Arrival direction of late sound and listener envelopment

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relation between the arriva l direction of late sound and perceived listener envelopment (LEV). In this paper, two kinds of psychological experiments are conducted with three-dim ensional simulated sound fields in an anechoic room. Firstly, the effect of late energy arriving from four fundamental directions on perceived LEV is individually investigated. The results show that the lateral sound level gi ves the highest correlation with LEV, while late sound arriving from overhe ad and behind the listener also correlates very strongly with LEV. Secondly , whether or not the different sound fields with a constant level of late l ateral energy lead to significant differences in perceived LEV is examined. The results clearly indicate that LEV is significantly distinguished due t o the late sound having non-lateral components. From these experiments, it is concluded that not only the late lateral sound, but also the late sound from other directions, such as overhead, back and frontal, contributes to L EV to a greater or lesser degree. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.