Multi-sensory display of self-avatar's physiological state: virtual breathing and heart beating can increase sensation of effort in VR

Abstract

Fig. 1. We propose a novel approach to increase the connection with a self-avatar in virtual reality (A), by displaying its physiological state and physical exertion. It is based on a multi-sensory setup (B) involving visual, auditory and haptic displays. It includes visual effects such as a periphery overlay (C) simulating heart beating ; or haptic stimulation delivered with a piezoelectric actuator (D) and a novel compression belt (E) which exerts pressure on the abdomen to simulate a virtual breathing.

BreatheWithMe: Exploring Visual and Vibrotactile Displays for Social Breath Awareness during Colocated, Collaborative Tasks

“…Lastly, we only considered two modalities, however it remains open how this extends to other modalities (cf., afective thermal displays [10]), and to digitally mediated environments (e.g., AR or VR displays). For the latter, steps have already been taken on how to visualize breathing in social VR [27], and how sensing and visualizing of virtual breath can increase the sensation of efort [40], yet it remains to be seen how such social breath visualization and awareness can facilitate new modes of virtual social interactions.…”

Fostering empathy in social Virtual Reality through physiologically based affective haptic feedback

“…We used a wearable haptic system able to dynamically convey physiologically based feedback of hearth beat and breathing. The physiological feedback were rendered according to Moullec et al's physiological model [29], that calculate cardiac and respiratory activity depending on the avatar's physiological characteristics as well as its walking speed and the slope of the road. We use the same physiological characteristics for our physiological model to convey distinct stages of stress and anxiety.…”

“…1) Heartbeat simulator: Conveying heart-rate feedback has been proven capable of conveying emotions [27], [29]. We designed a heartbeat simulator able to simulate different hearrate in a compact and comfortable form factor [2].…”

“…2) Breathing simulator: The breathing simulator device was created by Moullec et al [29]. It is composed of a strapbased vest that users can wear and easily adjust to their own torso.…”

OmniScent: An Omnidirectional Olfaction-Enhanced Virtual Reality 360° Video Delivery Solution for Increasing Viewer Quality of Experience

“…media is becoming part of our daily life. Numerous works highlight that experiences integrating multiple human senses increase users' perception of immersion and perceived Quality of Experience (QoE) in VR applications [4], [5]. While the sight and hearing senses have been part of multimedia content delivery for decades, other senses such as touch and smell can be integrated to VR experiences via a number of recent haptic and olfactory technologies [6], [7].…”