title: Perception of Animacy from the Motion of a Single Sound Object.
abstract: Research in the visual modality has shown that the presence of certain dynamics in the motion of an object has a strong effect on whether or not the entity is perceived as animate. Cues for animacy are, among others, self-propelled motion and direction changes that are seemingly not caused by entities external to, or in direct contact with, the moving object. The present study aimed to extend this research into the auditory domain by determining if similar dynamics could influence the perceived animacy of a sound source. In two experiments, participants were presented with single, synthetically generated 'mosquito' sounds moving along trajectories in space, and asked to rate how certain they were that each sound-emitting entity was alive. At a random point on a linear motion trajectory, the sound source would deviate from its initial path and speed. Results confirm findings from the visual domain that a change in the velocity of motion is positively correlated with perceived animacy, and changes in direction were found to influence animacy judgment as well. This suggests that an ability to facilitate and sustain self-movement is perceived as a living quality not only in the visual domain, but in the auditory domain as well.
authors.affiliation: Center for Semiotics, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark rhn@dac.au.dk.
authors.forename: Rasmus Høll
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Nielsen
authors.affiliation: Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience (CFIN), Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark The Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus, Denmark.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vuust
authors.affiliation: Center for Semiotics, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience (CFIN), Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
authors.forename: Mikkel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wallentin
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: animacy perception; audition; auditory categorization; auditory perception; auditory system; spatial cognition