Embodying natural entities in Virtual Reality (VR) shows potential to enhance nature connectedness, but design factors that support such embodiment remain underexplored. This study examined whether transitional elements in the physical setting before and after VR and multisensory stimuli during VR can strengthen nature connectedness in a transformative tree-embodiment experience. Through a mixed-methods approach (N = 20), where we varied the pre- and post-VR experience (Neutral vs. Transitional) and sensory modalities (Audiovisual vs. Multisensory), we found that both transitional and multisensory experiences significantly enhanced presence, embodiment, and nature connectedness, with increases in emotional connectedness sustained one week later. Drawing on interview insights and impact ratings of specific design features, we derive design recommendations for integrating transitional and multisensory elements. Our findings demonstrate the value of holistic design for enhancing the emotional and transformative potential of VR nature embodiment for fostering environmental awareness.

Awe is a multifaceted emotion often associated with the perception of vastness, that challenges existing mental frameworks. Despite its growing relevance in affective computing and psychological research, awe remains difficult to elicit and measure. This raises the research questions of how awe can be effectively elicited, which factors are associated with the experience of awe, and whether it can reliably be measured using biosensors. For this study, we designed 10 immersive Virtual Reality (VR) scenes with dynamic transitions from narrow to vast environments. These scenes were used to explore how awe relates to environmental features (abstract, human-made, nature), personality traits, and country of origin. We collected skin conductance, respiration, self-reported awe and presence data from participants from Germany, Japan, and Jordan. Our results indicate that self-reported awe varies significantly across countries and scene types. In particular, a scene depicting outer space elicited the strongest awe. Scenes that elicited high selfreported awe also induced a stronger sense of presence. However, we found no evidence that awe ratings are correlated with physiological responses. These findings challenge the assumption that awe is reliably reflected in autonomic arousal and underscore the importance of cultural and perceptual context. Our study offers new insights into how immersive VR can be designed to elicit awe, and suggests that subjective reports - rather than physiological signals - remain the most consistent indicators of emotional impact.

Awe is a complex emotion described as a perception of vastness and a need for accommodation to integrate new, overwhelming experiences. Virtual Reality (VR) has recently gained attention as a convenient means to facilitate experiences of awe. In VR, a first-person perspective might increase awe due to its immersive nature, while a third-person perspective might enhance the perception of vastness. However, the impact of VR perspectives on experiencing awe has not been thoroughly examined. We created two types of VR scenes: one with elements designed to induce high awe, such as a snowy mountain, and a low awe scene without such elements. We compared first-person and third-person perspectives in each scene. Forty-two participants explored the VR scenes, with their physiological responses captured by electrocardiogram (ECG) and face tracking (FT). Subsequently, participants self-reported their experience of awe (AWE-S) and presence (IPQ) within VR. The results revealed that the first-person perspective induced stronger feelings of awe and presence than the third-person perspective. The findings of this study provide useful guidelines for designing VR content that enhances emotional experiences.

Physical walking is often considered the gold standard for VR travel whenever feasible. However, limited free-space walking areas in the real-world do not allow exploring larger-scale virtual environments by actual walking. Therefore, users often require handheld controllers for navigation, which can reduce believability, interfere with simultaneous interaction tasks, and exacerbate adverse effects such as motion sickness and disorientation. To investigate alternative locomotion options, we compared handheld Controller (thumbstick-based) and physical walking versus a seated (HeadJoystick) and standing/stepping (NaviBoard) leaning-based locomotion interface, where seated/standing users travel by moving their head toward the target direction. Rotations were always physically performed. To compare these interfaces, we designed a novel simultaneous locomotion and object interaction task, where users needed to keep touching the center of upward moving target balloons with their virtual lightsaber, while simultaneously staying inside a horizontally moving enclosure. Walking resulted in the best locomotion, interaction, and combined performances while the controller performed worst. Leaning-based interfaces improved user experience and performance compared to Controller, especially when standing/stepping using NaviBoard, but did not reach walking performance. That is, leaning-based interfaces HeadJoystick (sitting) and NaviBoard (standing) that provided additional physical self-motion cues compared to controller improved enjoyment, preference, spatial presence, vection intensity, motion sickness, as well as performance for locomotion, object interaction, and combined locomotion and object interaction. Our results also showed that less embodied interfaces (and in particular the controller) caused a more pronounced performance deterioration when increasing locomotion speed. Moreover, observed differences between our interfaces were not affected by repeated interface usage.

Access to nature and feeling connection is critical for mental health and well-being. These benefits may be mediated by self-transcendent emotions evoked by nature. We need to explore the capacity of technology to offer such experiences when we lack access to the restorative power of nature. Despite growing research validating this capacity, there is a lack of articulated design knowledge of how such experiences can be created. Here, we explore a technologically-mediated support for mental well-being through an agile design approach informed by self-transcendent emotion theory and transformative experience design. We developed Awedyssey as a sensory deprivation countermeasure experience in virtual reality (VR) and as a part of a public exhibition. We gathered qualitative feedback through interviews, diaries, and surveys. From this data we identified design tensions for designing complex emotional experiences when considering the diversity of individuals and dual effects of designing for realism, autonomy, vastness, and comfort.

Design-Based Learning (DBL) is a promising learning approach to nurture 21st century skills. It requires students to leverage social regulation of learning. However, students in elementary education still need to develop these skills. Tangible User Interfaces might help students move up in the developmental trajectory through providing scaffolds and supporting positive interdependence. In this paper, we present the considerations and design of a tool, TangiTeam, that aims to support social regulation during elementary school DBL activities. We hope to inspire teachers and designers to create scaffolds for social regulation.

Continuous locomotion in VR provides uninterrupted optical flow, which mimics real-world locomotion and supports path integration . However, optical flow limits the maximum speed and acceleration that can be effectively used without inducing cybersickness. In contrast, teleportation provides neither optical flow nor acceleration cues, and users can jump to any length without increasing cybersickness. However, teleportation cannot support continuous spatial updating and can increase disorientation. Thus, we designed 'HyperJump' in an attempt to merge benefits from continuous locomotion and teleportation. HyperJump adds iterative jumps every half a second on top of the continuous movement and was hypothesized to facilitate faster travel without compromising spatial awareness/orientation. In a user study, Participants travelled around a naturalistic virtual city with and without HyperJump (equivalent maximum speed). They followed waypoints to new landmarks, stopped near them and pointed back to all previously visited landmarks in random order. HyperJump was added to two continuous locomotion interfaces (controller- and leaning-based). Participants had better spatial awareness/orientation with leaning-based interfaces compared to controller-based (assessed via rapid pointing). With HyperJump, participants travelled significantly faster, while staying on the desired course without impairing their spatial knowledge. This provides evidence that optical flow can be effectively limited such that it facilitates faster travel without compromising spatial orientation. In future design iterations, we plan to utilize audio-visual effects to support jumping metaphors that help users better anticipate and interpret jumps, and use much larger virtual environments requiring faster speeds, where cybersickness will become increasingly prevalent and thus teleporting will become more important.

