Spatial hearing is calibrated through learning to each listener’s head and pinna geometry

Evidence

Spatial hearing develops substantially through learning and adaptation to gain more accuracy and better performance in complex environments. The fundamental role of learning is easy to understand because spatial hearing is dependent on individual factors, such as the size and form of the head and geometries of the pinnae. The auditory system learns to analyse sound environments by utilizing the properties of direct sound, reflections from surfaces and objects, and reverberant sound arriving at the two ear canals of the subject. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1381

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to HRTF personalization and headphone rendering challenges in spatial audio engineering. — connects to: The auditory system continually relearns to decode pinna-imposed spectral cues. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1453; Auditory elevation calibration requires visual confirmation of sound sources — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1482; Each person’s directional hearing is calibrated to their own ear shape — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 732