Firefighters’ Expertise in Locating Sounds

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I congratulate the authors on this interesting topic that fills in the gap in the role of the auditory performance of firefighters.

The authors indicate that firefighters, who usually operate in low-visibility environments, may have developed specific skills in spatial orientation, although their use of auditory cues has not been widely studied. They report an experiment comparing professional firemen and control participants in a sound localisation task under dark conditions, using both simple and more complex auditory stimuli. The results show that performance was influenced by task type, sound position, and group, with firemen generally showing greater accuracy, especially in more demanding conditions. The authors suggest that this advantage reflects an expertise in the use of auditory spatial cues, which could be relevant for the design of assistive technologies based on robotics and artificial intelligence.

The Introduction, Methodology, and Results sections are well explained, although the authors need to make minor corrections and clarifications to improve the article's readability.

I have a question the authors might consider including in the article. Do firefighters receive specific professional training related to identifying sound sources, both meaningful and non-meaningful? Is there any difference between newly recruited firefighters and those with more experience? Has the firefighters' length of service been related to their performance on the presented tasks?

Figure 1. Perhaps this is a formatting issue during the conversion of the original to PDF, but there is too much white space before and after the figure. Please review it.

Table 1, which shows the different performance on various tasks between professional firefighters and control subjects, includes a Statistical Comparison column. The manuscript also indicates that the Corsi block-tapping task showed significant differences between the two groups. "What test was performed, and what does 'p' mean?" Is it the p-value? If so, indicate, based on the p-value, when the null hypothesis can be rejected or accepted.

Many readers are unfamiliar with three-way ANOVA (between-subjects and within-subjects) and two-way ANOVA. While these tests are widely used, I suggest briefly explaining both, along with post-hoc analysis and the correction for multiple comparisons.

What post-hoc analysis was performed? Include it in the manuscript.

In subsection 4.4, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Applications, review and correct the following sentence: “Robots and artificial intelligence applications are being developed to support firefighters during their interventions [58, 59], as they can interact with them during active searches in dark and noisy environments.”

The study has certain limitations, as, at least from what I could gather from reading the article, there was no smoke, which is often the case in many firefighting interventions. Therefore, the participants focused solely on what they heard—audiovisual equipment or the black fabric—but not on olfactory stimuli. I believe that the sensation caused by inhaling smoke, with its potential effects (feelings of anxiety, fear, etc.), is an aspect that cannot be reproduced in a study of this type and that would likely highlight the differences between the firefighters' sample and the control group. Obviously, this is not the main objective of the study, but I would advise mentioning it in the discussion or in a section on its limitations.

Author Response

Tissieres et al. Firemen’s expertise in locating sounds

Dear Prof. Clarke,

Your manuscript has been reviewed by experts in the field and we request that you make major revisions before it is processed further. Please revise your manuscript according to the reviewers' comments and upload the revised file within 10 days. Please click on the "Peer Review Reports" below to find the reviewers' comments and the version of your manuscript to be used for your revisions.

We thank the Editor and the Reviewers for their comments, which we found very useful. We have revised the manuscript accordingly.

Throughout our Response, the Reviewer’s and the Editor’s comments are in italics, our responses in blue; the relevant passages in the manuscript are highlighted in blue.

Reviewer 1

I congratulate the authors on this interesting topic that fills in the gap in the role of the auditory performance of firefighters.

The authors indicate that firefighters, who usually operate in low-visibility environments, may have developed specific skills in spatial orientation, although their use of auditory cues has not been widely studied. They report an experiment comparing professional firemen and control participants in a sound localisation task under dark conditions, using both simple and more complex auditory stimuli. The results show that performance was influenced by task type, sound position, and group, with firemen generally showing greater accuracy, especially in more demanding conditions. The authors suggest that this advantage reflects an expertise in the use of auditory spatial cues, which could be relevant for the design of assistive technologies based on robotics and artificial intelligence.

The Introduction, Methodology, and Results sections are well explained, although the authors need to make minor corrections and clarifications to improve the article's readability.

I have a question the authors might consider including in the article. Do firefighters receive specific professional training related to identifying sound sources, both meaningful and non-meaningful? Is there any difference between newly recruited firefighters and those with more experience? Has the firefighters' length of service been related to their performance on the presented tasks?

