Errors in the measurements of individual head-related transfer function.

Abstract

Head-related transfer function (HRTF) describes the transmission process from a point sound source to ears in free field and thus includes the effect of sound diffraction imposed by human anatomical structures. Because each person owns a unique configuration of anatomical structures, HRTF is individual-dependent. Individual HRTF plays an important role in guaranteeing authenticity in virtual auditory display. Measurement is a common way to obtain individual HRTF. In practice, measurement error is unavoidable. Moreover, measurement error and individual characteristic are often blended together, especially at high frequencies where both the measurement error and the individual characteristic are obvious. The object of this work is to evaluate the errors in the measurements of individual HRTF, and extract individual characteristic of HRTF from measured results. HRTFs from six human subjects and KEMAR were measured at 24 spatial positions with six repetitions. Significance of the individual characteristic was examined using analysis of variance. In addition, psychoacoustic experiments were conducted to investigate the audibility of the measurement error and individual characteristic, respectively. Results show that the individual characteristic of HRTF dominates the measured results. [Work supported by Nature Science Fund of Guangdong province (07300617).]