Integration of acoustical information in the perception of impacted sound sources. The role of information accuracy and exploitability.

Sound sources are perceived by integrating information from multiple acoustical features. The factors influencing the integration of information are largely unknown. We measured how the perceptual weighting of different features varies with the accuracy of information and with a listener’s ability to exploit it. Participants judged the hardness of two objects whose interaction generates an impact sound: a hammer and a sounding object. In a first discrimination experiment, trained listeners focused on the most accurate information, although with greater difficulty when perceiving the hammer. We inferred a limited exploitability for the most accurate hammer-hardness information. In a second r…