From presence to consciousness through virtual reality

Immersive virtual environments can break the deep, everyday connection between where our senses tell us we are and where we are actually located and whom we are with. The concept of 'presence' refers to the phenomenon of behaving and feeling as if we are in the virtual world created by computer displays. In this article, we argue that presence is worthy of study by neuroscientists, and that it might aid the study of perception and consciousness

Observing Virtual Arms that You Imagine Are Yours Increases the Galvanic Skin Response to an Unexpected Threat

Multi-modal visuo-tactile stimulation of the type performed in the rubber hand illusion can induce the brain to temporarily incorporate external objects into the body image. In this study we show that audio-visual stimulation combined with mental imagery more rapidly elicits an elevated physiological response (skin conductance) after an unexpected threat to a virtual limb, compared to audio-visual stimulation alone. Two groups of subjects seated in front of a monitor watched a first-person perspective view of slow movements of two virtual arms intercepting virtual balls rolling towards the viewer. One group was instructed to simply observe the movements of the two virtual arms, while the other group was instructed to observe the virtual arms and imagine that the arms were their own. After 84 seconds the right virtual arm was unexpectedly “stabbed” by a knife and began “bleeding”. This aversive stimulus caused both groups to show a significant increase in skin conductance. In addition, the observation-with-imagery group showed a significantly higher skin conductance (p<0.05) than the observation-only group over a 2-second period shortly after the aversive stimulus onset. No corresponding change was found in subjects' heart rates. Our results suggest that simple visual input combined with mental imagery may induce the brain to measurably temporarily incorporate external objects into its body image

Talk to the Virtual Hands: Self-Animated Avatars Improve Communication in Head-Mounted Display Virtual Environments

Background When we talk to one another face-to-face, body gestures accompany our speech. Motion tracking technology enables us to include body gestures in avatar-mediated communication, by mapping one's movements onto one's own 3D avatar in real time, so the avatar is self-animated. We conducted two experiments to investigate (a) whether head-mounted display virtual reality is useful for researching the influence of body gestures in communication; and (b) whether body gestures are used to help in communicating the meaning of a word. Participants worked in pairs and played a communication game, where one person had to describe the meanings of words to the other. Principal Findings In experiment 1, participants used significantly more hand gestures and successfully described significantly more words when nonverbal communication was available to both participants (i.e. both describing and guessing avatars were self-animated, compared with both avatars in a static neutral pose). Participants ‘passed’ (gave up describing) significantly more words when they were talking to a static avatar (no nonverbal feedback available). In experiment 2, participants' performance was significantly worse when they were talking to an avatar with a prerecorded listening animation, compared with an avatar animated by their partners' real movements. In both experiments participants used significantly more hand gestures when they played the game in the real world. Conclusions Taken together, the studies show how (a) virtual reality can be used to systematically study the influence of body gestures; (b) it is important that nonverbal communication is bidirectional (real nonverbal feedback in addition to nonverbal communication from the describing participant); and (c) there are differences in the amount of body gestures that participants use with and without the head-mounted display, and we discuss possible explanations for this and ideas for future investigation

Virtual Reality and Anxiety Disorders Treatment: Evolution and Future Perspectives

Virtual reality (VR) is a technology that allows the simulation of different real-life situations on a tridimensional computer-generated environment where the user can interact with the environment as if he/she were the real world. VR has potential as an exposure technique for treating anxiety disorders because VR and real objects have similar characteristics, which creates the illusion that the user is immersed and engaged with objects in the real world. Regarding the efficacy of using virtual reality exposure-based therapy (VR-EBT), for more than two decades, there has been sufficient empirical evidence regarding VR-EBT for treating anxiety disorders. Finally, this chapter ends with some directions and perspectives for future VR-EBT developments and treatments protocols

An experimental study on fear of public speaking using a virtual environment.

This paper examines a necessary condition for successful exploitation of a virtual environment (VE) in therapeutic intervention for fear of public speaking. The condition is that clients experience a degree of anxiety in the VE that is similar to what they would have been expected to experience in a similar real world setting. We refer to this as a "presence" response. The experimental study involved 20 people who were confident public speakers and 16 who were phobic, assessed on a standard psychological scale. Half of each group spoke within a VE depicting an empty seminar room, and the other half within the same room but populated by a neutrally behaving virtual audience of five people. Three responses were measured--a questionnaire-based measure of anxiety, a measure of self-focused attention on somatic responses, and actual heart rate. On all responses, the people with phobia showed a significant increase in signs of anxiety when speaking to the virtual audience compared to the empty room, whereas the confident people did not. The result was strong in spite of the relatively low representational and behavioral fidelity of the virtual characters

Racing heart and sweaty palms: what influences users’ self-assessments and physiological signals when interacting with virtual audiences?

In psychotherapy, virtual audiences have been shown to promote successful outcomes when used to help treating public speaking anxiety. Additionally, early experiments have shown its potential to help improve public speaking ability. However, it is still unclear to what extent certain factors, such as audience non-verbal behaviors, impact users when interacting with a virtual audience. In this paper, we design an experimental study to investigate users’ self-assessments and physiological states when interacting with a virtual audience. Our results showed that virtual audience behaviors did not influence participants self-assessments or physiological responses, which were instead predominantly determined by participants’ prior anxiety levels