The Third Between Us: Exploring Multi-User Co-Presence through Shared Auditory-Haptic Vibroscapes

In physical spaces, people feel "together" because of shared sensory cues such as visuals and sound. While in virtual spaces, this sense of togetherness is harder to achieve, especially if vision is restricted by the headset. To preserve this real-world sense of togetherness, we designed a concept named "The Third Between Us" and a shared auditory-haptic system named "Shared Vibroscape", which enables multiple users to presence and interact within a virtual space through spatial auditory and haptic feedback. The system includes sensing system, headphones and haptic actuators, which allow its users to move freely within the experience space and interact with the real-time rendering spatial audio. We also conducted a preliminary exhibition-based observations which serves as a first step to explore the new use of auditory and haptic vibroscape.