DISTORTIONS IN A PERSON'S BODY PERCEPTION AFTER PERFORMING DYNAMIC TASKS IN VIRTUAL REALITY

The article presents a study in the peculiarities of a person’s perception of the size of his own bodydistortion after a short-term immersion in a virtual environment and performing mobile purposeful tasks in it on behalf of a virtual character. The characteristic distortions in the perception of the sizes of the body parts most involved in the virtual activity in the direction of their increase were revealed. Thus, the study participants demonstrated characteristic statistically significant distortions in the perception of such parameters as neck length, shoulder length, hand length, body length, elbow joint width and head width. Distortions in the perception of the size of the upper half of the body (above the waist) correspond to those parts of the subjects’ bodies, the movement of which in space during the performance of the intra-environment task had the greatest functional significance. Immersion in virtual reality, mediated by a VR headset, leads to the formation of a specialvirtual environment perception in the recipient’s psyche. In this case, the perception of oneself also turns out to be tied to the perception of the controlled virtual character. Due to the uncertainty of its size and the blurring of the visual outlines, the image of one’s own body temporarily merges with the operatively formed image of the character, as a result of which an instrumental interiorization of its dimensions occurs. Thus, it is clearly demonstrated that the perception of the person’s body during the immersion in a virtual environment is connected to the nature of the performed movements.