Taking an Extended Embodied Perspective of Touch: Connection-Disconnection in iVR

Bringing touch into VR experiences through haptics is considered increasingly important for user engagement and fostering feelings of presence and immersion, yet few qualitative studies have explored users' iVR touch experiences. This paper takes an embodied approach–bringing attention to the tactile-kinaesthetic body–to explore users' wholistic experiences of touch in iVR, moving beyond the cutaneous and tactile elements of “feeling” to elaborate upon themes of movement and kinetics. Our findings show how both touch connections and disconnections emerged though material forms of tactility (the controller, body positioning, tactile expectations) and through “felt proximities” and the tactile-kinaesthetic experience thus shaping the sense of presence. The analysis shows three key factors that influence connection and disconnection, and how connection is re-navigated or sought at moments of experienced disconnection: a sense of control or agency; identity; and bridging between the material and virtual. This extended notion of touch deepens our understanding of its role in feelings of presence by providing insight into a range of factors related to notions of touch – both physical and virtual–that come into play in creating a sense of connection or presence (e.g., histories, expectations), and highlights the potential for iVR interaction to attend to the body beyond the hands in terms of touch

Utilizing gravity in movement-based games and play

This paper seeks to expand the understanding of gravity as a powerful but underexplored design resource for movement-based games and play. We examine how gravity has been utilized and manipulated in digital, physical, and mixed reality games and sports, considering five central and gravity-related facets of user experience: realism, affect, challenge, movement diversity, and sociality. For each facet, we suggest new directions for expanding the field of movement-based games and play, for example through novel combinations of physical and digital elements. Our primary contribution is a structured articulation of a novel point of view for designing games and interactions for the moving body. Additionally, we point out new research directions, and our conceptual framework can be used as a design tool. We demonstrate this in 1) creating and evaluating a novel gravity-based game mechanic, and 2) analyzing an existing movement-based game and suggesting future improvements

Utilizing gravity in movement-based games and play

This paper seeks to expand the understanding of gravity as a powerful but underexplored design resource for movement-based games and play. We examine how gravity has been utilized and manipulated in digital, physical, and mixed reality games and sports, considering five central and gravity-related facets of user experience: realism, affect, challenge, movement diversity, and sociality. For each facet, we suggest new directions for expanding the field of movement-based games and play, for example through novel combinations of physical and digital elements. Our primary contribution is a structured articulation of a novel point of view for designing games and interactions for the moving body. Additionally, we point out new research directions, and our conceptual framework can be used as a design tool. We demonstrate this in 1) creating and evaluating a novel gravity-based game mechanic, and 2) analyzing an existing movement-based game and suggesting future improvements

Analysing Movement, The Body and Immersion in Virtual Reality

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships between embodiment, presence and immersion in contemporary forms of VR. The term virtual reality (VR) refers to the generation of three-dimensional environments using computer-graphics or 360° video imagery. Using VR headsets such as Google Daydream, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear and Sony PlayStation™ (PSVR) it is possible to remove visual stimuli from the outside world, replacing them with computer-generated or video imagery, to create a sense of being present within another realm. At present, commercially available hand-held devices such as motion controllers do not replicate the weight, solidity or surface texture of objects. However, these hand-held devices do enable us to interact and respond to objects within VR environments and add to the sense of immersion. A key issue to explore is what happens to our sense of embodiment, when we feel immersed and present within VR environments? Debates surrounding phenomenological approaches to embodiment, as well as the ideas found within dance and movement scholarship, provide useful entry points to explore embodiment and VR. For instance, Rudolph Von Laban provides a precise lexicon for describing movement. By testing out and applying Laban’s movement analysis, it is possible to offer fresh insight into embodiment, immersion and VR. Furthermore, by focusing on Laban’s insights into movement, it is possible to heighten our sense of embodiment in order to become more aware of how we interact and respond immersive VR experiences

Embodiment of virtual feet correlates with motor performance in a target-stepping task:a pilot study

Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) has gained popularity in neurorehabilitation for its potential to increase patients’ motivation and engagement. A crucial yet relatively unexplored aspect of IVR interfaces is the patients’ representation in the virtual world, such as with an avatar. A higher level of embodiment over avatars has been shown to enhance motor performance during upper limb training and has the potential to be employed to enhance neurorehabilitation. However, the relationship between avatar embodiment and gait performance remains unexplored. In this work, we present the results of a pilot study with 12 healthy young participants that evaluates the effect of different virtual lower limb representations on foot placement accuracy while stepping over a trail of 16 virtual targets. We compared three levels of virtual representation: i) a full-body avatar, ii) only feet, and iii) no representation. Full-body tracking is computed using standard VR trackers to synchronize the avatar with the participants’ motions. Foot placement accuracy is measured as the distance between the foot’s center of mass and the center of the selected virtual target. Additionally, we evaluated the level of embodiment over each virtual representation through a questionnaire. Our findings indicate that foot placement accuracy increases with some form of virtual representation, either full-body or foot, compared to having no virtual representation. However, the foot and full-body representations do not show significant differences in accuracy. Importantly, we found a negative correlation between the level of embodiment of the foot representation and the distance between the placed foot and the target. However, no such correlation was found for the full-body representation. Our results highlight the importance of embodying a virtual representation of the foot when performing a task that requires accurate foot placement. However, showing a full-body avatar does not appear to further enhance accuracy. Moreover, our results suggest that the level of embodiment of the virtual feet might modulate motor performance in this stepping task. This work motivates future research on the effect of embodiment over virtual representations on motor control to be exploited for IVR gait rehabilitation.Human-Robot Interactio

Virtual reality tool for balance training

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia Biomédica (área de especialização em Eletrónica Médica)Em todo o mundo, 15 milhões de pessoas sofrem um acidente vascular cerebral (AVC) por ano. Destas, 66% sobrevivem e metade delas ficam com incapacidade permanente de equilíbrio, limitando a sua independência motora e qualidade de vida. Estes pacientes podem recuperar o seu equilíbrio e independência motora através do fenómeno da neuroplasticidade, alcançado com intervenções de reabilitação. Asferramentas de realidade virtual (RV) podem ser utilizadas como complemento àsterapias físicas convencionais, promovendo treinos de alta repetição com estratégias de aprendizagem otimizadas. Assim, os ambientes virtuais podem ser personalizados de acordo com as necessidades iminentes dos pacientes, maximizando a reorganização do cérebro e plasticidade, aumentando a eficácia e acelerando a recuperação do equilíbrio. Não obstante, existe uma falta de ferramentas de RV neste campo, as quais não apresentam uma visão centrada no utilizador. Esta dissertação tem como objetivo conceber, desenvolver e validar uma ferramenta totalmente imersiva baseada em RV, seguindo uma visão centrada no utilizador. A ferramenta de RV desenvolvida inclui quatro desafios virtuais baseados em atividades do dia-a-dia (ADDs), compreendendo um total de nove tarefas motoras. A ferramenta de RV fornece estímulos visuais, sonoros e hápticos, através de óculos de RV, auscultadores incorporados, e comandos vibratórios. Paralelamente, foi realizado um estudo sobre as ADDs mais realizadas e apreciadas, com recurso a um questionário, provando que os desafios virtuais concebidos estão de acordo com a preferência da maioria das pessoas. A partir de uma validação preliminar com sujeitos saudáveis, verificou-se que a ferramenta de RV melhorou significativamente o deslocamento do centro de massa (CDM) na direção mediolateral (ML) e a velocidade mínima do CDM na direção anteroposterior (AP), durante a marcha. Além disso, o deslocamento do CDM e a velocidade máxima e mínima do CDM, nas direções AP e ML, embora não significativas, exibiram melhorias noutras tarefas motoras. Os testes clínicos também revelaram uma melhoria após o treino RV. A avaliação da experiência do utilizador provou a elevada aceitabilidade, valor e utilidade da ferramenta de RV. O trabalho futuro envolve a melhoria da ferramenta com mais e personalizados desafios virtuais e a validação do sistema com doentes durante treinos mais longos.Worldwide, 15 million people suffer a stroke each year. Of these, 66 % survive and half of them are left with permanent balance disabilities, limiting their motor independence and compromising their quality of life. The patients can recover their balance function and regain their motor independence through neuroplasticity phenomenon, achieved by rehabilitation intervention. Virtual reality (VR) tools may be used as a complement to physical therapies to promote high-repetitive training with optimised learning strategies. Thus, virtual environments can be customised according to the patient’s imminent needs, maximising brain reorganisation, allowing to increase the effectiveness and accelerate balance recovery. Nonetheless, there is a lack of VR tools in this field, and no user-centered design is available. This dissertation aims to design, develop, and validate a fully immersive VR-based tool, following a user-centered design. The developed VR tool includes four virtual challenges based on activities of daily living (ADLs), comprising a total of nine motor tasks. The VR-based tool provides visual, sonorous, and haptic stimuli, through a Head-Mounted Display (HMD), built-in headphones, and vibrotactile controllers. In parallel, a study about the most performed and appreciated ADLs was carried out, using a questionnaire, proving that the developed virtual challenges are in accordance with most peoples’ preferences. From a preliminary validation with healthy subjects, the VR tool significantly improved the user’s center of mass (COM) displacement in the mediolateral (ML) direction, and the minimum COM velocity in the anteroposterior (AP) direction when walking. Moreover, COM displacement and the maximum and minimum COM velocity on both AP and ML directions, although not significantly, also showed improvements in many other tasks. Furthermore, clinical tests revealed improvements after VR training. The user experience evaluation proved the high acceptability, value, and usefulness of the VR-based tool. Future work towards enhancing the VR-based tool with more and customised virtual challenges and extending the VR tool validation with end-users throughout a longer training period

