Exploring Tertiary Orality in Virtual Reality

Abstract

This paper will discuss digital orality in my avatar life-review and VR projects, using an emotion AI-sentiment analysis algorithm. Walter Ong wrote about primary orality, which is based on oral cultures, and secondary orality, which depends on literary culture. With the advance of speech technology, tertiary digital orality could be explored, highlighting aspects of emotion, memory, and improvisation in VR media. Orality is an important feature of shamanistic society. Korean shamanism is connected with oral culture with lengthy storytellings, singing and chanting. It is also interesting to see Women attain the opportunity to speak, mediated by a shaman, during the shaman ritual, Kut. Inspired by orality in Korean ritual, I have explored digital orality and have facilitated live speech in my avatar life-review and VR projects for underrepresented populations. In collaboration with a Computer Scientist professor, Dr. Stefano Faralli at University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy, sentiment analysis was implemented for the VoicingElder project, avatar life-review for older adults. Emotion AI- sentiment analysis was used to explore innovative ways of creating empathy, emotional analysis, evaluation, and the overall therapeutic potential in tertiary digital orality. This paper will discuss aspects of digital orality (especially in the VoicingElder avatar life-review session, through the use of sentiment analysis algorithm), and discuss potential emotional communication in VR through speech.