ABSTRACT

Forty years ago, Collin Cherry [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 25, 975-979 (1953)] described the “cocktail party problem, ” and he suggested that spatial hearing was a major method used by the auditory system to separate sound sources in a multisource acoustic environment. This chapter provides a review of spatial hearing studies that involve more than one sound source or potential sound sources in an attempt to determine the role spatial hearing plays in sound source segregation. Almost all of the data involve only two sound sources, and the results indicate that spatial hearing may not be the major cue used for sound source segregation. However, there are very few studies that have investigated the cocktail party problem in real-world listening conditions, especially when there are more than two sound sources.