Don’t Extend! Reduce! The Sound Approach to Reality

In this paper we propose a reduced reality concept of less-is-more that VR designers can use to create technological frameworks that reduce sensory overload and allow for better concentration and focus, less stress, and novel scenarios. We question the approach taken by scholars in the field of XR research, where the focus is typically to design and use technology that adds sensory information to the user’s perceptual field and we address some of the confusion related to the typical uses of the term reality. To address the latter terminological muddle, we define reality as our conscious experience of the environment as emergent perception and we use this definition as the basis for a discussion of the role of sound in balancing sensory information and in the construction of a less cluttered and less stressful perceptual environments.