Spatial Soundscapes and Virtual Worlds: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

There is increasing effort to characterize the soundscapes around us so that we can design more compelling and immersive experiences. This review paper focuses on the challenges and opportunities around sound perception, with a particular focus on spatial sound perception in a virtual reality (VR) cityscape. We review how research on temporal aspects has recently been extended to evaluating spatial factors when designing soundscapes. In particular, we discuss key findings on the human capability of localizing and distinguishing spatial sound cues for different technical setups. We highlight studies carried out in both real-world and virtual reality settings to evaluate spatial sound perception. We conclude this review by highlighting the opportunities offered by VR technology and the remaining open questions for virtual soundscape designers, especially with the advances in spatial sound stimulation.

Keywords: localization; sound perception; soundscape; spatial audio; virtual reality.

Figure 1

(A) An example of how VR could be used to evaluate changes in a specific soundscape (e.g., due to works), highlighting the role of elevation and azimuth in source localization. The 3D cityscape in this figure was created by the authors for Oculus Quest using a free city asset for Unity (Dactilardesign, 2019). (B) Graphical representation of estimated error found for azimuth and elevation angles from a selection of the studies in Table 1, with numbers among parenthesis referring to entries in the Table.