Auditory Localization: Psychophysics

Humans and most other animals can locate the source of sound in all three spatial dimensions: left-right (horizontal or azimuth) dimension, up-down (vertical) dimension, and near-far (distance or range) dimension. The sound produced by a sound source has no spatial properties, only the physical properties of frequency, intensity, and time. Thus, the ability to locate the position of a sound source is based on cues that result from the interaction of sound and objects (e.g., the head and the body of the listener or reflective surfaces) in the path of the sound as it travels from the source to the ear canals and ear drums on each side of the head. A different set of cues is used to determine the location of a sound ...