The Sense of Embodiment in Virtual Reality

Abstract

What does it feel like to own, to control, and to be inside a body? The multidimensional nature of this experience together with the continuous presence of one's biological body, render both theoretical and experimental approaches problematic. Nevertheless, exploitation of immersive virtual reality has allowed a reframing of this question to whether it is possible to experience the same sensations towards a virtual body inside an immersive virtual environment as toward the biological body, and if so, to what extent. The current paper addresses these issues by referring to the Sense of Embodiment (SoE). Due to the conceptual confusion around this sense, we provide a working definition which states that SoE consists of three subcomponents: the sense of self-location, the sense of agency, and the sense of body ownership. Under this proposed structure, measures and experimental manipulations reported in the literature are reviewed and related challenges are outlined. Finally, future experimental studies are proposed to overcome those challenges, toward deepening the concept of SoE and enhancing it in virtual applications.

Avatar Embodiment. Towards a Standardized Questionnaire

“…All of these aspects have been previously related to be affected by, or to be good measures of embodiment (Kilteni et al, 2012a;Maselli and Slater, 2013). In the review, we also present the percentage of use of these sets of questions in the literature.…”

Characterizing embodied interaction in First and Third Person Perspective viewpoints

“…The sense of embodiment into an avatar is constitutive of the sense of presence in virtual reality (VR) and affects the way one interacts with virtual elements [9]. Cognitive science research suggest that the sense of embodiment rises as a product of the combination of three components, namely (i) the sense of agency, i.e.…”

“…Subjective reports of the sense of agency, sense of body ownership and self-location were used to estimate the sense of embodiment [9]. This allowed studying how full body visuomotor synchrony is effective in inducing embodiment with respect to perspective, and measuring the performance trade-offs for performing a task with a 3PP viewpoint.…”

5. Neural Mechanisms of Bodily Self-Consciousness and the Experience of Presence in Virtual Reality

“…Kilteni, Groten, and Slater (2012) defined it as "the ensemble of sensations that arise in conjunction with being inside, having, and controlling a body". Accordingly, the sense of embodiment is generated in conjunction with the sense of agency, the sense of body ownership, and the sense of self-location.…”

“…Although different, sense of presence and sense of embodiment certainly share most mechanisms described above. It has even been proposed that the sense of embodiment "potentially includes the presence subcomponent" (Kilteni, Groten, & Slater, 2012).…”