Assessment of Master Thesis: “The Effect of Spatial Audio on Immersion, Presence, Physiological Response In Game’s” 

Author: Jacob Junken Larsen and Marc Pilgaard
Supervisor: Martin Kraus
University: Aalborg University in Denmark
Department of Architecture and Media Technology

Level of design:
The thesis provides information about the experiment design used in the study. It mentions that three pilot tests were conducted to optimize an experiment and eliminate design flaws. These trial tests helped them understand how people answered questions and collected data. In the final design, participants wore a virtual reality headset and played a game in a virtual world where they had to find and collect glowing orbs. The goal was to make sure people didn’t feel sick during the simulation, and they also added a system to make the game challenging. The thesis also mentions using surveys to measure how present and engaged people felt. In summary, the thesis shows a careful and step-by-step approach of the experiment, considering potential issues and making improvements based on the trial test

Degree of innovation:
I could not find much information about the innovation in the thesis. The document primarily focuses on the methodology and findings of the study, including the use of questionnaires to measure immersion and presence in virtual environments.

Independence:
The research stands out for its independence, especially with the survey aimed at understanding how spatial audio affects the player’s experience.

Outline and structure:
The author has drawn a good outline. The structure is divided into: Introduction, Previous Work, Objectives, Experimental Design, Data Extraction, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Future Wok.

Scope of the work:
The main scope of work talks abour how various ways of creating sound affect accuracy on perceiving space and how often unexpected sound events happen. It also checks if our feelings and emotions have any influence on these effects. It looks into how sound is used in video games, and how 3D audio affects different environments.

Degree of Communication:
The thesis communicate clearly the issues when it comes to designing sound for VR experience. It uses clear language and answer the research question, which focuses on investigating the effects of spatial audio on player experience, in terms of immersion and presence

Orthography and accuracy:
The thesis appears to be well-written, when it comes to orthography and accuracy. No issues with spelling or grammatical issues, clear headings and references. 

Literature:
The choice of literature, which consists of 94 positions supports very well the topic of immersive audio in VR and game experience. 

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