Effects of listener’s whole-body rotation and sound duration on sound localization accuracy

Abstract

Listener's head movement is known to facilitate sound localization, which creates dynamic changes to the information input to both ears. For this study, we used a digitally controlled spinning chair to examine the effects of a listener’s whole-body rotation and sound duration on sound localization accuracy. We measured their sound localization accuracy at locations from left 30 deg to right 30 deg with respect to the listener. Stimuli were 1/3-octave band noise burst (fc = 1 kHz, SPL = 65 dB) with duration of 50, 200, and 1000 ms. Each stimulus was presented from a loudspeaker in a circular array. The listener, sitting on the chair at the circle center, reported the position of the presented stimulus in chair-still (0 deg/s) and chair-rotation (10 deg/s) conditions. Results showed superior sound localization accuracy of chair-rotation condition to that of a chair-still condition. Moreover, a significant effect of sound duration was observed, but interaction of the test condition and the sound duration was not significant. Although the listener's head movement might influence the localization performance more for long stimuli than for short stimuli, results suggest that the effects of a listener's whole-body rotation were less influenced by the sound duration.