Comparison of virtual reality and web-based listening experiments on the perception in complex auralized...

Area of Science:

• Psychoacoustics
• Human Perception
• Virtual Reality

Background:

• Human sound perception relies heavily on combined audiovisual effects.
• Traditional virtual reality (VR) experiments require expensive equipment and lab time.
• Online experiments offer potential but often lack interactivity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present and evaluate a web-based approach for real-time audiovisual experiments.
• To compare a laboratory VR setup with a consumer-level web streaming setup.
• To assess noise perception and quality ratings in different reproduction environments.

Main Methods:

• Developed a web-based system for server-side audiovisual experiment streaming.
• Compared an immersive VR setup (HMD, headphones) with a consumer setup (screen, headphones).
• Collected quality and noise assessments for four auralized noise conditions with visualization.

Main Results:

• Noise perception questionnaire ratings showed minimal differences between VR and streaming setups.
• Auralization quality was rated similarly positive across both setups.
• Visual quality ratings were slightly lower in the consumer setup, but attention levels remained high.

Conclusions:

• Web-based streaming is a viable and accessible alternative for audiovisual perception research.
• The approach maintains high subject attention and comparable noise perception results to VR.
• This method expands the possibilities for conducting interactive online auditory experiments.