Sound localization and sensitivity to interaural time differences in human infants

The role of interaural time differences in infants' sound localization was investigated. One experiment on free-field sound localization corroborated previous findings that the minimum audible angle changes substantially toward the end of the first half year after birth, and 3 experiments explored interaural time discrimination in that age range. The first of these 3 experiments used an adaptive psychophysical procedure, showing that infants responded appropriately in a sound lateralization task that provides a direct measure of interaural time discrimination. The other 2 experiments improved on the psychophysical procedure by taking into account the ceiling level on performance in the task. Infants aged 16, 20, and 28 weeks had thresholds in the range of 50 to 75 microsec, with no apparent age difference. These thresholds were much lower than would be predicted from studies of free-field sound localization, indicating that sensitivity to interaural time differences is not a limiting factor for the precision of sound localization in this age range. Instead, age-related changes in free-field sound localization may reflect the need to integrate across different localization cues and to calibrate the changing values of cues due to head growth.