Spatial Audio for Audioconferencing in Mobile Devices: Investigating the Importance of Virtual Mobility and Private Communication and Optimizations

Audioconferencing systems are becoming increasingly sophisticated, seeking to improve immersion, intelligibility, and sense of presence. In parallel, mobile devices are gaining traction for such applications, often supplanting desktops as the platform of choice especially when the communication does not require video. This article describes our design of a mobile multiparty audioconference application and our research into the influence of spatial audio and interactivity on user experience with the application. In particular, we consider implementation tradeoffs and investigate whether the full potential of spatial audio is realized simply by distributing the virtual locations of the participants according to some predetermined configuration. In addition, we analyze the utility of "whisper" mode functionality in which a subset of participants can engage in an ad-hoc sidebar conversation privately from the remaining participants. Our results provide interesting guidelines of relevance to the development future audioconferencing systems.