## 5 Conclusions  
As the realistic experience of users in a metaverse environment becomes important, an evaluation questionnaire for auditory experience considering presence was developed to improve the sense of presence in the metaverse environment, and derived evaluation components considering auditory presence and AUX through a survey, PCA, and RA. As a result of grouping the auditory evaluation factors through primary expert interviews (Step 1), it was confirmed that the tendency to realize a realistic auditory experience was strong in the grouping within an auditory presence evaluation factor, and that the grouping within the AUX evaluation factor had strong acoustic characteristics such as'sufficiency of volume size control', 'distribution of the sound range', and 'ease of access to sound control'. In the case of grouping the auditory presence and AUX evaluation factors, it was found that the factors covered by the existing AUX evaluation factors, such as 'auditory cues to help you navigate', are also covered by auditory presence, confirming that the evaluation area of auditory presence can be expanded.  
Through secondary expert interviews (Step 2), an evaluation questionnaire that can be easily understood by the public was created, and it was confirmed that the following should be included in an auditory experience evaluation questionnaire: consideration of auditory sensation such as the transfer of sounds from the physical world to the virtual space, attachment of auditory examples to the questionnaire, and use of intuitive and everyday terms. It was also identified that existing broad terms such as 'three dimensions' could be refined to 'location and distance identification' and that difficult terms such as 'ease of access to sound control' could be simplified to make them more understandable to the public, such as'sounds you want to reduce'. Among the five components extracted from the results of survey, PCA, and RA (Step 3), the eigenvalue for'realistic auditory background' was the highest, so it is a prioritized evaluation component of auditory experience in the metaverse environments.  
In particular, it was found that factors that hinder presence, such as 'distraction due to sound', which were addressed in auditory presence, can be improved through the AUX evaluation factor as they are componentized with the AUX evaluation factor 'ease of access to sound control'. Therefore, by considering the relationship between auditory evaluation factors (auditory presence and AUX) and the improvement of presence in the metaverse environment, which is the research question of the study, it was confirmed that auditory presence and AUX evaluation factors are complementary, and that the presence of the metaverse environment can be improved if the contents of the five evaluation components devised in the study are applied.  
Conceptualization, K.N.; methodology, B.P.; software, B.P.; validation, Y.P.; formal analysis, B.P.; investigation, K.N.; resources, Y.P.; data curation, K.N.; writing--original draft preparation, B.P.; writing--review and editing, K.N.; visualization, B.P.; supervision, Y.P.; project administration, B.P.; funding acquisition, B.P. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
This research was funded by the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KIAT), funded by the Korean government (Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, MOTIE) in 2023 (P0012725).  
Not applicable.  
The authors declare no conflict of interest.