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A Sensorimotor Approach to Sound Localization

aytekin{at}umd.edu Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, U.S.A.

Cynthia F. Moss

cmoss{at}psyc.umd.edu Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program, Department of Psychology and Institute of Systems Research, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, U.S.A.

Jonathan Z. Simon

jzsimon{at}umd.edu Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, U.S.A.

Sound localization is known to be a complex phenomenon, combining multisensory information processing, experience-dependent plasticity, and movement. Here we present a sensorimotor model that addresses the question of how an organism could learn to localize sound sources without any a priori neural representation of its head-related transfer function or prior experience with auditory spatial information. We demonstrate quantitatively that the experience of the sensory consequences of its voluntary motor actions allows an organism to learn the spatial location of any sound source. Using examples from humans and echolocating bats, our model shows that a naive organism can learn the auditory space based solely on acoustic inputs and their relation to motor states.