Perception of Sound Positions

In the real world, the perception of a sound's position in space is influenced by a number of factors, including the following:

Although these are not the only cues people use to discern the position of sound, they are the main ones, and they are the factors that have been implemented in the positioning system of DirectSound. When hardware that supports 3-D sound becomes generally available, other positioning cues might be incorporated into the system, including the difference in how high- and low-frequency sounds are muffled by the mass of the listener's head and the reflections of sound off the shoulders and earlobes.

One of the most important sound-positioning cues is the apparent visual position of the sound source. If a projectile appears as a dot in the distance and grows to the size of an intercontinental missile before it roars past the viewer's head, the listener does not need subtle acoustical cues in order to perceive that the sound has gone past.