Speaker
Description
Modal sound fields arise from wave interference in enclosed spaces and dominate the low-frequency acoustic response of a room. Capturing this behavior in virtual acoustic environments requires numerical wave methods, which remain computationally expensive for real-time interactive applications. Geometrical methods achieve this necessary efficiency but may not incorporate accurate modal information. This study examines the perceptual impact of omitting a modal sound field in an interactive virtual environment (IVE) through a loudness-matching task. Participants equalized the perceived loudness of a sound field at positions throughout an interactive real environment (IRE) and an IVE using controlled stimuli. Relative level differences of stimuli achieved over related positions in the IRE were analyzed and compared to the same evaluation in the IVE, which does not support a modal field. The matched levels throughout the different position and frequency combinations demonstrate the presence of perceived modal-field in the IRE, while the IVE does not produce comparable trends. Furthermore, listeners were markedly less consistent in the IVE than in the IRE. These results suggest that geometrical method-based auralization does not convey the perceived spatial structure of a modal sound field.