TY - GEN
T1 - The Self-Avatar Follower Effect in Virtual Reality
AU - Gonzalez-Franco, Mar
AU - Cohn, Brian
AU - Ofek, Eyal
AU - Burin, Dalila
AU - Maselli, Antonella
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors wish to thank A, B, and C. This work was supported in part by a grant from XYZ.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 IEEE.
PY - 2020/3
Y1 - 2020/3
N2 - When embodying a virtual avatar in immersive VR applications where body tracking is enabled, users typically are and feel in control the avatar movements. However, there are situations in which the technology could be tweaked to flip this relationship so that an embodied avatar could affect the user's motor behavior without users noticing it. This has been shown in action retargeting applications and motor contagion experiments. Here we discuss a different way in which an embodied avatar could implicitly drive users movements: the self-avatar follower effect. We review previous evidences and present new experimental results showing how, whenever the virtual body does not overlay with their physical body, users tend to unconsciously follow their avatar, filling the gap if the system allows for it. We discuss this effect in the context of the relevant neuroscientific literature, and propose a theoretical account of the follower effect at the intersection of motor control and inference theories.
AB - When embodying a virtual avatar in immersive VR applications where body tracking is enabled, users typically are and feel in control the avatar movements. However, there are situations in which the technology could be tweaked to flip this relationship so that an embodied avatar could affect the user's motor behavior without users noticing it. This has been shown in action retargeting applications and motor contagion experiments. Here we discuss a different way in which an embodied avatar could implicitly drive users movements: the self-avatar follower effect. We review previous evidences and present new experimental results showing how, whenever the virtual body does not overlay with their physical body, users tend to unconsciously follow their avatar, filling the gap if the system allows for it. We discuss this effect in the context of the relevant neuroscientific literature, and propose a theoretical account of the follower effect at the intersection of motor control and inference theories.
KW - Embodiment
KW - Human-centered computing
KW - Motor control
KW - Perception
KW - Virtual reality
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85085484587&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1109/VR46266.2020.1580500165557
DO - 10.1109/VR46266.2020.1580500165557
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85085484587
T3 - Proceedings - 2020 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces, VR 2020
SP - 18
EP - 25
BT - Proceedings - 2020 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces, VR 2020
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 27th IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces, VR 2020
Y2 - 22 March 2020 through 26 March 2020
ER -