- I lead the EVENT Lab: Experimental Virtual Environments lab for Neuroscience and Technology.edit
It has been shown that it is possible to generate perceptual illusions of ownership in immersive virtual reality (IVR) over a virtual body seen from first person perspective, in other words over a body that visually substitutes the... more
It has been shown that it is possible to generate perceptual illusions of ownership in immersive virtual reality (IVR) over a virtual body seen from first person perspective, in other words over a body that visually substitutes the person's real body. This can occur even when the virtual body is quite different in appearance from the person's real body. However, investigation of the psychological, behavioral and attitudinal consequences of such body transformations remains an interesting problem with much to be discovered. Thirty six Caucasian people participated in a between-groups experiment where they played a West-African Djembe hand drum while immersed in IVR and with a virtual body that substituted their own. The virtual hand drum was registered with a physical drum. They were alongside a virtual character that played a drum in a supporting, accompanying role. In a baseline condition participants were represented only by plainly shaded white hands, so that they were able merely to play. In the experimental condition they were represented either by a casually dressed dark-skinned virtual body (Casual Dark-Skinned - CD) or by a formal suited light-skinned body (Formal Light-Skinned - FL). Although participants of both groups experienced a strong body ownership illusion towards the virtual body, only those with the CD representation showed significant increases in their movement patterns for drumming compared to the baseline condition and compared with those embodied in the FL body. Moreover, the stronger the illusion of body ownership in the CD condition, the greater this behavioral change. A path analysis showed that the observed behavioral changes were a function of the strength of the illusion of body ownership towards the virtual body and its perceived appropriateness for the drumming task. These results demonstrate that full body ownership illusions can lead to substantial behavioral and possibly cognitive changes depending on the appearance of the virtu- l body. This could be important for many applications such as learning, education, training, psychotherapy and rehabilitation using IVR.
Does realistic lighting in an immersive virtual reality application enhance presence, where participants feel that they are in the scene and behave correspondingly? Our previous study indicated that presence is more likely with real-time... more
Does realistic lighting in an immersive virtual reality application enhance presence, where participants feel that they are in the scene and behave correspondingly? Our previous study indicated that presence is more likely with real-time ray tracing compared with ray casting, but we could not separate the effects of overall quality of illumination from the dynamic effects of real-time shadows and reflections. Here we describe an experiment where 20 people experienced a scene rendered with global or local illumination. However, in both conditions there were dynamically changing shadows and reflections. We found that the quality of illumination did not impact presence, so that the earlier result must have been due to dynamic shadows and reflections. However, global illumination resulted in greater plausibility - participants were more likely to respond as if the virtual events were real. We conclude that global illumination does impact the responses of participants and is worth the effort.
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Background Body change illusions have been of great interest in recent years for the understanding of how the brain represents the body. Appropriate multisensory stimulation can induce an illusion of ownership over a rubber or virtual... more
Background
Body change illusions have been of great interest in recent years for the understanding of how the brain represents the body. Appropriate multisensory stimulation can induce an illusion of ownership over a rubber or virtual arm, simple types of out-of-the-body experiences, and even ownership with respect to an alternate whole body. Here we use immersive virtual reality to investigate whether the illusion of a dramatic increase in belly size can be induced in males through (a) first person perspective position (b) synchronous visual-motor correlation between real and virtual arm movements, and (c) self-induced synchronous visual-tactile stimulation in the stomach area.
Methodology
Twenty two participants entered into a virtual reality (VR) delivered through a stereo head-tracked wide field-of-view head-mounted display. They saw from a first person perspective a virtual body substituting their own that had an inflated belly. For four minutes they repeatedly prodded their real belly with a rod that had a virtual counterpart that they saw in the VR. There was a synchronous condition where their prodding movements were synchronous with what they felt and saw and an asynchronous condition where this was not the case. The experiment was repeated twice for each participant in counter-balanced order. Responses were measured by questionnaire, and also a comparison of before and after self-estimates of belly size produced by direct visual manipulation of the virtual body seen from the first person perspective.
