SPP 2236 - AUDICTIVE

Aachen Cathedral
© Stadt Aachen / Andreas Herrmann

Conference Location: SuperC
© Stadt Aachen / Peter Hinschläger

Institute for Hearing Technology and Acoustics, IHTA
© Martin Guski

AUDICTIVE Conference 2023

With recent developments in hardware- and software technologies, audiovisual virtual reality (VR) has reached a high level of perceptual plausibility that overcomes the limitations of simple laboratory settings. Applying interactive VR technology is expected to help understand auditory cognition in complex audiovisual scenes that are close to real life, including acoustically adverse situations such as classrooms, open-plan offices, multi-party communication or outdoor scenarios with multiple (and moving) sound sources. In particular, VR enables controlled research on how acoustic and visual components and further contextual factors affect the ability to interact with the scene, e.g. freely moving in it.

To best integrate research in auditory cognition and VR, it is required that aspects from the three scientific disciplines of acoustics, cognitive psychology, and virtual reality/computer science are addressed. The cooperation between researchers from these fields allows synergetic effects which cannot be achieved by a single discipline. The AUDICTIVE conference targets fundamental research across the three disciplines and addressing the three research priorities (a) "auditory cognition," (b) "interactive audiovisual virtual environments," and (c) "quality evaluation methods," the latter being located at the interface between (a) and (b). We invite submissions to the conference that are original proposals and contribute to fundamental research and interdisciplinary findings. This conference brings together researchers from different fields of acoustics, cognitive psychology, and virtual reality while also extending a warm welcome to related presentations coming from other fields. The theme of the conference can be addressed in three interrelated subthemes:

1. To what extent are recent theories of auditory cognition and related empirical findings applicable in a more life-like environment created by interactive audiovisual VR?
2. How can the realism and vibrancy of audiovisual virtual environments be brought to a higher level, both in terms of audiovisual representation as well as user interaction, based on the findings from auditory cognition research?
3. What are suitable and novel quality evaluation methods that enable the systematic and efficient assessment of VR systems (cf. b) in light of the targeted auditory cognition research (cf. a)?

Conference Location

The conference will be a leading event in the areas of acoustics, auditory cognition, and interactive virtual environments for research purposes. It is a great opportunity for participants to meet in person, to expand their knowledge, to share new techniques and competences.

- Conference Location: SuperC , RWTH Aachen University, Templergraben 57, 52062 Aachen
- Conference Dinner: 21 June 2023, 6 pm, Centre Charlemange - Karl's
- Demo Tour: 21 June 2023, Institute for Hearing Technology and Acoustics , Kopernikusstraße 5, 52074 Aachen
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Important Dates

09 January 2023: Registration and abstract submission opens
~~10 February 2023: Abstract submission deadline (max. 200 Words)~~
NEW ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE! 17 FEBRUARY 2023
28 February 2023: Notification of acceptance
28 April 2023: Final paper deadline
26 May 2023: Registration closes
20 June - 22 June 2023: Conference at SuperC, RWTH Aachen University

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Keynotes

June 20: Barbara Shinn-Cunningham

How peripheral and central factors together control auditory attention in complex settings

In healthy, normal-hearing listeners, complex negotiations between volitional, top-down attention and involuntary, bottom-up attention allow you to focus on and understand whatever talker matters in a given moment— while also ensuring that you evaluate and respond to new sound sources around you. This talk explores how peripheral and central factors together determine how successful you will be when communicating in everyday environments with both expected and unexpected sounds, focusing especially on the cortical networks that mediate competition for attention.

Barbara Shinn-Cunningham became the Director of the Carnegie Mellon Neuroscience Institute in 2018. Before joining Carnegie Mellon, she spent over twenty years on the faculty of Boston University (first in Cognitive and Neural Systems, and later in Biomedical Engineering). Her innovative work in auditory neuroscience has been recognized by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Whitaker Foundation, and the Vannevar Bush Fellows program. She has held numerous elected and appointed leadership positions in professional organizations such as the Association for Research in Otolaryngology and the Acoustical Society of America, and serves as on numerous advisory boards within both academia and industry.

