Embodied reading: A multisensory experience

Reading fiction is a silent activity, where readers come to know imaginary worlds and characters from the book's pages. However, we perceive the natural world with more than our eyes, and literature should be no different. Thus, an embodied reading experience is proposed, adding sound effects and haptic feedback to allow readers to listen and feel the narrative text. This paper presents a preliminary prototype for multisensory narratives and an experimental methodology to measure embodiment in literature. Results for the subjective assessment of immersion and user experience from 15 participants in three modalities: haptic, sound, both combined are discussed.