An Experiment on the Feasibility of Spatial Acquisition using a Moving Auditory Cue for Pedestrian Navigation

Abstract

We conducted a feasibility study on the use of a moving auditory cue for spatial acquisition for pedestrian navigation by comparing its performance with a static auditory cue, the use of which has been investigated in previous studies. To investigate the performance of human sound azimuthal localization, we designed and conducted a controlled experiment with 15 participants and found that performance was statistically significantly more accurate with an auditory source moving from the opposite direction over users' heads to the target direction than with a static sound. Based on this finding, we designed a bimodal pedestrian navigation system using both visual and auditory feedback. We evaluated the system by conducting a field study with four users and received overall positive feedback.