The Modulation of Ownership and Agency in the Virtual Hand Illusion under Visuotactile and Visuomotor Sensory Feedback

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel A. Padilla-Castañeda ◽  
Antonio Frisoli ◽  
Silvia Pabon ◽  
Massimo Bergamasco
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Sensory Feedback ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Hand ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environment ◽  
Simulated Environment ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Upper Limb Movements ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Natural Tasks

It is well known by the virtual hand illusion (VHI) that simultaneous and synchronous visuotactile sensory feedback within a virtual environment elicits the feeling of ownership of a virtual hand, by observing for some seconds in a scene a virtual hand being touched while at the same time receiving tactile stimulation on the real hand in the corresponding positions. In this paper, we investigate possible modulations in the feeling of ownership (sensation of owning a virtual hand) and of agency (sensation of owning virtual movements and actions) according to whether or not the participant's own motor acts (1) induce coherent self-activated visuotactile sensory stimulations; and (2) generate plausible consequences in the simulated environment. For this purpose, we elicited the VHI within a group of participants through a cross-modal integration of visuo-tactile sensory stimulations within a dynamic and physically plausible immersive virtual environment, where they were able to perform natural tasks in both passive and active agency conditions. Our results indicate that both feelings of ownership and agency can be achieved in immersive virtual environments, when the subject is realistically interacting and performing natural upper limb movements. We did not observe any significant difference in the VHI in terms of ownership and agency between the active and passive conditions, but we observed that a physically incongruent simulated interaction with the virtual world can lead to a significant disruption of ownership. Moreover, in the passive agency condition, a plausible physical behavior of the virtual hand was sufficient to elicit a partially complete sense of ownership, if measured in terms of proprioceptive drift, even in the presence of an asynchronous visuotactile sensory feedback. All these findings suggest that the multisensory feedback associated with a subject's own actions and the physical plausibility of the environment both act as determinant factors, influencing and modulating the vividness of the VHI.

Finding the Value of Immersive, Virtual Environments Using Competitive Usability Analysis

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurt M. Satter ◽  
Alley C. Butler
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Individual Performance ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environments ◽  
Cost Avoidance ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environment ◽  
Cave System ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Usability Analysis

Competitive usability studies are employed providing empirical results in a design evaluation and review context. Populations of novice and experienced users are tested against benchmarks. Benchmark 1 is used to evaluate error identification and correction. Benchmark 2 is employed to evaluate the user’s ability to understand spatial relationships. Both benchmarks 1 and 2 compare individual performance with performance of teams. Benchmarks 3 measures quantity of errors found in a 4 min time frame. For benchmark 1, there is a statistically significant difference, but for benchmark 2, there is no statistical difference. For benchmark 3, there is a statistically significant increase in errors found. This increase is evaluated for impact as cost avoidance. It is concluded that cost avoidance by using a cave automatic virtual environment (CAVE) immersive virtual environment easily justifies the CAVE system.

Using a P300 Brain–Computer Interface in an Immersive Virtual Environment

2010 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Donnerer ◽  
Anthony Steed
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Brain Computer Interface ◽  
Computer Interface ◽  
Disabled People ◽  
3D Objects ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environment ◽  
Computer Interfaces ◽  
3D Environment ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Environment Control

Brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) provide a novel form of human–computer interaction. The purpose of these systems is to aid disabled people by affording them the possibility of communication and environment control. In this study, we present experiments using a P300 based BCI in a fully immersive virtual environment (IVE). P300 BCIs depend on presenting several stimuli to the user. We propose two ways of embedding the stimuli in the virtual environment: one that uses 3D objects as targets, and a second that uses a virtual overlay. Both ways have been shown to work effectively with no significant difference in selection accuracy. The results suggest that P300 BCIs can be used successfully in a 3D environment, and this suggests some novel ways of using BCIs in real world environments.

scholarly journals Towards a Model of User Experience in Immersive Virtual Environments

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katy Tcha-Tokey ◽  
Olivier Christmann ◽  
Emilie Loup-Escande ◽  
Guillaume Loup ◽  
Simon Richir
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Learning Environments ◽  
User Experience ◽  
User Study ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Immersive Environments ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environments ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environment ◽  
Emotion Experience

There are increasing new advances in virtual reality technologies as well as a rise in learning virtual environments for which several studies highlighted the pedagogical value, knowledge transfer, and learners’ engaged-behaviors. Moreover, the notion of user experience is now abundant in the scientific literature without the fact that there are specific models for immersive environments. This paper aims at proposing and validating a model of User eXperience in Immersive Virtual Environment, including virtual learning environments. The model is composed of 10 components extracted from existing models (i.e., presence, engagement, immersion, flow, usability, skill, emotion, experience consequence, judgement, and technology adoption). It was validated in a user study involving 152 participants who were asked to use the edutainment application Think and Shoot and to complete an immersive virtual environment questionnaire. The findings lead us to a modified user experience model questioning new paths between user experience components (e.g., the influence of experience consequence on flow).

