The role of acoustic cues in time-to-passage judgments: judging time-to-passage of looming sounds

Abstract

Estimating the arrival of a moving sound is part of everyday tasks, such as when crossing a street with cars coming from both sides. Previous studies showed that approaching sounds were evaluated as closer than the real final distance, in comparison with corresponding receding sounds (Neuhoff; 2001). This phenomenon has been called overestimation of looming sounds. In this sense, this study aims to explore the ability of subjects on judge Time-to-Passage (TTP). Subjects had to decide whether an approaching sound passed by the ear plane before or after the reference time (1s). Preliminary results show that subjects are able to judge time-to-passage, even with stimulus occlusion, although we could not find a general pattern of overestimation with this kind of task.