Derey Kiki, Rauschecker Josef P, Formisano Elia, Valente Giancarlo, de Gelder Beatrice
Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, 6200 MD, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition, Department of Neuroscience, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC 20007, USA.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2017 Oct;142(4):1757. doi: 10.1121/1.5003779.
Meaningful sounds represent the majority of sounds that humans hear and process in everyday life. Yet studies of human sound localization mainly use artificial stimuli such as clicks, pure tones, and noise bursts. The present study investigated the influence of behavioral relevance, sound category, and acoustic properties on the localization of complex, meaningful sounds in the horizontal plane. Participants localized vocalizations and traffic sounds with two levels of behavioral relevance (low and high) within each category, as well as amplitude-modulated tones. Results showed a small but significant effect of behavioral relevance: localization acuity was higher for complex sounds with a high level of behavioral relevance at several target locations. The data also showed category-specific effects: localization biases were lower, and localization precision higher, for vocalizations than for traffic sounds in central space. Several acoustic parameters influenced sound localization performance as well. Correcting localization responses for front-back reversals reduced the overall variability across sounds, but behavioral relevance and sound category still had a modulatory effect on sound localization performance in central auditory space. The results thus demonstrate that spatial hearing performance for complex sounds is influenced not only by acoustic characteristics, but also by sound category and behavioral relevance.
有意义的声音占人类在日常生活中听到和处理的声音的大部分。然而，对人类声音定位的研究主要使用人工刺激，如点击声、纯音和噪声脉冲。本研究调查了行为相关性、声音类别和声学特性对复杂、有意义声音在水平面定位的影响。参与者对每个类别中具有两种行为相关性水平（低和高）的发声和交通声音以及调幅音进行定位。结果显示行为相关性有一个小但显著的影响：在几个目标位置，具有高行为相关性的复杂声音的定位敏锐度更高。数据还显示了特定类别的影响：在中央空间中，发声的定位偏差更低，定位精度更高，而交通声音则不然。几个声学参数也影响声音定位性能。对前后反转的定位反应进行校正减少了声音之间的总体变异性，但行为相关性和声音类别在中央听觉空间中仍然对声音定位性能有调节作用。因此，结果表明，复杂声音的空间听觉性能不仅受声学特征影响，还受声音类别和行为相关性影响。
