How reproducible are psychoacoustic listening tests on spatial impression in auditoria?

Abstract

In three psychoacoustic experiments, it was shown that changes in frequency (pitch) and level (loudness) of stimuli lead to significant differences in the perception of apparent source width (ASW). Due to partially identical test conditions in two of the experiments, it is possible to analyze the collected data in regard to stability of ASW perception over repeated testing sessions and to study inter-individual differences. This analysis shows that intra-individual effects of stimulus loudness and pitch are consistent across participants, whereas the absolute level of ASW perception varies between individuals and between experimental sessions. Using this data, possible influences such as listener training effect over repetition of test sessions are discussed. The presented results provide insights into possible improvements of investigating ASW in future studies.