Arrival direction of late sound and listener envelopment

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relation between the arrival direction of late sound and perceived listener envelopment (LEV). In this paper, two kinds of psychological experiments are conducted with three-dimensional simulated sound fields in an anechoic room. Firstly, the effect of late energy arriving from four fundamental directions on perceived LEV is individually investigated. The results show that the lateral sound level gives the highest correlation with LEV, while late sound arriving from overhead and behind the listener also correlates very strongly with LEV. Secondly, whether or not the different sound fields with a constant level of late lateral energy lead to significant differences in perceived LEV is examined. The results clearly indicate that LEV is significantly distinguished due to the late sound having non-lateral components. From these experiments, it is concluded that not only the late lateral sound, but also the late sound from other directions, such as overhead, back and frontal, contributes to LEV to a greater or lesser degree.