The influence of early reflections on the identification and lateralization of vowels

Sound coming directly from a source is often accompanied by reflections arriving from different directions. However, the "precedence effect" occurs when listeners judge such a source's direction: information in the direct, first-arriving sound tends to govern the direction heard for the overall sound. This paper asks whether the spectral envelope of the direct sound has a similar, dominant influence on the spectral envelope perceived for the whole sound. A continuum between two vowels was produced and then a "two-part" filter distorted each step. The beginning of this filter's unit-sample response simulated a direct sound with no distortion of the spectral envelope. The second part simulated a reflection pattern that distorted the spectral envelope. The reflections' frequency response was designed to give the spectral envelope of one of the continuum's end-points to the other end-point. Listeners' identifications showed that the reflections in two-part filters had a substantial influence because sounds tended to be identified as the positive vowel of the reflection pattern. This effect was not reduced when the interaural delays of the reflections and the direct sound were substantially different. Also, when the reflections were caused to precede the direct sound, the effects were much the same. By contrast, in measurements of lateralization the precedence effect was obtained. Here, the lateral position of the whole sound was largely governed by the interaural delay of the direct sound, and was hardly affected by the interaural delay of the reflections.