Multisensory Experiences

Most of our everyday life experiences are multisensory in nature, they consist of what we see, hear, feel, taste, smell, and much more. Almost any experience, such as eating a meal or going to the cinema, involves a magnificently complex sensory world. In recent years, many of these experiences have been increasingly transformed through technological advancements such as multisensory devices and intelligent systems. This book takes the reader on a journey that begins with the fundamentals of multisensory experiences, moves through the relationship between the senses and technology, and finishes by considering what the future of those experiences might look like, and our responsibility in it. This new edition seeks to further empower the reader to shape their own and other people's experiences by considering the multisensory worlds in which we live. It includes updated content on new technologies such as generative AI, and further development of an ethical framework around multisensory experiences. This book is a powerful and personal story about the authors' passion for, and viewpoint on, multisensory experiences.

Carlos Velasco is Associate Professor in the Department of Marketing at the BI Norwegian Business School (Norway), where he co-founded the Centre for Multisensory Marketing. Carlos received his D.Phil. in Experimental Psychology from Oxford University, after which he worked on a number of postdoctoral and consulting projects in Europe, Asia, and North and South America. His work is situated at the intersection between Psychology, Marketing, and Human-Computer Interaction, and focuses on understanding, and capitalizing on, our multisensory experiences and their guiding principles. Carlos has worked with a number of companies from around the world on topics such as multisensory experiences, food and drink, branding, and consumer research. For more information, visit https://carlosvelasco.info Marianna Obrist is Professor of Multisensory Interfaces in the Department of Computer Science at University College London (UCL), and Deputy Director (Digital Health) for the UCL Institute of Healthcare Engineering. Previously, she was Professor of Multisensory Experiences at the University of Sussex and a Marie Curie Fellow at Newcastle University, UK. She holds a Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) from the University of Salzburg, Austria. Internationally recognised for pioneering Multisensory HCI research, Marianna's work significantly impacts various domains, from immersive experience design to health and wellbeing applications, emphasising touch, taste, and smell as powerful sensory modalities for future interfaces.