TY - JOUR

T1 - The effect of variation of reverberation parameters in contralateral versus ipsilateral ear signals on perceived externalization of a lateral sound source in a listening room

AU - Li, Song

AU - Schlieper, Roman

AU - Peissig, Jürgen

N1 - Funding information: This work is supported by Huawei Innovation Research Program FLAGSHIP (HIRP FLAGSHIP) project. The authors would like to thank those subjects who participated in the listening tests.

PY - 2018/8/24

Y1 - 2018/8/24

N2 - It is well known that reverberation plays an important role in perceived externalization of three-dimensional audio over headphones. In the case of the externalization of a frontal sound source, the reverberation heard by both ears is equally important. Relatively little is known about the relative influence of reverberation at the contralateral versus the ipsilateral ear on perceived externalization of a lateral sound source. For a lateral sound source, the direct sound energy is much higher at the ipsilateral ear than at the contralateral ear due to the shadowing effect, which dominates at mid to high frequencies. The reverberant energy does not have a major difference between two ears. Therefore, the direct-to-reverberant energy ratio is much lower for the contralateral ear than for the ipsilateral ear. In addition, the frequency-to-frequency variability, which describes the frequency variability in the magnitude spectrum, is more pronounced in the contralateral ear than in the ipsilateral ear. The results of two listening experiments and the analysis of short-term binaural cues suggested that the reverberation at the contralateral ear has more influence on perceived externalization of a lateral sound source than that at the ipsilateral ear.

AB - It is well known that reverberation plays an important role in perceived externalization of three-dimensional audio over headphones. In the case of the externalization of a frontal sound source, the reverberation heard by both ears is equally important. Relatively little is known about the relative influence of reverberation at the contralateral versus the ipsilateral ear on perceived externalization of a lateral sound source. For a lateral sound source, the direct sound energy is much higher at the ipsilateral ear than at the contralateral ear due to the shadowing effect, which dominates at mid to high frequencies. The reverberant energy does not have a major difference between two ears. Therefore, the direct-to-reverberant energy ratio is much lower for the contralateral ear than for the ipsilateral ear. In addition, the frequency-to-frequency variability, which describes the frequency variability in the magnitude spectrum, is more pronounced in the contralateral ear than in the ipsilateral ear. The results of two listening experiments and the analysis of short-term binaural cues suggested that the reverberation at the contralateral ear has more influence on perceived externalization of a lateral sound source than that at the ipsilateral ear.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85052712157&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1121/1.5051632

DO - 10.1121/1.5051632

M3 - Article

C2 - 30180660

AN - SCOPUS:85052712157

VL - 144

SP - 966

EP - 980

JO - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

JF - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

SN - 0001-4966

IS - 2

ER -