Speaker
Description
Virtual acoustic environments are increasingly used in psychoacoustics and spatial audio research, with growing importance for virtual and augmented reality applications. However, achieving perceptual validity comparable to real-world scenarios remains a critical challenge. This study investigates human sound localization performance by directly comparing perception of sounds played from physical loudspeakers in a typical home environment (living room lab) with headphone-based, real-time virtual acoustics using the Low-latency Interactive Virtual Environment and Room Acoustics Simulator (liveRAZR). Dummy (non-individualized) head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) and interactive head tracking were used for the virtual sound source auralization. Normal-hearing listeners were seated on a sofa in the living room and always wore open “floating” headphones and a head tracking device. They were asked to indicate the perceived spatial position of a sequence of pink noise bursts on a computer screen displaying an image of the room from the listener’s perspective. The sounds could originate from either real or virtual loudspeakers located in the same room and in a neighboring room connected by a door. Real and virtual sounds were randomly interleaved. Localization accuracy was quantitatively assessed by evaluating the spatial error for the real and virtual sounds and the results are discussed. This research aims to provide a quantitative comparison between real and simulated room acoustics regarding spatial perception, important for tele presence as well as for extended and augmented reality applications with the goal to render virtual sound sources in a real environment, ideally indistinguishable from real sound sources.