The effect of the duration of head-related impulse responses (HRIRs) on the localization of virtual sound was examined. The accuracy with which three participants could localize virtual and free-field sound was measured using an absolute localization paradigm incorporating 354 possible sound-source locations. HRIRs were truncated to durations ranging from 0.32 to 20.48 ms. The truncation of HRIRs results in a smoothing of their frequency-domain representations, which are known as head-related transfer functions (HRTFs). Whereas some previous studies have suggested that the localization of virtual sound is affected only by extreme smoothing of HRTFs, this study indicates that localization can be subtly disrupted by modest HRTF smoothing. For all participants in the study, the localization performance for virtual sound generated from 10.24- and 20.48-ms HRIRs was as good as that for free-field sound. Localization performance gradually decreased as the HRIR duration was reduced, and first became significantly worse than that for free-field sound at HRIR durations ranging from 0.32 to 5.12 ms. Like previous studies, the present study found that the localization performance for virtual sound was not disrupted dramatically until the HRIR duration was reduced to 0.64 or 0.32 ms.

Authors: Senova, Melis A.; McAnally, Ken I.; Martin, Russell L.
Affiliations: Department of Biophysical Sciences and Electrical Engineering, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Australia ; Air Operations Division, Aeronautical and Maritime Research Laboratory, Fishermens Bend, Australia(See document for exact affiliation information.)
JAES Volume 50 Issue 1/2 pp. 57-66; February 2002
Publication Date: January 15, 2002

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.