Cooking in the dark: a mixed reality empathy experience for the embodiment of blindness
Renan Guarese, Franklin Bastidas, João Luiz Becker, Mariane Giambastiani, Yhonatan Iquiapaza, Lennon Pereira Macedo, Luciana Nedel, Anderson Maciel, Fabio Zambetta, Ron van Schyndel · 2021
In the context of promoting a sense of empathy for the difference in people without disabilities, we propose a gaming experience that allows users to embody having a visual impairment. By occluding the user’s vision and providing spatialized audio and passive haptic feedback, allied with a speech recognition digital assistant, our goal is to offer a multi-sensory experience to enhance the user’s sense of embodiment inside a mixed reality blindness simulation. Inside the game environment, while expecting a guest to arrive, the player is required to cook a meal completely in the dark. Being aided solely by their remaining senses and a digital assistant, players must go through several tasks as to prepare dinner in time, risking to lose a love interest.