Influence of individual HRTF preference on localization accuracy - A comparison between regular and bone conducting headphones

Abstract

In this paper we investigate whether the selection of an individual preferred HRTF via a simple time-saving perceptive evaluation method based on a tournament mode also leads to a good localization accuracy. For many everyday application scenarios for which such a selection process could be useful (e.g. navigation solutions for visually impaired people) it is also helpful to perceive the real acoustic environment at the same time. Therefore, it is also examined whether the use of bone conducting headphones differs from that of regular headphones. The results show that the perceptive judgment criteria used in the tournament task are suitable for selecting an individual HRTF that also allows a good localization of the acoustic stimuli at the same time. No difference could be found between bone conducting headphones and regular headphones. © 2020 148th Audio Engineering Society International Convention. All rights reserved.