Effect of auditory cuing on azimuthal localization accuracy

Auditory localization in the horizontal plane was measured following the presentation of a cue in order to explore whether attentional focus could improve localization accuracy. Subjects pointed to the heard location of a broadband target source that was presented (at a delay of either 50 or 300 ms) after a cue source. In half of the blocks of trials, the cue source came from the same (left/right) hemifield as the target on most (75%) of the trials, and thus (on average) provided the listener with information about the target location. In the other half of the blocks of trials, the cue source location was equally likely to come from either the same or the opposite hemifield and provided no information to the subject regarding target position. The presence of a cue biased localization performance in both conditions rather than improving accuracy when the cue provided information about the target laterality, even for a delay of 300 ms between the cue and target. Results suggest that auditory cuing, which ha...