William A. Yost

Papers

Total Citations

H-Index

About

William A. Yost is a leading figure in auditory perception, with a career dedicated to unraveling how humans and machines localize sound in complex environments. His research centers on binaural hearing, spatial hearing, and psychoacoustics, with a particular focus on the dynamic cues that enable real-world sound localization. Yost’s major contributions include demonstrating that human listeners rarely experience the classic “cone of confusion” errors predicted by static interaural time difference (ITD) models. Instead, his work shows that the auditory system actively resolves ambiguity by integrating successive ITD observations as the head or sound source moves—a principle he has applied to both human perception and robotic audition. His most-cited paper, “Active binaural localization of multiple sound sources” (2016), has garnered 33 citations, while his 2015 study on dynamic ITD cues has been cited 9 times, underscoring his influence in bridging psychoacoustics and computational modeling. Yost’s insights have profound implications for hearing aid design, virtual reality audio, and autonomous systems, making him a pivotal voice in spatial hearing research.