Virtual Reality Applications and Impacts

Embodiment of a functionally altered virtual arm in adults and children

This study examines how altered functionality of a virtual arm affects embodiment in adults and children, finding that extreme enhancements reduce limb ownership in adults but do not improve motor control in children.

Presence Hallucination Induction through Robotically Mediated Somatomotor Conflicts: a pooled analysis of 26 experiments

The paper pools data from 26 experiments to analyze the induction of presence hallucinations using a robotics-based protocol, finding medium effect sizes and associations with schizotypal traits and passivity.

How the characteristics of a virtual environment affects the perception of travel distance through it

This study investigates how virtual environment characteristics affect perceived travel distance through systematic variation of environment structure, naturalism, color, and starfield density.

Speaker responses to audience-induced social-evaluative threat: Evidence from scientific presentation tasks in immersive virtual reality

This study examines how speakers respond to supportive vs. unsupportive audiences in virtual reality, finding greater anxiety and physiological arousal in the unsupportive condition and reduced anxiety with VR exposure.

The effect of virtual reality modality level of immersion and locomotion on spatial learning and gaze measures

This study examines how different VR modalities affect spatial learning and gaze behavior in humans using eye-tracking and T-maze tasks.

Proprioception Impacts Body Perception in Healthy Aging: Insights from a Psychophysical and Computational Approach

This study investigates age-related changes in body perception by comparing multisensory processing in older and young adults, finding that proprioceptive decline contributes to altered body ownership and metric body representation.

Contrasting Cognitive, Behavioral, and Physiological Responses to Breathwork vs. Naturalistic Stimuli in Reflective Chamber and VR Headset Environments: Randomized Control Study

This study compares the effects of breathwork and rain stimuli in immersive environments, finding breathwork reduces breath rate more and efficacy is maintained across VR and reflective chamber delivery.

The Role of Attention in Immersion: The Two-Competitor Model

The paper proposes a two-competitor model to characterize attention in immersion, linking attention modes to affect and providing a framework for measurable assessment of immersive experiences.

Off the shelf: Investigating transfer of learning using commercially available virtual reality equipment

This study investigates whether motor skill practice using commercially available VR improves real-world performance as effectively as physical practice.

Virtual motivation: The psychological and transfer of learning effects of immersive virtual reality practice

This study compares intrinsic motivation, engagement, and learning transfer between virtual reality and real-world practice of a motor skill, finding greater motivation in VR but similar accuracy improvement.

EEG signature of breaks in embodiment in VR

The paper uses EEG to study brain responses during breaks in embodiment in VR, finding error-related potentials linked to non-embodied conditions.

Breathlessness in a virtual world: An experimental paradigm testing how discrepancy between VR visual gradients and pedal resistance during stationary cycling affects breathlessness perception.

This study uses a virtual reality paradigm to show that breathlessness perception is influenced by both expected and actual effort during cycling.

Sensory Reweighting: A Common Mechanism for Subjective Visual Vertical and Cybersickness Susceptibility

This study investigates how exposure to VR affects sensory reweighting and relates it to cybersickness susceptibility by measuring changes in subjective visual vertical and sickness severity.

Avatar error in your favor: Embodied avatars can fix users mistakes without them noticing

The paper shows that users in VR are less likely to notice avatar finger swaps that help them complete tasks compared to those that hinder them.

Different armpits under my new nose: olfactory sex but not gender affects implicit measures of embodiment

The paper investigates how sex-related body odors influence implicit embodiment compared to gender-related scents in virtual reality.

Measuring motion-to-photon latency for sensorimotor experiments with virtual reality systems

This paper measures motion-to-photon latency in VR systems using a high-speed camera technique, revealing latency reductions due to motion prediction algorithms.

Thermal Pain and Detection Threshold Modulation in Augmented Reality

This study shows that augmented reality can modulate thermal pain and detection thresholds by altering body perception.

Embodiment of Supernumerary Robotic Limbs in Virtual Reality

This study evaluates whether a supernumerary robotic limb can be embodied as part of the body in virtual reality and assesses changes in peripersonal space perception.

Enhanced processing of aversive stimuli on embodied artificial limbs by the human amygdala

The paper investigates how the human amygdala processes aversive stimuli on artificial limbs using fMRI in VR, finding enhanced amygdala activation for aversive stimuli with stronger multisensory integration.

Reaching articular limits can negatively impact embodiment in virtual reality.

This study shows that perceiving articular limits during reaching movements in VR can disrupt embodiment if the avatar's movement does not match the user's proprioceptive feedback.

Bodily ownership of an independent supernumerary limb: An exploratory study

This study explores whether humans can perceive ownership of an independent artificial limb, finding that while challenging, embodiment is possible.

The monologue of the double: allocentric reduplication of the own voice alters bodily self perception

The paper investigates if listening to one's own voice from an allocentric perspective can induce a sense of an auditory double and alter spatial self-perception.

The efficacy of a virtual reality exposure therapy treatment for fear of flying: A retrospective study

This study evaluates the efficacy of virtual reality exposure therapy for fear of flying in a real-world sample, finding significant increases in flight activity post-treatment.

Absence of reliable physiological signature of illusory body ownership revealed by f ine-grained autonomic measurement during the rubber hand illusion

The paper tests if the rubber hand illusion alters autonomic activity but finds no reliable physiological changes.

Variation in visual sensitivity predicts motion sickness in virtual reality

The paper finds that individual sensitivity to visual cues predicts motion sickness severity in virtual reality, but not sex differences.

Cogno-Vest: A Torso-Worn, Force Display to Experimentally Induce Specific Hallucinations and Related Bodily Sensations

The paper introduces and validates a torso-worn force display called Cogno-vest to induce specific bodily sensations and hallucinations through sensorimotor conflict.

The contribution of stimulating multiple body parts simultaneously to the illusion of owning an entire artificial body

This study investigates how synchronous visuotactile stimulation of multiple body parts affects the illusion of full-body ownership, finding that synchronization enhances ownership ratings across all body parts.

Visual self-motion feedback affects the sense of self in virtual reality

This study shows that congruent visual feedback of self-motion in virtual reality overrides biological sex in shaping the sense of self.

Self-body recognition through a mirror: Easing spatial-consistency requirements for rubber hand illusion

This study investigates how using a mirror affects the rubber hand illusion by reducing spatial incongruency and enhancing multisensory integration for body ownership.

First person experience of threat modulates cortical network encoding human peripersonal space

The paper investigates how first-person perspective training modulates cortical networks involved in threat detection in human peripersonal space, showing enhanced synchronization and connectivity in specific brain regions.