Localization of speech and non-speech sounds
Sumi Shigeno, Tadasu Oyama · Japanese Psychological Research · 1983
The localization of speech and non-speech sounds in the horizontal plane was investigated. Four kinds of stimulus sounds were employed: synthetic vowel, pure tone, white noise, and single resonance tone. The experiment was carried out under two presentation conditions: single-tone and two-successive-tone conditions. The results indicated that the percentage of correct responses for white noise was greater than that for synthetic vowels under all conditions, and that pure tone was the most difficult to be localized among the four kinds of sounds. It was also revealed that the percentage of correct responses in the single-tone condition was smaller than in the two-successive-tone condition. These results suggest that the acoustical complexity of the stimulus sound is a critical factor in the localization of speech and non-speech sounds.