Engagement in the Second Life Virtual World with Students

2010 ◽  
pp. 651-669
Author(s):  
Caroline M L Ho
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Second Life ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
Specific Interest ◽  
Participant Engagement ◽  
Linguistic Resources ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environment ◽  
The Subject

This chapter focuses on participant engagement in an immersive virtual environment among a group of Singaporean teenagers in the context of the subject, General Paper, aimed at developing students’ critical thinking and argumentation skills. Investigation based on the functional linguistic resources of ‘Engagement’ (Martin & White, 2005) examined 17-18 year old pre-tertiary students’ engagement with each other in the Second Life virtual world. Of specific interest in this study were the linguistic resources and strategies used by students as they thought, ‘spoke’ and acted on issues from the perspectives of simulated personas. The exchange of perspectives revolved around the theme of euthanasia. Findings highlighted how students engaged with a range of perspectives on issues raised, and the level of assertiveness and moderation in their claims proposed. The examination also showed the extent of participants’ dialogically expansive or contractive stance. The pedagogical implications of the findings are discussed.

The Independent and Interactive Effects of Embodied-Agent Appearance and Behavior on Self-Report, Cognitive, and Behavioral Markers of Copresence in Immersive Virtual Environments

2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 379-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy N. Bailenson ◽  
Kim Swinth ◽  
Crystal Hoyt ◽  
Susan Persky ◽  
Alex Dimov ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Interactive Effects ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environments ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environment ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Behavioral Markers ◽  
Embodied Agent

The current study examined how assessments of copresence in an immersive virtual environment are influenced by variations in how much an embodied agent resembles a human being in appearance and behavior. We measured the extent to which virtual representations were both perceived and treated as if they were human via self-report, behavioral, and cognitive dependent measures. Distinctive patterns of findings emerged with respect to the behavior and appearance of embodied agents depending on the definition and operationalization of copresence. Independent and interactive effects for appearance and behavior were found suggesting that assessing the impact of behavioral realism on copresence without taking into account the appearance of the embodied agent (and vice versa) can lead to misleading conclusions. Consistent with the results of previous research, copresence was lowest when there was a large mismatch between the appearance and behavioral realism of an embodied agent.

Correlations Between Physiological Response, Gait, Personality, and Presence in Immersive Virtual Environments

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lane Phillips ◽  
Victoria Interrante ◽  
Michael Kaeding ◽  
Brian Ries ◽  
Lee Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Stress Response ◽  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Distance Estimation ◽  
Estimation Accuracy ◽  
Personality Measures ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environments ◽  
Sense Of Presence ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Different Types

In previous work, we have found significant differences in the accuracy with which people make initial spatial judgments in different types of head-mounted, display-based immersive virtual environments (IVEs; Phillips, Interrante, Kaeding, Ries, & Anderson, 2010). In particular, we have found that people tend to less severely underestimate egocentric distances in a virtual environment that is a photorealistic replica of a real place that they have recently visited than when the virtual environment is either a photorealistic replica of an unfamiliar place, or a nonphotorealistically (NPR) portrayed version of a familiar space. We have also noted significant differences in the effect of environment type on distance perception accuracy between individual participants. In this paper, we report the results of two experiments that seek further insight into these phenomena, focusing on factors related to depth of presence in the virtual environment. In our reported first experiment, we immersed users (between-subjects) in one of the three different types of IVEs and asked them to perform a series of well-defined tasks along a delimited path, first in a control version of the environment, and then in a stressful variant in which the floor around the marked path was cut away to reveal a 20-ft drop. We assessed participants' sense of presence during each trial using a diverse set of measures, including: questionnaires, recordings of heart rate and galvanic skin response, and gait metrics derived from tracking data. We computed the differences in each of these measures between the stressful and nonstressful versions of each environment, and then compared the changes due to stress between the different virtual environment conditions. Pooling the data over all participants in each group, we found significant physiological indications of stress after the appearance of the pit in all three environments, but we did not find significant differences in the magnitude of the stress response between the different virtual environment locales. We also did not find any significant difference in the level of subjective presence reported in each environment. However, we did find significant differences in gait: participants in the photorealistic replica room showed a significantly greater reduction in stride speed and stride length between the control and pit version of the room than did participants in either the photorealistically rendered nonreplica environment or the NPR replica environment conditions. Our second experiment, conducted with a new set of participants, sought to more directly investigate potential correlations between distance estimation accuracy and personality, stress response, and reported sense of presence, comparatively across different immersive virtual environment conditions. We used pretest questionnaires to assess a variety of personality measures, and then randomly immersed participants (between-subjects) in either the photorealistic replica or photorealistic non-replica environment and assessed the accuracy of their egocentric distance judgments in that IVE, followed by control trials in a neutral, real-world location. We then had participants go through the same set of tasks as in our first experiment while we collected physiological measures of their stress level and tracked their gait, and we compared the changes in these measures between the neutral and pit-enhanced versions of the environment. Finally, we had people fill out a brief presence questionnaire.Analyzing all of these data, we found that participants made significantly greater distance estimation errors in the unfamiliar room environment than in the replica room environment, but no other differences between the two environments were significant. We found significant positive correlation between several of the personality measures, but we did not find any notable significant correlations between personality and presence, or between either personality or presence and gait changes or distance estimation accuracy. These results suggest to us that the relationship between personality, presence, and performance in IVEs is complicated and not easily captured by existing measures.

