It’s in your hands: How variable perception affects grasping estimates in virtual reality

Abstract

Successful interaction within one’s environment is contingent upon one’s ability to accurately perceive the extent over which actions can be performed, referred to as action boundaries. As our possibilities for action are subject to variability, it is necessary for individuals to be able to update their perceived action boundaries to accommodate for variance. While research has shown that individuals can update their action boundaries to accommodate for variability, it is unclear how the perceptual system calibrates to this variance to inform our action boundaries. This study investigated the influence of perceptual motor variability by analysing the effect of random and systematic variability on perceived grasp ability in virtual reality. Participants estimated grasp ability following perceptual-motor experience with a constricted, normal, extended, or variable grasp. In Experiment 1, participants experienced all three grasping abilities (constricted, normal, extended) 33% of the time. In Experiment 2 participants experienced the constricted and normal grasps 25% of the time, and the extended grasp 50% of the time. The results indicated that when perceptual-motor feedback is inconsistent, the perceptual system disregards the frequency of perceptual-motor experience with the different action capabilities and considers each action capability experienced as a type, and subsequently calibrates to the average action boundary experienced by type.

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“…While psychological frameworks of body experience traditionally focused on affective and cognitive processing of body representations ( 19 ), neuroscientific theories emphasize the formation of body representations through synthesis of multisensory experience ( 20 ). The multisensory stimulation in immersive VR enables the experience of embodiment for a virtual body ( 21 ), a phenomenon which has been widely studied in terms of technical prerequisites ( 22 – 25 ), assessment of embodiment ( 21 ), relation to perception of the actual body ( 26 , 27 ), identity ( 28 ), and effects on motor performance ( 29 , 30 ) and cognition ( 31 ). Virtual embodiment can support the assessment and manipulation of body representation and is increasingly used ( 32 – 35 ).…”