Footstep Sound for Suppression of VR Sickness and Promotion of Sense of Agency

Abstract

Providing realistic bodily sensation in a virtual reality (VR) space is crucial for natural integration of multisensory information that we receive in a real space. In the present paper, we consider to use auditory stimulus to enhance bodily sensation as an indirect representation of a body in the VR space. Three levels of visually presented virtual locomotion conditions using a head mounted display (HMD) and four levels of footstep sound stimulus were evaluated regarding VR sickness and the sense of agency. The result showed that the footstep sound decreased both of VR sickness and the discomfort level of the visual presentation of moving down a virtual corridor when the footstep sound was synchronized with the visual stimulus. The sense of agency was also increased by synchronized footstep sound presentation.