Use of audio-visual interactive virtual environments to avoid the room divergence effect in office-like environments

This study examines whether auditory perception in audio-visual interactive virtual environments (IVE) is affected by the subjects’ awareness of being in a room with different physical properties and acoustic characteristics compared to the visually rendered room. This could potentially lead to the room divergence effect (RDE). We investigated whether ratings of room-acoustic attributes made within an audio-visual IVE were influenced by the room in which the IVE was used, i.e., the playback room, which was either congruent or divergent from the visually rendered room. The divergent room differed in terms of size, acoustic characteristics, and visual appearance. Participants rated room-acoustic attributes for different head-tracked binaural auralisations. The results show that for several room-acoustic attributes, similar ratings were obtained for both rooms, i.e., we found no effect of the room in which the listening test was performed. The only exception was the perceived source distance, where a small but statistically significant underestimation was found in the divergent room compared to the congruent room. Given the small difference in median scores, this effect may, however, be considered low in relevance. We conclude that audio-visual IVEs can create a convincing illusion of the room that resists influence from the playback room.