Sonic Virtuality: Sound as Emergent Perception is a book by Tom Garner and Mark Grimshaw that posits a new definition for sound based on phenomenological frameworks. The focus is on the perception of the individual and there spatial and temporal location when hearing a sound and how that factors into recognising and placing meaning on the sound. Garner and Grimshaw suggest that sounds are not the physical waveforms that hit the ear, they are merely a stimulus which triggers the recognition and development of the sound in the auditory cortex. by their definition, physical stimuli aren’t required to form sounds however. For instance, if I were to imagine a bell ringing without any physical bell being struck and the waveform reaching my ears, the sound is still formed in my auditory cortex and therefore I can hear it and is therefore considered sound.

Grimshaw and Garner go on to relate this concept to sound design in VR and immersive environments. In particular interest to me was the effects of sound localization in presence and immersion. Suggesting that, ‘the game engine is a sonification engine that, in response to player agency, sonifies the player’s actions and very being in the game system. Not only is the player present in the game world through (among other processes) the response to the immersive sound technologies of the game world, but the game world is present to the player in active acknowledgement of the presence of that player.’ To Grimshaw and Garner, to hear is to be immersed in the world and to feel present in that world is a human reaction to immersion. In this view, immersion is what is given by technology whereas presence is a response to feeling immersed in the virtual environment.