Sonic Virtuality: Sound as Emergent Perception

In Sonic Virtuality: Sound as Emergent Perception, authors Mark Grimshaw and Tom Garner introduce a novel theory that positions sound within a framework of virtuality. Arguing against the acoustic or standard definition of sound as a sound wave, the book builds a case for a sonic aggregate as the virtual cloud of potentials created by perceived sound. The authors build on their recent work investigating the nature and perception of sound as used in computer games and virtual environments, and put forward a unique argument that sound is a fundamentally virtual phenomenon.

Grimshaw and Garner propose a new, fuller and more complete, definition of sound based on a perceptual view of sound that accounts more fully for cognition, emotion, and the wider environment. The missing facet is the virtuality: the idea that all sound arises from a sonic aggregate made up of actual and virtual sonic phenomena. The latter is a potential that depends upon human cognition and emotion for its realization as sound. This thesis is explored through a number of philosophical, cognitive, and psychological concepts including: issues of space, self, sonosemantics, the uncanny, hyper-realism, affect, Gettier problems, belief, alief, imagination, and sound perception in the absence of sound sensation.

Provocative and original, Grimshaw and Garner’s ideas have broader implications for our relationship to technology, our increasingly digital lives, and the nature of our being within our supposed realities. Students and academics from philosophy to acoustics and across the broad spectrum of digital humanities will find this accessible book full of challenging concepts and provocative ideas.

Mark Grimshaw is The Obel Professor of Music at Aalborg University, Denmark. He writes extensively on sound in computer games with a particular interest in emotioneering and the use of biofeedback for the real-time synthesis of game sound. He also writes free, open source software for virtual research environments (WIKINDX) and is the editor of the Oxford Handbook of Virtuality.

Tom Garner is a Project Manager and Research Associate at the University of Kent, UK. His publication history largely concerns the study of sound within computer video game contexts but this also extends to incorporate emotion recognition via psychophysiology, affective potential of acoustic properties and real-time emotion-led game sound engine development.