Effects of virtual acoustics on dynamic auditory distance perception
This addresses the problem of realistic sound perception in VR for users, but it is incremental as it compares existing methods.
The study investigated how different virtual acoustic methods affect human auditory distance perception, finding that more accurate ray-tracing methods reduce distance compression compared to approximate filter-based methods, with quantified levels of compression provided.
Sound propagation encompasses various acoustic phenomena including reverberation. Current virtual acoustic methods, ranging from parametric filters to physically-accurate solvers, can simulate reverberation with varying degrees of fidelity. We investigate the effects of reverberant sounds generated using different propagation algorithms on acoustic distance perception, i.e., how faraway humans perceive a sound source. In particular, we evaluate two classes of methods for real-time sound propagation in dynamic scenes based on parametric filters and ray tracing. Our study shows that the more accurate method shows less distance compression as compared to the approximate, filter-based method. This suggests that accurate reverberation in VR results in a better reproduction of acoustic distances. We also quantify the levels of distance compression introduced by different propagation methods in a virtual environment.