Psychoacoustics of Spatial Hearing
It has been said that "the purpose of the ears is to point the eyes."
While the ability of the auditory system to localize sound sources is just
one component of our perceptual systems, it has high survival value, and
living organisms have found many ways to extract directional information
from sound. Although perceptual mysteries remain, the major cues have been
known for a long time, and careful psychological studies have established
how accurately we can make localization judgments. Anyone who wants to generate
spatial sound for HCI has to know what influences the human auditory system.
This section summarizes the major factors that influence spatial hearing.
The following topics are covered:
[For an introduction to the psychology of hearing in general, see Handel.
The traditional reference for spatial hearing is Blauert.
Mills gives an old but insightful overview,
but Carlile will probably be the
most valuable survey for HCI people.]
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