What You Hear is Where You Are is What I Hear: Optimising Immersive Experiences for Interindividual Differences

Aiming at providing data points for a framework of adaptive audio implementations, this paper draws on previous results obtained from an ongoing series of experiments in ludomusicology. From discussing findings on enhanced user interaction in video games through the use of adaptive music, further insights are offered into optimising immersive experience by means of adjusted temporal-structural and expressive attributes according to interindividual differences in the cognitive-emotional processing of music. In addition to outlining those implications for the design of a user-aware audio engine, the presented study takes into account situational percepts and context effects as opposed to treating situation as a mere external stimulus.

Not only the cognitive-emotional processing of music, but also situation awareness and tendency for immersive experience, has been shown to vary along different manifestations of personality traits. Accordingly, self-report measures of spatial presence and emotional response showcased correlations with trait empathising-systemising and trait absorption. Differential effects on those dimensions appeared depending on the use of situation-adaptive implementations of low and high arousing music stimuli in an action-adventure 3D video game. These findings suggest interindividual differences in the sub-attentional processing of music found in genre video games and are discussed with regards to the potential of psychologically informed sound design to affect a users’ mental model of situational context and experience of agency.