Across Acoustics

As anyone in ocean acoustics will tell you, sound is essential for much of the work done under water, whether that be navigation, sensing objects, or passively monitoring wildlife. While much research has been done about sandy ocean floors, scientists still have a lot to learn about muddier regions with mixtures of type of sediment. In this episode, we talk with two editors and a researcher involved with the recent JASA Special Issue on Assessing Sediment Heterogeneity on Continental Shelves and Slopes: Preston Wilson (University of Texas at Austin), David Knowles (University of Texas at Austin), and Kyle Becker (University of Washington). Read all the articles from the special issue here! Read more from The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA). Learn more about Acoustical Society of America Publications. Music Credit: Min 2019 by minwbu from Pixabay.

With the development of automatic speech recognition has come a new type of technology, designed to give the user advice on how to speak better. In this episode, we talk with Nicole Holliday (University of California, Berkeley) about some of the issues that can arise with the use of these technologies, from their nebulous definitions of "good communication" to the impact they could have at businesses that use these technology to evaluate employees. Associated paper: Nicole R. Holliday. "Socially prescriptive speech technologies: Linguistic, technical, and ethical issues." J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 158, 4361–4369 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0039685. Read more from The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA). Learn more about Acoustical Society of America Publications. Music Credit: Min 2019 by minwbu from Pixabay.

Do you find the sound of people chewing unbearably annoying? Or perhaps you can't stand to be near folks who are typing on noisy keyboards, fidgeting with their pens, or rustling a plastic bag of chips. The term for this sort of aversion is misophonia. Even if you don't personally deal with this issue, you may know someone who does. In this episode, we talk with Benjamin Kirby (Wichita State University) and Olivia Zant (University of North Texas), whose recent JASA Express Letters article, “Psychoacoustic Assessment of Misophonia,” touches on this topic. Associated paper: Benjamin J. Kirby, Alaina Cunningham, and Olivia Montou Zant. "Psychoacoustic assessment of misophonia." JASA Express Lett. 5, 094401 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0039238. Read more from JASA Express Letters. Learn more about Acoustical Society of America Publications. Music Credit: Min 2019 by minwbu from Pixabay.

Manipulating the scattering of waves can allow engineers to achieve numerous goals, like reducing unwanted noise or eliminating potentially destructive vibrations in structures. In this episode, we talk to Vladislav Sorokin (University of Auckland) and Luke Bennetts (University of Melbourne), two guest editors of the recent Special Issue on Wave Phenomena in Periodic, Near-Periodic, and Locally Resonant Systems about recent advances in research regarding vibroacoustic systems. Read all the articles from the special issue here! Read more from The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA). Learn more about Acoustical Society of America Publications. Music Credit: Min 2019 by minwbu from Pixabay.

In this episode, find out what the next generation of acousticians is researching! In this episode, we talk to the latest round of POMA Student Paper Competition winners, from the joint 188th meeting of the ASA and the 25th International Congress on Acoustics held in New Orleans in May 2025. Their topics include: - Using the spatial decomposition method to parameterize acoustic reflections in a room (Lucas Hocquette, LAcoustic) - Visualizing nonlinearities in a bolted plate system with digital image correlation (Nicholas Pomianek, Boston University) - Analyzing the how people pronounce the word "just" in casual speech (Ki Woong Moon, University of Arizona) - Modeling strings of historical instruments that no longer make sound (Riccardo Russo, University of Bologna) - Improving automatic music mashup generators (Yu Foon Darin Chau, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) Associated papers: Lucas Hocquette, Philip Coleman, and Frederic Roskam. "Acoustic reflection parameterization based on the spatial decomposition method." Proc. Mtgs. Acoust. 56, 055004 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1121/2.0002037. Nicholas Pomianek, Trevor Jerome, Enrique Gutierrez-Wing, and J. Gregory McDaniel. "Visualizing contact area dependent nonlinearity in a bolted plate system through digital image correlation." Proc. Mtgs. Acoust. 56, 065001 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1121/2.0002099. Ki Woong Moon and Natasha Warner. "Realization of just: Speech reduction in a high-frequency word." Proc. Mtgs. Acoust. 56, 060005 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1121/2.0002080 Riccardo Russo, Craig J. Webb, Michele Ducceschi, and Stefan Bilbao. "Convergence analysis and relaxation techniques for modal scalar auxiliary variable methods applied to nonlinear transverse string vibration." Proc. Mtgs. Acoust. 56, 035007 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1121/2.0002073. Yu Foon Darin Chau, Andrew Brian Horner, Joshua Chang, Chun Yuen Chan, and Harris Lau. "Retrieval-based automatic mashup generation with deep learning-guided features." Proc. Mtgs. Acoust. 56, 035006 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1121/2.0002071. Learn more about entering the POMA Student Paper Competition for the Fall 2025 meeting in Honolulu Read more from Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics (POMA). Learn more about Acoustical Society of America Publications.

