Precedence effect for a lagging sound from oblique direction

Abstract

We conducted a psychophysical experiment to investigate how a combination of direct and reflected sounds affects perception of sound image. When a direct sound (leading sound) is followed by a reflection (lagging sound), it induces the precedence effect (PE), the summing localization (SL), and the split of sound image (SSI). Previous studies have explored these effects with lagging sounds from the horizontal and median planes, but the influence of oblique reflections, which appear in real environments, on the perceived sound images remains unknown. Our experiment evaluates the conditions under which PE, SL and SSI occur when a leading sound originates from the front and a lagging sound arrives from an oblique direction (θ,φ). Comparing the perceived sound image when an oblique lagging sound was presented to those with horizontal (θ,0) and vertical (0,φ), it is suggested that the sound image localization with an oblique lagging sound is a combination of azimuthal localization for a horizontal lagging sound and elevation localization for a vertical lagging sound.