User Perception of Media Content Association in Olfaction-Enhanced Multimedia

User Perception of Media Content Association in Olfaction-Enhanced Multimedia

Gheorghita Ghinea , Oluwakemi Ademoye
Copyright: © 2012 |Pages: 13
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-821-7.ch010
OnDemand:
(Individual Chapters)
Available
$37.50
Current Special Offers
No Current Special Offers
TOTAL SAVINGS: $37.50

Abstract

Olfaction (smell) is one of our commonly used senses in everyday life. However, this is not the case in digital media, where it is an exception to the rule that usually only our auditory and visual senses are employed. In mulsemedia, however, together with these traditional senses, we envisage that the olfactory will increasingly be employed, especially so with the increase in computing processing abilities and in the sophistication of olfactory devices employed. It is not surprising, however, that there are still many unanswered questions in the use of olfaction in mulsemedia. Accordingly in this chapter we present the results of an empirical study which explored one such question, namely does the correct association of scent and content enhance the user experience of multimedia applications?’
Chapter Preview
Top

Introduction

Olfaction-enhanced multimedia concerns itself with associating computer generated smell with other media to enrich the users’ experience and perception of a multimedia presentation. In this way, olfactory media is already being used towards a variety of goals in multimedia applications. However, in infotainment multimedia applications, it might be possible that users will just appreciate the novelty factor of integrating scents with multimedia applications, and that the actual scent being emitted might not be of importance. Moreover, it might also be that users would not mind what scent is being emitted as long as it is “close” to the one that matches their expectations. As a result, in this chapter, we aim to answer the following research question: ‘does the correct association of scent and content enhance the user experience of multimedia applications?’

Accordingly in this chapter, we present the results of an empirical study carried out to discover if the correct association of scent and content is important when augmenting multimedia applications with computer generated scent. The chapter is structured as follows: in “Experimental Methodology” we introduce the user to related scented media work, while “Results” and “Conclusion” present the details of our experimental methodology and the results of our experiment respectively.

Complete Chapter List

Search this Book:
Reset