Auditive Localization & Head Movements: About Localization Cues, Head Movements, and Auralization Methods

Several cues for localizing sound sources will be evaluated. The literature quotes numerous experiments investigating the influence of various localization cues. Amongst these cues head movements play a vital role, but often they seem to be underestimated in their influence on auditive localization. Also, in the majority of these experiments the subjects have moved only their own head. The present work starts by suggesting a new scheme for the classification of localization cues. This scheme was validated by checking it against various experiments found in the literature. The main topic, which concentrates on head movements, investigates which movements of the subjects' own head, a dummy head, a sphere microphone or even of a virtual dummy head " influence localization and evaluates the extent to which they do so. Finally an application of the results is given by introducing the method of binaural room scanning. This book provides both professionals and students involved in psychoacoustics binauralization and virtual acoustics with a broad overview of various localization experiments in literature and some insights into the influence of head movements on localization."