Operational Constraints on the Utility of Virtual Audio Cueing

Abstract

The potential of virtual audio display technology to provide operators with veridical spatial cues may be substantially constrained by factors that are common in many operational settings – i.e., high noise level, limitations in the bandwidth of the audio source and/or display. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of varying the bandwidth of a virtual sound source in the presence of broadband noise in a reverberant environment. Specifically, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was varied from +50 dB to −10 dB, and the signal was low pass filtered at 1.6 kHz, 4 kHz, 8 kHz, and 15 kHz. Correlational analyses comparing actual and perceived sound source location revealed that both signal bandwidth and signal-to-noise ratio influenced auditory localization acuity, and that even under optimal bandwidth and noise conditions (15 kHz and +50 dB) localization in elevation was extremely poor. These findings have numerous implications for the design of spatial audio displays, especially those meant to be used in noisy environments.

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