Perceptual and Physiological Characteristics of Binaural Sluggishness

Abstract

When the binaural system is presented with stimuli that change their interaural time delay (ITD) or interaural correlation over time, the ability to follow these changes diminishes already for relatively slow variation frequencies in the region of 2–3 Hz (Blauert 1972). This feature of the response of the binaural system to changes in the interaural configuration of the stimulus is usually referred to as binaural sluggishness. Psychophysically, several studies have characterized the ability to follow ongoing changes in the interaural properties (time difference and correlation) of stimuli (Blauert 1972; Grantham 1982, 1986; Grantham and Wightman 1978, 1979; Boehnke et al. 2002). In addition, the ability to detect fluctuations in the interaural level difference (ILD) was characterized in Stellmack et al. (2005) and can be directly compared to the detection of monaural amplitude modulation (Viemeister 1979).