Effects of interpersonal familiarity on the auditory distance perception of level-equalized reverberant speech

• Published in: Acta acustica Vol. 4; no. 6; p. 26
• Main Authors: Demirkaplan, Özgen, Hacıhabiboğlu, Hüseyin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Stuttgart EDP Sciences 2020
• Subjects: Acoustics; auditory cognition; auditory distance perception; Experiments; Hypotheses; Localization; Perceptions; Sound sources; Space perception; spatial hearing; Speech; Stimuli
• ISSN: 2681-4617; 1610-1928; 2681-4617; 1861-9959
• DOI: 10.1051/aacus/2020025

Familiarity with sound sources is known to have a modulatory effect on auditory distance perception. However, the level of familiarity that can affect distance perception is not clearly understood. A subjective experiment that aims to investigate the effects of interpersonal familiarity on auditory distance perception with level-equalized stimuli is reported. The experiment involves a binaural listening task where different source distances between 0.5 and 16 m were emulated by convolving dry speech signals with measured binaural room impulse responses. The experimental paradigm involved level-equalized stimuli comprising speech signals recorded from different-gender couples who have self-reported to have known each other for more than a year with daily interaction. Each subject judged the distances of a total of 15 different speech stimuli from their partner as well as spectrally most similar and most dissimilar strangers, for six different emulated distances. The main finding is that a similar but unfamiliar speaker is localized to be further away than a familiar speaker. Another finding is that the semantic properties of speech can potentially have a modulating effect on auditory distance judgements.