Effect of individualized near-field head-related transfer functions on distance perception in dynamic virtual auditory display

摘要

Virtual auditory displays (VAD) aim to create virtual sources at various directions and distances in headphone reproduction by using binaural synthesis based on head-related transfer functions (HRTFs). Incorporating the variation of binaural signals caused by head turning in three dimensions of freedom, a dynamic VAD reduces front-back and up-down confusions, and improves the externalization of perceived virtual sources. It is well known that individualized far-field HRTFs can also help to improve the direction perception. In the present work, a virtual source localization experiment is conducted to further examine the effect of individualized near-field HRTFs on distance perception in dynamic virtual auditory display. Results indicate that dynamic binaural synthesis with both individualized and non-individualized near-field HRTFs can create perceived virtual source at various target distance within 1.0 m deviating from the median plane, especially at the lateral directions. Individualized HRTFs have little influence on distance perception, but improve the accuracy of direction perception in terms of elevation errors.