Abstract
In dynamic virtual reality, visual cues and motor actions aid auditory perception. With multimodal integration and auditory adaptation effects, generic head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) may yield no significant disadvantage to individual HRTFs regarding accurate auditory perception. This study compares two individual HRTF sets against a generic HRTF set by way of objective analysis and two subjective experiments. First, auditory-model-based predictions examine the objective deviations in localization cues between the sets. Next, the HRTFs are compared in a static subjective (N=8) localization experiment. Finally, the localization accuracy, timbre, and overall quality of the HRTF sets are evaluated subjectively (N=12) in a six-degrees-of-freedom audio-visual virtual environment. The results show statistically significant objective deviations between the sets, but no perceived localization or overall quality differences in the dynamic virtual reality.
Highlights
The quadrant errors percentages display a tendency for lower errors for the modeled and measured head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) compared to the generic HRTFs, but the effect is not significant (Friedman test: χ2(2,N =8) = 4.96, p = 0.084, Kendall’s W = 0.31)
The localization accuracy was found significantly different for the different HRTF sets, when the audio object was above the listener, χ2(4,N =8) = 24.8, p < 0.001, or when the audio object was below the listener χ2(4,N =8) = 22.5, p < 0.001
Post-hoc pairwise permutation tests revealed no significant differences between the measured, modeled, and generic HRTFs in any of these scenes
Summary
Virtual sounds, rendered to headphones, often fail to localize in space or externalize from within the listener’s head. Sound localization in a 3-dimensional space relies on acoustic cues described by the head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) [1]. Using the listener’s own HRTFs results in the best localization performance in static listening, but measuring or modeling individual HRTFs remains a challenging process. With head tracking and multimodal environments, such as in virtual and augmented reality (VR, AR), generic, non-individual HRTFs may still enable accurate auditory perception comparable to individual sets. This paper presents an objective analysis and two subjective experiments to compare two different individual HRTF sets with a generic set in 6-degrees-of-freedom (6-DoF) VR, where rotational movement around the x, y, and z axes (pitch, yaw, and roll), and translational movement along the axes (surge, strafe, and elevation) are possible
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