Spaces, hearing and virtual reality

The use of “Virtual Reality” (VR) is widespread in neuroscience research. Experiments with healthy humans, patients, non human primates and rodents have demonstrated that VR is a useful tool to test spatial navigation and spatial cognition. However, despite its claim of ecological validity, VR is still an implicit metaphor for visual computer-generated worlds, treating auditory stimuli merely as a supplementation fo the visual environment. The design of interactive environments centred on the auditory modality challenges stimulating scientific questions around multisensory integration mechanisms and their interaction with spatial processing.