Investigation of auditory distance perception and preferences in concert halls by using virtual acoustics

Abstract

Virtual acoustics with multichannel sound reproduction was used to study auditory distance perception in four concert halls with multiple sound sources on stage. Eight subjects reported apparent auditory distances in five seating positions from 10 to 26 m to the middle of the sources on stage. The distance estimates were collected by absolute distance estimation procedure as well as a free modulus estimation procedure including both within and between halls evaluations. In addition, pairwise preferences were collected for two positions within each hall and for one position between halls. Results reveal that the perception of distance is dependent on the hall acoustics and show how the strength factor G and direct-to-reverberant energy ratio covary in relation to perceptual distances in these halls. The results also indicate that in such large spaces the overestimation of short distances may continue up to and further than 10 m from the sound sources. Preference results show that closer seats were liked more than further ones and that the strength of this preference is associated with the difference in perceptual distances.

Separate effects of auditory and visual room size on auditorium seat preference: a virtual reality study

“…Compared to most psychology experiments investigating audiovisual interaction which usually have very clear and distinguishable sound sources (e.g., Battaglia et al, 2003; Frassinetti et al, 2002), the acoustic environments in auditoria are much more complex with numerous reflections and late reverberation, increasing the difficulty for auditory localization or environment recognition. Past studies have found that auditory-perceived room size of the same room dimensions is significantly different when varying reverberation time, source-receiver distance, or the type of sound source (Cabrera & Jeong, 2007; Cabrera et al, 2005; Kolarik et al, 2021), and auditory-perceived distance is also much less accurate compared to visual-perceived distance (Anderson & Zahorik, 2014; Maempel & Jentsch, 2013) and is significantly affected by sound pressure level (Cabrera et al, 2005; Kuusinen & Lokki, 2015) and visual input (Anderson & Zahorik, 2014; Calcagno et al, 2012). On the other hand, the combined audiovisual perception of distance and room size in simulated auditoria depends 90% on visual input and only 10% on auditory input (Maempel & Horn, 2022).…”

Direct-To-Reverberant Ratio Threshold for Localization in Concert Halls

“…Advantages of using mixed models for analysis of repeated measures data are described by Quené and van den Bergh [28], and Baayen et al [29]. Examples of application of mixed model analysis in research related to acoustics may be found in papers by Ferguson and Quené [30], and Kuusinen and Lokki [31]. The analysis was performed using data from 993 out of the total of 1008 trials for the imprecise and precise thresholds.…”

Finding the Seat With the Best View: Stage-View Preference for Orchestra

“…Most later seat preference studies are based on empirical experiments conducted in laboratories with simulated stimuli (Ando, 1983;Jeon et al, 2005Jeon et al, , 2008Kuusinen & Lokki, 2015;Sato et al, 2012Sato et al, , 2013. This is arguably the most popular method in seat preference studies, and also the method used in the current study.…”