Material categorization and hardness scaling in real and synthetic impact sounds
Bruno L. Giordano · 2003
Several studies demonstrated the ability to scale or discriminate properly different features of sound sources on the basis of auditory information alone. Stunning abilities have been found in the judgments of geometrical properties of the sound source [145, 49, 142] or in judgments of geometry-independent features [82]. It was found that listeners are able to categorize correctly even more complex features, such as the type of interaction between objects [251], or the gender of walkers from the sound of their footsteps [153]. The ecological approach explains these abilities by assuming a direct link between the physical features of the sound source (distal stimulus) and the per-