Figure 1: In a conversation test investigating aspects of audiovisual plausibility and communication behavior, participants collaborated to find differences between sets of shapes, as shown in (a) and (b). The task was performed under two auralization conditions and two scene arrangement conditions, distributed (DIST, shown in (a) and (b)) and shadowing (SHAD, shown in (c)). The virtual room was a replica of the real room (d).
Spatial audio representations have been shown to positively impact user experience in traditional, non-immersive communication media. While spatial audio also contributes to presence in single-user immersive VR, its impact in virtual communication scenarios has not yet been fully understood. This work aims to further investigate which communication scenarios benefit from spatial audio representations. We present a study in which pairs of interlocutors undertake a collaborative task in an audiovisual Virtual Environment (VE) under different auralization and scene arrangement conditions. The novel task is designed to encourage simultaneous conversation and movement, with the aim of increasing the relevance of spatial hearing. Results are obtained through questionnaires measuring social presence and plausibility, as well as through conversational and behavioral analysis. Although participants are shown to favor binaural auralization over diotic audio in a direct active-listening comparison, no significant differences in social presence, plausibility, or communication behavior could be found. Our results suggest that spatial audio may not affect user experience in dyadic communication scenarios where spatial auditory information is not directly relevant to the considered task.
@inproceedings{immohr2024evaluating,
title={Evaluating the Effect of Binaural Auralization on Audiovisual Plausibility and Communication Behavior in Virtual Reality},
author={Immohr, Felix and Rendle, Gareth and Lammert, Anton and Neidhardt, Annika and Heyde, Victoria Meyer Zur and Froehlich, Bernd and Raake, Alexander},
booktitle={2024 IEEE Conference Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR)},
year={2024}
}