Year: 1988
Type: conference-abstract
Abstract: The psychophysics of direct comparison (two-alternative, forced choice) was applied to the study of localization. For complex signals, the interaural parameters presented by stimuli in the free field are more “natural” than those heard through earphones though more difficult to control. In this study, digital preprocessing was used to reverse the spectral characteristics of each loudspeaker to make its response uniform and indiscriminable. The listener sat in an anechoic chamber with his or her head optically fixed at the center of a semicircular array of speakers. The stimuli were trains of n filtered clicks (n = 1, 9, or 18) whose center frequencies were either 2050, 4050, or 6050 Hz. Interclick intervals (ICIs) were either 4 or 12 ms and levels were set so that a single click was 10 dB SL. Minimum audible angles (MAAs) were found to increase as the azimuth increased from 0 to 60 deg; performance was best at 2050 Hz. Studies of lateralization with earphones have led to speculations about “binaural adaptation,” a process whereby improvements in threshold with increased n depend on the click rate (1/ICI). Similar analyses show this also to be true for free-field listening. [Research supported by the NIH.]
DOI: 10.1121/1.2025203
Institution: University of California, Berkeley
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2005336484