Taking a Walk on the Wild Side: Effects of Walking in Synchrony with Pitch-Altered Footstep Sounds on Body Perception in Outside the Lab ContextsShow others and affiliations
2026 (English)In: CHI 2026 - Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) , 2026, article id 1558Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]
The 'Footsteps Illusion' shows that pitch-altering footstep sounds in real-time affects body perception, gait, and emotion: high versus low frequencies evoke a lighter versus heavier body. We tested whether this illusion extends beyond the lab, where environmental factors matter. Using a mixed-methods approach, twenty-eight participants used a minimal setup to synchronize with three prerecorded pitch-altered footstep soundtracks: Control, High-Frequency, and Low-Frequency. In Experiment 1, they walked a fixed path, with gait recordings, questionnaires, and body visualizations. In Experiment 2, they walked freely across campus routes with High/Low-Frequency soundtracks, followed by post-walk interviews using a novel spatial mapping tool linking body sensations to context. Results replicate the illusion outdoors, showing synchronization with prerecorded sounds as a viable alternative to real-time feedback, and revealing that contextual factors modulate illusion effects. We contribute insights and novel tools (prototype, spatial mapping method, and footstep soundbase) for studying multisensory body perception in everyday contexts.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) , 2026. article id 1558
Keywords [en]
Auditory Body Perception, Embodied Interaction, Emotion, Evaluation Method, Mixed Methods, Multimodal Interfaces, Sonification, Wearable Computers
National Category
Human Computer Interaction Neurosciences Psychology (Excluding Applied Psychology)
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-382873DOI: 10.1145/3772318.3793153Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105038680335OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-382873DiVA, id: diva2:2065117
Conference
2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2026, Barcelona, Spain, April 13-17, 2026
Note
Part of ISBN 9798400722783
QC 20260603
2026-06-032026-06-032026-06-03Bibliographically approved