The interaction between head-tracker latency, source duration, and response time in the localization of virtual sound sources

Abstract

One of the fundamental limitations on the fidelity of interactive virtual audio display systems is the delay that occurs between the time a listener changes his or her head position and the the time the display changes its audio output to reflect the corresponding change in the relative location of the sound source. In this experiment, we examined the impact that six difference headtracker latency values (12, 20, 38, 73, 145 and 243 ms) had on the localization of broadband sound sources in the horizontal plane. In the first part of the experiment, listeners were allowed to take all the time they needed to point their heads in the direction of a continuous sound source and press a response switch. In the second part of the experiment, the stimuli were gated to one of eight different