Reverberation enhances onset dominance in sound localization.

Temporal variation in sensitivity to sound-localization cues was measured in anechoic conditions and in simulated reverberation using the temporal weighting function (TWF) paradigm [Stecker and Hafter (2002). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 112, 1046-1057]. Listeners judged the locations of Gabor click trains (4 kHz center frequency, 5-ms interclick interval) presented from an array of loudspeakers spanning 360 degrees azimuth. Targets ranged +/- 56.25 degrees across trials. Individual clicks within each train varied by an additional +/- 11.25 degrees to allow TWF calculation by multiple regression. In separate conditions, sounds were presented directly or in the presence of simulated reverberation: 13 orders of lateral reflection were computed for a 10m x 10m room (RT60(sic)300 ms) and mapped to the appropriate locations in the loudspeaker array. Results reveal a marked increase in perceptual weight applied to the initial click in reverberation, along with a reduction in the impact of late-arriving sound. In a second experiment, target stimuli were preceded by trains of "conditioner" sounds with or without reverberation. Effects were modest and limited to the first few clicks in a train, suggesting that impacts of reverberant pre-exposure on localization may be limited to the processing of information from early reflections. (C) 2018 Acoustical Society of America.