Abstract:

Although static localization performance in auditory displays is known to substantially improve as a listener spends more time in the environment, the impact of real-time interactive movement on these tasks is not yet well understood. Accordingly, a training procedure was developed and evaluated to address this question. In a set of experiments, listeners searched for and marked the locations of five virtually spatialized sound sources. The task was performed with and without training. Finally, the listeners performed a second search and mark task to assess the impacts of training. The results indicate that the training procedure maintained or significantly improved localization accuracy. In addition, localization performance did not improve for listeners who did not complete the training procedure.