Audio Personas: Augmenting Social Perception via Body-Anchored Audio Cues

TL;DR

Audio Personas is a novel method for augmenting social interactions in audio AR by allowing users to attach body-anchored sounds, influencing perceptions and social impressions.

Contribution

The paper introduces the concept of Audio Personas and demonstrates its implementation and impact on social perception in audio augmented reality environments.

Findings

Positive audio personas increased perceived attractiveness and likability.

Participants associated audio cues with emotional states and personality traits.

Audio personas were preferred for managing impressions in public spaces.

Abstract

We introduce Audio Personas, enabling users to "decorate" themselves with body-anchored sounds in audio augmented reality. Like outfits, makeup, and fragrances, audio personas offer an alternative yet dynamic channel to augment face-to-face interactions. For instance, one can set their audio persona as rain sounds to reflect a bad mood, bee sounds to establish personal boundaries, or a playful "woosh" sound to mimic passing by someone like a breeze. To instantiate the concept, we implemented a headphone-based prototype with multi-user tracking and audio streaming. Our preregistered in-lab study with 64 participants showed that audio personas influenced how participants formed impressions. Individuals with positive audio personas were rated as more socially attractive, more likable, and less threatening than those with negative audio personas. Our study with audio designers revealed that audio personas were preferred in public and semi-public-private spaces for managing social impressions (e.g., personality) and signaling current states (e.g., emotions).