Document Type : Review Articles

Authors

• Abdollah Moossavi ¹
• Maryam Delphi ²

¹ Surgeon and ENT, Associate Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

² Academic Member, Ahvaz jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran and PhD Student of University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Abstractintroduction:Spatial hearing is a part of central auditory system abilities that allows localization and understanding speech in noise for listener. Spatial hearing makes the listener capable to pay selective attention to sounds arriving from one direction and meanwhile suppressing sounds arriving from other directions. The purposeofthisstudyisto review the articles about basics, models and functions of spatial hearing.Materials and Methods: Forthis study Pub med, Scopus, proquest,andgoogle scholardatabases were searched by key words like spatial hearing; spatial advantage and other words related tospatialprocessing and several dozens of papers about spatial hearing were chosen. Results: Spatial hearing is proposed as a new processing phenomenon and hasseveralfunctions. A huge body of information has appeared about it in the literature during past years. Spatial hearing is based on binauralhearing and its application in different fields like “cocktail party effect”, central auditory processing, lateralization and distance perception has been under focus recently. Conclusion: Given the importanceand functions ofspatialhearing inauditory processing,especiallyincomplexenvironments, assessment, treatment and rehabilitation ofspatialprocessingdisorders can solve a considerable part ofcentral auditory processing disorder complaints. Keywords: spatial hearing, localization, speech understanding in noise