title: The effect of diffuse reflections on spatial discrimination in a simulated concert hall.
abstract: This letter presents results from a study on diffusive architectural surfaces and auditory perception. Spatial discrimination of multiple sources is investigated in a simulated performance venue with various diffusive surface treatments. Simulations were generated with closely spaced sound sources on the stage of a concert hall and a listener in the audience area. Subjects were asked to distinguish signals in which pairs of simultaneous talkers were presented at various lateral separations, in halls with flat or diffusive surfaces. The experiments reveal that discriminating differences in the lateral arrangement of sources is possible at narrower separation angles when reflections come from flat rather than diffusive surfaces.
authors: Department of Media Technology, School of Science, Aalto University, P.O. Box 15500, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland. philip.robinson@aalto.fi
authors: Philip
authors: P
authors: Robinson
authors: Jukka
authors: J
authors: Pätynen
authors: Tapio
authors: T
authors: Lokki
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000162:Acoustics; D000328:Adult; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004058:Diffusion; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005160:Facility Design and Construction; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009038:Motion; D009146:Music; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological; D013016:Sound; D013017:Sound Localization; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013028:Space Perception; D013067:Speech Perception; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult