Assessing the Potential Impact of Direction-Dependent HRTF Selection on Sound Localization Accuracy

TL;DR

This study evaluates whether direction-dependent HRTF selection improves sound localization accuracy in VR, finding significant elevation error reduction but negligible azimuth error differences.

Contribution

It introduces a direction-dependent HRTF selection method that enhances elevation localization accuracy without requiring individualized HRTFs.

Findings

Significant reduction in elevation localization error.

No significant difference in azimuth errors.

Direction-dependent selection improves certain localization aspects.

Abstract

This study investigates the approach of direction-dependent selection of Head-Related Transfer Functions (HRTFs) and its impact on sound localization accuracy. For applications such as virtual reality (VR) and teleconferencing, obtaining individualized HRTFs can be beneficial yet challenging, the objective of this work is therefore to assess whether incorporating HRTFs in a direction-dependent manner could improve localization precision without the need to obtain individualized HRTFs. A localization experiment conducted with a VR headset assessed localization errors, comparing an overall best HRTF from a set, against selecting the best HRTF based on average performance in each direction. The results demonstrate a substantial improvement in elevation localization error with the method motivated by direction-dependent HRTF selection, while revealing insignificant differences in azimuth errors.