MEASURES FOR SPACIOUSNESS IN ROOM ACOUSTICS BASED ON A BINAURAL STRATEGY

Knowledge gained from psyche-physical experiments has been applied in search of a psyche-physical basis for existing measures of auditory sp aciousness in room acoustics, the IACC in particular (Ando Y., 1985, C oncert Hall Acoustics, Springer-Verlag, Berlin), and in the formulatio n of a new measure. This new measure, the Central Modulation Coefficie nt (CMC), is based on the Central Spectrum model for binaural signal p rocessing performed by the human auditory system (e.g. Raatgever & Bil sen, 1986, J. Acoust. Sec. Am., 80, 429-441). Psyche-physical experime nts have been conducted in order to test the CMC for a number of labor atory generated stimuli and for noise stimuli recorded in an auditoriu m equipped with an electro-acoustical control system. The results show that the CMC is a reliable indicator of the spaciousness of these sti muli. Also, the results provide a psyche-acoustical basis for the use of the IACC in the assessment of spaciousness. In addition, acoustical as well as psyche-physical measurements have been conducted in eight concert halls in The Netherlands. These measurements too used stationa ry noise recordings presented by headphones. From the results it could be concluded that, also in practice, both measures are good indicator s of the perceived spaciousness. The IACC is not as universal as the C MC, but, while using a more standardized measurement technique it prov ides an adequate measure.