Aural intensity for a moving source

Abstract

Considerable, highly specific information is available to the auditory system concerning the trajectory of a moving sound source. This paper delineates the set of stimuli that motion-sensitive systems might use. General expressions for the sound intensity, the interaural intensity difference, and their first time derivatives, are derived for a source moving along an arbitrary trajectory. The general expressions are then made explicit for three special cases of motion of an omnidirectional constant level source: a source moving directly away from or toward the observer, a source moving around the observer's head, and a source moving in a straight line across the auditory field of the observer. The later special case combine characteristics of the two first ones. The functions are plotted and their characteristics compared. The combination of all four functions provides a unique signature for each source trajectory. The first time derivative of the monaural spectrum level function is found to be directly proportional to the velocity scaled by the distance of the source for omnidirectional sources of constant intensity. This makes the first time derivative of the spectrum level especially attractive as a component of a specialized source detection system in the brain.