Sound signal can be transmitted to human’s auditory sensory organs by two pathways, air conduction (AC) and bone conduction (BC). Bone-conducted signal is transmitted to cochlea through skin and skull, bypassing the ear canals. Because the feature of keeping ear canal open when bone conduction is transmitted, it attracts various manufacturers for making different kinds of applications, such as bone-conducted headphone for music reproduction and high-noise environment or bone-conducted hearing aids. However, although bone conduction is being utilized widely for music reproduction and hearing aids at the present, frequency characteristics of bone conduction are still unclear.

This talk will present a study on frequency characteristics of bone conduction and discuss about the feasibility of binaural cues on bone conduction actuators. Comparison between loudness and acceleration was made in order to make clear frequency characteristics of the measured bone conduction actuators. According to the comparison, a possibility of estimating loudness by means of acceleration under specific conditions is shown. Additionally, for discussing the characteristics of lateralization, trading between interaural level difference(ILD) and interaural phase difference(IPD) which show binaural cues was made to examine the possibility of phase-level trading with BC stimulation.

世話人：中川誠司教授