Effect of accompanying onomatopoeia with sound feedback toward presence and user experience in virtual reality

Abstract

Onomatopoeia refers to a word that phonetically imitates the sound. It is often used, in comics or video, in caption as a way to dramatize, emphasize, exaggerate and draw attention the situation. In this paper we explore if the use of onomatopoeia could also bring about similar effects and improve the user experience in virtual reality. We present an experiment comparing the user's subjective experiences and attentive performance in two virtual worlds, each configured in two test conditions: (1) sound feedback with no onomatopoeia and (2) sound feedback with it. Our experiment has found that the moderate and strategic use of onomatopoeia can indeed help direct user attention, offer object affordance and thereby enhance user experience and even the sense of presence and immersion.