Using standard handheld interfaces for VR locomotion may not provide a believable self-motion experience and can contribute to unwanted side effects such as motion sickness, disorientation, or increased cognitive load. This paper demonstrates how using a seated leaning-based locomotion interface -HeadJoystick- in VR ground-based navigation affects user experience, usability, and performance. In three within-subject studies, we compared controller (touchpad/thumbstick) with a more embodied interface ("HeadJoystick") where users moved their head and/or leaned in the direction of desired locomotion. In both conditions, users sat on a regular office chair and used it to control virtual rotations. In the first study, 24 participants used HeadJoystick versus Controller in three complementary tasks including reach-the-target, follow-the-path, and racing (dynamic obstacle avoidance). In the second study, 18 participants repeatedly used HeadJoystick versus Controller (8 one-minute trials each) in a reach-the-target task. To evaluate potential benefits of different brake mechanisms, in the third study 18 participants were asked to stop within each target area for one second. All three studies consistently showed advantages of HeadJoystick over Controller: we observed improved performance in all tasks, as well as higher user ratings for enjoyment, spatial presence, immersion, vection intensity, usability, ease of learning, ease of use, and rated potential for daily and long-term use, while reducing motion sickness and task load. Overall, our results suggest that leaning-based interfaces such as HeadJoystick provide an interesting and more embodied alternative to handheld interfaces in driving, reach-the-target, and follow-the-path tasks, and potentially a wider range of scenarios.

Lucid dreaming is the awareness of being in a dream, allowing dream control and living out fantasies. It also has benefits for growth and well-being. Yet, lucid dreaming is not accessible to most people. So, we created Lucid Loop—a neurofeedback-augmented immersive experience that utilizes AI-enhanced visuals and spatial audio in a virtual reality device for simulating lucid dreaming. We interviewed nine lucid dreamers who tried Lucid Loop and helped us propose design considerations: dreaming allusions, reality checks, focus points with neurofeedback, people in the scene, and immersion. Lucid Loop was like lucid dreaming because of its capacity for emotionality and fluidity between self and environment. Participants also noted several differences where technology might be limited. Lucid Loop appears to accurately simulate lucid dreaming, with implications for enhancing well-being and future applications for lucid dream training. Our research generalizes to technologically-mediated simulations of other emotive or internal experiences.

Flying dreams have the potential to evoke a feeling of empowerment (or self-efficacy, confidence in our ability to succeed) and self-transcendent experience (STE), which have been shown to contribute to an individual’s overall well-being. However, these exceptional dreaming experiences remain difficult to induce at will. Inspired by the potential of Virtual Reality (VR) to support profound emotional experiences, we explored if a VR flying interface with more embodied self-motion cues could contribute to the benefits associated with flying dreams (i.e., STE and empowerment). Our results indicated that a flying interface with more self-motion cues indeed better supported STE and empowerment. We derived several design considerations: obscurity, extraordinary light and supportive setting. Our results contribute to the discourse around design guidelines for self-transcendence and empowerment in VR, which may further be applied to the improvement of mental well-being.

Human connection is essential for our personal well-being and a building block for a well-functioning society. There is a prominent interest in the potential of technology for mediating social connection, with a wealth of systems designed to foster the feeling of connection between strangers, friends, and family. By surveying this design landscape we present a transitional definition of mediated genuine connection and nine design strategies embodied within 50 design artifacts: affective self-disclosure, reflection on unity, shared embodied experience, transcendent emotions, embodied metaphors, interpersonal distance, touch, provocations, and play. In addition to drawing on design practice-based knowledge we also identify underlying psychological theories that can inform these strategies. We discuss design considerations pertaining to sensory modalities, vulnerability–comfort trade-offs, consent, situatedness in context, supporting diverse relationships, reciprocity, attention directedness, pursuing generalized knowledge, and questions of ethics. We hope to inspire and enrich designers’ understanding of the possibilities of technology to better support a mediated genuine feeling of connection.

Natural interaction between multiple users within a shared virtual environment (VE) relies on each other's awareness of the current position of the interaction partners. This, however, cannot be warranted when users employ noncontinuous locomotion techniques, such as teleportation, which may cause confusion among bystanders. In this paper, we pursue two approaches to create a pleasant experience for both the moving user and the bystanders observing that movement. First, we will introduce a Smart Avatar system that delivers continuous full-body human representations for noncontinuous locomotion in shared virtual reality (VR) spaces. Smart Avatars imitate their assigned user's real-world movements when close-by and autonomously navigate to their user when the distance between them exceeds a certain threshold, i.e., after the user teleports. As part of the Smart Avatar system, we implemented four avatar transition techniques and compared them to conventional avatar locomotion in a user study, revealing significant positive effects on the observers' spatial awareness, as well as pragmatic and hedonic quality scores. Second, we introduce the concept of Stuttered Locomotion , which can be applied to any continuous locomotion method. By converting a continuous movement into short-interval teleport steps, we provide the merits of non-continuous locomotion for the moving user while observers can easily keep track of their path. Thus, while the experience for observers is similarly positive as with continuous motion, a user study confirmed that Stuttered Locomotion can significantly reduce the occurrence of cybersickness symptoms for the moving user, making it an attractive choice for shared VEs. We will discuss the potential of Smart Avatars and Stuttered Locomotion for shared VR experiences, both when applied individually and in combination.

Flying in virtual reality (VR) using standard handheld controllers can be cumbersome and contribute to unwanted side effects such as motion sickness and disorientation. This article investigates a novel hands-free flying interface-HeadJoystick, where the user moves their head similar to a joystick handle toward the target direction to control virtual translation velocity. The user sits on a regular office swivel chair and rotates it physically to control virtual rotation using 1:1 mapping. We evaluated short-term (Study 1) and extended usage effects through repeated usage (Study 2) of the HeadJoystick versus handheld interfaces in two within-subject studies, where participants flew through a sequence of increasingly difficult tunnels in the sky. Using the HeadJoystick instead of handheld interfaces improved both user experience and performance, in terms of accuracy, precision, ease of learning, ease of use, usability, long-term use, presence, immersion, sensation of self-motion, workload, and enjoyment in both studies. These findings demonstrate the benefits of using leaning-based interfaces for VR flying and potentially similar telepresence applications such as remote flight with quadcopter drones. From a theoretical perspective, we also show how leaning-based motion cueing interacts with full physical rotation to improve user experience and performance compared to the gamepad.

