A loudspeaker-based room auralization system for auditory perception research

Most research on basic auditory function has been conducted in anechoic or almost anechoic environments. The knowledge derived from these experiments cannot directly be transferred to reverberant environments. In order to investigate the auditory signal processing of reverberant sounds, a loudspeaker-based room auralisation (LoRA) system is proposed here.

The LoRA system efficiently combines modern room acoustic modelling techniques with higher-order Ambisonic auralisation. Thereby, aspects of the auditory precedence effect are utilized to realise highly authentic room reverberation. This system provides a flexible research platform for conducting auditory experiments with normal-hearing, hearing-impaired, and aided hearing-impaired listeners in a fully controlled and realistic environment.

This includes measures of basic auditory function (e.g., signal detection, distance perception) and measures of speech intelligibility. A battery of objective tests (e.g., reverberation time, clarity, interaural correlation coefficient) and subjective tests (e.g., speech reception thresholds) is presented that demonstrates the applicability of the LoRA system.