The relationships between the listener, physical world and virtual
environment (VE) should not only inspire the design of natural multimodal
interfaces but should be discovered to make sense of the mediating action of VR
technologies. This chapter aims to transform an archipelago of studies related
to sonic interactions in virtual environments (SIVE) into a research field
equipped with a first theoretical framework with an inclusive vision of the
challenges to come: the egocentric perspective of the auditory digital twin. In
a VE with immersive audio technologies implemented, the role of VR simulations
must be enacted by a participatory exploration of sense-making in a network of
human and non-human agents, called actors. The guardian of such locus of agency
is the auditory digital twin that fosters intra-actions between humans and
technology, dynamically and fluidly redefining all those configurations that
are crucial for an immersive and coherent experience. The idea of entanglement
theory is here mainly declined in an egocentric-spatial perspective related to
emerging knowledge of the listener's perceptual capabilities. This is an
actively transformative relation with the digital twin potentials to create
movement, transparency, and provocative activities in VEs. The chapter contains
an original theoretical perspective complemented by several bibliographical
references and links to the other book chapters that have contributed
significantly to the proposal presented here.Comment: 46 pages, 5 figures. Pre-print version of the introduction to the
book "Sonic Interactions in Virtual Environments" in press for Springer's
Human-Computer Interaction Series, Open Access license. The pre-print
editors' copy of the book can be found at
https://vbn.aau.dk/en/publications/sonic-interactions-in-virtual-environments
- full book info: https://sive.create.aau.dk/index.php/sivebook