France Télécom in Lannion, France, is offering an internship for 5 months to carry out some research on the psychoacoustics of spatial audio coding. The applications deadline is 31 March, 2007. The latest start date is 30 June, 2007.

Title
3D audio masking: design of a model and application to spatial audio coding.

Objective
The objective is to define a model of 3D audio masking which aims to account for simultaneous masking (ie frequency masking), temporal masking and spatial masking. The first two topics have been studied extensively (see bibliographical references) and are exploited in audio codecs (mp3, AAC). But spatial masking has been little studied. It is necessary to define a new masking model which is applicable in multichannel coding, for instance.

The first part of the study will consist of performing a bibliographical study on spectro-temporal masking, space perception and the psychoacoustics of 3D audio. Then, experiments on space perception will be designed and carried out, in order to define a model of 3D audio masking usable for example in the context of coding.

The project will suit an individual at Masters level with a knowledge of acoustics, psychoacoustics, signal processing and programming (C/C++, Matlab). A familiarity with 3D audio technologies is essential.

Bibliographical References
Dau, T., Püschel, D. and Kohlrausch, A. (1996). "A quantitative model of the “effective“ signal processing in the auditory system. I. Model structure", Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 99, 3615-3622.
Jens Blauert : Spatial Hearing. The Psychophysics of Human Sound Localization. The MIT Press, USA-Cambridge MA
Dau, T., Püschel, D. and Kohlrausch, A. (1996). "A quantitative model of the “effective“ signal processing in the auditory system : II. Simulations and measurements", Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 99, 3623-3631.

Contacts
David Virette (david.virette@orange-ftgroup.com, +33 2 96 05 23 83)
Rozenn Nicol (rozenn.nicol@orange-ftgroup.com, +33 2 96 05 16 99)
France Télécom / Division R&D / CRD Technologies /SSTP/TPS