title: Contribution of listeners' approaching motion to auditory distance perception.
abstract: Of the several sources of acoustic information for distance perception, those arising from motion of the listener or sound source have received little attention. This motion-related information (recently called acoustic tau) is described, and experiments evaluating its utilization are presented. Accuracy and consistency at walking to the locations of briefly presented sounds were better when people listened while walking than while standing still. Manipulations of the sound to simulate shorter or longer target distances produced appropriate undershooting but not overshooting. The results indicate that people use motion-related acoustic information about distance to guide their locomotor actions, although they do not take full advantage of this information.
authors.affiliation: Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee 37232-8700, USA.
authors.forename: D H
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Ashmead
authors.forename: D L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Davis
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Northington
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception; D006801:Humans; D009038:Motion; D016138:Walking