Elucidation of the influence of physical characteristics on spatial perception and its application to virtual avatars

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K22862
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Medium-sized Section 61:Human informatics and related fields
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: Hirose Michitaka 東京大学, 先端科学技術研究センター, 名誉教授 (40156716)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-06-28 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: バーチャルリアリティ / アバタ / 空間知覚 / 身体性

Outline of Final Research Achievements

As an investigation of the mechanisms by which the avatar's body characteristics affect spatial perception, we undertook a novel examination focusing specifically on the factors of interpupillary distance (IPD) and the rendering style of the avatar and the environment, showing that IPD and body visibility interact to change the size perception of the body and the outside world in the former case, while the latter case we showed that the rendering style has little effect on spatial perception. We also focused on the flexibility of the peri-personal space as a mechanism by which body characteristics change spatial perception, and pointed out for the first time that hand motion mapping and appearance play an important role in the updating of the peri-personal space. We proposed a novel user interface for virtual environments and a method to support remote collaboration based on these findings, and demonstrated their effectiveness.

Free Research Field

バーチャルリアリティ

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

学術的には，身体の大きさの認識がIPDに影響されること，レンダリング様式やその組み合わせが空間知覚にはほとんど影響しないこと，身体近傍空間の柔軟な再構成には従来考えられてきたような刺激と身体の空間的な近接性だけでなく手の運動様式や手の外見（正転vs反転）が影響する可能性があること等，人間の身体知覚と空間知覚の相互作用に関する多くの新規知見が報告されたことに意義がある．社会的には，より正確な空間知覚や空間把握のもとに効果的に作業を行えるバーチャルリアリティ向けのインタフェースや遠隔協調作業支援手法が開発され，基礎研究に基づいた実用的な成果が得られた点に意義がある．