Effects of body representation change on perception and behavior in VR environment

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K19853
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 61020:Human interface and interaction-related
• Research Institution: Ritsumeikan University
• Principal Investigator: MATSUMURO Miki 立命館大学, 総合科学技術研究機構, プロジェクト研究員 (90822859)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: 身体表象 / VR / 痛み / 固有受容感覚 / MR

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Through human subject experiments, we investigated the changes in perception and behaviour.
By making participants' arms translucent, the subjective pain induced by an electrical stimulus decreased. This decrease was observed both when the translucent arms were the participants' own arms and a virtual avatar arm.
When limbs (arm and leg) were displayed at a position from a certain distance from the actual limbs, participants perceived their limbs's position near to that distant positions. This effect transfers to other limbs that were not displayed in whole the experiment. This means that body representation is constructed from not only the bottom-up perceptual information but also the top-down knowledge related to the body.

Free Research Field

認知科学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

身体の透明化による身体表象の変化と痛みとの関連を質問紙と電気刺激の提示を用いて詳細に調べることにより，透明感と痛みの関連性を明らかとした．また，痛み知覚は医療現場において重要であり，処置中の痛みの軽減などへの応用が期待される．
身体部位の表示位置の操作は，操作のあった部位だけではなく，その他の部位までその影響が転移するという結果は，身体表象の構築において，人間がすでに持つ身体の知識が果たす役割を示す．VRでは人間以外のアバタも存在するため，そのようなアバタへのスムーズな適応は，ユーザの持つ知識を活用する必要があることが示唆される．