Exaggerated outer-ear cues improve sound localization only in hearing-impaired listeners.

Evidence

The results showed that the NH group discriminated equally well with all three sets of pinna cues, showing a mean MAA of around 10° across cue types and reference angle. In the HI group, use of W-cues improved the mean MAA from around 30° to around 20°. This improvement was significant and twice as large as the non-significant mean improvement (from around 25° to 20°) offered by the T-cues. While the HI group showed an improved ability to discriminate enhanced pinna cues as compared to normal pinna cues, the improvements were not as large as expected, and performance was still substantially poorer than that observed in the NH group. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3132

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader hearing-aid literature on whether altered pinna cues aid spatial release from masking and localization in impaired ears.
• QUESTION: What mechanism leaves HI listeners’ minimum audible angles (around 20-30 degrees even with best cues) far above NH levels (about 10 degrees)? Is the bottleneck spectral resolution rather than cue strength?