RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN VIRTUAL AUDITORY SPACE

Virtual Auditory Space technology is being applied to a broad range of applications in a wide variety of fields. The flexibility and fine degree of stimulus control enabled by VAS techniques makes them perfectly suited for studying sound localization and spatial auditory perception. Researchers can easily separate out the relative importance of different spatial cues, manipulate stimulus “sources” with ease and speed, and generate stimuli which are difficult or impossible to generate using free-field techniques. This same level of flexibility and control makes VAS displays useful in providing spatial auditory information to a human operator in many real-world applications. In the past, visual displays have been employed almost exclusively to present spatial information to air traffic controllers, fighter pilots, and other human operators. However, there is a growing need to increase the amount of information received by such operators. VAS techniques provide the opportunity to exploit the auditory channel without directly compromising the information already available via other modalities. VAS displays are also integral parts of multimodal “virtual environment” (VE) systems (proposed for use in training and entertainment) and “teleoperator” systems (designed to display information from remote or dangerous environments).