Immersion through 3D Sound and Digital Scene

Project
The Immersive Power of Binaural Sound: A Reinvented Experience of the Fono Festival

Summary
Inspired by projects carried out with Palais Montcalm and the Musée national des Beaux-Arts du Québec (MNBAQ), the proposed project aims to explore the potential of immersive 3D sound to recreate the musical experience of a festival in a digital context. This project lies at the intersection of cognitive psychology and digital culture. A performance from the Fono Festival will be recorded using the Neumann KU 100 binaural system, a dummy head equipped with two microphones that faithfully reproduce human hearing. A GoPro camera mounted on the head will provide audio-visual synchronization to ensure a realistic and immersive playback. Two versions of the recording will be produced: an immersive 3D (binaural) version and a standard stereo version. In the laboratory, participants will view one version or the other and then evaluate their experience using behavioral and eye-tracking measures of presence, immersion, and emotional response. The protocol will allow us to compare the ability of the two renderings to elicit an authentic sense of presence and to analyze the relationship between dimensions of the digital audio-visual experience and emotional response. This study will contribute to a better understanding of the power of immersive sound in the performing arts and help identify the conditions required to faithfully reproduce cultural experiences.