Abstract
The use of individualised Head Related Transfer Functions (HRTF) is a
fundamental prerequisite for obtaining an accurate rendering of 3D
spatialised sounds in virtual auditory environments. The HRTFs are
transfer functions that define the acoustical basis of auditory perception
of a sound source in space and are frequently used in virtual auditory
displays to simulate free-field listening conditions. However, they depend
on the anatomical characteristics of the human body and significantly vary
among individuals, so that the use of the same dataset of HRTFs for all
the users of a designed system will not offer the same level of auditory
performance. This paper presents an alternative approach to the use on
non-individualised HRTFs that is based on a procedural learning, training,
and adaptation to altered auditory cues.We tested the sound localisation
performance of nine sighted and visually impaired people, before and after
a series of perceptual (auditory, visual, and haptic) feedback based
training sessions. The results demonstrated that our subjects
significantly improved their spatial hearing under altered listening
conditions (such as the presentation of 3D binaural sounds synthesised
from non-individualized HRTFs), the improvement being reflected into a
higher localisation accuracy and a lower rate of front-back confusion
errors.
Go to article