TACTILE LOCALIZATION OF SOUNDS - ACUITY, TRACKING MOVING SOURCES, AND SELECTIVE ATTENTION

Most attempts to design artificial ears have concentrated on displaying frequency information to the skin of deaf subjects in the hope that they may recognize complex patterns of sounds and thus have some auditory function restored. The problem from a practical standpoint is that simultaneously occurring sounds that originate from different sources are difficult if not impossible to unscramble. In normal audition, auditory localization not only enables subjects to perceive the locus of origin of sounds with a high degree of accuracy, but also appears to be the most important determinant of selective auditory attention. Experiments demonstrated that tactile sound localization was possible with an accuracy that approached normal audition, and that subjects could track moving sound sources. An analog of selective auditory attention was found by using tactile localization. These experiments show the utility of incorporating a localization unit in future designs of artificial ears for the completely deaf.