From: dstamp@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Dave Stampe-Psy+Eng)
Subject: Re: 3-D Sound imaging systems (a clarification)
Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1991 21:55:14 GMT
Message-ID: <1991Dec4.215514.22725@watserv1.waterloo.edu>
Organization: University of Waterloo


harry@harlqn.co.uk (Harry Fearnhamm) writes:

>good> If I were a subject in one of Beth Wenzel's experiments, I
>good> suspect I would be one of those people who has a high percentage
>good> of front-back reversals and difficulty in Z-axis localization.
>
>wex> You'd have lots of company.  In conversation with Bill Gaver &
>wex> Sara Bly at CHI'91 it appears that up to 40% of the population
>wex> has these problems to one extent or another.
>
>Has anyone tried experiments with alltering the pinna model to see if
>this difficulty can be alleviated?  It may be that we have to learn to
>work with our particular ear shape, and that all such experiments
>would be doomed, but on the other hand, it may be hard wired, and that
>using ear shapes that accentuate elevation information would indeed be
>effective.  Given our probable evolutionary path, I'd be inclined to
>say that elevation information would have become less and less
>important (without airborne prey/attack), and that we have simply lost the
>ability.

One thing I'm not clear about is if these demos used head position
to compute the "true" angle to put the sound at.  I suspect that
they didn't and if you added this , the localization would be clear
to most people.  After all, our ear's response to sound angle is not
very constant (room, clothing, wax, etc) so you use head motions to
verify the position, then quickly "tune" the neural curcuits to the
new pattern.  Ever notice someone turning their head to locate a sound?
I believe a rather simple device would work with this addition.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| My life is Hardware,                    |                              | 
| my destiny is Software,                 |         Dave Stampe          |
| my CPU is Wetware...                    |                              | 
| Anybody got a SDB I can borrow?         | dstamp@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca |
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