Studying bats' hearing can be tricky due to their small size, making certain styles of measurement used for larger echolocating mammals unavailable to researchers. In this episode, we talk to Victoria Fouhy and Michael Smotherman (Texas A&M University) about their work to develop a noninvasive method to study cortical auditory evoked potentials in bats, thereby allowing scientists to better understand how these animals process echolocation information. Associated paper: - Victoria Fouhy, Sam Ellis, and Michael Smotherman. "Subcutaneous cortical auditory evoked potentials in echolocating bats." J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 158, 3390-3399 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0039659. Read more from The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA). Learn more about Acoustical Society of America Publications. Music Credit: Min 2019 by minwbu from Pixabay.

You may have heard of the "ghost army" of World War II—a set of rubber tanks used by the US Army to mimic active battlefields in Europe. What you may not know was the tanks were accompanied by an equally fake soundtrack of battle noises. Even more surprising? This "sonic deception" was developed by a team of the ASA's founding members whose contributions were almost lost to history. In this episode, we talk with Walter Montano (ARQUICUST Argentina Peru) about the innovations that helped save thousands of lives during the war. Read the associated article: Walter A. Montano and Gary W. Elko. (2025) “Sonic Deception During the Second World War,” Acoustics Today 21(2). https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2025.21.2.38 Learn more about the ASA Committee on Archives and History. Read more from Acoustics Today. Learn more about Acoustical Society of America Publications. Intro/Outro Music Credit: Min 2019 by minwbu from Pixabay.

The traditional Chinese structure of the interlocked timber-arched covered bridge serves multiple purposes within Chinese culture—both as a physical connection between communities, but also as a function space for various rituals and performances. Because of these structures multiple uses, the acoustics are different from other bridges or event spaces. In this episode, we talk with Dongxu Zhang (Guangzhou University) and Jian Kang (University College London) about their work to better understand the unique acoustics of these structures. Associated paper: - Dongxu Zhang, Guanyu Ren, Fei Cheng, Dong Xiao, Mei Zhang, and Jian Kang. "Sound field characteristics and influencing factors of traditional Chinese interlocked timber-arched covered bridges." J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 158, 1156-1176 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0038959 Read more from The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA). Learn more about Acoustical Society of America Publications. Music Credit: Min 2019 by minwbu from Pixabay.

Longitudinal studies of how an individual's accent changes over the course of their life are hard to come by. Fortunately, Taylor Swift's decade-plus career-- and the numerous interviews she's given over those years-- has opened a window into our understanding of how and why dialect changes may occur on an individual level. We talk to Miski Mohamed and Matthew Winn (University of Minnesota) about their work analyzing the shifts in Taylor Swift's speech over the years. Associated paper: - Miski Mohamed and Matthew B. Winn. "Acoustic analysis of Taylor Swift's dialect changes across different eras of her career." J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 158, 2278–2289 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0039052 Read more from The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA). Learn more about Acoustical Society of America Publications. Music Credit: Min 2019 by minwbu from Pixabay.

In an effort to develop renewable energy, scientists have turned to the sun, the wind, and now the ocean. With these new forms of energy harvesting, considerations need to be made about how the new technologies will impact the surrounding environments. In this episode, we talk with Joseph Haxel (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory), Christopher Bassett (University of Washington), Brian Polagye (University of Washington), and Kaus Raghukumar (Integral Consulting) about their research related to the noise produced by marine energy converters. Read the associated article: Joseph Haxel, Christopher Bassett, Brian Polagye, Kaustubha Raghukumar, and Cailene Gunn. (2023) “Listening to the Beat of New Ocean Technologies for Harvesting Marine Energy,” Acoustics Today 19(4). https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2023.19.4.23. Read more from Acoustics Today. Learn more about Acoustical Society of America Publications. Intro/Outro Music Credit: Min 2019 by minwbu from Pixabay.

