A Systematic Review of Brief, Nonvocal Auditory Feedback Across Fields

Auditory feedback has various uses across fields conducting scientific research. For the purposes of this literature review, we defined auditory feedback as a brief emission of sound (e.g., a click, a beep) to serve as a consequence for behavior. This review aimed to search across fields for the various uses of auditory feedback to effect behavior change. Through a comprehensive search, including both academic and medical journals, we identified 35 articles for inclusion, ranging from studies about decreasing extraneous body movement to improving sports behaviors to assisting patients to relearn walking skills to relationship building. Overall, the cumulative results of the studies show general effectiveness for auditory feedback procedures with 94.4% of authors reporting positive behavior outcomes. Given the overall reported effectiveness, there is a broad range of applications for auditory feedback, which should be examined through future research across fields, ranging from verbal behavior to artificial intelligence.