How does the number of early reflections in virtual reality environments affect sound localization performance?

Sammanfattning

Virtual reality is a medium where both visual and aural fidelity strive to be comparable to real life. However, effective sound localization is an important part of many virtual game environments. Previous studies on virtual acoustic environments suggest that acoustic fidelity may be at odds with effective sound localization. Therefore, this study examines how one of the more computationally demanding acoustic processes affects sound localization performance in virtual reality. This study compares three different conditions with varying amounts of early reflections in a virtual reality environment. The results showed no statistically significant difference in azimuth errors, elevation errors or response times.