3D Acoustic Processing and Filtering for Speech Localization in Multi-participant Remote Conversation

Online social gathering has become popular due to the recent COVID-19 situation. However, there is a problem that it is difficult to have a conversation with one specific person during an online call with multiple people because other voices interfere with the conversation. In this study, we developed a VR communication environment where other voices do not cause stress by filtering out unwanted voices. Our experimental results revealed that frequency band restriction by filtering is better than volume control for smooth and stress-free conversations. Our system is implemented in Unity and can be deployed on various platforms.