Binaural room acoustics II: Distributions and consequences of interaural differences

Abstract

Binaural room acoustics attempts to generalize the acoustical properties of rooms as they appear at the two ears of a listener. Because of the importance of sound localization, interest has focused on interaural differences in intensity level and phase. Distributions of these interaural differences, as measured with an artificial head in different rooms, are in reasonable agreement with spherical-head computations having either the direct-to-reverberant ratio or the reverberation time as the main parameter. The psychological relevance of these distributions was tested in experiments using rooms with different reverberation times where listeners were required to report the source azimuth for steady-state pure tones having frequencies between 200 and 1200 Hz. Simultaneously probe microphones in the ear canals recorded interaural differences. Interest centered on the choices made by listeners between plausible and implausible interaural differences resulting from the sound fields in the room. Particular attention was given to measurements made near the binaural critical distance [Hartmann and Rakerd, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 130 2352 (2011). [Work supported by the AFOSR, grant 11NO002]