How to build an embodiment lab: achieving body representation illusions in virtual reality

Title: How to build an embodiment lab: achieving body representation illusions in virtual reality

Teams: Microsoft

Writers: Bernhard Spanlang Jean-Marie Normand David Borland Konstantina Kilteni Elias Giannopoulos Ausiàs Pomés Mar Gonzalez Franco Daniel Pérez Marcos Jorge Arroyo-Palacios Xavi Navaro Muncunill Mel Slater

Publication date: November 2014

Abstract

Advances in computer graphics algorithms and virtual reality (VR) systems, together with the reduction in cost of associated equipment, have led scientists to consider VR as a useful tool for conducting experimental studies in fields such as neuroscience and experimental psychology. In particular virtual body ownership, where the feeling of ownership over a virtual body is elicited in the participant, has become a useful tool in the study of body representation in cognitive neuroscience and psychology, concerning how the brain represents the body. Although VR has been shown to be a useful tool for exploring body ownership illusions, integrating the various technologies necessary for such a system can be daunting. In this paper, we discuss the technical infrastructure necessary to achieve virtual embodiment. We describe a basic VR system and how it may be used for this purpose, and then extend this system with the introduction of real-time motion capture, a simple haptics system and the integration of physiological and brain electrical activity recordings.