Department of Information and Communications Engineering

Technical Psychoacoustics

The Technical Psychoacoustics research group works at the intersection of technical developments in virtual acoustics and spatial audio, the perceptual evaluation of these technologies, and their application in hearing science.

HRTF measurement setup with dummy head wearing in-ear microphones in the center and loudspeakers surrounding the dummy head.

The understanding of human perceptual mechanisms goes hand in hand with the development of human-centric virtual acoustics and spatial audio technologies. In our research, we aim to combine both technical and perceptual aspects into a more comprehensive view. We work on perceptually motivated methods for spatial audio reproduction and binaural rendering, develop and perform perceptual experiments to evaluate these technologies, and apply them in XR-based hearing science studies to investigate fundamental mechanisms of auditory and multimodal perception. Due to the broad scope of our research area, we value interdisciplinary collaboration and work with experts from various disciplines to advance both the technical fields of virtual acoustics and spatial audio as well as the research fields of hearing science and hearing technology.

The current research topics are:

Virtual acoustics
Spatial audio
Binaural rendering with 6-degrees-of-freedom
Perceptual evaluation of spatial audio reproduction
XR-based hearing science
VR-based auditory processing assessment

The Technical Psychoacoustics Research Group belongs to the Aalto Acoustics Lab. The research group is led by Professor Johannes M. Arend.

Group members

How early reflections affect the stage acoustic conditions for solo musicians

Jannis Kriz, Emanuele Porcinai, Steffen Lepa, Paula Klein, Johannes M. Arend, Stefan Weinzierl 2025 Applied Acoustics

On the impact of downward-directed human voice radiation on ground reflections

Christoph Pörschmann, Johannes M. Arend 2024 Acta Acustica

Phoneme dependence of horizontal asymmetries in voice directivity

Christoph Pörschmann, Johannes M Arend 2024 JASA Express Letters

Time-Aligned Spatial Upsampling of Spherical Microphone Array Recordings

Christoph Pörschmann, Tim Lübeck, Johannes M. Arend 2024 Journal of the Audio Engineering Society

Speech-in-noise testing in virtual reality

Melissa Ramírez, Alexander Müller, Johannes M. Arend, Hendrik Himmelein, Tobias Rader, Christoph Pörschmann 2024 Frontiers in Virtual Reality

Toward Sound Localization Testing in Virtual Reality to Aid in the Screening of Auditory Processing Disorders

Melissa Ramírez, Johannes M. Arend, Petra von Gablenz, Heinrich R. Liesefeld, Christoph Pörschmann 2024 Trends in Hearing

Recordings of a Loudspeaker Orchestra With Multichannel Microphone Arrays for the Evaluation of Spatial Audio Methods

David Ackermann, Julian Domann, Fabian Brinkmann, Johannes M. Arend, Martin Schneider, Christoph Pörschmann, Stefan Weinzierl 2023 Journal of the Audio Engineering Society

Magnitude-Corrected and Time-Aligned Interpolation of Head-Related Transfer Functions

Johannes M. Arend, Christoph Pörschmann, Stefan Weinzierl, Fabian Brinkmann 2023 IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing

Spatial Upsampling of Sparse Spherical Microphone Array Signals

Tim Lübeck, Johannes M. Arend, Christoph Pörschmann 2023 IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing

Investigating Phoneme-Dependencies of Spherical Voice Directivity Patterns II: Various Groups of Phonemes

Christoph Pörschmann, Johannes M. Arend 2023 Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

Estimation of the Optimal Spherical Harmonics Order for the Interpolation of Head-Related Transfer Functions Sampled on Sparse Irregular Grids

David Bau, Johannes M. Arend, Christoph Pörschmann 2022 Frontiers in Signal Processing

Binaural reproduction of dummy head and spherical microphone array data—A perceptual study on the minimum required spatial resolution

Tim Lübeck, Johannes M. Arend, Christoph Pörschmann 2022 Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

Effects of hand postures on voice directivity

Christoph Pörschmann, Johannes M. Arend 2022 JASA Express Letters

Assessing Spherical Harmonics Interpolation of Time-Aligned Head-Related Transfer Functions

Johannes M. Arend, Fabian Brinkmann, Christoph Pörschmann 2021 Journal of the Audio Engineering Society

Do near-field cues enhance the plausibility of non-individual binaural rendering in a dynamic multimodal virtual acoustic scene?

Johannes M. Arend, Melissa Ramírez, Heinrich R. Liesefeld, Christoph Pörschmann 2021 Acta Acustica

Efficient binaural rendering of spherical microphone array data by linear filtering

Johannes Arend, Tim Lübeck, Christoph Pörschmann 2021 Eurasip Journal on Audio, Speech, and Music Processing

On the influence of non-individual binaural cues and the impact of level normalization on auditory distance estimation of nearby sound sources

Johannes M. Arend, Heinrich R. Liesefeld, Christoph Pörschmann 2021 Acta Acustica

Six-Degrees-of-Freedom Parametric Spatial Audio Based on One Monaural Room Impulse Response

Johannes M. Arend, Sebastià V. Amengual Garí, Carl Schissler, Florian Klein, Philip W. Robinson 2021 Journal of the Audio Engineering Society

Investigating phoneme-dependencies of spherical voice directivity patterns

Christoph Pörschmann, Johannes M. Arend 2021 Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

Optimizations of the Spatial Decomposition Method for Binaural Reproduction

Sebastià V. Amengual Garí, Johannes M. Arend, Paul Calamia, Philip W. Robinson 2020 Journal of the Audio Engineering Society

Perceptual Evaluation of Mitigation Approaches of Impairments due to Spatial Undersampling in Binaural Rendering of Spherical Microphone Array Data

Tim Lübeck, Hannes Helmholz, Johannes M. Arend, Christoph Pörschmann, Jens Ahrens 2020 Journal of the Audio Engineering Society

Research portal

Updated: 28.3.2025
Published: 7.11.2024