Conclusions
The results show that first person perspective of a virtual body that substitutes for the own body in virtual reality, together with synchronous multisensory stimulation can temporarily produce changes in body representation towards the larger belly size. This was demonstrated by (a) questionnaire results, (b) the difference between the self-estimated belly size, judged from a first person perspective, after and before the experimental manipulation, and (c) significant positive correlations between these two measures. We discuss this result in the general context of body ownership illusions, and suggest applications including treatment for body size distortion illnesses.
Body change illusions have been of great interest in recent years for the understanding of how the brain represents the body. Appropriate multisensory stimulation can induce an illusion of ownership over a rubber or virtual arm, simple types of out-of-the-body experiences, and even ownership with respect to an alternate whole body. Here we use immersive virtual reality to investigate whether the illusion of a dramatic increase in belly size can be induced in males through (a) first person perspective position (b) synchronous visual-motor correlation between real and virtual arm movements, and (c) self-induced synchronous visual-tactile stimulation in the stomach area.
Methodology
Twenty two participants entered into a virtual reality (VR) delivered through a stereo head-tracked wide field-of-view head-mounted display. They saw from a first person perspective a virtual body substituting their own that had an inflated belly. For four minutes they repeatedly prodded their real belly with a rod that had a virtual counterpart that they saw in the VR. There was a synchronous condition where their prodding movements were synchronous with what they felt and saw and an asynchronous condition where this was not the case. The experiment was repeated twice for each participant in counter-balanced order. Responses were measured by questionnaire, and also a comparison of before and after self-estimates of belly size produced by direct visual manipulation of the virtual body seen from the first person perspective.
Conclusions
The results show that first person perspective of a virtual body that substitutes for the own body in virtual reality, together with synchronous multisensory stimulation can temporarily produce changes in body representation towards the larger belly size. This was demonstrated by (a) questionnaire results, (b) the difference between the self-estimated belly size, judged from a first person perspective, after and before the experimental manipulation, and (c) significant positive correlations between these two measures. We discuss this result in the general context of body ownership illusions, and suggest applications including treatment for body size distortion illnesses.
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A Framework for Immersive Virtual Environments(FIVE)- Speculations on the role of presence in virtual environments. Mel Slater, Sylvia Wilbur Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 6:66, 603-616, 12/1997. This ...
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Research Interests: Information Systems, Virtual Environment, Haptic Interaction, Task Performance, Experimental Study, and 9 moreHuman Interaction, Human Machine Interaction, Force Feedback, Next Generation, Human Computer Interface, Haptic Feedback, ACM Transactions on Computer Human Interaction, Human Subjects, and Network Protocol
Research Interests: Pharmacology, Biochemistry, Bioinformatics, Evolutionary Biology, Genetics, and 49 moreMarine Biology, Neuroscience, Cognitive Science, Environmental Science, Geophysics, Physics, Materials Science, Quantum Physics, Perception, Developmental Biology, Immunology, Climate Change, Molecular Biology, Structural Biology, Genomics, RNA, Computational Biology, Transcriptomics, Biotechnology, Systems Biology, Cancer, Biology, Metabolomics, Consciousness, Cell Cycle, Proteomics, Ecology, Drug Discovery, Evolution, Nanotechnology, Virtual Worlds, Astrophysics, Neurobiology, Medicine, Palaeobiology, Functional Genomics, Immersive Virtual Learning Environment, Nature, Signal Transduction, Astronomy, DNA, Virtual Reality, Humans, Computer Simulation, Cell Signalling, Medical Research, Computer User Interface Design, Earth Science, and Neurosciences
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12 Presence and Performance Within Virtual Environments WOODROW BARFIELD, DAVID ZELTZER, THOMAS SHERIDAN, AND MEL SLATER Recent developments in display technology, specifically head-mounted displays slaved to the user's head... more
12 Presence and Performance Within Virtual Environments WOODROW BARFIELD, DAVID ZELTZER, THOMAS SHERIDAN, AND MEL SLATER Recent developments in display technology, specifically head-mounted displays slaved to the user's head position, ...
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Research Interests: Research Design, Multidisciplinary, Immersive Virtual Learning Environment, Empathy, Social behavior, and 21 moreHumans, Virtual Environment, Galvanic Skin Response, Female, Male, Heart rate, Young Adult, Interpersonal Relations, Social Environment, Experimental Study, Empirical Study, PLoS one, Computer User Interface Design, Associative Memory, Adult, Psychological Theory, Social Behavior, Social Dominance, Ethics Research, Virtual Human, and Electroshock
The subjective sense of presence has received sub-stantial attention from engineers, computer scientists, and psychologists concerned with virtual environments, teleoperators, and human-machine interfaces. (See, for example, Draper,... more
The subjective sense of presence has received sub-stantial attention from engineers, computer scientists, and psychologists concerned with virtual environments, teleoperators, and human-machine interfaces. (See, for example, Draper, Kaber, and Usher (1998) and the ...
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... 1. Introduction Immersive Virtual Environments (IVE) provide a tightly coupled human-computer interface: input to the ... the person in the VE; 2.1.5 an ability to change the virtual environment; 2.1 ... own body with that of the... more
... 1. Introduction Immersive Virtual Environments (IVE) provide a tightly coupled human-computer interface: input to the ... the person in the VE; 2.1.5 an ability to change the virtual environment; 2.1 ... own body with that of the representation; 2.1.7 adaptation through learning over time ...
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Research Interests: Cognitive Science, Computer Graphics, Electroencephalography, Brain Computer Interface, Imagination, and 15 moreVirtual Reality, Brain, Thinking, Humans, Virtual Environment, Walking, Movement, Electroencephalogram, Online Systems, Computer User Interface Design, Computer Graphic, Motor Imagery, Adult, Design and Implementation, and Neurosciences
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In this paper we present the results of a trial in which two participants collaborated on a puzzle-solving task in networked virtual environments. The task was a Rubik's cube type puzzle, and this meant that the two participants had to... more
In this paper we present the results of a trial in which two participants collaborated on a puzzle-solving task in networked virtual environments. The task was a Rubik's cube type puzzle, and this meant that the two participants had to interact with the space and with each other very intensively—and they did this successfully despite the limitation of the networked situation. We compare collaboration in networked immersive projection technology (IPT's) systems with previous results concerning collaboration in an IPT system linked with a desktop computer, and also with collaboration on the same task in the real world. Our findings show that the task performance in networked IPT's and in the real scenario are very similar to each other—whereas IPT-to-desktop performance is much poorer. Results about participants’ experience of ‘presence’, ‘co-presence’ and collaboration shed further light on these findings.
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Chapter 9 Meeting People Virtually: Experiments in Shared Virtual Environments Mel Slater and Anthony Steed 9.1 Introduction The BBC TV series Dr Who popularized the race of beings known as the" Daleks" [1]. A Dalek is a... more
Chapter 9 Meeting People Virtually: Experiments in Shared Virtual Environments Mel Slater and Anthony Steed 9.1 Introduction The BBC TV series Dr Who popularized the race of beings known as the" Daleks" [1]. A Dalek is a creature that is completely encased in a metallic shell, ...
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... Authors, Rod Salmon, Mel Slater, Univ. of London, London, UK. Publisher, Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc. ... Collaborative Colleagues: Rod Salmon: colleagues. Mel Slater: colleagues. The ACM Portal is published by the... more
... Authors, Rod Salmon, Mel Slater, Univ. of London, London, UK. Publisher, Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc. ... Collaborative Colleagues: Rod Salmon: colleagues. Mel Slater: colleagues. The ACM Portal is published by the Association for Computing Machinery. ...