Influence of sound source width on human sound localization

Free-field sound localization experiments generally assume that a loudspeaker can be approximated by a point-source; however, a large loudspeaker may extend beyond the width that two sources can be discriminated. Humans can accurately discriminate sound source locations within a few degrees, thus one might expect localization precision to decrease as a function of sound source diameter, much as precision is lower for localizing the center of a wide, blurry light source. In order to test the degree to which humans differentially localize small and large sound sources, auditory targets were presented using a single 25.4 cm by 10.2 cm elliptical loudspeaker with the primary axis oriented both horizontally and vertically in different sessions. Subjects were seated with their heads fixed by a bite bar in a darkened, echo-attenuating room facing a cylindrical, acoustically transparent screen at a distance of 2 meters. Auditory targets consisted of repeating bursts (5 Hz) of low frequency band-pass noise (0.2 - 1 kHz, 75 dB SPL). Subjects were instructed to quickly and accurately guide a laser pointer mounted on a cylindrical joystick towards targets, presented randomly within a field ± 40° in azimuth by ± 10° in elevation, with oversampled points located every ten degrees along the primary meridians. Localization accuracy and precision (mean and standard deviation of localization error at oversampled locations) were not significantly different between speaker orientations, and were comparable to baseline measurements recorded using a 7.6 cm circular speaker. We conclude that low frequency sound localization performance is not dependent upon the size of the sound source as predicted theoretically, and is well approximated by a point source.