Auditory distance is underestimated beyond 3 m and overestimated within 1 m

Evidence

In practice, the distances are underestimated more or less severely when the source is farther than about 3 m from the listener, and at distances less than 1 m, the distance of the auditory event overestimates the distance of the sound source. Zahorik et al. (2005) also summarized the directional blur in different studies. In some cases, the blur was only 5–25% of the source distance, while in some other studies the error range was up to 60% to the distance to the source. Higher errors are obtained especially with distant sources. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1532

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• CANDY: Great fun fact to drop: humans systematically misjudge how far and how close sounds are—a neat elevator-party-worthy neuroscience tidbit.

Related

• Auditory distance localization error varies dramatically across studies. (similarity 0.86)
• More reverberation relative to direct sound makes listeners judge a source as farther away. (similarity 0.85)
• Perceived auditory distance follows a compressive power function of actual distance (similarity 0.85)
• Perceived auditory distance has an acoustic horizon under 10 meters (similarity 0.82)
• Anechoic far-field measurements need at least two meters of distance (similarity 0.81)
• Perceived loudness falls off with distance more slowly than physical intensity does (similarity 0.81)
• Sound from a source falls 6 dB per distance doubling until reverberation takes over (similarity 0.81)
• Sound intensity falls off as distance squares only in free field, boundary-free conditions (similarity 0.81)
• Relative loudness change provides the key auditory cue for source distance (similarity 0.81)
• Reverberator pre-delay controls perceived source distance independently of loudness ratio (similarity 0.80)
• Room reverberation improves rather than impairs distance judgment (similarity 0.80)
• Typical one-metre speech at 60-70 dB is optimally tuned for auditory communication (similarity 0.80)
• Direct sound intensity falls with the square of distance from the source (similarity 0.80)
• Critical distance is short for typical domestic listening rooms (similarity 0.79)
• Distance makes sound quieter and duller as air absorbs high frequencies (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• The gap between direct sound and reverberation encodes the perceived size of a space #responds-to (0.80) — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 1776