Effects of a listener’s very slow rotation on sound localization accuracy

Abstract

A listener’s head movement is effectively used to accurately localize sounds. By contrast, when a sound stimulus is presented during head rotation, sound localization acuity decreases. Previous studies have shown that sound localization accuracy is degraded even during slow head rotation at 50/s. In this study, we investigated the sound localization accuracy during very slow head rotation from 0.6250/s to 50/s. We measured the detection thresholds (DTs) at the listener’s subjective front. The experiment consisted of static and rotation conditions. Listeners were asked to report whether a 30 ms noise burst was presented from the left or right of the subjective front (2 Alternative Forced Choice Task). In the results, the DTs in the rotation condition were larger than that in the static condition. Moreover, DTs seem almost independent of the rotation speed. This suggests that the sound localization resolution at the subjective front is degraded by a listener's passive rotation irrespective of the rotation s...