We thank the Reviewer for his / her very positive appreciation.

The Reviewer raises a very interesting question. Professional firemen in Switzerland receive indeed a specific training, including orientation in low visibility environment, both at the beginning of their carrier as well as during their activity. Professional activity and training amounted to 12.4± 7.3 years. However, none of the behavioural measures correlated significantly with the training duration. This is now stated on page 4:

“Their professional activity and training amounted to 12.4 ± 7.3 years. None of the behavioural measures correlated significantly with the training duration (as assessed with Pearson correlations and Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons).”

Figure 1. Perhaps this is a formatting issue during the conversion of the original to PDF, but there is too much white space before and after the figure. Please review it.

This has been corrected:

Table 1, which shows the different performance on various tasks between professional firefighters and control subjects, includes a Statistical Comparison column. The manuscript also indicates that the Corsi block-tapping task showed significant differences between the two groups. "What test was performed, and what does 'p' mean?" Is it the p-value? If so, indicate, based on the p-value, when the null hypothesis can be rejected or accepted.

There is statistical difference between professional firemen and control subjects in the performance of the Corsi block-tapping task. We apologize for the original formulation, which lead to confusion. The relevant passage has been corrected and reads now (Section 3.1, page 7):

“Group differences between professional firemen and control participants in performance on the three TAP subtests [17] and the Corsi Block-Tapping task [18] were assessed using independent-samples t-tests.”

The performance was compared with independent-samples t-tests, as stated in the Methods section (p 6):

We change this sentence to make it clearer (Section 2.5, page 6):

“Group differences between professional firemen and control participants in performance on the three TAP subtests [17] and the Corsi Block-Tapping task [18] were assessed using independent-samples t-tests.”

Many readers are unfamiliar with three-way ANOVA (between-subjects and within-subjects) and two-way ANOVA. While these tests are widely used, I suggest briefly explaining both, along with post-hoc analysis and the correction for multiple comparisons.

This is a very good point. We have added more detailed explanation in Methods (Section 2.5, page 6):

“Performance in the two sound localisation tasks was analysed using mixed-design analyses of variance (ANOVA), with Task (meaningless single sounds; meaningful sounds with distractors) and Position (−80° to 80°) as within-subject factors, and Group (firemen, controls) as a between-subject factor. Within-subject factors correspond to repeated measurements within the same participants, whereas the between-subject factor reflects differences between independent groups. This analysis allows assessment of main effects of each factor as well as their interactions.”

What post-hoc analysis was performed? Include it in the manuscript.

We have performed post-hoc analyses for each task separately. This is now explained in Methods (Section 2.5, page 6):

“In addition, for each task analysed separately, two-way mixed-design ANOVAs were conducted with Group as a between-subject factor and Position as a within-subject factor.”

In subsection 4.4, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Applications, review and correct the following sentence: “Robots and artificial intelligence applications are being developed to support firefighters during their interventions [58, 59], as they can interact with them during active searches in dark and noisy environments.”

We apologize for the typing mistake. The sentence has been corrected and reads now (page 12):

“Robots and artificial intelligence applications are being developed to support firemen during their interventions [58,59] and they may interact with firemen during active search in a dark and noisy environment.”

The study has certain limitations, as, at least from what I could gather from reading the article, there was no smoke, which is often the case in many firefighting interventions. Therefore, the participants focused solely on what they heard—audiovisual equipment or the black fabric—but not on olfactory stimuli. I believe that the sensation caused by inhaling smoke, with its potential effects (feelings of anxiety, fear, etc.), is an aspect that cannot be reproduced in a study of this type and that would likely highlight the differences between the firefighters' sample and the control group. Obviously, this is not the main objective of the study, but I would advise mentioning it in the discussion or in a section on its limitations.

Several studies investigated navigation in conditions with low visibility, due to smoke and humidity, and investigated technology-supported solutions. We have introduced this aspect to the relevant part of Discussion, where it reads (pages 11-12):

“Navigation in burning buildings presents a challenge, because of low visibility and exposure to smoke and fire. Rescue systems have been developed on the basis of multiple information inputs [59], unmanned vehicles [60] and integrated solutions [61].”

15 were male and 2 left-handed. It means that 9 control subjects were female. All the professional firemen were male. In the control group you put women. Didn’t you see any problem with that? Do you have any studies that prove that the hearing abilities of men and women are identical, including mothers?

