Strength and physical fitness predict the perception of looming sounds
Correspondence information about the author John G. Neuhoff
Email the author John G. Neuhoff
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Fig. 1
Participants heard a 3-D virtual sound source approach and pressed a key when the source was perceived to be directly in front of them. Participants tend to respond too soon allowing a perceptual margin of safety.
Fig. 2
Composite physical fitness scores based on muscular strength and cardiovascular efficiency significantly predict the perception of arrival time, accounting for 16.8% of the variance.
Abstract
Listeners consistently perceive approaching sounds to be closer than they actually are and perceptually underestimate the time to arrival of looming sound sources. In a natural environment, this underestimation results in more time than expected to evade or engage the source and affords a “margin of safety” that may provide a selective advantage. However, a key component in the proposed evolutionary origins of the perceptual bias is the appropriate timing of anticipatory motor behaviors. Here we show that listeners with poorer physical fitness respond sooner to looming sounds and with a larger margin of safety than listeners with better physical fitness. The anticipatory perceptual bias for looming sounds is negatively correlated with physical strength and positively correlated with recovery heart rate (a measure of aerobic fitness). The results suggest that the auditory perception of looming sounds may be modulated by the response capacity of the motor system.
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