I previously laid out a few ideas for future research on spatial hearing:

1. The ecological situation and the computational problem.
2. Tuning curves.
3. The coding problem.

This year I wrote a grant that addresses the first point. My project was rather straightforward:

1. To make binaural recordings with ear mics in real environments, with real sound sources (actual sounding objects) placed at predetermined positions. This way we obtain distributions of binaural cues conditioned on source direction, capturing the variability due to context.
2. To measure human localization performance in those situations.
3. To try to see if a Bayesian model can account for these results, and possibly previous psychophysical results.

The project was preselected but unfortunately not funded. I probably won't resubmit it next year, except perhaps with a collaboration. So here it is for everyone to read: my grant application, "Binaural cues and spatial hearing in ecological environments". If you like it, if you want to do these recordings and experiments, please do so. I am interested in the results, but I'm happy if someone else does it. Please contact me if you would like to set up a collaboration, or discuss the project. I am especially interested in the theoretical analysis (ie the third part of the project). Our experience in the lab is primarily on the theoretical side, but also in signal analysis, and we have done a number of binaural recordings too and some psychophysics.