Consumer Consciousness in Multisensory Extended Reality

Abstract

The reality-virtuality continuum encompasses a multitude of objects, events and environments ranging from real-world multisensory inputs to interactive multisensory virtual simulators, in which sensory integration can involve very different combinations of both physical and digital inputs. These different ways of stimulating the senses can affect the consumer's consciousness, potentially altering their judgements and behaviours. In this perspective paper, we explore how technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) can, by generating and modifying the human sensorium, act on consumer consciousness. We discuss the potential impact of this altered consciousness for consumer behaviour while, at the same time, considering how it may pave the way for further research.

Keywords: augmented reality; consciousness; consumer behaviour; extended reality; metaverse; multisensory experience; virtual reality.

Figure 1

Multisensory XR including (1) the reality-virtuality continuum from Milgram and Kishino (1994), enhanced by (2) sensory inputs, and considering (3) their level of congruency with the environment. By considering this multisensory XR model, marketers can potentially stimulate one or more of the consumer’s senses (e.g. 1: vision, 3: vision, audition and touch, z-axis), from the real-life, real and virtual or only virtual environment (e.g. vision: virtual, audition: real, y-axis) and make these stimulations incongruent, partially congruent or completely congruent with the real-life environment and/or virtual environment (e.g. virtual alien through the smartphone in the physical living room with the noise of the television in the background, x-axis).