The Reviewer raises an interesting issue. Current evidence on sex differences in sound localization in musicians is based on discrimination of small changes in binaural cues. Highly trained musicians, who have started their training early in life and continued to play, presented an advantage in spatial hearing. . In this particular context, the advantage was larger in male than female musicians (Wright and Dai 2024). The advantage of male, as compared to female, highly trained musicians does not reflect, however, a predisposition of the general population. Discrimination threshold of small changes in interaural level differences was found to be lower for male than female participants and no difference was found when interaural time differences were used (Wright and Dai 2022).

Tis is now discussed in the relevant section of Discussion (page 10):

“Higher sensitivity to binaural cues, which are used in sound localisation, interaural level differences and to interaural time differences, was reported in musicians. The advantage in spatial hearing tasks was only presented when the musicians were highly trained, have started their training early in life and continued to play. In this particular context, the advantage was larger in male than female musicians [22]. The advantage of male, as compared to female, highly trained musicians does not reflect a predisposition of the general population. Discrimination threshold of small changes in interaural level differences was found to be lower for male than female participants and no difference was found when interaural time differences were used [22].”

… man saying ah, woman saying la (???), baby cooing

We apologize for this formulation, which was difficult to understand. The wording has been changed and reads now (page 5):

“… man saying “ah” (the vowel), woman saying “la” (the consonant-vowel), …”

…localisation[56]. Correct to localization [56].

We are using British spelling throughout the manuscript; “localisation” is generally accepted in British and Australian English. We have checked that this usage is consistent throughout the paper.

It is to be noted that the American spelling “localization” features, however, in the titles of relevant papers in References.

…auditory Where   network. Correct to Where network

We thank the Reviewer for his / her careful reading. The typing mistake has been corrected.

….interventions [58,59]thirane …. Correct to interventions [58,59] thirane…. What means thirane in this context?

We apologize for the typing mistake. The sentence has been corrected and reads now (page 12): “Robots and artificial intelligence applications are being developed to support firemen during their interventions [62,63] and they may interact with firemen during active search in a dark and noisy environment.”

Standardize the references. Journals should be mentioned in full or abbreviated. Not both.

We thank the reviewer for this comment. We acknowledge that the reference list currently includes a mix of abbreviated and full journal titles. This formatting is automatically generated by our reference management software (Zotero) according to the bibliographic style required by the journal (Brain Sciences). As a result, the reference list contains both abbreviated and full journal titles. We have reviewed the references to ensure consistency and compliance with the journal’s guidelines.

Reference 17. Big print why?

We thank the reviewer for this comment, we have corrected this reference (page 13):

17. Zimmermann, P.; Fimm, B. A Test Battery for Attentional Performance. In Applied Neuropsychology of Attention; Psychology Press, 2002 ISBN 978-0-203-30701-4.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Firemen’s expertise in locating sounds – Review

This work is not flawed in its formal structure, but opens the door to some criticism. Why include robots and artificial intelligence in this context? With the immense possibilities opening up in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence to support human work, in the future firefighters and other professional, e.g., soldiers, will be mere operators of integrated systems. This is already evident in warfare. However, there is the human being and their capacity to intervene in the reality that surrounds them without any help other than their intelligence and aptitude. Regarding the superior ability of professional firefighters to discriminate the “Where” and “What” of sounds in a given situation, everything is largely related to training. This work clearly demonstrates this. The introduction of robots and artificial intelligence adds nothing to the economy of this manuscript; rather, it introduces a noise factor into it.  I propose to eliminate any references to robots and artificial intelligence. 

Below are some corrections to be made.

…in the localisation (localization) of sounds – where the person to rescue is– and expertise in….

I think this sentence is incomplete

…sound localisation, the second hypothesis tests…

24-54 years (mean ± SD: 37.6 ± 7.6 years),

…6 left-handed. Is there any reason to introduce this characteristic? Does being left-handed have any influence on hearing abilities?

…. (mean ± SD: 33.9 ± 6.6 years),

15 were male and 2 left-handed. It means that 9 control subjects were female. All the professional firemen were male. In the control group you put women. Didn’t you see any problem with that? Do you have any studies that prove that the hearing abilities of men and women are identical, including mothers?

