Masking Distracting Ambient Sound in an Adaptive VR-Application to Increase Presence

Overview & Synopsis

The perception of disruptive outside sound while being inside a virtual reality simulation can break the experience of presence. Even with noise cancelling headphones external sound cannot be blocked completely. In this paper, we present an acoustic compensation method to sustain the virtual illusion. We developed a testbed VR prototype that allows to classify real-life sound and to adapt the virtual world accordingly by activating pre-defined playable content. The application analyzes and classifies outside sound in real time and triggers a suitable in-game object that matches the outside sound. Our implementation is a first approach, we want to use it to further examine the possibility of adaptive audio to mask external disruptive sounds resulting in an enhanced VR experience.