Head movements resolve front-back ambiguity by creating direction-specific binaural cue changes

Evidence

The other mechanism humans use in resolving the direction inside the cone of confusion is the utilization of dynamic cues (Blauert, 1996). When the listener moves his or her head by rotating, tilting, or moving, the binaural cues change accordingly. Let us assume that a sound source is in front of the listener. If the listener rotates his or her head right, the left ear comes closer to the source and the right ear moves farther away. This changes the ITD and ILD, favouring the left ear. If the source was located behind the listener, with the same movement the binaural cues would change to favouring the right ear. The localization mechanisms implicitly assume that the sound source locations are static in the global coordinates, and thus the sources do not move in synchrony with the listener’s head movements, which most often is true. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1457

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the dynamic-cue mechanism for resolving the cone of confusion, including the key implicit static-source assumption.
• XREF: connects to: Dynamic binaural head-movement cues override conflicting visual evidence of source location — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1460; Binaural direction cues alone cannot distinguish front from back or vertical source angle — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 729; Head movement resolves directional ambiguity and explains headphone sounds seeming internal — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 290 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Binaural direction cues alone cannot distinguish front from back or vertical source angle #qualifies (0.95) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 729
• Dynamic head tracking restores externalized sound localization in binaural reproduction. #corroborates (0.85)
• Static binaural images sound inside the head until head movement is tracked #exemplifies (0.85)
• Head movement resolves directional ambiguity and explains headphone sounds seeming internal #expands (0.80) — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 290
• Headphone binaural reproduction fails without dynamic head-movement cues #corroborates (0.80) — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1920
• Basic binaural cues cannot fully explain front-back and elevation judgments #corroborates (0.75)
• Sound source location is encoded by distinct dynamic binaural cues #expands (0.75) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3181
• Head-motion-dependent sound changes are required for external sound localization #expands (0.70)