Extending the human body in virtual reality: effect of sensory feedback on agency and ownership of virtual wings

Abstract

Understanding how users can extend their bodies to control avatars can help to make the avatar control and interaction more intuitive and engaging. This paper investigates how multisensory stimuli in a virtual reality environment can contribute to the experience of owning and controlling an extended humanoid avatar with a set of virtual wings. We tested three conditions: visuomotor stimuli, visuomotor and visuotactile stimuli combined and a control condition with only visuoproprioceptive feedback. Results show that visuo-motor feedback was necessary for establishing agency and body-ownership of the wings, and also proved to be better for task performance than in combination with visuotactile feedback. Visuotactile feedback, on the other hand, significantly enhanced body-ownership of the wings, and agency according to questionnaire ratings.