Scientific Article

Do near-field cues enhance the plausibility of non-individual binaural rendering in a dynamic multimodal virtual acoustic scene?

¹ Institute of Communications Engineering, TH Köln – University of Applied Sciences, Betzdorfer Str. 2, 50679 Cologne, Germany
² Audio Communication Group, Technical University of Berlin, Einsteinufer 17c, 10587 Berlin, Germany
³ Department of Psychology, University of Bremen, Hochschulring 18, 28359 Bremen, Germany

^* Corresponding author: Johannes.Arend@th-koeln.de

Received: 27 April 2021
Accepted: 8 November 2021

Abstract

It is commonly believed that near-field head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) provide perceptual benefits over far-field HRTFs that enhance the plausibility of binaural rendering of nearby sound sources. However, to the best of our knowledge, no study has systematically investigated whether using near-field HRTFs actually provides a perceptually more plausible virtual acoustic environment. To assess this question, we conducted two experiments in a six-degrees-of-freedom multimodal augmented reality experience where participants had to compare non-individual anechoic binaural renderings based on either synthesized near-field HRTFs or intensity-scaled far-field HRTFs and judge which of the two rendering methods led to a more plausible representation. Participants controlled the virtual sound source position by moving a small handheld loudspeaker along a prescribed trajectory laterally and frontally near the head, which provided visual and proprioceptive cues in addition to the auditory cues. The results of both experiments show no evidence that near-field cues enhance the plausibility of non-individual binaural rendering of nearby anechoic sound sources in a dynamic multimodal virtual acoustic scene as examined in this study. These findings suggest that, at least in terms of plausibility, the additional effort of including near-field cues in binaural rendering may not always be worthwhile for virtual or augmented reality applications.