Réduire le bruit grâce à la réalité augmentée sonore -- Auditory Concealer
Clara Boukhemia
TL;DR
This study investigates reducing the perceptual impact of indoor noise using ReNAR's Auditory Concealer within open-office contexts. It contrasts concealer-based masking with a traditional masker by generating mixtures from ventilation noise and water sounds, then evaluating perceived pleasantness via Best-Worst Scaling. The key finding is that masker mixtures are generally rated more pleasant than concealer mixtures across tested sources and levels, with significant influence from the specific water sounds and the level of added positive energy. The work highlights the challenges of perceptual masking strategies and suggests directions for personalization, broader sound selections, and potential integrations with noise-reduction technologies to enhance real-world comfort.
Abstract
This report presents the work done over 22 weeks of internship within the Sound Perception and Design team of the Sciences and Technologies of Music and Sound (STMS) laboratory at the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music (IRCAM). As part of the launch of the project Reducing Noise with Augmented Reality (ReNAR); which aims to create a tool to reduce in real-time the cognitive impact of sounds perceived as unpleasant or annoying in indoor environments; an initial study was conducted to validate the feasibility and effectiveness of a new masking approach called concealer. The main hypothesis is that the concealer approach could provide better results than a masker approach in terms of perceived pleasantness. Mixtures of two noise sources (ventilation) and five masking sounds (water sounds) were generated using both approaches at various levels. The evaluation of the perceived pleasantness of these mixtures showed that the masker approach remains more effective than the concealer approach, regardless of the noise source, water sound, or level used.