Abstract
How a sound's physical factors influence brain activities was investigated by magnetoencephalography (MEG). If we can understand how sensory information is processed in human, the knowledge can be put to practical use designing preferable environments and products. Auditory evoked fields in relation to pitch saliency and subjective diffuseness were evaluated by N 1 m responses on MEG. The results indicated that the magnitude of N1 m decreased with decreasing pitch saliency and subjective diffuseness, which are influenced by repetitive components included in sound and binaural correlations. This is a hint that these factors should be considered in evaluations of auditory environments. Subjective preference for sound fields were evaluated by factors extracted from the autocorrelation function (ACF) and the crosscorrelation function (CCF) of MEG alpha band (8-13 Hz). Effective duration of the ACF and the maximum value of the CCF corresponded well to subjective preferences; thus these factors appear useful for evaluations of human environments as objective measures. (Japanese Journal of Physiological Psychology and Psychophysiology, 24 (1) : 19-35, 2006.)
