Evaluation Of Audio-Visual Parameters In The Perceived Aircraft Noise Annoyance In Virtual Reality Experiments

Abstract

Most aircraft noise research is solely based on audio recordings. Nevertheless, the use of virtual reality (VR) environments provides a more immersive experience and, hence, a higher level of realism when conducting psychoacoustic listening experiments in laboratory conditions. Moreover, this approach enables the analysis of non-acoustical factors (e.g. visual cues). This study evaluates the influence of different (audio-)visual parameters in the perceived noise annoyance reported in VR experiments. For this purpose, an open-source application developed in Unity was employed to simulate 16 different VR scenarios based on real-life locations. These scenarios were characterized by different binary visual aspects (e.g. rural vs. urban, sunny vs. cloudy, or artificial vs. natural). In each scene, the same binaural aircraft flyover recording was employed to focus on the effect of the different environmental conditions. However, the background noise differed per soundscape, providing different signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) values. The influence of the aircraft visibility (not rendered in some cloudy scenarios) was also evaluated. The results show that, in general, cloudy, rural, and natural environments were perceived as slightly more annoying. Moreover, a significant and moderate correlation was observed between the annoyance ratings and the SNR, showing that background noise can partly mask the presence of aircraft.