Normal hearing assessment of horizontal auditory localization accuracy in a virtual visual environment with free head movement

37 right-handed sighted and normal hearing volunteers perform an auditory localization task in a virtual visual environment. We investigated the contribution of head movements to localization along the interaural plane in absence of motor constraints and visual cues on a virtual scene, experienced by individuals wearing a head-mounted display while listening to stimuli coming from a circular loudspeaker array. Our results indicate that the localization errors progressively contract toward a constant minimum with increasing head motion. Reported are: the participant anonymous id ("Subject"), the condition ("Condition": 1 participants could hear and see the array of loudspeakers while wearing an HMD on top of their head in ways that their vision was not occluded by the device; 2 participants instead wore the HMD correctly, so as to be visually immersed in a virtual environment (VE) meanwhile still listening to the sounds coming from the loudspeaker array), group ("Group": 1 performed first condition 1, then 2; 2 performed condition 2, then 1), target ("Target": angle in sexagesimal degrees), the signed error ("Signed_error": the difference between the target angle and the pointed angle), the unsigned error ("Unsigned_error": the absolute difference between the target angle and the pointed angle), the distance of the head from the target in the moment when it was hit ("Head_position": in meters), the difference between the target and head orientation angle at the same moment ("Head_rotation": in degrees), the head covered distance during a single trial ("Head_distance": in meters) the velocity and acceleration of the head’s translation movement with respect to the x-axis of the frontal plane (respectively "Head_translation_1" in meters per second and "Head_translation_2" in meters per squared second), the angular velocity and acceleration of the head with respect to the z-axis of the frontal plane (respectively "Head_rotation_1" in degrees per second and "Head_rotation_2" in degrees per squared second), the number of direction changes and rotation changes with respect to the translation and angular movements (respectively "Head_direction_changes" and "Head_rotation_changes"), the latency during a single trial ("Latency": in seconds).

37名右利手、视力正常且听力正常的志愿者参与了虚拟视觉环境下的听觉定位任务。本研究探讨了在无运动约束且虚拟场景无视觉线索的条件下，头部运动对耳间平面内听觉定位的贡献；受试者佩戴头戴式显示器（head-mounted display, HMD），聆听来自圆形扬声器阵列的声学刺激。研究结果表明，随着头部运动的增加，定位误差会逐渐收敛至一个恒定的最小值。本数据集包含以下记录变量：受试者匿名编号（"Subject"）；实验条件（"Condition"）：条件1为受试者将头戴式显示器佩戴于头顶，视觉未被设备遮挡，可同时听闻并看见扬声器阵列；条件2为受试者正常佩戴头戴式显示器，沉浸于虚拟环境（virtual environment, VE）中，同时仍可接收来自扬声器阵列的声音信号；组别（"Group"）：组别1为先执行条件1，再执行条件2，组别2为先执行条件2，再执行条件1；目标方位（"Target"）：以六十进制角度表示的目标方位角；符号定位误差（"Signed_error"）：目标角度与指向角度的差值；无符号定位误差（"Unsigned_error"）：目标角度与指向角度的绝对差值；击中目标时刻头部与目标之间的间距（"Head_position"），单位为米；同一时刻目标方位角与头部朝向角的差值（"Head_rotation"），单位为度；单次试验中头部移动的累计距离（"Head_distance"），单位为米；头部平移运动相对于额状面x轴的线速度与线加速度，分别为"Head_translation_1"（单位：米每秒）与"Head_translation_2"（单位：米每二次方秒）；头部旋转运动相对于额状面z轴的角速度与角加速度，分别为"Head_rotation_1"（单位：度每秒）与"Head_rotation_2"（单位：度每二次方秒）；平移运动与旋转运动的方向变化次数及旋转变化次数，分别为"Head_direction_changes"与"Head_rotation_changes"；单次试验的延迟时长（"Latency"），单位为秒。