Telling Stories within Immersive Virtual Environments

Leonardo ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (5) ◽  
pp. 471-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan Llobera ◽  
Kristopher J. Blom ◽  
Mel Slater
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Virtual Characters ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environments ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environment ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
Freedom Of Action

Portraying an unfolding story within an immersive virtual environment (IVE) is difficult: In an IVE, participants can pay attention to and interact with whatever they choose within the scene. Moreover, the decisions taken by virtual characters must appear consistent with their personalities and motivations but also take into account the human participants' actions, whenever relevant. Finally, the results of the interactions should satisfy a pre-established plot. In this article, the authors introduce a new two-part approach that addresses the dilemma regarding freedom of action and narrative.

scholarly journals Proposition and Validation of a Questionnaire to Measure the User Experience in Immersive Virtual Environments

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katy Tcha-Tokey ◽  
Olivier Christmann ◽  
Emilie Loup-Escande ◽  
Simon Richir
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
User Experience ◽  
Item Analysis ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environments ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environment ◽  
Emotion Experience ◽  
Scale Scores ◽  
Insight Into

There are increasing new advances in virtual reality technologies as well as a rise in immersive virtual environments research and user experience research. Within this framework, we decided to address the overall user experience in immersive virtual environments. Indeed, in our point of view, this topic is not fully dealt with in the scientific literature, neither in terms of user experience components nor in terms of user experience measurement methods. It is in this context that we conducted a study aiming at proposing and validating a unified questionnaire on user experience in immersive virtual environment(IVEQ). Our questionnaire contains 10 subscales measuring presence, engagement, immersion, flow, usability, skill, emotion, experience consequence, judgement and technology adoption. The construction of our questionnaire was based on existing ones. It was tested on 116 participants after they use the edutainment virtual environment "Think and Shoot". Results show that 9 out of 10 subscales and 68 out of 87 items are reliable as demonstrated by an internal consistency analysis with Cronbach's alpha and an item analysis. Findings also indicate that the scale scores from 6 subscales are considered normal distributed (e.g. presence) whereas the scale scores from 3 subscales are considered negatively skewed (e.g. skill). This study provides important new insight into UX in IVEs assessment.

scholarly journals The Effects of Witness Viewpoint Distance, Angle, and Choice on Eyewitness Accuracy in Police Lineups Conducted in Immersive Virtual Environments

2008 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 242-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy N. Bailenson ◽  
Alexandra Davies ◽  
Jim Blascovich ◽  
Andrew C. Beall ◽  
Cade McCall ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Eyewitness Identification ◽  
Eyewitness Testimony ◽  
Sequential Lineups ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environments ◽  
Eyewitness Accuracy ◽  
Immersive Virtual Environment ◽  
Post Hoc ◽  
Improved Accuracy

The current study investigated the value of using immersive virtual environment technology as a tool for assessing eyewitness identification. Participants witnessed a staged crime and then examined sequential lineups within immersive virtual environments that contained 3D virtual busts of the suspect and six distractors. Participants either had unlimited viewpoints of the busts in terms of angle and distance, or a unitary view at only a single angle and distance. Furthermore, participants either were allowed to choose the angle and distance of the viewpoints they received, or were given viewpoints without choice. Results demonstrated that unlimited viewpoints improved accuracy in suspect-present lineups but not in suspect-absent lineups. Furthermore, across conditions, post-hoc measurements demonstrated that when the chosen view of the suspect during the lineup was similar to the view during the staged crime in terms of distance, accuracy improved. Finally, participants were more accurate in suspect-absent lineups than in suspect-present lineups. Implications of the findings in terms of theories of eyewitness testimony are discussed, as well as the value of using virtual lineups that elicit high levels of presence in the field. We conclude that digital avatars of higher fidelity may be necessary before actually implementing virtual lineups.

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