Moments of friction in virtual reality: How feeling histories impact experience

Abstract

This article examines embodied interaction in a virtual reality learning environment. Studies of embodied interaction in immersive learning environments, like virtual reality, tend to treat all bodies the same without considering the nuanced cultural histories those bodies have with being mobile, especially within—and beyond—technology-mediated environments. In response, this study pivots from perspectives on embodied interaction that underscore the inextricable link between mind and body in favor of sociocultural perspectives to embodiment that emphasize the cultural-historical production of embodied interaction across space and over time. Through multimodal analysis of 10 learners’ experiences in a virtual reality experience called Thought for Food, this article contributes (1) an overt focus on the importance of feeling histories—embodied ways of sensing, feeling, and moving within digital environments—of learners engaging in virtual reality environments in order to promote equitable learning opportunities and (2) argues for future designs that are attuned to frictions—contestations between bodies and interfaces—that potentially collide with learners’ feeling histories.

Experience Mode of Digital Media Art under Virtual Reality Technology

“…The VR space built from VR technology also enriches the public experience of viewing art. Using virtual reality technology, the artist can leverage his imagination so that possible scenes cannot be created in the past, so past impossible scenes can be drawn from exciting emotions in order to get closer to work to a closer understanding of the work [ 11 ]. There is also a virtual reality theater that uses this method.…”

Taking an Extended Embodied Perspective of Touch: Connection-Disconnection in iVR

“…Recent research challenges the "one size fits all" VR experience and shows that our "feeling histories" -our embodied ways of sensing, feeling and moving within and outside technologyshape the way we experience VR (Hollett et al, 2019). Given this, it is important that the work reported here, which is grounded on the idea that embodied interactions are socioculturally shaped (Jewitt et al, 2020), examines how different individuals experience and perceive touch in VR.…”

“…Given this, it is important that the work reported here, which is grounded on the idea that embodied interactions are socioculturally shaped (Jewitt et al, 2020), examines how different individuals experience and perceive touch in VR. While Hollett et al (2019) study explored how users with different technological expertise experience VR, they did not focus on an embodied sense of touch.…”

“…The notion of touch in the literature embraces a broader more "embodied" idea of touch experience (e.g., Sheets-Johnstone, 1999;Paterson, 2006;Parisi, 2014), where touch is conceived as extending beyond the point of contact (that one might have with the hand on the controller), and brings attention to the whole body-in-movement with its ways of touching and "feeling." The relevance to expanding the sense of touch through the lens of embodiment (as elaborated on in An Extended Embodied Sense of Touch) is timely given the growing awareness that: (1) users engagement with, and experiences of, virtual realities are shaped by the histories, expectations, subjectivities they bring with them (Hollett et al, 2019;Jewitt et al, 2021); (2) recreating touch is technologically complex, not least because touch consists of more than cutaneous events, it is mobile and distributed throughout the body (Parisi, 2014); and (3) touch is felt deeper than the skin where, through phenomenological investigations into embodiment, complex but intimate relationships between touching and feelings of connectedness (Paterson, 2009) are exposed and where the relationships between touch and movement are pivotal to how we come to feel the world (Sheets-Johnstone, 1999).…”

A systematic literature review of virtual embodied experience

“…Research into virtual embodied experience is therefore anchored at the intersection of the evolution of virtualization and the embodiment perspective. Perhaps because virtual embodied experience is relevant in various fields, including business (Jung et al, 2019; Petit et al, 2019), tourism (Flavián et al, 2021a; Wen & Leung, 2021), education (Hollett et al, 2020), sports, arts, and recreation (Kaimal et al, 2020; Smith & Snider, 2019; Tussyadiah et al, 2018), research is fragmented across scenarios, disciplines, and theoretical perspectives. This fragmentation has led to the primary research gap lacking links with previous work on real/virtual and disembodied/embodied experiences (Bonetti et al, 2018; Riva et al, 2019).…”