A lot has changed in the twelve years since JASA's first special issue on soundscape research. This episode, we talk to the editors of the recent special issue on Advances in Soundscape: Emerging Trends and Challenges in Research and Practice, Francesco Aletta (University College London), Cynthia Tarlao (McGill University), Tin Oberman (University College London), and Andrew Mitchell (University College London), to discuss these changes, which range from developments in understanding indoor soundscapes, cultural dimensions of soundscape assessment, perceptual assessment tools, and the use of virtual technologies. Read all the articles from the special issue here! Read more from The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA). Learn more about Acoustical Society of America Publications. Music Credit: Min 2019 by minwbu from Pixabay.

Ultrasonic tomography has been applied in many fields, from geophysics to engineering, and now to medicine. In this episode, we talk with Aaron Chung-Jukko and Peter Huthwaite (Imperial College London) about their work to develop an ultrasonic tomography algorithm that can be used to assess fracture risk in bones, and, as a result, be used as a noninvasive way to diagnose osteoporosis. Associated paper: - Aaron Chung-Jukko and Peter Huthwaite. "Virtual initialised ray tomography: Towards contact-free realistic ultrasonic bone imaging." J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 158, 276-290 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0036902 Read more from The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA). Learn more about Acoustical Society of America Publications. Music Credit: Min 2019 by minwbu from Pixabay.

For a long time, it was believed that words were mostly arbitrary symbols. However, with advances in our ability to study speech, it has become clear that we must reconsider the fundamental relationship between words' sounds and their meanings. In this episode, we talk to two of the editors of the Special Issue on Iconicity and Sound Symbolism, Aleksandra Ćwiek and Susanne Fuchs (Leibniz-Centre General Linguistics), about research in the issue that examined these connections. Read all the articles from the special issue here! Read more from The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA). Learn more about Acoustical Society of America Publications. Music Credit: Min 2019 by minwbu from Pixabay.

Recreating the natural hearing experience has long challenged researchers who study auditory perception. Recently, ambisonic panning has been developed as a method to accurately reproduce soundscapes. In this episode, we talk with Nima Zargarnezhad and Ingrid Johnsrude (Western University) about their research testing the accuracy of the "AudioDome," a device that using ambisonic panning to simulate soundscapes in the lab. Associated paper: - Nima Zargarnezhad, Bruno Mesquita, Ewan A Macpherson. and Ingrid Johnsrude. "Focality of sound source placement by higher (ninth) order ambisonics and perceptual effects of spectral reproduction errors." J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 157, 2802–2818 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0036226. Read more from The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA). Learn more about Acoustical Society of America Publications. Music Credit: Min 2019 by minwbu from Pixabay.

Much of the research into the historical acoustics of worship spaces has focused on Christian churches or Islamic mosques. However, little is known about the acoustic history of Hindu worship spaces, despite Hinduism being the third largest religion in the world. Shashank Aswathanarayana and Braxton Boren (American University) share their efforts to fill this knowledge gap by studying the acoustics in Hindu temples from the 8th and 15th centuries. Associated paper: Shashank Aswathanarayana and Braxton Boren. "Acoustic analysis of two Hindu temples in Southern India." JASA Express Letters 5, 031601 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0036033. Read more from JASA Express Letters. Learn more about Acoustical Society of America Publications Music: Min 2019 by minwbu from Pixabay.

