MusCIcal Adventures: Virtual Reality as a Musical Training Program

Training programs for improving abilities in speech for CI users are vastly common. However, musical training programs (MTP) for improving music perception is still limited, resulting in CI users having difficulties perceiving, and thereby enjoying, music. Many CI users describe listening to music as an unfulfilling experience, especially when it comes to recognizing melodies and identifying various musical instruments, among other aspects. Additionally, determining the direction of sound is another difficulty CI users often tend to have. Although MTPs have been made utilizing tablet based games, DVD-formats etc., using virtual reality environments for training various aspects of music recognition has not yet been explored. This applies for using VR for spatial sound recognition as well. In this paper, a VR prototype functioning as a MTP with gamification elements will be introduced, with the purpose of improving various musical perception abilities for CI users