Emotion and Auditory Virtual Environments: Affect-Based Judgments of Music Reproduced with Virtual Reverberation Times

Abstract

Emotions are experienced both in real and virtual environments (VEs). Most research to date have focused on the content that causes emotional reactions, but noncontent features of a VE (such as the realism and quality of object rendering) may also influence emotional reactions to the mediated object. The present research studied how noncontent features (different reverberation times) of an auditory VE influenced 76 participants' ratings of emotional reactions and expressed emotional qualities of the sounds. The results showed that the two emotion dimensions of pleasantness and arousal were systematically affected if the same musical piece was rendered with different reverberation times. Overall, it was found that high reverberation time was perceived as most unpleasant. Taken together, the results suggested that noncontent features of a VE influence emotional reactions to mediated objects. Moreover, the study suggests that emotional reactions may be a important aspect of the VE experience that can help complementing standard presence questionnaires and quality evaluations.

The Effects of Reverberation on the Emotional Characteristics of Musical Instruments

“…For Heroic, Large Hall Back was ranked significantly greater more often than all the other options combined. This result is in contrast to that found by Västfjäll [45] and Tajadura-Jiménez [46] since Heroic, like Happy, is also high-Valence, and they would have predicted that Heroic would have had a similar result as Happy. Table 4 also shows that Anechoic (and to a lesser extent Small Hall Front and Large Hall Front) was the most Comic, while Large Hall Back was the least Comic.…”

“…5 indicates that Happy is high-Valence or very pleasant). The result also agrees with Västfjäll [45], who found that larger reverberation times were more unpleasant than shorter ones. For Heroic, Large Hall Back was ranked significantly greater more often than all the other options combined.…”

“…Table 4 also shows that Anechoic (and to a lesser extent Small Hall Front and Large Hall Front) was the most Comic, while Large Hall Back was the least Comic. This basically agrees with Västfjäll [45] and Tajadura-Jiménez [46].…”

“…Västfjäll et al [45] studied how reverberation time influences emotion in musical excerpts. They used a dimensional model to measure the effects on Valence and Arousal.…”

Auditory-Visual Virtual Reality as a Diagnostic and Therapeutic Tool for Cynophobia

“…However, incorporating real-time updated 3D sound to VR technologies addresses several practical issues. If there is a consensus on the fact that presence is improved by 3D sound, little is known about how an auditory VE should be designed so that it does not interfere with the visual VE (Vastfjall, Larsson, & Kleiner, 2002) but enhances the sensorial realism of the simulation. In a previous experiment involving navigation within a visual and auditory VE, several patients with agoraphobia reported that the auditory and visual worlds could not fulfil a sense of realism when presented together (Viaud-Delmon, Warusfel, Seguelas, Rio, & Jouvent, 2006).…”