Prof. Michael Vorländer

 

Human sound perception involves the ability to process auditory information from dynamic acoustic situations, which is an essential component for communication and orientation in everyday life. In contrast, standard psychoacoustic experiments do not use real-life situations, but rather simple acoustic stimuli with nominally high reproducibility but low predictive power for real-life situations. This gap between auditory perception research in the laboratory and in real life can be closed. Virtual reality technology is a very powerful tool that combines real-time computer simulations with 3D devices for auditory-visual impressions. Virtual acoustics can incorporate arbitrary situational contexts and scene conditions with sources and sound propagation characteristics in given environments. As a result, groundbreaking research in the field of auditory perception can be expected with a higher degree of realism and with higher reproducibility. It will be presented guidelines for the creation of interactive Virtual Acoustic Environments and examples of their application in musicology, speech/hearing research, and noise assessment.