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Auditory orientation and distance estimation of sighted humans using virtual echolocation with artificial and
Henning Steffens1, Michael Schutte1, Stephan D Ewert1
1Medizinische Physik and Cluster of Excellence Hearing4all, Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, 26111, Germany henning.steffens1@uni-oldenburg.de, michael.schutte@uiae.at, stephan.ewert@uni-oldenburg.de.
JASA Express Letters
|December 31, 2022
Summary
Sighted humans can learn active echolocation using self-emitted sounds for spatial awareness. Performance improved with increased sound directivity, showing potential for non-visual navigation aids.
Area of Science:
- Auditory Perception
- Human Echolocation
- Virtual Acoustics
Background:
- Blind individuals often use active echolocation for spatial orientation.
- Investigating the potential of sighted individuals to learn and utilize echolocation skills.
- Understanding the role of sound properties in echolocation performance.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess distance estimation and directional localization abilities in sighted humans using active echolocation.
- To evaluate the impact of virtual acoustics and sound source directivity on echolocation performance.
- To compare untrained echolocation performance with a control condition.
Main Methods:
- Utilized virtual acoustics to simulate environments and sound sources.
- Tested participants on distance and direction judgment tasks with varying sound directivity (realistic vs. increased).
- Employed both self-emitted and predefined synthetic sounds for echolocation.
Main Results:
- Individual echolocation performance could reach levels comparable to a control condition.
- Average echolocation performance was lower than the control condition.
- Increased sound directivity significantly enhanced echolocation performance.
Conclusions:
- Sighted humans can achieve a basic level of active echolocation proficiency.
- Sound directivity is a critical factor influencing the effectiveness of echolocation.
- Findings suggest potential for developing echolocation training for enhanced spatial awareness.
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