Auditory-Visual (AV) Core Facility
The auditory-visual (AV) facility is a large sound booth with flexible configuration options to support novel approaches to critical research questions at the intersections of auditory and multisensory perception, action, and interaction. Up to 24 loudspeakers can be positioned on adjustable wall mounts or movable stands. Visual stimuli can be presented using video monitors, projection screens, or head-mounted displays. Audio/video capture, touch-screen interfaces, and virtual reality systems can support research involving one or multiple research participants.
Technical Specifications
- The sound booth is a single-walled, acoustically isolated sound booth with inside dimensions of 19 x 17 feet with a height of 9 feet.
- The control room is equipped with a second-generation Apple Mac Pro workstation, with an 8-core 3.0 GHz Intel processor, 64GB of RAM, a Dual AMD FirePro D700 GPU, and a 1TB PCIe-based flash storage system.
- Video is managed by the Mac Pro, capable of delivering 6 simultaneous streams of 1080p video over HDMI, capable of generating separate video on the 5 different HD television screens inside the booth.
- The workstation connects to an equipment rack driving 28 channels of audio using an RME MADIFace, a 196-channel input/output (I/O) USB3 audio interface. The audio system includes 25 6" Elipson Planet M spherical 2-way loudspeakers and four sub-woofers (Swarm model, AudioKinesis).
- Video presentation is supported through the use of five 42" 1080p flat screen televisions (Vizio), or a 1080p projector (BenQ). Other computers with Microsoft and Apple operating systems are available to researchers in the facility.
- The AV Core also has a Knowles Electronics Manikin for Acoustic Research (KEMAR) for hearing-aid measurements, Larson-Davis sound-level meters and a 64-channel BrainVision ERP system for shared use.
Funding for this facility comes from a Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under award number P20GM109023.
