Does stereoscopy change our perception of soundtracks?
Abstract
Few psychoacoustic studies have been carried out about sound related to stereoscopic movies, and even less have tried to compare the effects of 2D and 3D video playback on the perception of soundtracks. In the present study 8 audio-visual sequences were presented in a theater to 44 subjects, in their non-stereoscopic version (2D) and their stereoscopic version (s-3D). For each presentation, subjects had to judge to what extent the 5.1 sound mix sounded frontal or “surround,” in order to verify whether stereoscopy could have an influence on the perception of the front/rear balance of ambience sound. Results showed that the influence of stereoscopy was weak—for two sequences out of eight, subjects perceived the soundtrack as more frontal when the sequence was projected in its s-3D version. For the other sequences, the influence of stereoscopy was not significant.