3D Audio Immersive Experience (3DAIX)

This is a collaborative project between the APL of the University of Huddersfield and the Neuroengineering and Neuroacoustics Research Group of the Tecnológico de Monterrey. Norberto Emmanuel Naal Ruiz, a PhD student from Tec de Monterrey and the main researcher working on this project, was a visiting researcher at the APL from Jun to Dec 2022. During his stay, he worked closely with Dr Hyunkook Lee on 3D audio recording and reproduction and the design of immersive audio experience questionnaire and psychoacoustic listening test. Norberto has successfully completed a series of  EEG and biometric measurements as well as listening tests with 30 subjects, and is currently analysing the data collected. We will be presenting part of the study at the upcoming AES International Conference on Spatial and Immersive Audio, and publish full results in a journal in 2023.

Project background: Immersive technology intends to create virtual experiences similar to those in a real environment. Three-dimensional (3D) audio technologies have been extensively developed in the last four decades and have recently gained relevance due to technological advancements, allowing the implementation of spatial audio in mobile devices. Additionally, 3D audio has been used for the enhancement of cognitive processes and mental health since it augments the perceptual consistency and the precision of spatial location.

Project aims: Nevertheless, standard, rigorous, and efficient methodologies for the evaluation of immersive experience caused by 3D audio have not been proposed, nor the effect of sound at neurophysiological levels has been extensively evaluated. For this collaborative research, we aim 1) to find the correlation between physiological and perceptual responses of individuals undergoing 3D audio stimulation, and 2) to propose a scientific method to measure the effect of the 3D auditory immersive experience. It is expected that the features extracted from neurophysiological signals correlate to the immersive attributes as observed in previous research, leading to the parametrization of immersive events by psychoacoustic and neurophysiological means.

Researchers: Norberto Emmanuel Naal Ruiz (Tec de Monterrey), Prof Hyunkook Lee (APL/UoH)

Supervisors: Prof Hyunkook Lee (APL/UoH), Dr Luz María Alonso Valerdi (Tec de Monterrey), Dr David Isaac Ibarra Zarate (Tec de Monterrey)

Publications:

• Norberto E. Naal-Ruiz, Hyunkook Lee, Andrea Gonzalez, Rodrigo Gonzalez, Mathilde Marie Duville, Luz M. Alonso-Valerdi, David I. Ibarra-Zarate (2023) Towards the neurophysiological characterization of immersive attributes in auditory events, In Proceedings of the 2023 AES International Conference on Spatial and Immersive Audio, Huddersfield, UK.