Sound source location alone can split one acoustic stream into two perceived sources

Evidence

Spatial information can act as a grouping cue to assist the segregation of an acoustic stimulus into discrete sounds. For example, when a rhythmic sequence of identical sound bursts is presented from a single location, it is often perceived as one source. But, when the sound sequence is presented from two different locations, it can be perceived as two sounds (Middlebrooks and Onsan 2012 ; Middlebrooks and Bremen 2013 ). Such findings suggest that a mixture of spatial and non-spatial auditory cues from both the dorsal and ventral pathways may be needed in order to create a coherent auditory-perceptual representation that guides behavior. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 4878

Categorization

• XREF: Spatial stream segregation is a core mechanism in auditory scene analysis (Bregman), complementing the book’s earlier noise and silence material by showing how location cues bind sounds to sources.