Article 2018

Where am I in virtual reality?

{It is currently not well understood whether people experience themselves to be located in one or more specific part(s) of their body. Virtual reality (VR) is increasingly used as a tool to study aspects of bodily perception and self-consciousness, due to its strong experimental control and ease in manipulating multi-sensory aspects of bodily experience. To investigate where people self-locate in their body within virtual reality, we asked participants to point directly at themselves with a virtual pointer, in a VR headset. In previous work employing a physical pointer, participants mainly located themselves in the upper face and upper torso. In this study, using a VR headset, participants mainly located themselves in the upper face. In an additional body template task where participants pointed at themselves on a picture of a simple body outline, participants pointed most often to the upper torso, followed by the (upper) face. These results raise the question as to whether head-mounted virtual reality might alter where people locate themselves making them more \textquotedbllefthead-centred\textquotedblright.}

Author(s): van der Veer, A and Alsmith, AJT and Longo, MR and Wong, HY and Mohler, BJ
Journal: {PLoS One}
Volume: 13
Number (issue): 10
Pages: 1--10
Year: 2018
Publisher: Public Library of Science
Bibtex Type: Article (article)
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0204358
Address: San Francisco, CA
Electronic Archiving: grant_archive

BibTex

@article{item_3005531,
  title = {{Where am I in virtual reality?}},
  journal = {{PLoS One}},
  abstract = {{It is currently not well understood whether people experience themselves to be located in one or more specific part(s) of their body. Virtual reality (VR) is increasingly used as a tool to study aspects of bodily perception and self-consciousness, due to its strong experimental control and ease in manipulating multi-sensory aspects of bodily experience. To investigate where people self-locate in their body within virtual reality, we asked participants to point directly at themselves with a virtual pointer, in a VR headset. In previous work employing a physical pointer, participants mainly located themselves in the upper face and upper torso. In this study, using a VR headset, participants mainly located themselves in the upper face. In an additional body template task where participants pointed at themselves on a picture of a simple body outline, participants pointed most often to the upper torso, followed by the (upper) face. These results raise the question as to whether head-mounted virtual reality might alter where people locate themselves making them more \textquotedbllefthead-centred\textquotedblright.}},
  volume = {13},
  number = {10},
  pages = {1--10},
  publisher = {Public Library of Science},
  address = {San Francisco, CA},
  year = {2018},
  slug = {item_3005531},
  author = {van der Veer, A and Alsmith, AJT and Longo, MR and Wong, HY and Mohler, BJ}
}