Modeling binaural hearing: Stimulus into ear j (j = 1, 2)

The year before the presenter was born, Nat Durlach published “Equalization and Cancellation Theory of Binaural Masking-Level Differences.” The paper's elegant mathematics yielded quantitative predictions for how binaural differences can influence the ability to detect a pure tone embedded in noise. The resulting formulae accounted well for existing psychophysical data coming from a number of different binaural hearing studies (conducted by various researchers). This seminal paper still exemplifies best practices when developing models of perceptual outcomes and neural processing: clearly spelling out assumptions to produce testable, verifiable, and quantitative predictions.