Effect of masker orientation on masking efficacy in soundscape applications

• Main Authors: Ong, Zhen Ting, Hong, Joo Young, Lam, Bhan, Ooi, Kenneth, Gupta, Rishabh, Gan, Woon-Seng, Chong, Shyh Hao, Feng, Jing
• Other Authors: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: Soundscape; Virtual Reality
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/88227; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/44790; http://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/ince/incecp/2017/00000255/00000003/art00108
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Adding desired sounds, also known as auditory masking, to the sonic environment is one of the practiced soundscape implementation strategies. At present, soundscape researchers are evaluating the perceived improvement in pleasantness of the soundscape in the presence of pleasing sounds through listening tests in controlled environments. So far, investigation has been limited to a fixed masker orientation (collocated with the noise source), which is not representative of the real scenario where listeners experience maskers from different orientations in the sonic environment. Hence, to understand the effects of adding wanted sounds to a noisy environment at various orientations, visual stimuli are reproduced in immersive Virtual Reality (VR) headsets paired with open-backed headphones. The visual stimuli for VR are recorded with an omni-directional video camera rig, which was designed in-house, consisting of six cameras. Acoustic stimuli are recorded with an ambisonic microphone attached to the video camera rig. Subjective evaluation to determine the effects of various masker orientations is conducted under controlled laboratory conditions.