Localization interference between components in an auditory scene.

Some past studies suggest that when sound elements are heard as one object, the spatial cues in the component elements are integrated to determine perceived location, and that this integration is reduced when the elements are perceived in separate objects. The current study explored how object localization depends on the spatial, spectral, and temporal configurations of sound elements in an auditory scene. Localization results are interpreted in light of results from a series of previous experiments studying perceptual grouping of the same stimuli, e.g., Shinn-Cunningham et al. [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 104, 12223-12227 (2007)]. The current results suggest that the integration (pulling) of spatial information across spectrally interleaved elements is obligatory when these elements are simultaneous, even though past results show that these simultaneous sound elements are not grouped strongly into a single perceptual object. In contrast, perceptually distinct objects repel (push) each other spatially with a strength that decreases as the temporal separation between competing objects increases. These results show that the perceived location of an attended object is not easily predicted by knowledge of how sound elements contribute to the perceived spectro-temporal content of that object.