Auditory perception of unimpeded passage

We posed the question of whether sighted observers with eyes closed can perceive the distance between a sound-emitting object and a wall wide enough for unimpeded passage. Across 4 experiments, we varied the listener's proximity to the wall and to the source-wall gap, and we manipulated the opportunity to see the room containing the sound source and the wall. Results indicated a limited form of auditory affordance perception in that listeners could perceive, with acceptable tolerance, a sound source's azimuth relative to the body's boundaries. This auditory perceptual ability was affected by the source-to-listener distance and visual preview of the spatial layout.