Precedence effect for specular and diffuse reflections

Studies on the precedence effect are typically conducted by presenting two identical sounds simulating direct sound and specular reflection. However, when a sound is reflected from irregular surface, it is redirect into many directions resulting in directional and temporal diffusion. This contribution introduces a simulation of Lambertian diffusing reflections. The perceptual influences of diffusion are studied in a listening experiment; echo thresholds and masked thresholds of specular and diffuse reflections are measured. Results show that diffusion makes the reflections more easily detectable than specular reflections of the same total energy. Indications are found that this mainly due to temporal diffusion, while the directional diffusion has little effect. Accordingly, the modeling of the echo thresholds is achieved by a temporal alignment of the experimental data based on the energy centroid of reflection responses. For the modeling of masked threshold the temporal masking pattern for forward masking is taken into account.