The effect of audio on the experience in virtual reality: a scoping review

ABSTRACT

The use of virtual reality (VR) has seen significant recent growth and presents opportunities for use in many domain areas. The use of head-mounted displays (HMDs) also presents unique opportunities for the implementation of audio feedback congruent with head and body movements, thus matching intuitive expectations. However, the use of audio in VR is still undervalued and there is a lack of consistency within audio-centedd research in VR. To address this shortcoming and present an overview of this area of research, we conducted a scoping review (n = 121) focusing on the use of audio in HMD-based VR and its effects on user/player experience. Results show a lack of standardisation for common measures such as pleasantness and emphasize the context-specific ability of audio to influence a variety of affective, cognitive, and motivational measures, but are mixed for presence and generally lacking for social experiences and descriptive research.

KEYWORDS:

• Virtual reality
• audio
• user experience
• scoping review
• user-centred design
• auditory feedback

Acknowledgements

This work has been supported by the Academy of Finland Flagship Programme [Grant No. 337653 - Forest-Human-Machine Interplay (UNITE). We would also like to thank the members of the Gamification Group for their input which helped improve this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).