Emotion at the heart of the sound experience

Touching people through sound

When we come into contact with a product or object, we are unable to grasp every dimension. Beyond any material link, certain aspects of the sensory domain enable us to define a sonic identity and become attached to it. A complementary bias in presenting an offer, a brand's added value lies in its sensory experience.

While images are important, sound is unequivocally the universal language of sensation. As a result, brands are increasingly turning to the sound experience to communicate their values and convey their messages. From the earliest age, sound is a vector of emotion, as demonstrated by the work on the emotional and semantic content of music carried out by Leonard B. Meyer, a leading 20^th-century musicologist (Emotion and Meaning in Music, 1956).

To sonify the experience, creation goes beyond musical composition. Developed under the supervision of the Perception et design sonores team (joint research unit STMS - CNRS, Sorbonne University, Ministry of Culture, Ircam), SpeaK is a mediation tool that helps clients to co-construct the sound signature of a project in the best possible conditions, via a lexicon of non-technical terms. This collaborative method enables the sound designer to perform a semantic transformation of words into sounds, in order to conceive a sound design in line with the client's initial wishes.

For this content to be relevant, the broadcast must be adapted to an individual experience. And for the sound experience to be in phase with the intended use of the sound identity, it must be technological.

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An innovative technological experience

Amplifying sound within a more global device is an essential technological building block for a singular experience. Whether the device is multi-sensory, interactive, immersive, or at the crossroads of these territories: focus on the main types of sound experience with concrete applications.

At a time when physical sales outlets are being replaced by digital ones, transmitting and selling the emotion of a product such as perfume is the new challenge in sound design. The sound of L'Oréal's Viktor & Rolf Infrared perfume provides the same sensations as those experienced when smelling the perfume: raising the temperature. This is an innovative experience that invites you to discover a fragrance through its own sound identity.

At a time when the very young are visually over-solicited, the Philharmonie des enfants has decided to raise their awareness with a low-tech installation. Maestra, Maestro! is a playful way of playing the role of a conductor. Using the movements of their arms, children direct a symphony orchestra whose playing they can speed up or slow down. This musical experience draws on Ircam's long experience of research into musical movement.

Immersive sound can only enrich the perception of these sonic experiences. By creating a sound bubble, such as in the Krug sound tasting room, where sound is multidirectional, the brain is better able to perceive the emotions we wish to convey. Without having to artificially reconstitute a sound scene from a stereophonic broadcast, the user makes spatialization the most natural listening experience possible.

These are all technological devices whose emotional impact needs to be analyzed before deployment outside the laboratory, in order to assess their effectiveness.

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Scientifically evaluate the impact of a sound experience

In sound design, ensuring that the sound experience lives up to expectations requires the implementation of a rigorous scientific protocol. Despite the intimate and intangible nature of sensations, the impact of a sound signature must be measured both qualitatively and quantitatively.

Certain brain areas are particularly involved in the decoding of auditory emotions. Emotion lies at the confluence of cognitive sub-processes, which act on specific emotional components. Following an auditory stimulus, a neuroacoustic examination can therefore not only explain an emotional state, but also propose predictions.

To optimize results, we administer a survey to a representative panel. Relevance is defined according to evaluation criteria relating to the semantic fields initially identified. Statistical data from these studies are used to resolve the hypotheses formulated.

Dealing with the sound experience in a holistic way is a complex operation that Ircam Amplify masters and supports at every stage of the project, across the entire sound value chain: from sound design, to its amplification by technology, to the measurement of its impact. It is a fascinating position from which to think about the future of sound experiences.

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