Perceived auditory distance has an acoustic horizon under 10 meters

Evidence

The first of the mentioned distance cues, loudness, is naturally the most related to the SPL generated by the source at the listening position. This cue has been studied in an anechoic chamber by placing a real speaker at different distances and asking five subjects to estimate the distance. In this environment, the loudness with which the speaker talks is the only distance cue available to the subject. The perceived distance asymptotically approaches a finite distance less than 10 m, which can be called the acoustic horizon, as the physical distance increases, as seen in Figure 12.23. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1524

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the useful term ‘acoustic horizon’ for the finite perceived-distance ceiling in free field.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1524