Using simple virtual environments to study the differentiation and integration of sensory cues in complex scenes

Abstract

The promise of virtual environments for studying sensory perception and cognition cannot be overstated. Because such environments can approximate aspects of the real world while affording a high degree of experimental and stimulus control, they promise to “bring the real world into the lab” and vice-versa [Stecker 2019, Hear J. 72(6):20-23], helping to make research and clinical testing more valid and relevant to real-world situations. Such benefits accrue to all sorts of investigations, and in this presentation we focus on relatively low-level aspects of auditory cognition—specifically the ability of listeners to differentiate sensory cues belonging to different objects in a complex scene (e.g., talkers) and to integrate information across disparate partially informative cues. Across multiple studies, we investigate the potential for virtual environments to enhance this work. A particular focus on simplified environments aims to elucidate a minimum feature set supporting different aspects of reality-like performance. [Work supported by US NIH R01-DC016643.]