Perceptual Effects of Synthetic Reverberation on Three-Dimensional Audio Systems

A psychoacoustic investigation was conducted in which five subjects gave localization judgments for headphone-delivered speech stimuli processed by nonindividual head-related transfer functions, with and without synthetic "spatial" reverberation added to the stimuli. Spatial reverberation minimized intracranially heard stimuli, but increased the magnitude of azimuth and elevation localization errors. The results are applicable to three-dimensional sound systems and spatial sound field processors designed to increase the sensation of auditory "spaciousness."