Mechanism of Binaural Fusion in the Hearing of Speech

Abstract

The mechanism of binaural fusion is here discussed as a form of statistical operation based upon the brain's execution of running cross‐correlation of the two ear signals. The technique of measurement of the degree of binaural fusion, outlined in our earlier paper, is here extensively applied to sine waves, to chords of sine waves, to intoned vowels and to running speech; such technique results in curves which assess listener's judgments as to whether a source of sound lies in the right or left hemisphere of subjective space. An extended theory is also developed here explaining these judgment curves in detail. Finally, a discussion is made of the importance of having an understanding of the mechanism of binaural fusion, in any consideration of our binaural directivity sense and our speech discrimination sense (the “cocktail, party problem”).