Positions and Honors
1946-1947 Army Air Force.
1956-1957 Research in Harvard Biology Dept. on the Behavior of Ants.
1954-1963 Research in
Radar Division of the MIT Lincoln Lab. (Part-time during 1956-1957). Studies of radar and bat echolocation
systems.
1963-2001 Co-Director of Sensory Communication Group of Research
Laboratory of Electronics at MIT. Research on auditory and tactual
psychophysics, aids for the deaf, manual sensing and manipulation, and
human-machine interfaces for teleoperators and virtual environments. Author or
co-author of roughly 120 journal articles in these areas.
Recipient of silver medal award from the Acoustical Society of America.
Supervisor of roughly 60-80 graduate student theses (Ph.D., MS, MEng).
PI of research grants and contracts from NIH, NSF, ONR, AFOSR, DARPA,
etc. (funding level roughly 1M between 1990-2000).
Reviewer of articles for professional journals and proposals for
governmental funding agencies.
Chair of Committee formed by the National Academy of Sciences to
establish a national agenda for R&D on teleoperator and virtual environment
systems.
Co-Founder and co-Editor-in-Chief of the MIT Press journal “PRESENCE:
Teleoperators and Virtual Environments.”
Co-Founder of Fayerweather Street Elementary School in Cambridge, MA.
Director of or consultant to a number of technology companies concerned
with measurement and/or enhancement of human sensorimotor performance.
2001-Present: Senior
Lecturer, Research Laboratory of Electronics, MIT (Senior Scientist in EECS
Department prior to retirement at MIT on 5/31/01).
Visiting Scholar,
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University.
Selected
Publications
Durlach, NI (l963). “Equalization and Cancellation Theory of Binaural
Masking-Level Differences,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 35, 1206-1218.
Durlach, NI, and Braida, LD (l969). “Intensity Perception.
I. Preliminary Theory of Intensity Resolution,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 46,
372-383.
Durlach, NI, Thompson, CL, and Colburn, HS (1981). “Binaural
Interaction in Impaired Listeners -- A Review of Past Research,” Audiology 20,
181-211.
Braida, LD, Lim, JS, Berliner, JE, Durlach, NI, WM
Rabinowitz, and Purks, SR (1984). “Intensity Perception XIII: Perceptual Anchor
Model of Context Coding,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 76, 722-731.
Durlach, NI, Braida, LD, and Ito, Y (1986). “Towards a Model for the
Discrimination of Broadband Stimuli,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 80, 63-72.
Durlach, NI, Tan, HZ, Macmillan, NA, and WM Rabinowitz, and Braida
LD (1989). “Resolution in One Dimension
with Random Variations in Background Dimensions,” Perception and Psychophysics,
46(3), 293-296.
Durlach, NI (1991). “Auditory Localization in Teleoperator and Virtual
Environment Systems: Ideas, Issues, and
Problems,” Perception, 20, 543 - 554.
Durlach, NI, Rigopulos, A, Woods, WS, Kulkarni, A, Colburn, HS, Pang,
XD, and Wenzel, EM (1992). “On the Externalization of Auditory Images”,
PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 2, 251-257.
Shinn-Cunningham, BG, Zurek, PM, and Durlach, NI. (1993). “Adjustment
and Discrimination Measurements of the Precedence Effect”, J. Acoust. Soc. Am.,
93, 2923-2932.
Durlach, NI, Shinn-Cunningham, BG, and Held, RM (1993). “Supernormal
Auditory Localization. I. General Background”, PRESENCE 2(2), 88-103.
Shinn-Cunningham, BG, Zurek, PM, Clifton. RK, and Durlach, NI. (1995).
"Cross-Frequency Interactions in the Precedence Effect", J. Acoust.
Soc. AM., 98(1), 164-171.
Reed, CM, and Durlach, NI (1998). “Note on Information Transfer Rates
in Human Communication,” PRESENCE, 7(5), 509-518.
Shinn-Cunningham, BG, Durlach, NI, and Held, RM (1998). “Adapting to
Supernormal Auditory Localization Cues I: Bias
and Resolution.” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 103(6), 3656-3666.
Shinn-Cunningham, BG, Durlach, NI, and Held, RM (1998). “Adapting to Supernormal
Auditory Localization Cues II: Changes in Mean response.” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.,
103(6), 3667-3676.
Brungart, DS and Durlach, NI (1999). “Auditory Localization of Nearby
Sources II: Localization of a Broadband Source in the Near Field, ” J. Acoust.
Soc. Am., 106(4), 1956-1968.
Brungart, DS, WM Rabinowitz, and Durlach, NI (1999). “Evaluation of
Response Methods for Near-field Auditory
Localization Experiments”, Perception and Psychophysics, 62(1), 47-63.
DiZio, P, R Held, J Lackner, B Shinn-Cunningham & N Durlach (2001).
“Gravitoinertial force magnitude and direction influence head-centric auditory
localization,” J Neurophys, 85, 2455-2460.
Durlach, NI, Christine R. Mason, G Kidd, Jr., TL Arbogast, HS Colburn,
BG Shinn-Cunningham (2003). “Note on informational masking,” J Acoust Soc Am,
113, 2984-2987.
Durlach, NI, Christine R. Mason, BG Shinn-Cunningham, TL Arbogast, HS
Colburn, G Kidd, Jr. (2003). “Informational masking: Countering the effects of
stimulus uncertainty by decreasing target-masker similarity,” J Acoust Soc Am,
114, 368-379.
Selected Books and Book Chapters
Durlach, NI (l972). “Binaural Signal Detection: Equalization and Cancellation Theory,”
Chapter 10, volume 2, Foundations of Modern Auditory Theory, Editor: JV
Tobias, Academic Press, New York.
Durlach, NI, and Colburn, HS (1978). “Binaural Phenomena,” Chapter 10
in Handbook of Perception, Vol. 4, Carterette and Friedman (Eds.),
Academic Press, NY.
Colburn, HS, and Durlach, NI (1978). “Models of Binaural Interaction,”
Chapter 11 in Handbook of Perception, Vol. 4, Carterette and Friedman
(Eds.), Academic Press, NY.
Colburn, HS, Zurek, PM, and Durlach, NI (1987). “Binaural Directional
Hearing - Impairments and Aids,” in Directional Hearing, Yost and
Gourevitch (Eds), Springer Verlag, New York.
Braida, LD, and Durlach, NI (1988). “Peripheral and Central Factors in
Intensity Perception,” in Auditory Function, Edelman, Gall and Cowan
(Eds), John Wiley and Sons, New York.
Durlach, NI, and Mavor, A
(1995). Virtual Reality: Scientific
and Technological Challenges, N.I. Durlach and A. Mavor (Eds), D.C.:
National Academy of Science Press.
Durlach , NI (2000).
“Virtual Reality,” Encyclopedia of Psychology, Alan Kazdin (ed.) Oxford
University Press.