Psychoacoustical aspects of synthesized vertical locale cues

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Abstract
A new method of studying vertical localization is described whereby the high-frequency response of the external ear is synthesized by a computer program incorporating 2 variable latency delay and add processes. The resulting sounds were evaluated by presentation to [human] subjects via headphones which bypass the external ear. Vertical movement of the sound source was perceived when the latency of 1 echo was changed dynamically between 100 and 300 .mu.s and this effect required the presence of high-frequency signal components (above .apprx. 4 kHz). In further experiments, the variation of perceived elevation with echo delay was measured; the vertical locale of the apparent source is a monotonic function of echo latency in the 160-260 .mu.s region. Locale is apparently decoded by a form of spectral pattern recognition, whereby the locale of the source is represented as a peak on an autocorrelation function. The time-axis values (between 160 and 260 .mu.s) corresponding to these peaks are considered to correspond to vertical locale for elevations between, roughly, 60.degree. above horizontal and 40.degree. below.

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