Primary Source Dominance and Acoustic Scene Complexity in 6DoF VR Audio Evaluation

Zhao H, Murphy D. Primary Source Dominance and Acoustic Scene Complexity in 6DoF VR Audio Evaluation. In: AVARIG 2026: Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality and Immersive Games. Audio Engineering Society; 2026. Paper 10317. Available from: https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23279

@inproceedings{Zhao2026_23279,
  author = {Zhao, Haowen and Murphy, Damian},
  title = {{Primary Source Dominance and Acoustic Scene Complexity in 6DoF VR Audio Evaluation}},
  booktitle = {AVARIG 2026: Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality and Immersive Games},
  note = {Paper 10317},
  year = {2026},
  month = jun,
  publisher = {Audio Engineering Society},
  url = {https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23279}
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - Primary Source Dominance and Acoustic Scene Complexity in 6DoF VR Audio Evaluation
AU  - Zhao, Haowen
AU  - Murphy, Damian
T2  - AVARIG 2026: Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality and Immersive Games
M1  - Paper 10317
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/06/30
UR  - https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23279
PB  - Audio Engineering Society
LA  - en
AB  - In virtual reality (VR) experiences, a primary source often refers to a sound object designated for a central role within a scene, contrasted with contextual background sources. While such sources are typically assumed to guide perceptual attention, it remains unclear whether a designated primary source maintains dominance in overall audio quality evaluation as acoustic scene complexity increases, particularly in six-degrees-of freedom (6DoF) scenarios. This study investigates how per-source rendering quality and scene complexity influence overall audio quality evaluation in 6DoF VR. Rendering quality was manipulated independently for a primary source and background sources, and scene complexity was varied based on the number of sources. Rank-order elimination-by-aspects (EBA) was applied to test dominance patterns across conditions. Results indicate that under low scene complexity, overall evaluation mainly depended on primary source rendering quality. However, in high complexity multisource scenes, this dominance was no longer observed, and evaluation dependence became distributed across sources.
ER  -