Immersive audio is our everyday experience of being able to hear and interact with sounds around us. Simulating spatially located sounds in virtual or augmented reality (VR/AR) must be done in a unique way for each individual and currently requires expensive, time-consuming individual measurements, making it commercially unfeasible. The impact of immersive audio beyond perceptual metrics such as presence and localisation is still an unexplored area of research, specifically when related with social interaction, entering the behavioural and cognitive realms.

SONICOM deals with the way we interact socially within AR/VR environments. It will create a new generation of immersive audio technologies and techniques, specifically looking at personalisation and customisation of the audio rendering by means of machine-learning techniques. Using a data-driven approach it will explore, map, and model how the physical characteristics of spatialised auditory stimuli can influence observable behavioural, physiological, kinematic, and psychophysical reactions of listeners within social interaction scenarios.

SONICOM is a five-year research project funded under the Horizon2020 FET Proactive. It involves an international team of ten research institutions and creative tech companies from six European countries, with Lorenzo Picinali (Imperial College, London, UK) as the project coordinator. More details can found at the SONICOM website: https://www.sonicom.eu/

SONICOM Team at the ÖAW

Our (ÖAW's) role within SONICOM is the work on immersion (WP1) by investigating simply way to personalize binaural audio (T1.1) and creating better auditory models (T1.2), the work on dynamic sound-listener interaction (WP2), the work on integration (WP3) by developing self-personalizing headphones (T3.2), and the development of the SONICOM ecosystem (WP5) to provide sustainable resources for other even beyond the SONICOM project. 

Project investigator: Piotr Majdak (ARI)

Project team: Florian Pausch (ARI), Nicki Holighaus (ARI), Wolfgang Kreuzer (ARI), Katharina Pollack (ARI), Jonathan Stuefer (ARI), Michael Mihocic (ARI), Christiane Herzog (ARI), Roberto Barumerli (ARI alumni), Felix Perfler (ARI), Herwig Stöger (ÖAW Press). 

Duration: January 2021 to June 2026

PUBLICATIONS RELATED TO ÖAW'S TEAM

    WP1:

    1. Barumerli, R., Majdak, P., Geronazzo, M., Meijer, D., Avanzini, F., Baumgartner, R. (2023). “A Bayesian model for human directional localization of broadband static sound sources,” Acta Acustica 7: 12. DOI: 10.1051/aacus/2023006.
    2. Baumgartner, R. and Majdak, P. (2021). “Decision making in auditory externalization perception: model predictions for static conditions,” Acta Acust, 5, 59. DOI: 10.1051/aacus/2021053.
    3. Pollack, K. and Majdak, P. (2021). “Evaluation of a parametric pinna model for the calculation of head-related transfer functions,” in Immersive and 3D Audio: from Architecture to Automotive (I3DA), 1–5. DOI: 10.1109/I3DA48870.2021.9610885.

    WP2:

    1. Lladó, P., Barumerli R., Baumgartner R., Majdak, P. (2024). “Predicting the Effect of Headphones on the Time to Localize a Target in an Auditory-Guided Visual Search Task,” Front Virtual Real 5: 1359987. DOI: 10.3389/frvir.2024.1359987.
    2. McLachlan, G., Majdak, P., Reijniers, J., Mihocic, M., and Peremans, H. (2023). “Dynamic spectral cues do not affect human sound localization during small head movements,” Frontiers Neuroscience 17. DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2023.1027827.
    3. McLachlan, G., Majdak, P., Reijniers, J., and Peremans, H. (2021). “Towards modelling active sound localisation based on Bayesian inference in a static environment,” Acta Acust, 5: 45. DOI: 10.1051/aacus/2021039.

    WP5:

    1. Kreuzer, W., Pollack, K., Brinkmann, F., Majdak, P. (2024). “NumCalc: An open-source BEM code for solving acousticscattering problems,” Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements, 161: 157-178. DOI: 10.1016/j.enganabound.2024.01.008.
    2. Brinkmann, F., Kreuzer, W., Thomsen, J., Dombrovskis, S., Pollack, K., Weinzierl, S., Majdak, P. (2023). “Recent Advances in an Open Software for Numerical HRTF Calculation,” J Audio Eng Soc 71: 502-514. DOI: 10.17743/jaes.2022.0078.
    3. Majdak, P., Hollomey, C., and Baumgartner, R. (2022). “AMT 1.x: A toolbox for reproducible research in auditory modeling,” Acta Acust, 6, 19. DOI: 10.1051/aacus/2022011.
    4. Pollack, K., Kreuzer, W., and Majdak, P. (2022). “Modern Acquisition of Personalised Head-Related Transfer Functions: An Overview,” in Advances in Fundamental and Applied Research on Spatial Audio, edited by B. Katz and P. Majdak, (IntechOpen, London UK). DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.102908.
    5. Majdak, P., Zotter, F., Brinkmann, F., De Muynke, J., Mihocic, M., and Noisternig, M. (2022). “Spatially Oriented Format for Acoustics 2.1: Introduction and Recent Advances,” J Audio Eng Soc 70, 565-584. DOI: 10.17743/jaes.2022.0026.
    6. Osses Vecchi, A., Varnet, L., Carney, L., Dau, T., Bruce, I., Verhulst, S., and Majdak, P. (2022). “A comparative study of eight human auditory models of monaural processing,” Acta Acust, 6, 17. DOI: 10.1051/aacus/2022008.

    WP6:

    1. Picinali, L., Katz, B. F., Geronazzo, M., Majdak, P., Reyes-Lecuona, A., and Vinciarelli, A. (2022). “The SONICOM Project: Artificial Intelligence-Driven Immersive Audio, From Personalization to Modeling,” IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, 39, 85–88. DOI: 10.1109/MSP.2022.3182929.

    The SONICOM project receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement #101017743. 

    The research teams of this EU-funded Research Project have been recognised as  "key innovators" for their work on the Parametric Pinna Model (PPM): https://innovation-radar.ec.europa.eu/innovation/53145 . PPM is one of six OeAW innovations so far.