The future of the workplace will be permeated with technology that assists humans in processing complex digital work tasks. The fusion of the virtual and real world is constantly proceeding with many repetitive tasks being automated. Similarly, the study of occupational health can benefit from advances that can represent certain aspects of the work realistically, e.g., the acoustic environment of workplaces. The auditory and visual representation of the work environment in virtual reality (VR) allows fast, cheap, safe, and ecologically valid investigations of potentially harmful acoustic environments at controllable risk levels. Risk assessment is a core duty of occupational health specialists and underlying regulatory services that can be profoundly improved by the introduction of virtual representations of the workplace, so-called digital twins.

Study participants can be tested safely in digital twins to experience as employee adverse conditions of the work environment. The exposure of study participants to a noisy soundscape that is deliberately designed to induce deteriorated acoustic ergonomics exhibits not only implications for the design of current working environments. Also, the design of fully virtualized workflows for tomorrow’s work can benefit. The VR-based adaptive design of the soundscape can also help to implement appropriate levels of stimulation that foster well-being and lowers stress.

The complete article is published as part of the "1st Audictive Conference 2023", Aachen (2023).