139 USAJosh McDermott - 000000041936754X grid.38142.3c Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology Harvard University 260 Longwood Ave Boston MA 02115 USA
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Attention, perception & psychophysics, Vol.79(7), pp.2064-2072
- Publisher
- Springer US; New York
- DOI
- 10.3758/s13414-017-1361-2
- PMID
- 28695541
- PMCID
- PMC5693749
- ISSN
- 1943-3921
- eISSN
- 1943-393X
- Grant note
- BCS-1454094 / Office of the Director (http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000179) 1-R01-DC014739-01 / NIH Office of the Director (http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000052)
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 10/2017
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
- Record Identifier
- 9984065471902771
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