… man saying ah, woman saying la (???), baby cooing

…localisation[56]. Correct to localization [56].

…auditory Where   network. Correct to Where network

….interventions [58,59]thirane …. Correct to interventions [58,59] thirane…. What means thirane in this context?

Standardize the references. Journals should be mentioned in full or abbreviated. Not both.

Reference 17. Big print why?

Author Response

Tissieres et al. Firemen’s expertise in locating sounds

Dear Prof. Clarke,

Your manuscript has been reviewed by experts in the field and we request that you make major revisions before it is processed further. Please revise your manuscript according to the reviewers' comments and upload the revised file within 10 days. Please click on the "Peer Review Reports" below to find the reviewers' comments and the version of your manuscript to be used for your revisions.

We thank the Editor and the Reviewers for their comments, which we found very useful. We have revised the manuscript accordingly.

Throughout our Response, the Reviewer’s and the Editor’s comments are in italics, our responses in blue; the relevant passages in the manuscript are highlighted in blue.

Reviewer 2

Firemen’s expertise in locating sounds – Review

This work is not flawed in its formal structure, but opens the door to some criticism. Why include robots and artificial intelligence in this context? With the immense possibilities opening up in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence to support human work, in the future firefighters and other professional, e.g., soldiers, will be mere operators of integrated systems. This is already evident in warfare. However, there is the human being and their capacity to intervene in the reality that surrounds them without any help other than their intelligence and aptitude. Regarding the superior ability of professional firefighters to discriminate the “Where” and “What” of sounds in a given situation, everything is largely related to training. This work clearly demonstrates this. The introduction of robots and artificial intelligence adds nothing to the economy of this manuscript; rather, it introduces a noise factor into it.  I propose to eliminate any references to robots and artificial intelligence.

We agree with the Reviewer that current practice in firefighting does not include robots and artificial intelligence on regular basis. However, several studies investigated navigation in conditions with low visibility, due to smoke and humidity, and investigated technology-supported solutions. Recently, robots and artificial intelligence applications were developed to support firemen during their interventions (Fernandez Talavera et al. 2023; Li et al. 2023).

Several studies documented how well firemen perform at spatial tasks based on visual information (Hsiao et al. 2016; Shi et al. 2021) and this aspect is included in new developments of technology support. We document here high performance on auditory spatial tasks; future developments, which most likely will include robots and artificial intelligence need to be advised about this particular aspect.

To make this point easier to understand, we have added an introduction to the relevant part of Discussion, which reads now (pages 11-12):

“Navigation in burning buildings presents a challenge, because of low visibility and exposure to smoke and fire. Rescue systems have been developed on the basis of multiple information inputs [59], unmanned vehicles [60] and integrated solutions [61]. Robots and artificial intelligence applications are being developed to support firemen during their interventions [62,63] and they may interact with firemen during active search in a dark and noisy environment.”

Below are some corrections to be made.

…in the localisation (localization) of sounds – where the person to rescue is– and expertise in….

We apologize for the lack of clarity in the original wording. The corrected version reads (page 3):

“By their long-term exposure and specific training, firemen may have acquired expertise in the localisation of sounds, i. e., where the person to rescue is. In addition, they most likely acquired expertise in segregating relevant sounds in a noisy environment.”

I think this sentence is incomplete

…sound localisation, the second hypothesis tests…

We have corrected the sentence, which reads now (page 3):

“Whereas the first hypothesis focuses on explicit sound localisation, the second hypothesis tests the interplay between explicit and implicit use of auditory spatial cues.”

24-54 years (mean ± SD: 37.6 ± 7.6 years),

This has been corrected and reads now (page 4):

“Professional firemen were aged 24-54 years (mean ± SD: 37.6y ± 7.6 years),…”

…6 left-handed. Is there any reason to introduce this characteristic? Does being left-handed have any influence on hearing abilities?

Indication as to the hand preference of experimental subjects is a standard procedure in neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience. Hand preference reflects to certain extent brain lateralization for specific functions. Information on hand lateralization is relevant to our study since we demonstrate better performance of professional firemen in right space.

…. (mean ± SD: 33.9 ± 6.6 years),

This has been corrected and reads now (page 4):

“The control subjects were aged 23-45 years (mean ± SD: 33.9 y ± 6.6 years), ..”

