Looming sounds are perceived as faster than receding sounds

Abstract

Each year thousands of people are killed by looming motor vehicles. Throughout our evolutionary history looming objects have posed a threat to survival and perceptual systems have evolved unique solutions to confront these environmental challenges. Vision provides an accurate representation of time-to-contact with a looming object and usually allows us to interact successfully with the object if required. However, audition functions as a warning system and yields an anticipatory representation of arrival time, indicating that the object has arrived when it is still some distance away. The bias provides a temporal margin of safety that allows more time to initiate defensive actions. In two studies this bias was shown to influence the perception of the speed of looming and receding sound sources. Listeners heard looming and receding sound sources and judged how fast they were moving. Listeners perceived the speed of looming sounds as faster than that of equivalent receding sounds. Listeners also showed better discrimination of the speed of looming sounds than receding sounds. Finally, close sounds were perceived as faster than distant sounds. The results suggest a prioritization of the perception of the speed of looming and receding sounds that mirrors the level of threat posed by moving objects in the environment.