Making sense of digitally remediated touch in virtual reality experiences

Touch, often called the ‘first sense’, is fundamental to how we experience and know ourselves, others and the world. Increasingly, touch is being brought into the digital landscape. This paper explores this shifting landscape to understand the ways in which touch is re-mediated in the context of virtual reality. With attention to the sensoriality and sociality of touch, it asks what ‘counts’ as touch in VR, how is touch experienced and how is it incorporated into meaning making. We present and discuss findings from a multimodal and multisensory study of 16 participants interacting in two VR experiences to describe: the participants’ material encounters with the virtual through a focus on touch practices, expectations and norms; the ways in which participants made meaning of (and with) virtual touch through their dynamic selection and orchestration of the range of semiotic and experiential resources available; and how these virtual touch experiences translated into discourses of touch in VR to emphasize continuities and change between the past, present and futures. The paper comments on the methodological challenges of researching touch in the emergent landscape of VR and asks how multimodality might engage newly with touch, perhaps the most under-rated and neglected of modes and senses, and its digital remediation

The design-by-adaptation approach to universal access: learning from videogame technology

This paper proposes an alternative approach to the design of universally accessible interfaces to that provided by formal design frameworks applied ab initio to the development of new software. This approach, design-byadaptation, involves the transfer of interface technology and/or design principles from one application domain to another, in situations where the recipient domain is similar to the host domain in terms of modelled systems, tasks and users. Using the example of interaction in 3D virtual environments, the paper explores how principles underlying the design of videogame interfaces may be applied to a broad family of visualization and analysis software which handles geographical data (virtual geographic environments, or VGEs). One of the motivations behind the current study is that VGE technology lags some way behind videogame technology in the modelling of 3D environments, and has a less-developed track record in providing the variety of interaction methods needed to undertake varied tasks in 3D virtual worlds by users with varied levels of experience. The current analysis extracted a set of interaction principles from videogames which were used to devise a set of 3D task interfaces that have been implemented in a prototype VGE for formal evaluation

Orchids of Mars: Book One and Reading the Reader: Virtual Reality as Science Fiction Trope

This paper investigates narrative from two standpoints: a creative one, comprising ten chapters of a science fiction novel, and a critical one, examining virtual reality as trope within three science fiction narratives. Creative and critical portions directly inform one another with regards to scrutiny and interrogation of the reader’s ability and desire to construct meaning from text. The creative portion opens a trilogy titled Orchids of Mars and follows three young characters as they attend school for the first time. The story depends upon several aspects of the virtual, including multiple, potential realities perceived and created by differing perspectives, as well as the illusory nature of the wards’ childhood. As the story proceeds, their various allergic reactions are imparted to the reader via increasingly erratic typographical transformations. This is a deliberate attempt to deny the reader an ‘easy’ reading experience; by adjoining textual aberrations to narrative allergic reactions, the reader’s uneasy reactions will closely mirror the characters’ fictional experiences. Reading the Reader is broad in scope, examining three aspects of the virtual as identified by Marie-Laure Ryan. Each aspect is studied over the course of one chapter, describing distinct formulations of the virtual reality trope made possible when accounting for Ryan’s differing aspects; examination of the effects generated when the trope is deployed within narrative; and theorising of reader reaction to resulting departures from traditional narrative tendencies. These critical analyses are executed using close readings of novels by Tad Williams, Suzanne Collins, and Jeff Noon, as well as the critical theories belonging to the field of narratology

As Light as You Aspire to Be: Changing body perception with sound to support physical activity

Supporting exercise adherence through technology remains an important HCI challenge. Recent works showed that altering walking sounds leads people perceiving themselves as thinner/lighter, happier and walking more dynamically. While this novel approach shows potential for physical activity, it raises critical questions impacting technology design. We ran two studies in the context of exertion (gym-step, stairs-climbing) to investigate how individual factors impact the effect of sound and the duration of the after-effects. The results confirm that the effects of sound in body-perception occur even in physically demanding situations and through ubiquitous wearable devices. We also show that the effect of sound interacted with participants’ body weight and masculinity/femininity aspirations, but not with gender. Additionally, changes in body-perceptions did not hold once the feedback stopped; however, body-feelings or behavioural changes appeared to persist for longer. We discuss the results in terms of malleability of body-perception and highlight opportunities for supporting exercise adherence