Wrapped into sound: Development of the Immersive Music Experience Inventory (IMEI).

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Audio Engineering
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Immersive audio technologies (e.g., 3D audio) are increasingly used in virtual reality and entertainment.
• The emotional impact of these advanced audio formats on listeners remains unclear.
• Objective measurement tools for immersive listening experiences are lacking.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate the Immersive Music Experience Inventory (IMEI).
• To provide an objective measure for assessing listener immersion across different audio playback formats.
• To investigate the emotional intensity of listening experiences with varying degrees of audio immersion.

Main Methods:

• An initial item pool of 25 items was created from existing research and expert-developed items.
• Psychometric evaluation involved an online study with 222 participants.
• Participants listened to music in mono, stereo, and binaural 3D audio formats via headphones.
• Item response theory (IRT) and many-facet Rasch measurement (MFRM) were used to analyze the data.

Main Results:

• The MFRM model demonstrated good fit, explaining 62.69% of the variance.
• A final, one-dimensional inventory comprising 10 items was established.
• The IMEI effectively measures the latent construct of 'immersive listening experience'.

Conclusions:

• The Immersive Music Experience Inventory (IMEI) is a valid and reliable tool for measuring immersive music experiences.
• The IMEI can differentiate between various audio playback formats, from mono to 3D audio.
• This inventory will aid research into the emotional impact of spatial audio technologies.