What's interesting is that the demo is actually totally cheating. It relies on cognitive cues, perhaps even more than on presenting realistic stimuli. It does this in two ways:
Firstly, it extensively uses symbolism, through language, to create expectations of spatial experience... "now over here on the left ... now on the right", and "these scissors are very close to your head ...". etc. Secondly, it relies on experience-based referential cues. The successful perception of distance, in the sound of the scissors, can be at least partly (if not mostly) attributable to the fact that we can only hear scissors if they are close to our ears. When you hear scissors, you always get an impression of proximity. Begault (2000) makes this point in his text "3D sound for virtual reality and multimedia" ... and funnily enough, he speaks specifically of 3D demos where there is "the sound of scissors cutting hair, as if very near your ear." !!! (Page 29) ... so, as far as binaural demos goes, I'm going to call the sound of scissors "the oldest trick in the book" (its been around at least 12 years!) The other examples he gives are the sound of lighting a cigarette and drinking a glass of water. It is also for this reason that any demonstration that includes whispering, to demonstrate ability to create cues of proximity, should also be treated as somewhat bogus. Alternatively, for the spatial music composer, if the composer would like to create a sense of proximity in space they dont need to encode sounds using any particular spatialisation technology, they just need to use the sounds that we only hear in proximity ... such as whispering, scissors, matches and drinking a glass of water! Actually, to my mind, this very point is one of the big issues with the strategy of 'mimicking reality' to create realistic perceptions of space. The cognitive dimension is largely ignored. And so really ... the 'oldest trick in the book' is perhaps more of a rather sensible strategy. Although once you try to encode a sound that is not typically heard near the ears, then you are stuffed. Etienne On Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 4:20 AM, Dave Malham <dave.mal...@york.ac.uk> wrote: > For a truly cring-making demo of binaural, check out the "Virtual > Barber Shop" video at > > http://www2.electronicproducts.com/Surround_sound_vs_3D_sound-article-fand_sound_feb2013-html.aspx > . > Can't say it works much better (if at all) than any other I've heard > in 4 decades in the business. It would also be interesting to know > what people think of the demo further down the page of the crosstalk > cancelled stuff that's supposed to work on laptops - it's barely > perceivable as stereo on my MacBook Pro. > > Dave > > -- > As of 1st October 2012, I have retired from the University, so this > disclaimer is redundant.... > > > These are my own views and may or may not be shared by my employer > > Dave Malham > Ex-Music Research Centre > Department of Music > The University of York > Heslington > York YO10 5DD > UK > > 'Ambisonics - Component Imaging for Audio' > _______________________________________________ > Sursound mailing list > Sursound@music.vt.edu > https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound > -- http://etiennedeleflie.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/private/sursound/attachments/20130201/e78873d7/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