Walking has always been considered as the gold standard for navigation in Virtual Reality research. Though full rotation is no longer a technical challenge, physical translation is still restricted through limited tracked areas. While rotational information has been shown to be important, the benefit of the translational component is still unclear with mixed results in previous work. To address this gap, we conducted a mixed-method experiment to compare four levels of translational cues and control: none (using the trackpad of the HTC Vive controller to translate), upper-body leaning (sitting on a "NaviChair", leaning the upper-body to locomote), whole-body leaning/stepping (standing on a platform called NaviBoard, leaning the whole body or stepping one foot off the center to navigate), and full translation (physically walking). Results showed that translational cues and control had significant effects on various measures including task performance, task load, and simulator sickness. While participants performed significantly worse when they used a controller with no embodied translational cues, there was no significant difference between the NaviChair, NaviBoard, and actual walking. These results suggest that translational body-based motion cues and control from a low-cost leaning/stepping interface might provide enough sensory information for supporting spatial updating, spatial awareness, and efficient locomotion in VR, although future work will need to investigate how these results might or might not generalize to other tasks and scenarios.

Virtual reality (VR) has the potential to support profound emotional experiences, such as experiencing awe when virtually viewing the Earth from space. In doing so, VR can potentially both give people positive emotional experiences contributing to their overall well-being and give researchers a way to study these profound emotional experiences in a more controlled environment. Through a design refinement process, we explored the potential influence of the "set and setting''--one's mindset and the physical and social environment--when transitioning people into and out of VR designed to support profound emotional experiences. We present our findings from a design refinement session and a case study exploring how set and setting may support the profound emotional experience of awe. We discuss common themes in user experience and trends of awe-related behavioural and introspective measures. Our results contribute to the discourse around the role of the design of set and setting in overall user experience.

Bio-responsive immersive Virtual Reality can transform our interactions to bring awareness to our physiological rhythms fostering connection with our bodies, each other and nature. JeL is an immersive installation that aims to foster a feeling of connection through the process of breathing synchronization. Two immersants synchronize their breathing to fuel the growth of a coral-like structure that, together with the interactions of others, populates an initially empty coral reef. JeL is designed to support an intimate connection between users and with nature, sending a message about our collective capacity to care for the environment. JeL is an installation and research platform for exploring breathing synchronization and its effect on the feeling of connection. It was well received at a digital art festival where participants were able to relax and synchronize using the installation. Reflection on our design process and observations provides insights for the development of systems that promote connection.

Attending to breath is a self-awareness practice that exists within many contemplative and reflective traditions and is recognized for its benefits to well-being. Our current technological landscape embraces a large body of systems that utilize breath data in order to foster self-awareness. This paper seeks to deepen our understanding of the design space of systems that perceptually extend breath awareness. Our contribution is twofold: (1) our analysis reveals how the underlying theoretical frameworks shape the system design and its evaluation, and (2) how system design features support perceptual extension of breath awareness. We review and critically analyze 31 breath-based interactive systems. We identify 4 theoretical frameworks and 3 design strategies for interactive systems that perceptually extend breath awareness. We reflect upon this design space from both a theoretical and system design perspective, and propose future design directions for developing systems that "listen to" breath and perceptually extend it.

This paper introduces FaceHaptics, a novel haptic display based on a robot arm attached to a head-mounted virtual reality display. It provides localized, multi-directional and movable haptic cues in the form of wind, warmth, moving and single-point touch events and water spray to dedicated parts of the face not covered by the head-mounted display.The easily extensible system, however, can principally mount any type of compact haptic actuator or object. User study 1 showed that users appreciate the directional resolution of cues, and can judge wind direction well, especially when they move their head and wind direction is adjusted dynamically to compensate for head rotations. Study 2 showed that adding FaceHaptics cues to a VR walkthrough can significantly improve user experience, presence, and emotional responses.

Telepresence robots allow people to participate in remote spaces, yet they can be difficult to manoeuvre with people and obstacles around. We designed a haptic-feedback system called "FeetBack," which users place their feet in when driving a telepresence robot. When the robot approaches people or obstacles, haptic proximity and collision feedback are provided on the respective sides of the feet, helping inform users about events that are hard to notice through the robot's camera views. We conducted two studies: one to explore the usage of FeetBack in virtual environments, another focused on real environments. We found that FeetBack can increase spatial presence in simple virtual environments. Users valued the feedback to adjust their behaviour in both types of environments, though it was sometimes too frequent or unneeded for certain situations after a period of time. These results point to the value of foot-based haptic feedback for telepresence robot systems, while also the need to design context-sensitive haptic feedback.

Navigation and selection are critical in very large virtual environments, such as a model of a whole city. In practice, many VR applications require both of these modalities to work together. We compare different combinations of two navigation and two selection methods in VR on selection tasks involving distant targets in a user study. The aim of our work is to discover the trade-off between navigation and selection techniques and to identify which combination leads to better interaction performance in large virtual environments. The results showed that users could complete the task faster with the fly/drive method and traveled less, compared to the teleportation method. Additionally, raycasting exhibited a better performance in terms of time and (less) distance traveled, however, it significantly increased the error rate for the selection of targets.

Many studies have proposed different ways of supporting flying in embodied virtual reality (VR) interfaces with limited success. Our research explores the usage of a user's lower body to support flying locomotion control through a novel "flexible perching" (FlexPerch) stance that provides user with leg moving ability while sitting. We conducted an observational study exploring participants' preferred usage of the FlexPerch stance, and a mixed-method study comparing the same flying experience with existing sitting and standing stances. Our results show that FlexPerch markedly increased participants' feelings of flying. However, people may not like "flying" when they really can - the freedom, feeling of floating, and novelty contributing to this sensation can also mean more effort and feeling unsafe or unfamiliar. We suggest that researchers studying VR flying interfaces evaluate the feeling of flying, and raise design considerations to use stances like FlexPerch to elicit feelings of flying and stimulation.

