SoundFields: A Virtual Reality Game Designed to Address Auditory Hypersensitivity in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are characterised as having impairments in social-emotional interaction and communication, alongside displaying repetitive behaviours and interests. Additionally, they can frequently experience difficulties in processing sensory information with particular prevalence in the auditory domain. Often triggered by everyday environmental sounds, auditory hypersensitivity can provoke self-regulatory fear responses such as crying and isolation from sounds. This paper presents SoundFields, an interactive virtual reality game designed to address this area by integrating exposure based therapy techniques into game mechanics and delivering target auditory stimuli to the player rendered via binaural based spatial audio. A pilot study was conducted with six participants diagnosed with ASD who displayed hypersensitivity to specific sounds to evaluate the use of SoundFields as a tool to reduce levels of anxiety associated with identified problematic sounds. During the course of the investigation participants played the game weekly over four weeks and all participants actively engaged with the virtual reality (VR) environment and enjoyed playing the game. Following this period, a comparison of pre- and post-study measurements showed a significant decrease in anxiety linked to target auditory stimuli. The study results therefore suggest that SoundFields could be an effective tool for helping individuals with autism manage auditory hypersensitivity.

The Role of Physiological Responses in a VR-Based Sound Localization Task

“…Both [7] and [35] demonstrated positive results for the assessment of auditory disorders in VR. However, other factors that influence user behaviour were not deeply explored.…”

“…A game to integrate therapy techniques into game mechanics for children diagnosed with ASD was developed in [35]. Individuals with ASD usually experience auditory hypersensitivity, which raises levels of anxiety and other fear responses.…”

“…Individuals with ASD usually experience auditory hypersensitivity, which raises levels of anxiety and other fear responses. Therefore, the focus of [35] was to reduce those feelings of fear and anxiety, exposing subjects to averse binaural-based spatial audio. Results from this study indicated a decreased level of reported anxiety levels after 4 weeks.…”

Perception and Motion in Real and Virtual Environments: A Narrative Review of Autism Spectrum Disorders

“…In the auditory domain, in order to address auditory hypersensitivity, 6 adolescents with ASD have been exposed to IVR games whereby they encountered three-dimensional, spatialized sounds that they found anxiety-provoking (according to self and parents’ reports). Participants joined four weekly 30-min desensitization sessions, whereby each stimulus could be delivered a maximum of 20 times and was gradually moved closer to the participant, thus reducing their perceived anxiety and increasing the interaction time towards the target stimuli ( Johnston et al, 2020 ). Despite these preliminary works offering encouraging suggestions, further investigation is needed to elucidate the sensorimotor potential of IVR training, which would be particularly compelling for ASD, and their acceptability to users ( Valori et al, 2020a ).…”

Intelligent Virtual Reality Therapy Systems for Motor and Cognitive Rehabilitation: A Survey based on Clinical Trial Studies

“…Virtual reality environments combined with treatments for patients with cerebral palsy [7] [8] [9] [10], stroke [11] [12], phobias [13] [14] [15] [16], Autism (Autism Spectrum Disorder) [17] [18] [19] are examples of works that indicate this reality. To verify the effectiveness of virtual reality (VR) in rehabilitation therapies, several techniques are applied, such as comparisons of results of applications on volunteers.…”