Cooking in the Dark: Exploring Spatial Audio as MR Assistive Technology for the Visually Impaired

In the context of raising awareness to assistive technologies, we propose a gaming experience that allows users to embody having a visual impairment. By occluding the user’s vision and providing spatialized audio and passive haptic feedback, allied with a speech recognition digital assistant, our goal is to present a multi-sensory experience that offers the user a sense of embodiment inside a mixed reality blindness simulation. Inside the game environment, the player is required to cook a meal completely in the dark. Being aided solely by their remaining senses and a digital assistant with spatialized audio capabilities.<p></p>