Auditory perception of motor vehicle travel paths.

Objective: These experiments address concerns that motor vehicles in electric engine mode are so quiet that they pose a risk to pedestrians, especially those with visual impairments.

Background: The "quiet car" issue has focused on hybrid and electric vehicles, although it also applies to internal combustion engine vehicles. Previous research has focused on detectability of vehicles, mostly in quiet settings.

Comparison of different pointing methods for sound localizability measurement in the vision impaired subjects.

In order to find out the most suitable and accurate pointing methods to study the sound localizability of persons with visual impairment, we compared the accuracy of three different pointing methods for indicating the direction of sound sources in a semi-anechoic dark room. Six subjects with visual impairment (two totally blind and four with low vision) participated in this experiment. The three pointing methods employed were (1) directing the face, (2) directing the body trunk on a revolving chair and (3) indicating a tactile cue placed horizontally in front of the subject.