This study investigates the perceptual effects of distance cues in virtual auditory environments rendered using head-related transfer functions (HRTFs). Experiments were conducted using a custom binaural processing plugin and virtual reality (VR) environment to compare head-fixed and head-tracked conditions under both anechoic (free-field) and reverberant environments. In free-field conditions, head-fixed rendering resulted in in-head localization and compressed distance perception, while head-tracked rendering improved distance accuracy. In reverberant conditions, head-fixed rendering introduced underestimation bias, whereas head-tracked rendering yielded more consistent judgments across distances. Results confirm that head-tracked rendering improves auditory distance perception in both anechoic and reverberant contexts, supporting more accurate spatial audio design in immersive systems.
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https://aes2.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23090
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