Comparing Direct and Indirect Methods of Audio Quality Evaluation in Virtual Reality Scenes of Varying Complexity

Robotham, Thomas; Rummukainen, Olli; Kurz, Miriam; Eckert, Marie; Habets, Emanuël A. P.

doi:10.1109/tvcg.2022.3150491

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…Additionally, audio-visual incongruence could impair cross-modal integration and thus lead to greater cognitive load [29]. Finally, scene complexity and interactivity in 6-DoF VR may impede quality judgments [30]. Thus, the experimental design must consider the interaction between the audio and visual stimuli and their degree of change between trials to minimize confounding factors.…”

Section: Visual Impact On the Perception Of Spatial Audiomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The order of removal corresponds to the participant's ranking of the stimuli. Robotham et al recommend using this method in multi-modal 6-DoF VR and reference-free testing due to its efficiency, mental demand and participant effort compared to MSHR (multiple stimuli, hidden reference) methods [30].…”

Section: Testing Of Participants In 6-dof Vrmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A larger range of test signals could be used to distinguish between the spatial needs of the test signals and overall spatial audio-visual congruency. Additionally, direct methods of audio quality evaluation could be used to rate the reverb options [30], which may feature less noise than the ranking-by-elimination procedure used in this paper (see Section 4.2.1). Several sound designers could "tune" the rooms, and their interventions could be compared to differentiate between personal approaches to spatial audio-visual mapping.…”

Section: Future Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Speech Intelligibility versus Congruency: User Preferences of the Acoustics of Virtual Reality Game Spaces

Popp,

Murphy

2024

Virtual Worlds

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3D audio spatializers for Virtual Reality (VR) can use the acoustic properties of the surfaces of a visualised game space to calculate a matching reverb. However, this approach could lead to reverbs that impair the tasks performed in such a space, such as listening to speech-based audio. Sound designers would then have to alter the room’s acoustic properties independently of its visualisation to improve speech intelligibility, causing audio-visual incongruency. As user expectation of simulated room acoustics regarding speech intelligibility in VR has not been studied, this study asked participants to rate the congruency of reverbs and their visualisations in 6-DoF VR while listening to speech-based audio. The participants compared unaltered, matching reverbs with sound-designed, mismatching reverbs. The latter feature improved D50s and reduced RT60s at the cost of lower audio-visual congruency. Results suggest participants preferred improved reverbs only when the unaltered reverbs had comparatively low D50s or excessive ringing. Otherwise, too dry or too reverberant reverbs were disliked. The range of expected RT60s depended on the surface visualisation. Differences in timbre between the reverbs may not affect preferences as strongly as shorter RT60s. Therefore, sound designers can intervene and prioritise speech intelligibility over audio-visual congruency in acoustically challenging game spaces.

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Section: Visual Impact On the Perception Of Spatial Audiomentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Testing Of Participants In 6-dof Vrmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Future Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Speech Intelligibility versus Congruency: User Preferences of the Acoustics of Virtual Reality Game Spaces

Popp,

Murphy

2024

Virtual Worlds

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“…bringing real life into laboratory experiments, as pointed out by [161]. Indeed, with VR tools, it is possible to synthesize a wide range of environments, while precisely controlling experimental parameters and combining multiple sensory inputs [165]. For instance, the audio modality can be completed by visual, proprioception and vestibular cues.…”

Section: Ecological Validity Of Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acoustic research for telecoms: bridging the heritage to the future

Nicol,

Monfort

2023

Acta Acust.

