Third person's footsteps enhanced moving sensation of seated person

Abstract

The present paper describes the system to present a pseudo-walking sensation to a sitting participant. The vibration was added to the heel and toe to imitate cutaneous sensation of the sole during walking. The sound of footsteps was also provided to the participant through headphones simultaneously. In this sound presentation, we used a spatial sound of footsteps of another walker as well as own footstep sound. Another walker's sound was moved along several trajectories in a VR space. We conducted an experiment to elucidate the effect of third person's footstep sound moved differently on the walking sensation of a participant. The result showed that third person's sound enhanced not only walking sensation but also translational sensation of a sitting participant. Furthermore, the effect was the highest when third person's sound came from front to backward of the participant in a VR space.