The effects of VEs on mobility impaired users: presence, gait, and physiological response

Abstract

We are investigating if/how Mobility Impaired (MI) persons and healthy persons respond differently to Virtual Environments (VE). Previous research on healthy users has investigated a VE's effects on presence, gait (i.e., walking patterns), and physiological responses (e.g., heart rate). However, almost all of the previous research studies have been conducted only with healthy persons. Thus, it very little is known about how MI persons respond to a VE physiologically, how a VE will affect their gait (i.e., walking patterns), or how their sense of presence may differ from healthy persons. To begin investigating this, we designed a VE that included a range of multimodal feedback to induce a strong sense of presence and was novel to the participants. Using this VE, we conducted a study with two different populations: 8 MI persons and 8 healthy persons. The healthy participants were of similar demographics (e.g., age, weight, height) to the MI participants. The MI population was symptomatically homogeneous (e.g., they all walked with canes) and no participants had cognitive impairment. This is one of the first studies to investigate how a VE can affect MI users' gait, physiological response, and presence.