In-Virtualis: A Study on the Impact of Congruent Virtual Reality Environments in Perceptual Audio Evaluation of Loudspeakers

摘要

The practical benefits of conducting evaluations of acoustical scenes in laboratory settings are evident in the literature. Such approaches, however, may implicate an audio-visual incongruity, as assessors arc physically in a laboratory room, whilst auditioning another, e.g., an auditorium. In this report it is hypothesised that presenting congruent audio-visual stimuli in VR improves the experience of an auralised sound field. Measured sound fields were reproduced over a 3D loudspeaker-array. Expert assessors evaluated those in two visual conditions: a congruent room, and a dark environment. Although a tendency towards improved plausibility and decreased task-difficulty for congruent conditions could be seen, visual conditions did not reveal a statistical significance indicating the need of further experiments with a larger sample-size, interface improvements, and realistic graphics.