Impact of Visual Virtual Scene and Localization Task on Auditory Distance Perception in Virtual Reality

Investigating auditory perception and cognition in realistic, controlled environments is made possible by virtual reality (VR). However, when visual information is presented, sound localization results from multimodal integration. Additionally, using head-mounted displays leads to a distortion of visual egocentric distances. With two different paradigms, we investigated the extent to which different visual scenes influence auditory distance perception, and secondary presence and realism. To be more precise, different room models were displayed via HMD while participants had to localize sounds emanating from real loudspeakers. In the first paradigm, we manipulated whether a room was congruent or incongruent to the physical room. In a second paradigm, we manipulated room visibility - displaying either an audiovisual congruent room or a scene containing almost no spatial information- and localization task. Participants indicated distances either by placing a virtual loudspeaker, walking, or verbal report. While audiovisual room incongruence had a detrimental effect on distance perception, no main effect of room visibility was found but an interaction with the task. Overestimation of distances was higher using the placement task in the non-spatial scene. The results suggest an effect of visual scene on auditory perception in VR implying a need for consideration e.g. in virtual acoustics research.