Relative influence of interaural time and intensity differences on lateralization is modulated by attention to one or the other cue

When setting interaural time differences and interaural intensity differences into opposition the measured trading ratio depends on which of the cues is adjusted by the listener. This paper provides some evidence that the different trading ratios may be an effect of a shift of attention toward the to-be-adjusted cue. The experiments consisted of two phases. In the compensation phase, participants canceled out the effect of one preset binaural cue by adjusting a compensatory value of the other cue until the sound was located in the center. In the localization phase participants assessed the virtual location of the sounds, again using the preset values of the fixed cue, but using the values of the other cue as previously adjusted. The sounds were no longer perceived as originating from the center. Instead, their perceived location was shifted back toward the location from which they appeared to originate before the adjustment. These findings suggest that during the compensation task the to-be-adjusted sound localization cue received an increased weight compared to the other cue. We propose shifts of attention between the cues as a mechanism that could account for this finding.