Busy daily lives and ongoing distractions often make people feel disconnected from their bodies and experiences. Guided attention to self can alleviate this disconnect as in focused-attention meditation, in which breathing often constitutes the primary object on which to focus attention. In this context, sustained breath awareness plays a crucial role in the emergence of the meditation experience. We designed an immersive virtual environment (iVE) with a generative soundtrack that supports sustained attention on breathing by employing the users' breathing in interaction. Both sounds and visuals are directly mapped to the user's breathing patterns, thus bringing the awareness researched. We conducted micro-phenomenology interviews to unfold the process in which breath awareness can be induced and sustained in this environment. The findings revealed the mechanisms by which audio and visual cues in VR can elicit and foster breath-awareness, and unfolded the nuances of this process through subjective experiences of the study participants. Finally, the results emphasize the important role that a sense of agency and control have in shaping the overall quality of the experience. This can in turn inform the design specifications of future mindfulness-based designs focused on breath awareness.

Moving objects is an important task in 3D user interfaces. In this work, we focus on (precise) 3D object positioning in immersive virtual reality systems, especially head-mounted displays (HMDs). To evaluate input method performance for 3D positioning, we focus on an existing sliding algorithm, in which objects slide on any contact surface. Sliding enables rapid positioning of objects in 3D scenes on a desktop system but is yet to be evaluated in an immersive system. We performed a user study that compared the efficiency and accuracy of different input methods (mouse, hand-tracking, and trackpad) and cursor display conditions (stereo cursor and one-eyed cursor) for 3D positioning tasks with the HTC Vive. The results showed that the mouse outperformed hand-tracking and the trackpad, in terms of efficiency and accuracy. Stereo cursor and one-eyed cursor did not demonstrate a significant difference in performance, yet the stereo cursor condition was rated more favourable. For situations where the user is seated in immersive VR, the mouse is thus still the best input device for precise 3D positioning.

People often enjoy sharing outdoor activities together such as walking and hiking. However, when family and friends are separated by distance it can be difficult if not impossible to share such activities. We explore this design space by investigating the benefits and challenges of using a telepresence robot to support outdoor leisure activities. In our study, participants participated in the outdoor activity of geocaching where one person geocached with the help of a remote partner via a telepresence robot. We compared a wide field of view (WFOV) camera to a 360° camera. Results show the benefits of having a physical embodiment and a sense of immersion with the 360° view. Yet challenges related to a lack of environmental awareness, safety issues, and privacy concerns resulting from bystander interactions. These findings illustrate the need to design telepresence robots with the environment and public in mind to provide an enhanced sensory experience while balancing safety and privacy issues resulting from being amongst the general public.

Virtual reality (VR) is resurging in popularity with the advancement of low-cost hardware and more realistic graphics. How might this technology help others? That is, to increase mental well-being? The ultimate VR might look like lucid dreaming, the phenomenon of knowing one is dreaming while in the dream. Lucid dreaming can be used as an introspective tool and, ultimately, increase mental well-being. What these introspective experiences are like for lucid dreamers might be key in determining specific design guidelines for future creation of a technological tool used for helping people examine their own thoughts and emotions. This study describes nine active and proficient lucid dreamers' representations of their introspective experiences gained through phenomenological interviews. Four major themes emerged: sensations and feelings, actions and practices, influences on experience, and meaning making. This knowledge can help design a VR system that is grounded in genuine experience and preserving the human condition.

Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) provide immersive experiences for virtual reality. However, their field of view (FOV) is still relatively small compared to the human eye, which adding sparse peripheral displays (SPDs) could address. We designed a new SPD, SparseLightVR2, which increases the HMD's FOV to 180° horizontally. We evaluated SparseLightVR2 with a study (N=29) by comparing three conditions: 1) no SPD, where the peripheral display (PD) was inactive; 2) extended SPD, where the PD provided visual cues consistent with and extending the HMD's main screen; and 3) counter-vection SPD, where the PD's visuals were flipped horizontally during VR travel to provide optic flow in the opposite direction of the travel. The participants experienced passive motion on a linear path and reported introspective measures such as sensation of self-motion. Results showed, compared to no SPD, both extended and counter-vection SPDs provided a more natural experience of motion, while extended SPD also enhanced vection intensity and believability of movement. Yet, visually induced motion sickness (VIMS) was not affected by display condition. To investigate the reason behind these non-significant results, we conducted a follow-up study and had users increase peripheral counter-vection visuals on the central HMD screen until they nulled out vection. Our results suggest extending HMDs through SPDs enhanced vection, naturalness, and believability of movement without enhancing VIMS, but reversed SPD motion cues might not be strong enough to reduce vection and VIMS.

Virtual Reality (VR) is increasingly used in spatial cognition research, as it offers high experimental control in naturalistic multimodal environments, which is hard to achieve in real-world settings. Although recent technological advances offer a high level of photorealism, locomotion in VR is still restricted because people might not perceive their self-motion as they would in the real world. This might be related to the inability to use embodied spatial orientation processes, which support automatic and obligatory updating of our spatial awareness. Previous research has identified the roles reference frames play in retaining spatial orientation. Here, we propose using visually overlaid rectangular boxes, simulating reference frames in VR, to provide users with a better insight into spatial direction in landmark-free virtual environments. The current mixed-method study investigated how different variations of the visually simulated reference frames might support people in a navigational search task. Performance results showed that the existence of a simulated reference frame yields significant effects on participants completion time and travel distance. Though a simulated CAVE translating with the navigator (one of the simulated reference frames) did not provide significant benefits, the simulated room (another simulated reference frame depicting a rest frame) significantly boosted user performance in the task as well as improved participants preference in the post-experiment evaluation. Results suggest that adding a visually simulated reference frame to VR applications might be a cost-effective solution to the spatial disorientation problem in VR.

No abstract available.

Couples in Long Distance Relationships (LDRs) often rely on the use of video chat systems to help maintain their relationship. However, designs are typically limited to only supporting face-to-face conversations or providing narrow fields of view. We designed and evaluated MyEyes, a First Person View (FPV) video streaming technology probe made with cardboard goggles and a smartphone. Distance-separated partners see each other's view on their screen where it can overlap their own view (Overlapped), be placed above it (Horizontal), or presented at the same time where each is seen with a different eye (Split). We compared the three different views with couples to explore the effect on social presence and body ownership. The Overlapped View was most preferred by couples and it provided the strongest feeling of co-presence, whereas a Horizontal View provided the greatest sense of mutual understanding. Our qualitative results showed couples valued performing synchronized acts together and doing activities "in" the remote location.

Smartwatches are growing in usage, yet they come with the additional challenge of regulating their usage during the taking of academic tests. However, it is unclear how effective they are at actually allowing students to cheat. We conducted an experiment that examines the use of smartwatches for cheating on Multiple-Choice Questions (MCQ) and Short Answers (SA) with either Pictures/Text shown on the watch to aid students. Our results indicate that smartwatches are neither efficient nor have a high usability rating for cheating. However, students are able to score higher on Multiple-Choice Questions compared to Short Answers. We use the cheating paradigm as an example to understand the perceived usability and appropriation of smartwatches in an academic setting. We provide suggestions that help to deter cheating in an academic setting. Our study contributes to the research on academic integrity and the growing demand of wearable technologies.

