Effect of Acoustic Scene Complexity and Visual Scene Representation on Auditory Perception in Virtual Audio-Visual Environments

Stefan Fichna, Thomas Biberger, Bernhard U. Seeber, Stephan D. Ewert

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

In daily life, social interaction and acoustic communication often take place in complex acoustic environments (CAE) with a variety of interfering sounds and reverberation. For hearing research and the evaluation of hearing systems, simulated CAEs using virtual reality techniques have gained interest in the context of ecological validity. In the current study, the effect of scene complexity and visual representation of the scene on psychoacoustic measures like sound source location, distance perception, loudness, speech intelligibility, and listening effort in a virtual audio-visual environment was investigated. A 3-dimensional, 86-channel loudspeaker array was used to render the sound field in combination with or without a head-mounted display (HMD) to create an immersive stereoscopic visual representation of the scene. The scene consisted of a ring of eight (virtual) loudspeakers which played a target speech stimulus and non-sense speech interferers in several spatial conditions. Either an anechoic (snowy outdoor scenery) or echoic environment (loft apartment) with a reverberation time (T60) of about 1.5 s was simulated. In addition to varying the number of interferers, scene complexity was varied by assessing the psychoacoustic measures in isolated consecutive measurements or simultaneously. Results showed no significant effect of wearing the HMD on the data. Loudness and distance perception showed significantly different results when they were measured simultaneously instead of consecutively in isolation. The advantage of the suggested setup is that it can be directly transferred to a corresponding real room, enabling a 1:1 comparison and verification of the perception experiments in the real and virtual environment.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2021 Immersive and 3D Audio
Subtitle of host publicationFrom Architecture to Automotive, I3DA 2021
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
ISBN (Electronic)9781665409988
DOIs
StatePublished - 2021
Event2021 Immersive and 3D Audio: From Architecture to Automotive, I3DA 2021 - Bologna, Italy
Duration: 8 Sep 202110 Sep 2021

Publication series

Name2021 Immersive and 3D Audio: From Architecture to Automotive, I3DA 2021

Conference

Conference2021 Immersive and 3D Audio: From Architecture to Automotive, I3DA 2021
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityBologna
Period8/09/2110/09/21

Keywords

  • Complex acoustic environments
  • Head-mounted display
  • Psychoacoustics
  • Virtual acoustic environments
  • Virtual reality

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