Perceived sound direction and actual source direction need not coincide

Evidence

An alternative goal of sound reproduction is to control the sound field within the loudspeaker set-up. This means that the pressure and velocity waves originating from the virtual sources are to be synthesized as plane waves or as spherical waves. The targeted sound field would then be well defined, and the reproduced sound field can also be simulated, or even measured. Unfortunately, the errors in the synthesis of the sound field between the targeted and reproduced fields do not say much about the perceptual significance of the deviation. Sometimes a small difference in the wave field causes a large perceptual deviation, and a large deviation in the wave field may be perceptually irrelevant in some cases. However, the advantage of this starting point is that the reproduction techniques can be derived mathematically. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1902 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Physical accuracy of a sound field does not predict perceived accuracy — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1902; Spatial audio systems create illusions of direction and space rather than reproducing them exactly; Front sound sources can be misperceived as coming from behind (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Physical accuracy of a sound field does not predict perceived accuracy #corroborates (0.92) — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1902
• Spatial audio systems create illusions of direction and space rather than reproducing them exactly #expands (0.85)