Evaluation of Virtual Acoustic Environments with Different Acoustic Level of Detail

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Fichna, Stefan, van de Par, Steven, Ewert, Stephan D.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2023
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author Fichna, Stefan
van de Par, Steven
Ewert, Stephan D.
author_facet Fichna, Stefan
van de Par, Steven
Ewert, Stephan D.
contents Virtual acoustic environments enable the creation and simulation of realistic and ecologically valid daily-life situations with applications in hearing research and audiology. Hereby, reverberant indoor environments play an important role. For real-time applications, simplifications in the room acoustics simulation are required, however, it remains unclear what acoustic level of detail (ALOD) is necessary to capture all perceptually relevant effects. This study investigates the effect of varying ALOD in the simulation of three different real environments, a living room with a coupled kitchen, a pub, and an underground station. ALOD was varied by generating different numbers of image sources for early reflections, or by excluding geometrical room details specific for each environment. The simulations were perceptually evaluated using headphones in comparison to binaural room impulse responses measured with a dummy head in the corresponding real environments, and partly using loudspeakers. The study assessed the perceived overall difference for a pulse, and a speech token. Furthermore, plausibility and externalization were evaluated. The results show that a strong reduction in ALOD is possible while obtaining similar plausibility and externalization as with the dummy head recordings. The number and accuracy of early reflections appear less relevant, provided diffuse late reverberation is appropriately accounted for.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2306_17012
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Evaluation of Virtual Acoustic Environments with Different Acoustic Level of Detail
Fichna, Stefan
van de Par, Steven
Ewert, Stephan D.
Audio and Speech Processing
Sound
Virtual acoustic environments enable the creation and simulation of realistic and ecologically valid daily-life situations with applications in hearing research and audiology. Hereby, reverberant indoor environments play an important role. For real-time applications, simplifications in the room acoustics simulation are required, however, it remains unclear what acoustic level of detail (ALOD) is necessary to capture all perceptually relevant effects. This study investigates the effect of varying ALOD in the simulation of three different real environments, a living room with a coupled kitchen, a pub, and an underground station. ALOD was varied by generating different numbers of image sources for early reflections, or by excluding geometrical room details specific for each environment. The simulations were perceptually evaluated using headphones in comparison to binaural room impulse responses measured with a dummy head in the corresponding real environments, and partly using loudspeakers. The study assessed the perceived overall difference for a pulse, and a speech token. Furthermore, plausibility and externalization were evaluated. The results show that a strong reduction in ALOD is possible while obtaining similar plausibility and externalization as with the dummy head recordings. The number and accuracy of early reflections appear less relevant, provided diffuse late reverberation is appropriately accounted for.
title Evaluation of Virtual Acoustic Environments with Different Acoustic Level of Detail
topic Audio and Speech Processing
Sound
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.17012