ABSTRACT
The results from two experiments on detection in noise are compared to those from two experiments on localization in noise. In the detection experiments, large increases in detectability are observed when the signal is horizontally separated from the masker (up to 16 dB), or vertically separated from the masker (up to 9 dB), in the free field. In most cases, these increases in detectability can be explained by monaural processing alone, and thus these results do not imply the use of binaural sound localization mechanisms. In the localization experiments, the accuracy of localization is shown to depend, in a complex manner, on both the signal-to-noise ratio and the location of the masker; although more detectable signals are usually localized more accurately, this is not always the case. Overall, the results of the two sets of experiments fail to show a clear and direct relation between detection and localization.
