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100 _aFeierabend, Martina
_949753
245 _aAuditory Space Perception in the Blind:
_bHorizontal Sound Localization in Acoustically Simple and Complex Situations/
260 _bsage
_c2019
300 _a Vol: 48, issue: 11, 2019: (1039-1057 p.).
520 _aEven though it is widely believed that cross-modal neuroplasticity in blindness results in enhanced auditory spatial abilities, a growing number of studies also indicate disadvantages of blind persons for specific, more demanding audiospatial tasks. Here, the effects of blindness on horizontal sound localization were compared for simple localization of target sounds presented in isolation and target localization in an acoustically complex (cocktail-party) situation with multiple distractor sounds. While performances of blind and sighted subjects were similar in the cocktail-party setting, a significant disadvantage of blind subjects was found for simple localization of sound sources presented in the center of the frontal space, with the mean absolute error being more than twice that of controls for targets in the median plane. The latter result could be due to the lack of visual calibration of auditory space, which may, in sighted persons, be most effective in the region of maximum visual acuity. On the other hand, the normal performance of blind persons in cocktail-party localization could be explained by the fact that this task, in addition to genuine spatial analysis, critically involved spectrotemporal analysis of the auditory scene to separate different sources for which superior performance is known from previous research.
650 _asound localization,
_949754
650 _aauditory selective spatial attention,
_949755
650 _acocktail-party effect,
_949756
650 _ablindness
_949757
700 _aKarnath, Hans-Otto
_949758
700 _a Lewald, Jörg
_949759
773 0 _012374
_916462
_dSage,
_tPerception
_x1468-4233
856 _uhttps://doi.org/10.1177/0301006619872062
942 _2ddc
_cART
999 _c12509
_d12509