June 21: Frank Steinicke

B(l)ending Natural and Artificial Intelligence and Realities

The fusion of extended reality (XR) and artificial intelligence (AI) will revolutionize human-computer interaction. XR/AI technologies and methods will enable scenarios with seamless transitions, interactions and transformations between real and virtual objects along the reality-virtuality continuum indistinguishable from corresponding real-world interactions. Yet, todays immersive technology is still decades away from the ultimate display. However, imperfections of the human perceptual, cognitive and motor system can be exploited to bend reality in such a way that compelling immersive experiences can be achieved. In this talk, we will review some XR illusions, which bring us closer to the ultimate blended intelligence and reality.

Frank Steinicke is professor for Human-Computer Interaction at the Department of Informatics at the Universität Hamburg. His research is driven by understanding the human perceptual, cognitive and motor abilities and limitations in order to reform the interaction as well as the experience in computer-mediated realities. He studied Mathematics with a minor in Computer Science at the University of Münster, from which he received his Ph.D. in 2006, and the Venia Legendi in 2010, both in Computer Science. He published about 300 peer-reviewed scientific publications and served as program chair for several XR and HCI-related conferences. Furthermore, he is chair of the steering committee of the ACM SUI Symposium, and member of the steering committee of GI SIG VR/AR. Furthermore, he is a member of the editorial boards of EEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG) as well as Frontiers Section on Virtual Reality and Human Behaviour.

June 22: Alexandra Bendixen

Sensory prediction in auditory scene analysis, audiovisual interplay, and VR evaluation

How humans make sense of the complex auditory world around them, can be studied by creating scenes with multiple interpretations, and recording listeners’ scene perception over time. Using this approach, we investigate factors that stabilize auditory perception in ambiguous scenes, such as predictability of the acoustic input, and how the use of predictability may change with auditory aging. Many of our paradigms rely on subjective reports of listeners’ perception, and we continuously work on methods for verifying those reports based on physiological responses. Our recent combinations of auditory multistability with eyetracking have given us novel insights into the interplay of auditory and visual multistability, with implications for our general understanding of scene analysis across the senses. Most recently we have turned the psychophysiological measurement logic around and now use brain responses relating to sensory prediction to evaluate certain aspects of virtual reality (VR), such as the adequacy of VR latencies.

Alexandra Bendixen studied Psychology at the Universities of Leipzig and Grenoble (France) and received her diploma degree in 2005. She obtained her doctorate at the intersection of Psychology and Neuroscience in 2008. After working at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest as a postdoctoral researcher, she returned to Leipzig for her Habilitation. In 2013, she joined the Cluster of Excellence “Hearing4all” at Oldenburg University as a junior professor on Psychophysiology of Hearing. In 2015, she joined Chemnitz University of Technology as a full professor at the Institute of Physics, where she heads the Cognitive Systems lab. Throughout her academic career, Alexandra Bendixen has been fascinated with the highly interdisciplinary topic of human hearing. Her research methods include psychophysics, EEG-based psychophysiology, and more recently also eye-tracking and virtual reality.

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Author information

Please, address your contribution to one of the following submission formats:

1) If you are a member of the AUDICTIVE project: Oral presentations (20 min + 7 min Q & A) and short paper (2-4 pages).
2) If you are not a member of the AUDICTIVE project: Poster presentations and short paper (2-4 pages).

In order to submit an abstract and a full paper, you have to create an account. After you have successfully created the account, you can login with your username and password and submit the abstract and register as a participant. Go to REGISTRATION and follow the instructions to create an account.

Templates (.tex and .docx) for the full paper submission can be downloaded here: DOWNLOAD
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Registration

Registration opens on 9 January 2023. In order to register for the conference, you have to create an account. After you have successfully created the account, you can login with your username and password and register as a participant and submit an abstract. Please follow this link: CREATE ACCOUNT

The conference is free of charge and includes refreshments during the day and the conference dinner. In order for an accepted submission to be included in the conference program and proceedings, at least one of the submissions’ authors has to register and present the poster at the conference.
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