Verbal and Non-Verbal Elicitation Techniques in the Subjective Assessment of Spatial Sound Reproduction

Current research into spatial audio has shown an increasing interest in the way subjective attributes of reproduced sound are elicited from listeners. The emphasis at present is on verbal semantics, however studies suggest that non-verbal methods of elicitation could be beneficial. Research into the relative merits of these methods has found that non-verbal responses may result in different elicited attributes compared to verbal techniques. Nonverbal responses may be closer to the perception of the stimuli than the verbal interpretation of this perception. There is evidence that drawing is not as accurate as other non-verbal methods of elicitation when it comes to reporting the localisation of auditory images. However, the advantage of drawing is its ability to describe the whole auditory space rather than a single dimension.