Spatialized Auditory Traces and the Perceived Presence of Others in a Single-User Virtual Reality Museum

Lee J, Wu Y, Wang K, Songmuang P, Kim S, Roginska APK. Spatialized Auditory Traces and the Perceived Presence of Others in a Single-User Virtual Reality Museum. In: AES Show 2026 Nashville. Audio Engineering Society; 2026.pp. 28:1-11. Available from: https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23461

@inproceedings{Lee2026_23461,
  author = {Lee, Jongho and Wu, Yi and Wang, Keru and Songmuang, Parichat and Kim, Sungyoung and Roginska, Agnieszka, Perlin, Ken},
  title = {{Spatialized Auditory Traces and the Perceived Presence of Others in a Single-User Virtual Reality Museum}},
  booktitle = {AES Show 2026 Nashville},
  pages = {28:1-11},
  url = {https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23461},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  publisher = {Audio Engineering Society},
  address = {Gaylord Opryland Resort}
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - Spatialized Auditory Traces and the Perceived Presence of Others in a Single-User Virtual Reality Museum
AU  - Lee, Jongho
AU  - Wu, Yi
AU  - Wang, Keru
AU  - Songmuang, Parichat
AU  - Kim, Sungyoung
AU  - Roginska, Agnieszka, Perlin, Ken
T2  - AES Show 2026 Nashville
SP  - 1
EP  - 11
M1  - Paper 28
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/30
UR  - https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23461
PB  - Audio Engineering Society
CY  - Gaylord Opryland Resort
LA  - en
AB  - Spatialized non-verbal sounds of other visitors (footsteps, clothing rustle, breathing) were added to a single-user virtual reality (VR) museum to test whether they create a perceived presence of others, and at what cost. Twenty participants visited the same web extended reality (WebXR) gallery twice, once with an ambient-only baseline and once with the auditory traces (visitor-related sounds), in counterbalanced order. The traces strongly increased the perceived presence of others (dz = 1:12) and the estimated number of visitors, and reduced loneliness, while spatial presence remained statistically equivalent to baseline. The trace condition, which was also louder and contained more sound events, increased distraction and reduced volume comfort. Second-visit ratings of others presence were higher in both conditions, but the effect remained significant when only first visits were compared. Interviews showed that a sense of someone currently present was common but fragile without a visible source. The results suggest that invisible visitor traces pose a source-legibility design problem rather than a straightforward presence gain.
ER  -