Human Echolocators Have Better Localization Off Axis

Lore Thaler*, L. J. Norman, H. P. J. C. De Vos, D. Kish, M. Antoniou, C. J. Baker, M. C. J. Hornikx

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

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Abstract

Here, we report novel empirical results from a psychophysical experiment in which we tested the echolocation abilities of nine blind adult human experts in click-based echolocation. We found that they had better acuity in localizing a target and used lower intensity emissions (i.e., mouth clicks) when a target was placed 45° off to the side compared with when it was placed at 0° (straight ahead). We provide a possible explanation of the behavioral result in terms of binaural-intensity signals, which appear to change more rapidly around 45°. The finding that echolocators have better echo-localization off axis is surprising, because for human source localization (i.e., regular spatial hearing), it is well known that performance is best when targets are straight ahead (0°) and decreases as targets move farther to the side. This may suggest that human echolocation and source hearing rely on different acoustic cues and that human spatial hearing has more facets than previously thought.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1143-1153
Number of pages11
JournalPsychological Science
Volume33
Issue number7
Early online date14 Jun 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2022.

Keywords

  • bats
  • behavior
  • blindness
  • hearing
  • psychophysics

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Psychology(all)

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