Odour enhances the sense of presence in a virtual reality environment

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) headsets provide immersive audio-visual experiences for users, but usually neglect to provide olfactory cues that can provide additional information about our environment in the real world. This paper examines whether the introduction of smells into the VR environment enhances users’ experience, including their sense of presence through collection of both psychological and physiological measures. Using precise odour administration with an olfactometer, study participants were exposed to smells while they were immersed in the popular PlayStation VR game “Resident Evil 7”. A within-subject study design was undertaken where participants (n = 22) walked-through the same VR environment twice, with or without the introduction of associated congruent odour stimuli. Directly after each gameplay, participants completed a questionnaire to determine their sense of presence from the overall gameplay and their sense of immersion in each of the virtual scenes. Additionally, physiological measurements (heart rate, body temperature and skin electrodermal activity) were collected from participants (n = 11) for each gameplay. The results showed the addition of odours significantly increased participants’ sense of spatial presence in the VR environment compared to VR with no odour. Participants also rated the realism of VR experience with odour higher compared to no odour, however odour addition did not result in change in emotional state of participants (arousal, pleasure, dominance). Further, the participants’ physiological responses were impacted by the addition of odour. Odour mediated physiological changes were dependent on whether the VR environment was novel, as the effect of odour on physiological response was lost when participants experienced the aroma on the second gameplay. Overall, the results indicate the addition of odours to a VR environment had a significant effect on both the psychological and physiological experience showing the addition of smell enhanced the VR environment. The incorporation of odours to VR environments presents an opportunity to create a more immersive experience to increase a person’s presence within a VR environment. In addition to gaming, the results have broader applications for virtual training environments and virtual reality exposure therapy.

Ambient Intelligence for Next-Generation AR

“…This limits a user's sense of immersion, the feeling that virtual AR content is truly present in the real environment -research indicates that increasing the modalities of sensory input in virtual environments increases a user's sense of presence in that environment (e.g., [42,64,153]), consistent with observations that the human perceptual system evolved in multisensory environments [189]. Recent work in VR has explored the potential for different types of external actuators to deliver a range of stimuli specific to the current environment, including speakers for 3D audio [101], heat lamps for temperature control, and fans for haptic wind representations [43] (the authors use the term 'smart substitutional reality' to describe their system here), and an olfactometer that provides different scents or smells [16]. We propose applying and evaluating these types of systems in AR; for example, if we imagine a therapeutic AR application that relaxes users by placing virtual flowers in their environment, incorporating the scents associated with those plants may increase the application's effectiveness.…”

A Separate Reality: An Update on Place Illusion and Plausibility in Virtual Reality

“…The introduction by Meehan et al (2002) of physiological measures for a stressful virtual environment also included a questionnaire for presence, and the results supported each other. Recently, Archer et al (2022) used a questionnaire and physiological measures to assess presence in response to odours in the virtual environment, and found correlated results from the two measures. For further discussion of the relationship between questionnaires and physiological measures see (Grassini and Laumann, 2020).…”

Do cutaneous senses give more immersive experience in Virtual Reality?

“…Virtual reality (VR) aims to create an immersive experience that transports the user to another world with established terminology describing various VR aspects. The term Presence in VR means how much a user believes that he/she is inside a virtual world [5].…”