Suppressing early reflections in one listening zone widens the perceived time-delay gap

Evidence

Added to this, audio engineers utilize another method to control distance perception using reverberators, wherein the auditory events caused by at least some types of sounds (typically voice) can be moved closer or farther away by changing the pre-delay parameter. Reverberators are audio effects, which, in principle, convolve a monophonic sound signal with the room response. The pre-delay parameter controls the temporal gap between the direct sound and the rest of the response. Shortening the pre-delay moves the perceived source farther away and making it longer brings it closer. Physically this makes sense, since a long gap would correspond to a situation where the direct path is much shorter than the reflected path, which can only happen if the source is close. This is different from the direct-to-reverberant ratio cue, since the ratio does not change. A very similar effect has been found in virtual reality simulations. When the first reflections are moved temporally in an impulse response without changing the properties of the late reverberation, the perceived distance changes systematically (Pellegrini, 2002). — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1527 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The listening room’s influence is suppressed during multichannel playback; The sound arriving first dominates perceived direction beyond 673 microseconds of delay; Removing conflicting reflections improves perception of low-level audio detail (+2 more)

Related

• Reverberator pre-delay controls perceived source distance independently of loudness ratio (similarity 0.91)
• Relative loudness change provides the key auditory cue for source distance (similarity 0.89)
• Removing conflicting reflections improves perception of low-level audio detail (similarity 0.87)
• More reverberation relative to direct sound makes listeners judge a source as farther away. (similarity 0.84)
• Early reflections boost perceived loudness while loud late reverberation degrades intelligibility (similarity 0.84)
• The sound arriving first dominates perceived direction beyond 673 microseconds of delay (similarity 0.84)
• Early reflections must arrive within 20 ms or they are perceived as echoes. (similarity 0.83)
• Room reverberation improves rather than impairs distance judgment (similarity 0.83)
• Inter-loudspeaker delay shifts perceived virtual source position toward the earlier sound. (similarity 0.83)
• The precedence effect suppresses spatial identity of reflections, not their audibility (similarity 0.82)
• Room reverberation barely affects early reflection audibility but strongly elevates late-reflection thresholds (similarity 0.82)
• Controlled-reflection technique maximizes initial time-delay gap by suppressing early reflections (similarity 0.82)
• Dense early reflections sum perceptually to sound livelier than energy measurements predict (similarity 0.81)
• A 0–30 ms gap before first reflections cues spatial size while avoiding echoes (similarity 0.81)
• Reverberant fields supply most perceived loudness in normal rooms (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Initial time-delay gaps between 8 and 20 ms are perceptually optimal #expands (0.80)
• Reverberator pre-delay controls perceived source distance independently of loudness ratio #corroborates (0.75) — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1527