Professor Yoichi Ando, acoustic architectural designer of the Kirishima International Concert Hall in Japan, presents a comprehensive rational-scientific approach to designing performance spaces. His theory is based on systematic psychoacoustical observations of spatial hearing and listener preferences, whose neuronal correlates are observed in the neurophysiology of the human brain. A correlation-based model of neuronal signal processing in the central auditory system is proposed in which temporal sensations (pitch, timbre, loudness, duration) are represented by an internal autocorrelation representation, and spatial sensations (sound location, size, diffuseness related to envelopment) are represented by an internal interaural crosscorrelation function. Together these two internal central auditory representations account for the basic auditory qualities that are relevant for listening to music and speech in indoor performance spaces. Observed psychological and neurophysiological commonalities between auditory and visual sensations and preference patterns are presented and discussed. This book thus spans the disciplines of physics, acoustics, psychology, neurophysiology, and music production, thereby blending science, engineering, and art.

"Ando establishes a theory of subjective preference of the sound field in a concert hall, based on preference theory with a model of human auditory- brain system. The model uses the autocorrelation function and the interaural crosscorrelation function for signals arriving at two ear entrances and considers the specialization of human cerebral hemispheres. The theory may be applied to describe primary sensations such as pitch or missing fundamental, loudness, timbre, and duration. The theory may also be applied to visual sensations as well as subjective preference of visual environments. Remarkable findings in activities in both auditory-brain and visual-brain systems in relation to subjective preference as a primitive response are described."

I Temporal and Spatial Sensations in the human auditory system.- Temporal and Spatial Aspects of Sounds and Sound Fields.- Subjective Preferences for Sound Fields.- Electrical and Magnetic Responses in the Central Auditory System.- Model of Temporal and Spatial Factors in the Central Auditory System.- Temporal Sensations of the Sound Signal.- Spatial Sensations of Binaural Signals.- Applications (I) - Music and Concert Hall Acoustics.- Applications (II) - Speech Reception in Sound Fields.- Applications (III) - Noise Measurement.- Applications (IV) - Noise Annoyance.- II Temporal and Spatial Sensations in the Human Visual System.- to Visual Sensations.- Temporal and Spatial Sensations in Vision.- Subjective Preferences in Vision.- EEG and MEG Correlates of Visual Subjective Preferences.- Summary of Auditory and Visual Sensations.