Tagungsband - DAGA 2024
Beitrag
Impact of Spatial Auralization on Communication Behavior and Plausibility in Multi-Party Virtual Reality (no manuscript)
Zusammenfassung:
Virtual Reality (VR) enables users to meet, converse and collaborate in a shared immersive virtual environment. As a result of the multi-modal nature of such communication systems, many system factors can affect the user's experience and perception. A robust understanding of the relative importance of factors influencing experience in VR communication is required to effectively allocate system resources. One potentially important factor is the use of spatial auditory representations, which have been shown to positively impact user experience in traditional communication media and listening situations. However, their effect in immersive multi-party VR communication has not been fully investigated, with previous work finding that dyadic communication scenarios are not well-suited to investigate the effect of spatial audio. In this context, we extend previous work by conducting a three-user study investigating the effect of spatial auralization on audiovisual plausibility and presence perception in an interactive communication scenario. Triads of participants perform a collaborative conversational task under three conditions: two VR conditions, with binaural spatial audio and simple diotic audio reproduction respectively, and a real-world condition. This contribution presents results of the study based on direct questionnaire assessment as well as preliminary behavioral analysis.