Diotic listening rarely occurs because the two ears receive different signals in daily life
Evidence
Sound localization indeed is a primary function of the auditory system, but perhaps more important for the daily life of modern people is the ability of the binaural system to functionally reduce the effects of noise on listening. We saw earlier in this chapter that having two ears can assist a person when detecting sounds in noise, but the effect was an improvement of 3 dB or less. A characteristic of these binaural summation studies is the diotic presentation of sound. Essentially, these experiments mimicked a situation where a signal and noise are originating from the same location in front of the body (i.e., they had a 0-ms ITD and a 0-dB ILD). However, in the section on sound localization, we saw that the perception of different locations requires different signals presented to each ear. Such cases reflect dichotic presentation of sound. The diotic situation is rarely encountered in daily life, as each ear commonly receives different signals, even if only slightly different between the two ears. — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 1540
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- XREF: Distinguishes diotic from dichotic presentation — a recurring distinction across psychoacoustic binaural literature.
Related
- Separating a signal from a competing noise location aids detection beyond diotic summation (similarity 0.93)
- Experiments isolating two-ear advantages must present stimuli over headphones (similarity 0.84)
- ITD sensitivity can be measured via auditory-evoked potentials using sound-onset changes (similarity 0.82)
- Binaural sound is judged louder than the same sound heard monaurally (similarity 0.81)
- Sounds presented to both ears are perceived louder than to one ear (similarity 0.79)
- Two ears improve detection, localization, and masking resistance over one. (similarity 0.79)
- Binaural loudness exceeds monaural loudness, more so for soft than loud sounds (similarity 0.79)