Reverberation makes interior spaces appear larger

Convention of the European Acoustics Association Forum Acusticum, pp. 5003–5007

Abstract

The perceived width, depth, and height of interior spaces depend not only on the actual dimensions of the rooms but also on the brightness of room surfaces and other visual factors.Here, we measured the effect of the acoustic properties of the room surfaces on perceived size.Simulated rectangular rooms (light gray surface textures, no windows) with varying width and depth were presented on an HTC Vive Pro with head-tracking.For each combination of width and depth, one version with reverberant acoustics (mean RT60 = 1.03 s) and one version with damped acoustics (mean RT60 = 0.19 s) were simulated by varying the absorption coefficient of the surfaces.Binaural room impulse responses were generated using the room simulation software RAVEN (https://www.virtualacoustics.org/RAVEN/).Twenty-two participants viewed the rooms on the HMD and listened to speech and sounds of musical instruments inside the simulated space, using dynamic binaural synthesis with head-tracking.Participants estimated room width and depth in units of centimeters.As expected and compatible with previous studies, the estimated width and depth were significantly higher for the reverberant compared to the damped version of the simulated rooms.The mean increase in estimated width and depth was 1.1% (Cohen's dz = 0.849) and 1.6% (dz = 0.854), respectively.

Authors 6

1. Daniel Oberfeld corresponding

   Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

   Affiliation as printed

   Experimental Psychology, Johannes Gutenberg-Universitaet Mainz

2. N. Kalmbach

   Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

   Affiliation as printed

   Experimental Psychology, Johannes Gutenberg-Universitaet Mainz

3. Christoph von Castell

   Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

   Affiliation as printed

   Experimental Psychology, Johannes Gutenberg-Universitaet Mainz

4. Sabah Boustila

   Manchester Metropolitan University

   Affiliation as printed

   School of Digital Arts, Manchester Metropolitan University

   School of Digital Arts, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

5. L. Aspöck Aachen Institute for Hearing Technology and Acoustics

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute for Hearing Technology and Acoustics, RWTH Aachen

   Institute for Hearing Technology and Acoustics, RWTH Aachen, Germany

6. Dominique Bechmann

   Université de Strasbourg

   Affiliation as printed

   Université de Strasbourg, Laboratoire ICube