Dear Colleagues,

Given the recent rapid advances in interactive spatial audio technologies that are utilized in virtual and augmented reality applications, a need was identified for a Special Issue that could bring together reports on related research results of experts in this field, spanning the cognate disciplines of acoustical science, audio engineering practice, and applied psychoacoustics.  Submissions are sought that demonstrate the productivity of research projects that attempt to bridge the gap between these disciplines to produce new knowledge regarding what technological solutions work best in practical use cases for functional virtual auditory display (VAD) systems. Although work employing loudspeaker-based spatial audio technologies is not strictly outside of the scope of this Special Issue, we particularly encourage submissions that report on research and development of headphone-based VAD systems for head-tracking virtual and augmented reality applications. With the advent of real-time user interaction made available by VAD systems that support the user’s active localization of virtual sound sources, an avenue has been opened for enabling more productive research and development of spatial audio processing that exhibits more optimized use of head-related transfer functions (HRTFs).  This call for submissions seeks to collect reports on research results that have demonstrated the advantages of such real-time user interaction with displayed virtual sound sources, which includes the listener’s adaptation to generic HRTFs, and also includes the personalization of customizable HRTFs employed by a VAD system for more optimal performance.

Dr. William L. Martens
Guest Editor

• virtual auditory display
• sound localization
• interactive spatial audio processing
• personalized head-related transfer functions
• head-mounted displays
• head movements