Impact of HRTF individualization on player performance in a VR shooter game I

David Poirier-Quinot (1) , Brian F. G. Katz (1)

1 IJLRDA-LAM - Lutheries - Acoustique - Musique

We present preliminary results of an experiment to assess the impact of individualized binaural rendering on player performance in the context of a VR "shooter game" , as part of a larger project to characterize the impact of binaural rendering quality in various VR applications. Participants played a game in which they were faced with successive enemy targets approaching from random directions on a sphere. Audiovisual cues allowed for target localization. Participants were equipped with an Oculus CV1-HMD, headphones, and two Oculus Touch hand tracked devices as targeting mechanisms. Participants performed two sessions, once using their best and once their worst-match HRTFs from a "perceptually orthogonal" optimized set of 7 HRTFs [Katz 2012]. Results indicate significant performance improvement (speed and movement efficiency) with best-match HRTF binaural rendering sessions.

Domaines: Acoustique [physics.class-ph]; Informatique; Neurosciences

David Poirier-Quinot, Brian F. G. Katz. Impact of HRTF individualization on player performance in a VR shooter game I. AES Conference on Spatial Reproduction, Aug 2018, Tokyo, Japan. ⟨hal-01856505⟩