A review of learning with normal and altered sound-localization cues in human adults

Abstract

Humans use several cues to determine the position of sound sources in space. Here we provide a review of the literature on how practice influences sound-localization performance in human adults. We divided this literature into two categories: adaptation to alterations in sound-localization cues and learning with normal, unaltered cues. For altered cues, partial adaptation has been reported with a variety of cue transformations, except in the extreme case in which the cues were reversed between the two ears. For normal cues, improvement has been observed in some but not all experiments, though the most recent data generally show learning. Thus, the reviewed data indicated that human adults can recalibrate, as well as refine the use of, sound-localization cues, and that training regimens can be developed to enhance sound-localization performance in individuals with normal and impaired localization abilities.