Ecological Perspectives on Hearing

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA) and JASA Express Letters are calling for papers for a joint Special Issue on “Ecological Perspectives on Hearing.”

Ecological approaches to hearing by human and non-human organisms aim to study an organism’s ability to use sound to represent, understand, manipulate, and navigate the surrounding environment, emphasizing ecologically relevant sounds and tasks. Until now, very little attention has been paid to (truly) natural environments and natural sounds or soundscapes (i.e., animal vocalizations and geophysical sounds) and the capacity of auditory systems to monitor and infer ecological processes at work in these environments and their changes, ignoring the evolutionary processes that have shaped auditory mechanisms. However, this line of research has the potential to challenge general principles of auditory masking, auditory scene analysis and causal perception mainly derived from artificial sounds or anthropocentric acoustic scenarios (e.g., urban scenes). Over the last decade, soundscape ecology and ecoacoustics have recently developed concepts and theories, standardized methods to record high-quality, massive acoustic databases in natural reserves, and computational methods to assess biodiversity and its alteration in these environments caused, amongst other things, by habitat fragmentation, acoustic pollution, or climate change. The questions currently raised by this field have recently extended to the perception of wilderness in environments and the restorative effects it might produce in human observers.

In this regard, extending research in psychoacoustics, audiology, auditory modeling and bioacoustics to the acoustic scenarios and research questions put forth by soundscape ecologists and ecoacousticians should promote re-evaluation of the actual acoustic information conveyed by natural environments while revisiting current models of low- and high-level auditory mechanisms for human and non-human species. Recognizing the need to connect hearing sciences to acoustic ecology and ecoacoustics, this Special Issue invites papers investigating hearing with a focus on natural sounds and scenes, and ecological processes via sound recordings and computational methods.

Please note: Accepted papers will be published in the next available regular issue of the selected journal and identified as belonging to this Special Issue. After all papers from both journals have been published for the Special Issue, they will all be listed in a joint online collection on the JASA and JASA Express Letters websites.

Topics covered include, but are not limited to:

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Guest Editors

Laurie Heller*
Carnegie Mellon University, USA
hellerl@andrew.cmu.edu

Christian Lorenzi
Ecole normale supérieure & Université Paris Sciences & Lettres, France
christian.lorenzi@ens.psl.eu

Camille Desjonquères
CNRS & Université Grenoble – Alpes, France
desjonqc@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr

Frédéric Theunissen
University of California, Berkeley, USA
theunissen@berkeley.edu

*Liaison Guest Editor

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Manuscript Details & Submission

Please note: although there will be a joint online collection, your paper, if accepted, will publish in the journal you chose to submit to.

1. Please select the journal you will be submitting to and visit the following, where you will find the Information for Contributors for the selected journal and link to this journal’s online submission system:
   • For JASA: JASA Preparing Your Manuscript page
   • For JASA Express Letters: JASA Express Letters Preparing Your Manuscript page
2. To ensure your submission is considered for the Special Issue, please do the following:
   • In your manuscript file, before the abstract, please include the following: “This paper is part of a special issue on Ecological Perspectives on Hearing.”
   • When submitting your paper in the selected journal’s online submission system:
     • Select the appropriate article type for your manuscript (see the selected journal’s Information for Contributors for details on article types).
     • Select the name of this special issue (SPECIAL ISSUE ON ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON HEARING) in the dropdown menu for the section/category