Perception of objects that move in depth, using ecologically valid audio cues

This article presents an experiment on human perception where observers respond to objects that move in depth (on an approaching trajectory) using sounds that contain ecologically valid complex audio cues. We measure the participant's responses to the stimuli, asking them to indicate the approaching object's perceived contact time (measuring their amount of over-/under-estimation); to rate their emotional (valence and arousal) responses; and to rate the engagement quality of the stimuli. Our results show that humans expressed a greater underestimation of the contact time for looming scenes which contained complex audio cues, than for scenes with no audio cues. Scenes that were rated as having greater engagement quality also correlated with greater ratings of emotion. This study provides new information on human looming perception using ecologically valid audio cues, and uses novel measurements of emotion.