I used whispers in a sound installations quite often . We had several PA speakers hidden around the trees and amongst other things whispers were on the soundscape (in the darkness) . I dont really recall any proximity illusions being created but I had the whispers at the volume that was not a lot louder than you'd expect a larger scary electroacoustic beast to be making . I hold that the main reason these kind of cognitive effects work is if you cant see the speakers. If you can see , or expect speakers, then your brain says - ok not whispers - recordings of whispers on large speakers - and the illusion is shattered. The sounds and settings have to be convincing enough, believable enough, for cognitive effects to work - then you can get away with all sorts of acoustic inaccuracies - thats why I think so many sound installations in galleries leave me cold - you can see all the nuts and bolts. The best example I can think of is I left a microphone going in the rain forest once - mosquitoes would land on the microphone. The recordings exhibited the really annoying buzzing noise that mosquitoes make before they land on your face (a study showed this is actually to deliberatly to irritate you, raise your blood pressure, and cause the blood to be closer to the surface of the skin !). Even though these recordings were played over a PA speaker - because this speaker was hidden in a rainforest setting, even though the sound was much louder than a real mosquito - it still caught me by surprise a couple of times and had me brushing my face. Still to use cognitive effects and have accurate spatial effects would be the ideal.
On 27 February 2013 07:48, Dave Malham <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > I don't have Blauert handy unfortunately, so perhaps someone could > enlighten me about how the study mentioned was conducted - real > whisperers or recordings? It pretty well has to be recordings - > because otherwise a whisper at 9 metres would pretty well be inaudible > (that being the whole point of whispering) - and amplified ones at > that, so doesn't this kind of make the whole thing pointless as the > experimental subject would be getting similar physical cues for the > distance and the close sounds.....enlighten me! > > Dave > > On 26 February 2013 11:58, etienne deleflie <[email protected]> wrote: > > > In Blauert's Spatial Hearing (1997, p.45-46), he mentions a study, > > conducted in an anechoic chambre, where listeners consistently appraise > the > > sound of a whispering voice to be much closer than it physically is. When > > the whispering is 9m away, the perception is that it is no more than 3m > > away. Distance of speakers using normal speech is consistently judged > > accurately. It is not the recognition of certain qualities within the > sound > > of the whispering (cant be because it is actually 9m away), but rather > the > > identification of the sounding object itself that creates the impression > of > > proximity. Again, that's a Peircian index. It follows that when you hear > > someone whispering, they are close to you. Its a logical association, not > > one of similarity. > > > > > > > -- > 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 > [email protected] > https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound > -- 07580951119 augustine.leudar.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/private/sursound/attachments/20130227/b1f0f707/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ Sursound mailing list [email protected] https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
