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Convention Paper

On the Improvement of Auditory Accuracy with Non-Indivisualized HRTF-Based Sounds

Authors: Mendonça, Catarina, Santos, Jorge, Campos, Guilherme; Dias, Paulo; Vieira, José; Ferreira, João

AES Convention 129 · Paper 8266 · November 2010

Abstract

Auralization is a powerful tool to increase the realism and sense of immersion in Virtual Reality environments. The Head Related Transfer Function (HRTF) filters commonly used for auralization are non-individualized, as obtaining individualized HRTFs poses very serious practical difficulties. It is therefore extremely important to understand to what extent this hinders sound perception. In this paper, we address this issue from a learning perspective. In a set of experiments, we observed that mere exposure to virtual sounds processed with generic HRTF did not improve the subjects’ performance in sound source localization, but short training periods involving active learning and feedback led to significantly better results. We propose that using auralization with non-individualized HRTF should always be preceded by a learning period.

Details

Published in
AES Convention 129
AES Convention
129
Paper number
8266
Publication date
November 6, 2010
Session subject
Binaural Audio
Affiliation
University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal; University of Minho, Minho, Portugal (See document for exact affiliation information.)
Type
Convention Paper