The Freedom to Move Around—introduction of the Sonova Real Life Lab

In experiments, control is everything. If parameters, procedures or the environment cannot be controlled thoroughly, any experiment lacks repeatability and hardly any findings can be generalized. In psychoacoustics and audiology research, important aspects of perception in real life are sacrificed in favor of control. The new “Real Life Lab” at Sonova allows audiological research to take a big step forward towards real life environments by bringing the freedom to move around in acoustic environments to controlled laboratory conditions. The lab provides a large stage where persons can move around freely, interact with acoustic or real objects, or with simulated or real people. The stage is surrounded by a framework of loudspeakers to present acoustic content from all directions and screens to present visual content in the horizontal plain. Any motion by persons on the stage can be tracked in real time with a motion capturing system. The motion capturing data can be passively tracked during any experiment or it can be actively used to alter or trigger audio and video reproduction. This contribution shows the technical capabilities of the lab together with some insights on the first experiment on the motion behavior in an orientation task in a complex acoustic environment.