Often we are asked if there have been detailed studies on how 3D spatial audio and the benefits of speaker positioning can enhance the comprehension and recognition capabilities for users on a typical conference call. The following study, and many like it, have been conducted over the years to highlight the benefits of this technology and areas where the benefits of more immersive, realistic audio processing can greatly benefit the end user. Our Immersitech Engage™ solutions are designed to provide these benefits for today's on-line conferencing solutions.
Authors: Lars-Erik Riechert, Laura Fernández Gallardo and Dennis Guse
Date: March 2017
Abstract:
For participants of multi-party teleconferences, it can be challenging to attribute what was said to the individual talkers. Spatial audio reproduction may help to overcome this issue. Our work investigates the potential improvement for speaker recognition using binaural synthesis. Here, the individual talkers are distributed to different simulated positions around the listener. In a listening-only test, we evaluated the effects of binaural synthesis and additional reverberation compared to a mono-diotic representation on speaker recognition. The results show a positive effect of the binaural synthesis compared to a mono-diotic condition. In addition, bin-aural synthesis with low levels of reverberation resulted in the highest speaker recognition performance compared to the anechoic settings. Nevertheless, a slight negative impact of the binaural synthesis was observed if all speakers appear from the same direction and thus no spatial information is provided.
Read the study at: https://bit.ly/2RhV3UC
