Evaluation of the Range of Head Movements in Measurements and Recordings with Human Subjects using Head-Tracking Sensors

Abstract

Measurements for spatial hearing research, binaural recordings, virtual reality techniques etc. often rely on Head-Related Transfer Functions of human subjects and head-tracking techniques. Individually measured HRTFs and recordings on human heads may result in more accuratelocalization and sound field rendering. On the other hand, the measurement and recording procedure raise new problems such as decreased signal-to-noise ratio or subject comfort. For measurements with human subjects lots of methods are used from free heads to different head fixation methods. In this paper, we report an experiment that was conducted using commercially available sensors with the goal ofcharacterizing the range of subject head movements in various postures under various circumstances. The study analyses the range of unwanted head movements during measurements using two sensors, 3-min sessions and four body positions based on the circular angle variance, errors in yaw-pitch-roll directions and magnitude of standard deviation. Results of 16 participants show errors about 2 degrees and magnitudes of standard deviation of 2-8 cm depending on the situation as well as a preference for sitting instead of standing posture.