With affordable high performance VR displays becoming commonplace, users are becoming increasingly aware of the need for well-designed locomotion interfaces that support these displays. After considering the needs of users, we quantitatively evaluated an embodied locomotion interface called the NaviChair according to usability needs and fulfillment of system requirements. Specifically, we investigated influences of locomotion interfaces (joystick vs. an embodied motion cueing chair) and display type (HMD vs. projection screen) on a spatial updating pointing task. Our findings indicate that our embodied VR locomotion interface provided users with an immersive experience of a space without requiring a significant investment of set up time.

We describe here a pilot user study comparing five different locomotion interfaces for virtual reality (VR) locomotion. We compared a standard non-motion cueing interface, Joystick, with four leaning-based seated motion-cueing interfaces: NaviChair, MuvMan, Head-Directed and Swivel Chair. The aim of this mixed methods study was to investigate the usability and user experience of each interface, in order to better understand relevant factors and guide the design of future ground-based VR locomotion interfaces. We asked participants to give talk-aloud feedback and simultaneously recorded their responses while they were performing a search task in VR. Afterwards, participants completed an online questionnaire. Although the Joystick was rated as more comfortable and precise than the other interfaces, the leaning-based interfaces showed a trend to provide more enjoyment and a greater sense of self-motion. There were also potential issues of using velocity-control for rotations in leaning-based interfaces when using HMDs instead of stationary displays. Developers need to focus on improving the controllability and perceived safety of these seated motion cueing interfaces.

In this course, we will take a detailed look at various breeds of spatial navigation interfaces that allow for locomotion in digital 3D environments such as games, virtual environments or even the exploration of abstract data sets. We will closely look into the basics of navigation, unraveling the psychophysics (including wayfinding) and actual navigation (travel) aspects. The theoretical foundations form the basis for the practical skillset we will develop, by providing an in-depth discussion of navigation devices and techniques, and a step-by-step discussion of multiple real-world case studies. Doing so, we will cover the full range of navigation techniques from handheld to full-body, highly engaging and partly unconventional methods and tackle spatial navigation with hands-on-experience and tips for design and validation of novel interfaces. In particular, we will be looking at affordable setups and ways to “trick” out users to enable a realistic feeling of self-motion in the explored environments. As such, the course unites the theory and practice of spatial navigation, serving as entry point to understand and improve upon currently existing methods for the application domain at hand.

Chronic stress is one of the major problems in our current fast paced society. The body reacts to environmental stress with physiological changes (e.g. accelerated heart rate), increasing the activity of the sympathetic nervous system. Normally the parasympathetic nervous system should bring us back to a more balanced state after the stressful event is over. However, nowadays we are often under constant pressure, with a multitude of stressful events per day, which can result in us constantly being out of balance. This highlights the importance of effective stress management techniques that are readily accessible to a wide audience. In this paper we present an exploratory study investigating the potential use of immersive virtual reality for relaxation with the purpose of guiding further design decisions, especially about the visual content as well as the interactivity of virtual content. Specifically, we developed an underwater world for head-mounted display virtual reality. We performed an experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of the underwater world environment for relaxation, as well as to evaluate if the underwater world in combination with breathing techniques for relaxation was preferred to standard breathing techniques for stress management. The underwater world was rated as more fun and more likely to be used at home than a traditional breathing technique, while providing a similar degree of relaxation.

Designers of natural user interfaces are faced with several challenges when creating interaction models for controlling applications, including the wide range of possible input actions and the lack of affordances, which they can use to design controls. In order to contribute to the development of design guidelines in this design space, we conducted an exploratory, mixed methods study. We investigated three top-down approaches to designing intuitive interaction mappings for a whole body system implemented with camera vision. These were metaphoric, isomorphic and ‘everyday’ or conventional. In order to identify some of the benefits and limitations of each approach, we compared the designs based on measures of usability, intuitiveness and engagement with the material represented in the system. From our study, we found that while the metaphoric design enhanced users’ performance at completing tasks, the lack of discoverability of the interaction model left them feeling incompetent and dissatisfied. We found that the isomorphic design enabled users to focus on tasks rather than learning how to use the system. Conversely, designs based on previous conventions had to be learned, had a time cost for the learning and negatively impacted users’ engagement with content. For tasks and controls that can be designed based on an image schematic input action, users performed most accurately with the metaphoric design. There are benefits and limitations to each approach to designing to support intuitive interaction. We conclude with preliminary design considerations, suggest ways to balance performance with high user satisfaction depending on contextual design goals and question a single definition of intuitive intuition within whole body interface design.

Abstract motion textures are widely applied in visual design and immersive environments such as games to imbue the environment or presentation with affect. While visual designers and artists carefully manipulate visual elements such as colour, form and motion to evoke affect, understanding what aspects of motion contribute to this still remains a matter of designer craft rather than validated principle. We report an empirical study of how simple features of motion in 3D textures, or motionscapes, contribute to the elicitation of affect. 12 university students were recruited to evaluate a series of 3D motionscapes. Results showed basic motion properties including speed, direction, path curvature and shape had significant influence on affective impressions such as valence, comfort, urgency and intensity, suggesting further directions for applications and explorations in this design space.

Relying exclusively on visual information to maintain orientation while traveling in virtual environments is challenging. However, it is currently unclear how much body-based information is required to produce a significant improvement in navigation performance. In our study participants explored unfamiliar virtual mazes using visual-only and physical rotations. Participants's ability to remain oriented was measured using a novel pointing task. While men consistently benefitted from using physical rotations versus visual-only rotations (lower absolute pointing errors, configuration errors, and absolute ego-orientation errors), women did not. We discuss design implications for locomotion interfaces in virtual environments. Our findings also suggest that investigating individual differences may help to resolve apparent conflicts in the literature regarding potential benefits of physical rotational cues for effective spatial orientation.