This episode showcases the latest winners of the POMA Student Paper Competition: First, Jonathan Michael Broyles (University of Colorado, Boulder) discusses his database to help acoustical consultants design more environmentally friendly spaces. Next, John Latta (University of Nebraska - Lincoln) shares his work regarding spatial impulse response measurements. Finally, Michelle Ruth Crouse (California State University, Dominguez Hills) talks about the acoustic spectrometer she created using off-the-shelf parts. Associated papers: Jonathan Michael Broyles and Wil Srubar, III. "A comprehensive dataset of environmental emissions, health, and manufacturing information of building acoustic products in North America." Proc. Mtgs. Acoust. 55, 015002 (2024) https://doi.org/10.1121/2.0001997. John S. Latta and Lauren M. Ronsse. "An analysis of spatial impulse response measurements and their ability to validate spatial features within acoustic models." Proc. Mtgs. Acoust. 55, 015001 (2024) https://doi.org/10.1121/2.0002004. Michelle R. Crouse, Małgorzata Musial, Jason A. Widegren, Jacob Pawlik, Bryan Bosworth, Nathan Orloff, Aaron Hagerstrom, Angela C. Stelson, and Robert Lirette. "A low-cost ultrasonic absorption spectrometer mainly using off-the-shelf parts."Proc. Mtgs. Acoust. 55, 030002 (2024) https://doi.org/10.1121/2.0002003. Learn more about entering the POMA Student Paper Competition for the Spring 2025 meeting in New Orleans. Read more from Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics (POMA). Learn more about Acoustical Society of America Publications.

Large venues like amphitheaters and stadiums are used across the world for a variety of purposes, hosting everything from sporting events to concerts to large social gatherings and other events. The massive size of the spaces, alongside their multifaceted uses, however, mean their acoustic needs are quite different from those of smaller rooms or even concert halls. This episode, Gary W. Siebein (Siebein Associates, Inc.), Keely Siebein (Siebein Associates, Inc.), Jack Wrightson (Wrightson, Johnson, Haddon, & Williams, Inc.), and Joe Solway (Arup) discuss the unique considerations for designing these structures. Read the associated article: Gary W. Siebein, Keely Siebein, Jack Wrightson, Joe Solway, and Raj Patel. (2024) “Large-Venue Acoustics- Arenas, Stadiums, and Amphitheaters,” Acoustics Today 20(1). https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2024.20.1.55. Read more from Acoustics Today. Learn more about Acoustical Society of America Publications. Intro/Outro Music Credit: Min 2019 by minwbu from Pixabay.

In this episode, we explore things that go boom: from volcanic eruptions to underwater ordinances to the (relatively) tiny explosions of gunshots. Thomas Blanford (University of New Hampshire) joins us as a cohost as we discuss the use of high-amplitude acoustic sources in research with three members of a special session on the topic from the Ottawa ASA meeting: Steve Beck (Beck Audio Forensics), Daniel Bowman (Pacific Northwest National Laboratories), and Andrew McNeese (University of Texas at Austin). Associated paper: Thomas E. Branford. "Summary of “Things that go boom: High amplitude acoustic sources." Proc. Mtgs. Acoust. 54, 002002 (2024) https://doi.org/10.1121/2.0001991. Read more from Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics (POMA). Learn more about Acoustical Society of America Publications. Music Credit: Min 2019 by minwbu from Pixabay.

The phenomenon of acoustic scattering, when a sound wave bounces off a surface and is redirected in different directions because of the surface texture, has been recognized since ancient Greece. Accounting for acoustic scattering when designing a built space, however, can be tricky. In this episode, we speak with Michael Vorländer (RWTH Aachen University) about his work to develop a general guideline for estimating the effects of acoustic scattering from a given surface. Associated paper: Michael Vorlaender and Stefan Feistel. "Show your scattering coefficients." Proc. Mtgs. Acoust. 50, 015003 (2022) https://doi.org/10.1121/2.0001816. Read more from Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics (POMA). Learn more about Acoustical Society of America Publications. Music Credit: Min 2019 by minwbu from Pixabay.

Human-made noise from shipping is an ongoing problem for aquatic life. However, actually implementing measures to reduce noise can be costly and time consuming-- a risk many ship makers don't want to take without knowing how effective those methods will be. In this episode, we talk with Vanessa M. ZoBell (Scripps Institution of Oceanography) about her research that simulates the impacts of various strategies, with hopes for finding the most effective methods to improve the lives of our underwater neighbors. Associated papers: - Vanessa M. ZoBell, John A. Hildebrand, and Kaitlin E. Frasier. "Assessing approaches for ship noise reduction within critical whale habitat." J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 156, 3534–3544 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0034455 Read more from The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA). Learn more about Acoustical Society of America Publications. Music Credit: Min 2019 by minwbu from Pixabay.