This study investigates whether humans can adapt to manipulated auditory distance cues in virtual environments. While adaptation to remapped auditory localization cues is well established, it remains unclear whether similar processes apply to distance perception, particularly when natural acoustic cues are systematically modified. Virtual reality (VR) systems often employ non-ecological distance laws to improve the intelligibility of distant sound sources, which can introduce conflicts between auditory and visual information. To examine perceptual adaptation under such conditions, we modified a binaural real-time room acoustic simulation engine with rendering in six-degrees-of-freedom. The manipulation consisted of holding the direct sound level constant across distance while applying a distance-dependent low-pass filter. Over four consecutive days, participants completed a training protocol combining alternating testing phases with gamified training sessions. Results show that participants successfully adapted to the altered distance cues, with most learning occurring within the first two days. Initial exposure to the manipulation severely disrupted distance perception, rendering participants unable to make reliable judgments. However, following training, perceived distance functions approached veridical performance for far distances, exhibiting slopes close to unity. In contrast, judgments at close distances remained highly variable, suggesting that the available spectral cues were insufficient for accurate estimation in this range. These findings demonstrate that auditory distance perception can be recalibrated through short-term perceptual learning, even when initial perceptual mappings are strongly degraded. Adaptation generalizes across contexts within the virtual environment, although limitations persist for near-field perception.
