ACOUSTIC CLARITY AND AUDITORY ROOM SIZE PERCEPTION

Studies of auditory room size perception have sometimes found clarity index to be a good first order predictor of subjective ratings, with a negative correlation coefficient. However, for rooms of fixed reverberation time, the slope of the function relating clarity index to room volume is positive (for a given source-receiver distance). This paper considers how clarity index relates to room volume for realistic rooms, and why it can be an effective predictor of perceived room size.