FREQUENCY-DEPENDENCE OF SPACIOUSNESS

In the literature different results can be found on the frequency depe ndence of spaciousness. In three groups of psyche-physical experiments , having in common headphone presentation of signals and perceived wid th as subjective criterion, the frequency dependence of spaciousness h as been investigated systematically. In the first experiment, the perc eived width of narrow-band noise stimuli at a constant sensation level of 50 dB was scaled as a function of center frequency, band width and cross-correlation coefficient. Generally, spaciousness is found to in crease for lower frequencies. In the second experiment this result was confirmed also for lower sensation levels of octave-band noise signal s of which the perceived width was matched against the perceived width of a white noise stimulus by varying its cross-correlation coefficien t. The influence of the salience of stimuli was discarded by this proc edure. In the third experiment, the relative contribution to spaciousn ess of a single octave-band amidst the complementary band-reject noise was studied by varying the relative level or the cross-correlation co efficient of the octave band. It turned out that a frequency band arou nd 500 Hz is optimal for spaciousness. This result agrees with the dom inance of this very region for lateralization.