An interactive virtual-environment generator for psychoacoustic research. I: Architecture and implementation

A system is described which is capable of presenting complex auditory envir onments to listeners in a perceptually plausible way, such that the listene rs feel actually present in them. The listeners can move around in the pres ented environment and interact with it, e.g., by hand-movements. The virtua l environment may encompass multiple direct and reflected sounds from spati ally nonstationary sources, their actual number being only limited by curre nt hardware restrictions. The setting of the sound paths (direct and reflec ted) can be cast after real acoustic scenarios or in any other reasonable w ay. Consequently, the system forms a flexible tool for psychoacoustic exper imentation - among other applications. The system architecture has been des igned in such a way that perceptual representation of other modalities (e.g ., visual, tactile/thermal) can easily be incorporated. In fact, it represe nts the kernel of a multimodal virtual-reality generator. In psychoacoustic research this feature allows for providing feedback to non-auditory modali ties.