Elicitation and measurement of auditory spatial attributes in reproduced sound

This thesis has investigated objective measurements that relate to the perceived spatial attributes of reproduced sound. Research has been conducted into extant measurements that aim to quantify the perceived spatial attributes of concert hall acoustics, and those that are most likely to be successful for measuring the properties of reproduced sound have been identified. A relatively new measurement technique that may relate to the spatial perception of reproduced sound has also been analysed. This measurement is based on the quantification of the magnitude of fluctuations in interaural time and level difference. This has been investigated in detail, and the subjective effect that this measurement relates to has been elicited in a number of subjective experiments. The experiments used various types of noise stimuli that contained a range of fluctuations in interaural time difference. It was found that when the fluctuations are contained within a part of the signal that is perceived to be a sound source, a variation in the magnitude of the fluctuations alters the perceived width of that source. When the fluctuations are contained within a part of the signal that is perceived to be reverberation, a variation in the magnitude of the fluctuations alters the perceived width of the acoustical environment. This research has been applied to the development of novel objective measurement techniques, and to the specification of the subjective attributes that relate to these techniques. A final evaluation experiment has found that listeners can relate to the attribute descriptors that have been elicited, and that the novel objective measurement techniques that have been developed match the subjective data at least as well as the extant measurement techniques.