Despite extensive usability research on virtual reality (VR) within academia and the increasing use of VR within industry, there is little research evaluating the usability and benefits of VR in applied settings. This is problematic for individuals desiring design principals or best practices for incorporating VR into their business. Furthermore, the literature that does exist often doesn't account for the characteristics of intended users. This shortage is problematic because individual differences have been shown to have a significant impact on performance in spatial tasks. The research presented here is an evaluation of a VR system in use at The Boeing Company, with 28 employees performing navigation and wayfinding tasks across two shading conditions (flat/smooth) and two display conditions (desktop/immersive). Performance was measured based on speed and accuracy. Individual difference factors were used as covariates. Results showed that women and those with high spatial orientation ability performed faster in smooth shading conditions, while flat shading benefited those with low spatial ability particularly for the navigation task. Unexpectedly, immersive presentation did not improve performance significantly. These results demonstrate the impact of individual differences on spatial performance and help determine appropriate tasks, display parameters, and suitable users for the VR system.

A necessary part of developing effective and realistic Virtual Reality (VR) simulations is emulating perceptual sensations that occur to humans in corresponding natural environments. VR users are often seated and unable to freely move through the virtual world, therefore necessitating other means to simulate and perceive self-movement. One approach to tackle this challenge is to induce embodied illusions of self-motion ("vection") in stationary observers, typically by providing moving visual stimuli on a wide field-of-view display. While numerous stimulus parameters have been shown to affect vection [see Riecke, 2011 for a review], there is little research investigating how the type of display itself might contribute. Here, we compared the vection-inducing potential as well as user experience and usability of two common displays for large-field stimulation: A passive stereoscopic projection setup and a 3D television with shutter glasses. Uncovering differences in vection between these displays would contribute to the theoretical understanding of vection and the potential relevance of different display properties, and guide the development of more immersive and effective VR setups. From a practical standpoint, this study helps to determine whether the more expensive projection system provides a benefit over the more accessible and affordable 3D television.

When a patient has a chronic illness, such as heart disease or cancer, it can be challenging for distributed family members to stay aware of the patient's health status. A variety of technologies are available to support health information sharing (e.g., phone, video chat, social media), yet we still do not have a detailed understanding of which technologies are preferred and what challenges people still face when sharing information with them. To explore this, we conducted a mixed-method study-involving a survey and in-depth interviews--with people about their health information sharing routines and preferences for different technologies. Regardless of physical distance between distributed family members, synchronous methods of communication afforded the opportunity to provide affective support while asynchronous methods of communication were deemed to be the least intrusive. With family members adopting certain roles during the treatment of chronic illnesses, our findings suggest the need to design tools that mediate sharing health information across distance and age gaps, with consideration to respecting patient privacy while sharing health information.

Locomotion interfaces that support physical self-motion in virtual reality facilitate spatial updating, but have relatively high cost and typically require large physical spaces. A better understanding of the illusion of self-motion, or vection, presents a potential solution to this problem. Though circular self-motion illusions induced using only visuals or only walking have been investigated previously, the interaction between these two types has not. We conducted an experiment to examine the additive effects of walking stimuli and visual motion cues on intensity and convincingness of circular veetion. Our results indicate a trend towards decreased vection onset time when illusory rotation stimuli were combined. Measures of intensity and convincingness were also rated higher for the combined stimulus condition when compared with walking or visual stimuli separately. Consequently, lean and elegant virtual reality interface designs should include both walking and visual stimuli for a compelling experience of self-motion.

Sonic Cradle is a chamber of complete darkness where users shape a peaceful soundscape using only their respiration. This interactive system was designed to foster a meditative experience by facilitating users' sense of immersion while following a specific attentional pattern characteristic of mindfulness. The goal of Sonic Cradle is twofold: first, to trigger the proven effects of mindfulness on stress, and second, to help teach and demystify the concept of meditation for users' long-term benefit. This paper presents the design phase of the project, starting by theoretically grounding the initial concept. We then discuss 15 co-design sessions which provided informal conceptual validation and led to several concrete design iterations aimed at balancing users' perceived sense of control. The presented approach to designing an interactive stress management system can be considered research through design, as it also resulted in a novel theoretical framework for the psychology of media immersion which has implications for a wide range of research areas.

Can self-motion perception in virtual reality (VR) be enhanced by providing affordable, user-powered minimal motion cueing? To investigate this, we compared the effect of different interaction and motion paradigms on onset latency and intensity of self-motion illusions ("vection") induced by curvilinear locomotion in projection-based VR. Participants either passively observed the simulation or had to actively follow pre-defined trajectories of different curvature in a simple virtual scene. Visual-only locomotion (either passive or with joystick control) was compared to locomotion controlled by a modified Gyroxus gaming chair, where leaning forwards and sideways (±10cm) controlled simulated translations and rotations, respectively, using a velocity control paradigm similar to a joystick. In the active visual+chair motion condition, participants controlled the chair motion and resulting virtual locomotion themselves, without the need for external actuation. In the passive visual+chair motion condition, the experimenter did this. Self-motion intensity was increased in the visual+chair motion conditions as compared visual-only motion, corroborating the benefit of simple motion cueing. Surprisingly, however, active control reduced the occurrence of vection and increased vection onset latencies, especially in the chair motion condition. This might be related to the reduced intuitiveness and controllability observed for the active chair motion as compared to the joystick condition. Together, findings suggest that simple user-initiated motion cueing can in principle provide an affordable means of increasing self-motion simulation fidelity in VR. However, usability and controllability issues of the gaming chair used might have counteracted the benefit of such motion cueing, and suggests ways to improve the interaction paradigm.

If tangible user interfaces (TUIs) are going to move out of research labs and into mainstream use they need to support tasks in abstract as well as spatial domains. Designers need guidelines for TUIs in these domains. Conceptual Metaphor Theory can be used to design the relations between physical objects and abstract representations. In this paper, we use physical attributes and spatial properties of objects as source domains for conceptual metaphors. We present an empirical study where twenty participants matched physical representations of image schemas to metaphorically paired adjectives. Based on our findings, we suggest twenty pairings that are easily identified, suggest groups of image schemas that can serve as source domains for a variety of metaphors, and provide guidelines for structuring physical-abstract mappings in abstract domains. These guidelines can help designers apply metaphor theory to design problems in abstract domains, resulting in effective interaction.

When we locomote through real or virtual environments, self-to-object relationships constantly change. Nevertheless, in real environments we effortlessly maintain an ongoing awareness of roughly where we are with respect to our immediate surrounds, even in the absence of any direct perceptual support (e.g., in darkness or with eyes closed). In virtual environments, however, we tend to get lost far more easily. Why is that? Research suggests that physical motion cues are critical in facilitating this “automatic spatial updating” of the self-to-surround relationships during perspective changes. However, allowing for full physical motion in VR is costly and often unfeasible. Here, we demonstrated for the first time that the mere illusion of self-motion (“circular vection”) can provide a similar benefit as actual self-motion: While blindfolded, participants were asked to imagine facing new perspectives in a well-learned room, and point to previously-learned objects. As expected, this task was difficult when participants could not physically rotate to the instructed perspective. Performance was significantly improved, however, when they perceived illusory self-rotation to the novel perspective (even though they did not physically move). This circular vection was induced by a combination of rotating sound fields (“auditory vection”) and biomechanical vection from stepping along a carrousel-like rotating floor platter. In summary, illusory self-motion was shown to indeed facilitate perspective switches and thus spatial orientation. These findings have important implications for both our understanding of human spatial cognition and the design of more effective yet affordable VR simulators. In fact, it might ultimately enable us to relax the need for physical motion in VR by intelligently utilizing self-motion illusions.

