Scientific Article

Use of audio-visual interactive virtual environments to avoid the room divergence effect in office-like environments

¹ Institut für Hörtechnik und Audiologie, Jade Hochschule Oldenburg, Ofener Str. 16/19, 26121 Oldenburg, Germany
² Acoustics Group, Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Carl-von-Ossietzky-Str. 9-11, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany
³ Cluster of Excellence “Hearing4All”, Oldenburg, Germany
⁴ Department of Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, University of Regensburg, Universitätsstr. 31, 93053 Regensburg, Germany

^* Corresponding author: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Received: 10 November 2025
Accepted: 10 March 2026

Abstract

This study examines whether auditory perception in audio-visual interactive virtual environments (IVE) is affected by the subjects’ awareness of being in a room with different physical properties and acoustic characteristics compared to the visually rendered room. This could potentially lead to the room divergence effect (RDE). We investigated whether ratings of room-acoustic attributes made within an audio-visual IVE were influenced by the room in which the IVE was used, i.e., the playback room, which was either congruent or divergent from the visually rendered room. The divergent room differed in terms of size, acoustic characteristics, and visual appearance. Participants rated room-acoustic attributes for different head-tracked binaural auralisations. The results show that for several room-acoustic attributes, similar ratings were obtained for both rooms, i.e., we found no effect of the room in which the listening test was performed. The only exception was the perceived source distance, where a small but statistically significant underestimation was found in the divergent room compared to the congruent room. Given the small difference in median scores, this effect may, however, be considered low in relevance. We conclude that audio-visual IVEs can create a convincing illusion of the room that resists influence from the playback room.