Speaker
Description
Improving acoustic quality in learning environments is important for students of different ages, especially vulnerable groups, such as hearing aid users. When field assessments are not feasible, virtual reality (VR) provides a valuable alternative for controlled laboratory-based subjective evaluations. In this study, thirteen normal-hearing participants performed speech intelligibility tests in a university lecture room at Politecnico di Torino and repeated the same tests about one month later in a VR system based on Fifth-Order Ambisonics (5OA). The aim was to perceptually validate the VR system, previously assessed using objective measures. Five audio-visual scenarios were selected for systematic comparison, varying in target speech azimuth, distance from the listener, and the presence or absence of frontally localised masking noise. These conditions enabled the evaluation of the spatial performance of the VR system in relation to speech intelligibility. The results showed that spatial performance was preserved; although a small difference in Speech Reception Thresholds (SRTs) of 1 dB was statistically significant, it was likely not perceptible. This suggests that the VR system can realistically approximate real-world listening conditions with good perceptual accuracy.