Most virtual reality simulators have a serious flaw: Users tend to get easily lost and disoriented as they navigate. According to the prevailing opinion, this is because of the lack of actual physical motion to match the visually simulated motion: E.g., using HMD-based VR, Klatzky et al. [1] showed that participants failed to update visually simulated rotations unless they were accompanied by physical rotation of the observer, even if passive. If we use more naturalistic environments (but no salient landmarks) instead of just optic flow, would physical motion cues still be needed to prevent disorientation? To address this question, we used a paradigm inspired by Klatzky et al.: After visually displayed passive movements along curved streets in a city environment, participants were asked to point back to where they started. In half of the trials the visually displayed turns were accompanied by a matching physical rotation. Results showed that adding physical motion cues did not improve pointing performance. This suggests that physical motions might be less important to prevent disorientation if visuals are naturalistic enough. Furthermore, unexpectedly two participants consistently failed to update the visually simulated heading changes, even when they were accompanied by physical rotations. This suggests that physical motion cues do not necessarily improve spatial orientation ability in VR (by inducing obligatory spatial updating). These findings have noteworthy implications for the design of effective motion simulators.

Abstract The effect of aperture shape on an image, known in photography as ‘bokeh’, is an important characteristic of depth of field in real‐world cameras. However, most real‐time depth of field techniques produce Gaussian bokeh rather than the circular or polygonal bokeh that is almost universal in real‐world cameras. ‘Scattering’ (i.e. point‐splatting) techniques provide a flexible way to model any aperture shape, but tend to have prohibitively slow performance, and require geometry‐shaders or significant engine changes to implement. This paper shows that simple post‐process ‘gathering’ depth of field shaders can be easily extended to simulate certain bokeh effects. Specifically we show that it is possible to efficiently model the bokeh effects of square, hexagonal and octagonal apertures using a novel separable filtering approach. Performance data from a video game engine test demonstrates that our shaders attain much better frame rates than a naive non‐separable approach.

In this paper, the effects of design-task specificity level on design space exploration are studied. An experiment was conducted to study the effects of goals and methods on design process and design solutions by 16 individual designers, who performed two design tasks under different combination of design goal and method specifications. Protocol analysis and outcome-based analysis were carried out. The results of the outcome-based analysis reveal that the quality of the design solutions can greatly be affected by goal specificity level of a design task, whereas in case of quantity, novelty and designer's self satisfaction level, the effects are insignificant. None of these metrics showed significant influence of method specificity levels of a design task. The process-based analysis on the other hand, reveals some interesting search behaviors in parametric systems, which are then used to explain the possible reasons for insignificance in quantitative data.

The use of vection, the illusion of self-movement, has recently been explored as a novel way to immerse observers in mediated environments through illusory yet compelling self-motion without physically moving. This provides advantages over existing systems that employ costly, cumbersome, and potentially hazardous motion platforms, which are often surprisingly inadequate to provide life-like motion experiences. This study investigates whether spatialized sound rotating around the stationary, blindfolded listener can facilitate biomechanical vection, the illusion of self-rotation induced by stepping along a rotating floor plate. For the first time, integrating simple auditory and biomechanical cues for turning in place evoked convincing circular vection. In an auditory baseline condition, participants experienced only spatialized auditory cues. In a purely biomechanical condition, seated participants stepped along sideways on a rotating plate while listening to mono masking sounds. Scores of the bi-modal condition (binaural+biomechanical cues) exceeded the sum of both single cue conditions, which may imply super-additive or synergistic effects.

Sound fields rotating around stationary blindfolded listeners sometimes elicit auditory circular vection, the illusion that the listener is physically rotating. Experiment 1 investigated whether auditory circular vection depends on participants' situational awareness of “movability,” that is, whether they sense/know that actual motion is possible or not. While previous studies often seated participants on movable chairs to suspend the disbelief of self-motion, it has never been investigated whether this does, in fact, facilitate auditory vection. To this end, 23 blindfolded participants were seated on a hammock chair with their feet either on solid ground (“movement impossible”) or suspended (“movement possible”) while listening to individualized binaural recordings of two sound sources rotating synchronously at 60°/s. Although participants never physically moved, situational awareness of movability facilitated auditory vection. Moreover, adding slight vibrations like the ones resulting from actual chair rotation increased the frequency and intensity of vection. Experiment 2 extended these findings and showed that nonindividualized binaural recordings were as effective in inducing auditory circular vection as individualized recordings. These results have important implications both for our theoretical understanding of self-motion perception and for the applied field of self-motion simulations, where vibrations, nonindividualized binaural sound, and the cognitive/perceptual framework of movability can typically be provided at minimal cost and effort.

While rotating visual and auditory stimuli have long been known to elicit self-motion illusions (“circular vection”), audiovisual interactions have hardly been investigated. Here, two experiments investigated whether visually induced circular vection can be enhanced by concurrently rotating auditory cues that match visual landmarks (e.g., a fountain sound). Participants sat behind a curved projection screen displaying rotating panoramic renderings of a market place. Apart from a no-sound condition, headphone-based auditory stimuli consisted of mono sound, ambient sound, or low-/high-spatial resolution auralizations using generic head-related transfer functions (HRTFs). While merely adding nonrotating (mono or ambient) sound showed no effects, moving sound stimuli facilitated both vection and presence in the virtual environment. This spatialization benefit was maximal for a medium (20° × 15°) FOV, reduced for a larger (54° × 45°) FOV and unexpectedly absent for the smallest (10° × 7.5°) FOV. Increasing auralization spatial fidelity (from low, comparable to five-channel home theatre systems, to high, 5° resolution) provided no further benefit, suggesting a ceiling effect. In conclusion, both self-motion perception and presence can benefit from adding moving auditory stimuli. This has important implications both for multimodal cue integration theories and the applied challenge of building affordable yet effective motion simulators.

