Overview
Quantifying Intimacy in Wave Field Synthesis investigates how acoustic and spatial properties shape a listener’s perceived relationship to a sounding voice.
Rather than treating intimacy as a single quality, the study separates three related perceptual judgments: physical closeness, the sense that the voice is addressing the listener directly, and overall intimacy. A controlled Wave Field Synthesis experiment systematically varies spatial and timbral parameters to examine how each contributes to these different forms of perceived proximity and relation.
Research Question
What makes a mediated voice feel physically close, personally addressed, or intimate?
Experimental Design
Participants hear the same speech stimulus across 72 systematically varied listening conditions. Five acoustic and spatial parameters are manipulated in a fully crossed design.
HIGH-FREQUENCY BALANCE
3 levels
−6 dB / 0 dB / +6 dB
High shelf from 3 kHz
TRANSIENT PROCESSING
2 levels
−6 dB / +6 dB
VIRTUAL DISTANCE
3 levels
0 m / 1 m / 2 m
SOURCE ANGLE
2 levels
0° / 30°
LOUDNESS
2 levels
Reference / +6 dB
What Participants Rate
CLOSENESS
How physically close does the voice feel?
ADDRESSEDNESS
How strongly does the voice feel as though it is speaking specifically to you?
INTIMACY
How intimate does the overall listening experience feel?
Calibration & Control
Before participant testing, the reproduction chain was calibrated to separate the intended experimental manipulations from unintended level differences across conditions. Reference, transient, high-frequency, loudness, and spatial-position conditions were independently verified at the listening position.
From Experiment to Composition
The experiment is not only designed to describe perception. Its findings become compositional material .The resulting perceptual relationships will inform Address, a single-listener Wave Field Synthesis composition in which distance, timbre, direction, and vocal presence are treated as parameters for composing relationships between a voice and its listener.
Writing
Quantifying Intimacy in Wave Field Synthesis: Perceptual Effects of Acoustic and Spatial Parameters
Manuscript in preparation for submission to the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC).