The resilience of body ownership illusion in a virtual reality environment amidst visual-tactile asynchronies

Abstract

Trabalho de conclusão de curso (graduação)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Ciências Exatas, Departamento de Ciência da Computação, 2021.To guarantee a good experience in virtual reality is of interest to both industry and the scientific community. That made the interest in understanding the body ownership illusion increase. This research evaluates two types of visual- tactile asynchronies to better understand the limits of the illusion. First, a virtual environment was designed to induce the volunteers into the illusion. Following that, some visual- tactile asynchronies were inserted throughout the experiment. The majority of volunteers did not report any interruption of the illusion where it was expected to happen, i.e., where asynchronies were purposefully added in a try to break the illusion. Analyzing the data collected, it was possible to conclude that the body ownership illusion is stronger than anticipated. It is so strong, in fact, that it is conjectured that there is some sort of alternative rationalization happening in the volunteers’ minds to make sense of the mismatches between the expected sensory inputs and the actual ones. Or, at least, something similar to this effect