Even in state-of-the-art virtual reality (VR) setups, participants often feel lost when navigating through virtual environments. In psychological experiments, such disorientation is often compensated for by extensive training. The current study investigated participants' sense of direction by means of a rapid point-to-origin task without any training or performance feedback. This allowed us to study participants' intuitive spatial orientation in VR while minimizing the influence of higher cognitive abilities and compensatory strategies. After visually displayed passive excursions along one-or two-segment trajectories, participants were asked to point back to the origin of locomotion "as accurately and quickly as possible". Despite using a high-quality video projection with a 84deg times 63deg field of view, participants' overall performance was rather poor. Moreover, six of the 16 participants exhibited striking qualitative errors, i.e., consistent left-right confusions that have not been observed in comparable real world experiments. Taken together, this study suggests that even an immersive high-quality video projection system is not necessarily sufficient for enabling natural spatial orientation in VR. We propose that a rapid point-to-origin paradigm can be a useful tool for evaluating and improving the effectiveness of VR setups in terms of enabling natural and unencumbered spatial orientation and performance.

The development of high dynamic range (HDR) imagery has brought us to the verge of arguably the largest change in image display technologies since the transition from black-and-white to color television. Novel capture and display hardware will soon enable consumers to enjoy the HDR experience in their own homes. The question remains, however, of what to do with existing images and movies, which are intrinsically low dynamic range (LDR). Can this enormous volume of legacy content also be displayed effectively on HDR displays? We have carried out a series of rigorous psychophysical investigations to determine how LDR images are best displayed on a state-of-the-art HDR monitor, and to identify which stages of the HDR imaging pipeline are perceptually most critical. Our main findings are: (1) As expected, HDR displays outperform LDR ones. (2) Surprisingly, HDR images that are tone-mapped for display on standard monitors are often no better than the best single LDR exposure from a bracketed sequence. (3) Most importantly of all, LDR data does not necessarily require sophisticated treatment to produce a compelling HDR experience. Simply boosting the range of an LDR image linearly to fit the HDR display can equal or even surpass the appearance of a true HDR image. Thus the potentially tricky process of inverse tone mapping can be largely circumvented.

Despite amazing advances in the visual quality of virtual environ-ments, affordable-yet-effective self-motion simulation still poses a major challenge. Using a standard psychophysical paradigm, the effectiveness of different self-motion simulations was quantified in terms of the onset latency, intensity, and convincingness of the per-ceived illusory self motion (vection). Participants were asked to actively follow different pre-defined trajectories through a naturalistic virtual scene presented on a panoramic projection screen using three different input devices: a computer mouse, a joystick, or a modified manual wheelchair. For the wheelchair, participants exerted their own minimal motion cueing using a simple force-feedback and a velocity control paradigm: small translational or rotational motions of the wheelchair (limited to 8cm and 10°, re-spectively) initiated a corresponding visual motion with the visual velocity being proportional to the wheelchair deflection (similar to a joystick). All dependent measures showed a clear enhancement of the perceived self-motion when the wheelchair was used instead of the mouse or joystick. Compared to more traditional approaches of enhancing self-motion perception (e.g., motion platforms, free walking areas, or treadmills) the current approach of using a simple user-generated motion cueing has only minimal requirements in terms of overall costs, required space, safety features, and technical effort and expertise. Thus, the current approach might be promising for a wide range of low-cost applications.

Research on self-motion perception and simulation has traditionally focused on the contribution of physical stimulus properties (“bottom-up factors”) using abstract stimuli. Here, we demonstrate that cognitive (“top-down”) mechanisms like ecological relevance and presence evoked by a virtual environment can also enhance visually induced self-motion illusions (vection). In two experiments, naive observers were asked to rate presence and the onset, intensity, and convincingness of circular vection induced by different rotating visual stimuli presented on a curved projection screen (FOV: 54° × 45°). Globally consistent stimuli depicting a natural 3D scene proved more effective in inducing vection and presence than inconsistent (scrambled) or unnatural (upside-down) stimuli with similar physical stimulus properties. Correlation analyses suggest a direct relationship between spatial presence and vection. We propose that the coherent pictorial depth cues and the spatial reference frame evoked by the naturalistic environment increased the believability of the visual stimulus, such that it was more easily accepted as a stable “scene” with respect to which visual motion is more likely to be judged as self-motion than object motion. This work extends our understanding of mechanisms underlying self-motion perception and might thus help to improve the effectiveness and believability of virtual reality applications.

Despite recent technological advances, convincing self-motion simulation in virtual reality (VR) is difficult to achieve, and users often suffer from motion sickness and/or disorientation in the simulated world. Instead of trying to simulate self-motions with physical realism (as is often done for, e.g., driving or flight simulators), we propose in this paper a perceptually oriented approach towards self-motion simulation. Following this paradigm, we performed a series of psychophysical experiments to determine essential visual, auditory, and vestibular/tactile parameters for an effective and perceptually convincing self-motion simulation. These studies are a first step towards our overall goal of achieving lean and elegant self-motion simulation in virtual reality (VR) without physically moving the observer. In a series of psychophysical experiments about the self-motion illusion (circular vection), we found that (i) vection as well as presence in the simulated environment is increased by a consistent, naturalistic visual scene when compared to a sliced, inconsistent version of the identical scene, (ii) barely noticeable marks on the projection screen can increase vection as well as presence in an unobtrusive manner, (iii) physical vibrations of the observer's seat can enhance the vection illusion, and (iv) spatialized 3D audio cues embedded in the simulated environment increase the sensation of self-motion and presence. We conclude that providing consistent cues about self-motion to multiple sensory modalities can enhance vection, even if physical motion cues are absent. These results yield important implications for the design of lean and elegant self-motion simulators.

“Spatial updating” refers to the process that automatically updates our egocentric mental representation of our immediate surround during self-motions, which is essential for quick and robust spatial orientation. To investigate the relative contribution of visual and vestibular cues to spatial updating, two experiments were performed in a high-end Virtual Reality system. Participants were seated on a motion platform and saw either the surrounding room or a photorealistic virtual model presented via head-mounted display or projection screen. After upright rotations, participants had to point “as accurately and quickly as possibl ” to previously learned targets that were outside of the current field of view (FOV). Spatial updating performance, quantified as response time, configuration error, and pointing error, was comparable in the real and virtual reality conditions when the FOV was matched. Two further results challenge the prevailing basic assumptions about spatial updating: First, automatic, reflexlike spatial updating occurred without any physical motion, i.e., visual information from a known scene alone can , indeed, be sufficient, especially for large FOVs. Second, continuous-motion information is not, in fact, mandatory for spatial updating---merely presenting static images of new orientations proved sufficient, which motivated our distinction between continuous and instant-based spatial updating.