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In its early age, telecommunication was focused on voice communications, and acoustics was at the heart of the work related to speech coding and transmission, automatic speech recognition or speech synthesis, aiming at offering better quality (Quality of Experience or QoE) and enhanced services to users. As technology has evolved, the research themes have diversified, but acoustics remains essential. This paper gives an overview of the evolution of acoustic research for telecommunication. Communication was initially (and for a long time) only audio with a monophonic narrow-band sound (i.e. [300–3400 Hz]). After the bandwidth extension (from the wide-band [100–7000 Hz] to the full-band [20 Hz–20 kHz] range), a new break was the introduction of 3D sound, either to provide telepresence in audioconferencing or videoconferencing, or to enhance the QoE of contents such as radio, television, VOD, or video games. Loudspeaker or microphone arrays have been deployed to implement “Holophonic” or “Ambisonic” systems. The interaction between spatialized sounds and 3D images was also investigated. At the end of the 2000s, smartphones invaded our lives. Binaural sound was immediately acknowledged as the most suitable technology for reproducing 3D audio on smartphones. However, to achieve a satisfactory QoE, binaural filters need to be customized in relation with the listener’s morphology. This question is the main obstacle to a mass-market distribution of binaural sound, and its solving has prompted a large amount of work. In parallel with the development of technologies, their perceptual evaluation was an equally important area of research. In addition to conventional methods, innovative approaches have been explored for the assessment of sound spatialization, such as physiological measurement, neuroscience tools or Virtual Reality (VR). The latest development is the use of acoustics as a universal sensor for the Internet of Things (IoT) and connected environments. Microphones can be deployed, preferably with parcimony, in order to monitor surrounding sounds, with the goal of detecting information or events thanks to models of automatic sound recognition based on neural networks. Applications range from security and personal assistance to acoustic measurement of biodiversity. As for the control of environments or objects, voice commands have become widespread in recent years thanks to the tremendous progress made in speech recognition, but an even more intuitive mode based on direct control by the mind is proposed by Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs), which rely on sensory stimulation using different modalities, among which the auditory one offers some advantages.

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“…New tools have been developed to perform listening tests and behavioral studies in interactive virtual environments [78]. In a recent study, various direct and indirect audio quality evaluation methods were compared in virtual reality scenes of varying complexity [79]. It was found that rank-order elimination proved to be the fastest method, required the least amount of repetitive motion, and yielded the highest discrimination between spatial conditions.…”

Section: Perception and Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial audio signal processing for binaural reproduction of recorded acoustic scenes – review and challenges

Rafaely

Tourbabin²,

Habets³

et al. 2022

Acta Acust.

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Spatial audio has been studied for several decades, but has seen much renewed interest recently due to advances in both software and hardware for capture and playback, and the emergence of applications such as virtual reality and augmented reality. This renewed interest has led to the investment of increasing efforts in developing signal processing algorithms for spatial audio, both for capture and for playback. In particular, due to the popularity of headphones and earphones, many spatial audio signal processing methods have dealt with binaural reproduction based on headphone listening. Among these new developments, processing spatial audio signals recorded in real environments using microphone arrays plays an important role. Following this emerging activity, this paper aims to provide a scientific review of recent developments and an outlook for future challenges. This review also proposes a generalized framework for describing spatial audio signal processing for the binaural reproduction of recorded sound. This framework helps to understand the collective progress of the research community, and to identify gaps for future research. It is composed of five main blocks, namely: the acoustic scene, recording, processing, reproduction, and perception and evaluation. First, each block is briefly presented, and then, a comprehensive review of the processing block is provided. This includes topics from simple binaural recording to Ambisonics and perceptually motivated approaches, which focus on careful array configuration and design. Beamforming and parametric-based processing afford more flexible designs and shift the focus to processing and modeling of the sound field. Then, emerging machine- and deep-learning approaches, which take a further step towards flexibility in design, are described. Finally, specific methods for signal transformations such as rotation, translation and enhancement, enabling additional flexibility in reproduction and improvement in the quality of the binaural signal, are presented. The review concludes by highlighting directions for future research.

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Comparing Direct and Indirect Methods of Audio Quality Evaluation in Virtual Reality Scenes of Varying Complexity

Cited by 7 publications

References 59 publications

Speech Intelligibility versus Congruency: User Preferences of the Acoustics of Virtual Reality Game Spaces

Speech Intelligibility versus Congruency: User Preferences of the Acoustics of Virtual Reality Game Spaces

Acoustic research for telecoms: bridging the heritage to the future

Spatial audio signal processing for binaural reproduction of recorded acoustic scenes – review and challenges

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