Ranging in human sonar: effects of additional early reflections and exploratory head movements.

ABSTRACT: Many blind people rely on echoes from self-produced sounds to assess their environment. It has been shown that human subjects can use echolocation for directional localization and orientation in a room, but echo-acoustic distance perception--e.g. to determine one's position in a room--has received little scientific attention, and systematic studies on the influence of additional early reflections and exploratory head movements are lacking. This study investigates echo-acoustic distance discrimination in virtual echo-acoustic space, using the impulse responses of a real corridor. Six blindfolded sighted subjects and a blind echolocation expert had to discriminate between two positions in the virtual corridor, which differed by their distance to the front wall, but not to the lateral walls.

SUBMITTER: Wallmeier L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4281102 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature