Multisensory Augmented Reality in Cultural Heritage: Impact of Different Stimuli on Presence, Enjoyment, Knowledge and Value of the Experience

Abstract

Little is known about the impact of the addition of each stimulus in multisensory augmented reality experiences in cultural heritage contexts. This paper investigates the impact of different sensory conditions on a user's sense of presence, enjoyment, knowledge about the cultural site, and value of the experience. Five different multisensory conditions, namely, Visual, Visual+Audio, Visual+Smell, and Visual+Audio+Smell conditions, and regular visit referred to as None condition, were evaluated by a total of 60 random visitors distributed across the specified conditions. According to the results, the addition of particular types of stimuli created a different impact on the sense of presence subscale scores, namely, on spatial presence, involvement, and experienced realism, but did not influence the overall presence score. Overall, the results revealed that the addition of stimuli improved enjoyment and knowledge scores and did not affect the value of the experience scores. We concluded that each stimulus has a differential impact on the studied variables, demonstrating that its usage should depend on the goal of the experience: smell should be used to privilege realism and spatial presence, while audio should be adopted when the goal is to elicit involvement.

Harnessing Augmented Reality for Increasing the Awareness of Food Waste Amongst Dutch Consumers

“…Crucially, of the 15 papers analysed, none is in the domain of food waste specifically, but there were some synergies; for example, Fujimoto et al [14] discuss the perceived deliciousness of food and how this can be increased by chroma and colour modifications. This would be in line with the findings in Marto et al [10] where a demonstration is provided that additional sensory stimuli may impact the experience of a user within AR.…”

“…However, 5 studies did not state which platform they used (mostly because the investigations within the 5 articles are applied to the general implementation of AR). The most used platforms are self-created; an approach adopted by 4/15 articles, for example, the SensiMAR prototype by Marto et al, [10] and the M5SAR by Rodrigues et al [11]. This customised approach is a suitable solution to work with, as the tools are specifically made for their intended goal.…”

“…This customised approach is a suitable solution to work with, as the tools are specifically made for their intended goal. As Marto et al [10] discuss, the use of a custom-built AR technology is necessary because no comparable technologies were available with the same features. However, a limitation of this method is that it has significant development costs due to the high levels of customisation.…”

Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality Research in Cultural Heritage: A Bibliometric Study

“…Immersive [6][7][8], [9][10][11], [12], [13][14], [15][16], [17], [18], [19][20], [21][22], [23][24] Non-immersive [25], [26], [27][28], [29], [30][31], [32][33], [34] Semi-immersive [35], [36][37][38][39][40], [41][42], [43], [44] In the ‗‗Museum of Pure Form'' [6][7][8] project, a virtual museum was created where users are allowed to have an immersive experience of interacting with an art piece by nestling before that art piece. A project entitled -CREATE‖ [9][10][11] was developed for creation and maneuvering of virtual worlds by using actual data source and integrating auditory and other haptic senses.…”

“…The -M5SAR‖ project's approach for a mobile multi-sensory AR system for museums aimed to create an AR system that could serve as a tour guide for historical and cultural events [21][22]. The project -SensiMAR‖ proposed an AR based mobile experience outdoors that would render additional information during searching an archeological location in Portugal [23][24].…”