Validation of acoustic virtual reality via articulation tests in noisy and reverberating rooms
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55753/aev.v32e49.95Keywords:
auralization, acoustic virtual reality, articulation tests, acoustic simulation of rooms, aurilization validationAbstract
One of the main challenges in validating authorizations is finding objective parameters to measure their quality. In this work, computationally modeled auralizations are validated through articulation tests. By convoluting the binaural impulsive responses (BIRs), generated by the RAIOS room acoustic simulation computational code, with the anechoic signal that contains a list of one hundred monosyllables, auralization is generated and virtual articulation indices can be computed. On the other hand, the articulation test performed in the room gives the actual articulation index. Both indices are the average of monosyllables correctly annotated by the volunteers, converted into percentage values. Articulation tests are carried out in two rooms. In the first one, auralizations are generated in three different situations: with background noise only, with pink noise of 60 dB and 65 dB added. The objective is to validate the metric in rooms with different noise levels. The second is a school theater that is extremely reverberant, aiming to assess the influence of reverberation on the intelligibility of the word. When real and virtual articulation indices are compared, an error less than 5% is found. The conclusions are that the auralizations were successful and that articulation indices are reliable metrics to validate auralizations.
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