The Effect of the Physical State of the Body on Illusory Touch Sensations in a Virtual Environment

Abstract

This paper reports on the effect of the physical state of the body on touch sensations caused by collisions with virtual objects. The collision of a virtual object with a user's body in a virtual environment may cause an illusory touch, or haptic, sensation. We hypothesize that a real-world touch sensation of moving air on skin may augment an illusory touch sensation created by the visual representation of a collision with an object in a virtual scene. To assess this hypothesis, we performed experiments evaluating touch sensation in three conditions: with the user's body covered, with the user's body uncovered, and when blowing air onto the user. Our results showed that a touch sensation was strongly induced in the condition where the user's body was uncovered. Furthermore, the effect of blowing air onto the user differed depending on the body part that was stimulated and the representation of the virtual object. These results suggest that the top-down and bottom-up information for illusory touch sensation such as the user's physical state and the touch sensation of the air on skin had affected each other.