An Effect of Virtual Horizontally Moving Sound Images on Self-Motion Perception

The somatic sensation and the special sensation have some relation each other. For example, some kind of visually-induced self-motion perceptions are caused as an influence of the visual sensation on the somatic sensation that monitors posture. Meanwhile, some acoustically-induced self-motion perceptions have been investigated. For linearly moving sound images receding from listener, Sakamoto et al. (Acoust. Sci. & Tech., 25, 1, 2004) reported that the perceived self-motion was generally opposite to the direction of the moving sound images. In this study, we investigated an acoustically-induced self-motion perception for linearly moving sound images crossing in front of listener. In this experiment, the track of the sound image was 5m far from listener in the front. Subjects were instructed to keep stand upright and listen carefully moving sounds through headphone. Self-motion was evaluated subjectively by the rating scale method for perceived direction and level, and objectively by measuring the center-of-pressure through the experiment. As a result, auditory-induced self-motion was observed in the same direction of the moving sound images especially when the sound image was receding. The above self-motion settled in the initial position after the sound image disappeared. This may mean that auditory vection is sensitive to sounds receding from listener