Project: Social Presence & Audio Quality

This is an ongoing project. We ran a study and looked at how the audio quality influences the perception of presence, social presence, and the understanding of the emotional state of speakers.

So why is this important? Imagine you are talking to your friend on the phone, or maybe your partner ... would it feel different if that person seemed to stand right beside you? Or imagine you are playing a game like World of WarCraft and the voices of your raid members actually came from their positions within the game, would that make a difference? Would you have a better understanding of how NPCs feel in games like Heavy Rain depending on the sound quality?

The answer is yes, you would. That is if you are like the 82 participants we tested.

Unfortunately I'll have to leave you with a cliff-hanger, as the paper on this hasn't been published yet. But I'll add more details soon. You can find a version of the paper with all the gory details here.