15 were male and 2 left-handed. It means that 9 control subjects were female. All the professional firemen were male. In the control group you put women. Didn’t you see any problem with that? Do you have any studies that prove that the hearing abilities of men and women are identical, including mothers?

The Reviewer raises an interesting issue. Current evidence on sex differences in sound localization in musicians is based on discrimination of small changes in binaural cues. Highly trained musicians, who have started their training early in life and continued to play, presented an advantage in spatial hearing. . In this particular context, the advantage was larger in male than female musicians (Wright and Dai 2024). The advantage of male, as compared to female, highly trained musicians does not reflect, however, a predisposition of the general population. Discrimination threshold of small changes in interaural level differences was found to be lower for male than female participants and no difference was found when interaural time differences were used (Wright and Dai 2022).

Tis is now discussed in the relevant section of Discussion (page 10):

“Higher sensitivity to binaural cues, which are used in sound localisation, interaural level differences and to interaural time differences, was reported in musicians. The advantage in spatial hearing tasks was only presented when the musicians were highly trained, have started their training early in life and continued to play. In this particular context, the advantage was larger in male than female musicians [22]. The advantage of male, as compared to female, highly trained musicians does not reflect a predisposition of the general population. Discrimination threshold of small changes in interaural level differences was found to be lower for male than female participants and no difference was found when interaural time differences were used [22].”

… man saying ah, woman saying la (???), baby cooing

We apologize for this formulation, which was difficult to understand. The wording has been changed and reads now (page 5):

“… man saying “ah” (the vowel), woman saying “la” (the consonant-vowel), …”

…localisation[56]. Correct to localization [56].

We are using British spelling throughout the manuscript; “localisation” is generally accepted in British and Australian English. We have checked that this usage is consistent throughout the paper.

It is to be noted that the American spelling “localization” features, however, in the titles of relevant papers in References.

…auditory Where   network. Correct to Where network

We thank the Reviewer for his / her careful reading. The typing mistake has been corrected.

….interventions [58,59]thirane …. Correct to interventions [58,59] thirane…. What means thirane in this context?

We apologize for the typing mistake. The sentence has been corrected and reads now (page 12): “Robots and artificial intelligence applications are being developed to support firemen during their interventions [62,63] and they may interact with firemen during active search in a dark and noisy environment.”

Standardize the references. Journals should be mentioned in full or abbreviated. Not both.

We thank the reviewer for this comment. We acknowledge that the reference list currently includes a mix of abbreviated and full journal titles. This formatting is automatically generated by our reference management software (Zotero) according to the bibliographic style required by the journal (Brain Sciences). As a result, the reference list contains both abbreviated and full journal titles. We have reviewed the references to ensure consistency and compliance with the journal’s guidelines.

Reference 17. Big print why?

We thank the reviewer for this comment, we have corrected this reference (page 13):

17. Zimmermann, P.; Fimm, B. A Test Battery for Attentional Performance. In Applied Neuropsychology of Attention; Psychology Press, 2002 ISBN 978-0-203-30701-4.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I don't know why the authors continue to mention robots in the conclusions. It's not within the scope of this work. I would advise removing the reference to robots from the conclusions since they are mentioned above in the text. Analysis of the references continues to show that some joyrnals are cited in full and others in abbreviatted form. Please standadize the citation of journals in the references. The manuscrit is clearer now but, but needs to correct what I pointed out. 

Author Response

We thank the Reviewer for his/her comments, which helped us to revise the manuscript.

Throughout our Response, the Reviewer’s comments are in italics, our responses in regular font.

Reviewer 2

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I don't know why the authors continue to mention robots in the conclusions. It's not within the scope of this work. I would advise removing the reference to robots from the conclusions since they are mentioned above in the text.

We have now excluded all parts discussing the implication of our findings to robotics and artificial intelligence applications, as they may support firemen during their interventions. Specifically, former Section 4.4. Robotics and artificial intelligence applications has been removed.

Analysis of the references continues to show that some joyrnals are cited in full and others in abbreviatted form. Please standadize the citation of journals in the references. The manuscrit is clearer now but, but needs to correct what I pointed out. 

As requested, we have corrected the reference list; in all instances journal names are now in full, i. e., not abbreviated.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf