The concept of interaural timing difference is illustrated by a diagram showing sound waves from an off-center source, like jets, traveling towards a listener. The image depicts arced sound waves reaching a human head, with arrows indicating the path to each ear. This visual representation clarifies how sound waves travel a slightly longer distance to the farther ear, resulting in a small delay in arrival time.

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The interaural timing difference refers to the small delay between the time a given sound wave arrives at one ear and the time it arrives at the other. This cue for sound localization arises because a sound from an off-center source must travel a slightly longer distance to reach the farther ear.

Interaural Timing Difference

There are differences between the time of arrival for sounds between the two ears. One ear will always be closer to an off-axis sound than the other. The disparities can either be onset or ongoing phase disaprity.

Latency differences in localiztion with auditory cues

Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020, April 22). Psychology (2nd ed.). OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/1-introduction

OpenStax Psychology (2nd ed.) Textbook

Visual Example of Interaural Timing Difference

The differences between two ears when hearing the beginning of the sound.

Onset disparity of latency differences

The continuous mismatch between the information entering the two ears with the arrival of peaks and trouchs of sound waves.  This suggests and change in time between arrival of sound, where the ear that recieves sound first is closer to the source of sound.

Ongoing phase disparity of latency differences

Intensity and latency differences are used to locate the source of a sound. Low frequency sounds give virtually no intensity difference between ears, which places more importance on the latency differences. High frequencies can produce a sound shadow with significant binural intensity differences. 

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