Virtual Reality Sonification Training System Can Improve a Novice's Forehand Return of Serve in Tennis.

Virtual reality (VR) is gaining interest as a platform for sports skills training. VR allows for information manipulation and feedback that would be difficult in reality. This is particularly useful in open skill sports where players must adjust their behavior in response to environmental factors. Auditory feedback (sonification) is constructive for sports training in VR. However, this has not been well studied in open skill-specific situations due to the difficulty of accounting for environmental factors in reality. This study focuses on a serve return, an important scene in tennis. It investigates the effects of sonification on the forehand return stroke in VR by comparing score displays and trajectory visualizations. We designed the sonification based on the difference between experienced and novice players' movements in VR. We then conducted a between-subjects experiment to investigate the effect of the sonification (N=20). The results showed that the system with sonification effectively improved the timing of hip movement for preparing a slow serve return compared to the system without sonification.