This study examines the extent to which disparity in azimuth location between a sound cue and image target can be varied in cinematic virtual reality (VR) content, before presence is broken. It applies disparity consistently and inconsistently across five otherwise identical sound-image events. The investigation explores spatial presence, a sub-construct of presence, hypothesizing that consistently applied disparity in horizontal audio-visual correspondence elicits higher tolerance before presence is broken, than inconsistently applied disparity. Guidance about the interactions of subjective judgments and spatial presence for sound positioning is needed for non-specialists to leverage VR’s spatial sound environment. Although approximate compared to visual localization, auditory localization is paramount for VR: it is lighting condition-independent, omnidirectional, not as subject to occlusion, and creates presence.

Author: McArthur, Angela
Affiliations: BBC R&D, London, UK; Queen Mary University of London, London, UK(See document for exact affiliation information.)
AES Conference: 2016 AES International Conference on Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality (September 2016)
Paper Number: 1-2
Publication Date: September 21, 2016
Subject: Sound Localization in 3D Space

Click to purchase paper as a non-member or you can login as an AES member to see more options.

No AES members have commented on this paper yet.

Subscribe to this discussion

To be notified of new comments on this paper you can subscribe to this RSS feed. Forum users should login to see additional options.

Start a discussion!

If you would like to start a discussion about this paper and are an AES member then you can login here:
Username:
Password:

If you are not yet an AES member and have something important to say about this paper then we urge you to join the AES today and make your voice heard. You can join online today by clicking here.