We present preliminary results of an experiment to assess the impact of individualized binaural rendering on player performance in the context of a VR “shooter game”, as part of a larger project to characterize the impact of binaural rendering quality in various VR applications. Participants played a game in which they were faced with successive enemy targets approaching from random directions on a sphere. Audio-visual cues allowed for target localization. Participants were equipped with an Oculus CV1-HMD, headphones, and two Oculus Touch hand tracked devices as targeting mechanisms. Participants performed two sessions, once using their best and once their worst-match HRTFs from a “perceptually orthogonal” optimized set of 7 HRTFs [1]. Results indicate signi?cant performance improvement (speed and movement ef?ciency) with best-match HRTF binaural rendering sessions.

Authors: Poirier-Quinot, David; Katz, Brian F. G.
Affiliation: Sorbonne Université, CNRS, Paris, France
AES Conference: 2018 AES International Conference on Spatial Reproduction - Aesthetics and Science (July 2018)
Paper Number: P5-4
Publication Date: July 30, 2018 Import into BibTeX
Session Subject: Binaural; Virtual Reality; HRTF Individualization; Perceptual Study; Game
Permalink: https://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=19618

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