Head Movements Made by Listeners in Experimental and Real-Life Listening Activities

摘要

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the range and pattern of head movements made by listeners in a range of situations. The first experiment asked subjects to rate the perceived source location, source width, envelopment, and timbre of synthesized and controlled stimuli, while their head positions were recorded. It was found that the listeners moved their heads to larger extents while judging source width or envelopment than while judging source direction or timbre. In addition, the majority of ear positions was observed to be confined around the initial forward-facing direction, and the distribution followed a sloped path that was higher toward the rear of the head and lower toward the front. The second experiment recorded head movements in natural listening activities such as watching concerts, watching movies, and playing video games. The distribution of ear positions was similar in shape to that observed in the controlled experiment but more concentrated around the forward-facing direction.