Virtual acoustic environments for perception research

Abstract

Human sound perception includes the ability to process auditory information from dynamic acoustic situations, which is an essential component for communication and orientation in everyday life. In contrast, standard psychoacoustic experiments don't include real-life situations.They include rather simple acoustic stimuli with nominally high reproducibility but low significance for situations in real life. The gap in research on auditory perception between the laboratory and real life can be closed now. Virtual Reality technology is a very powerful tool which connects real-time computer simulation with 3D devices for auditory-visual impressions. Virtual acoustics can incorporate any situational context and scene conditions with sources and sound propagation features in given environments. In consequence, ground-breaking research in auditory perception can be expected with higher degree of realism and with still high reproducibility. The presentation will highlight guidelines for creation of Virtual Acoustic Environments and examples for application in noise assessment, psychoacoustic research, and hearing diagnosis and rehabilitation.