Our vision is that regardless of future variations in the interior of airplane cabins, we can utilize ever-advancing state-of-the-art virtual and mixed reality technologies with the latest research in neuroscience and psychology to achieve high levels of comfort for passengers. Current surveys on passenger's experience during air travel reveal that they are least satisfied with the amount and effectiveness of their personal space, and their ability to work, sleep or rest. Moreover, considering current trends it is likely that the amount of available space is likely to decrease and therefore the passenger's physical comfort during a flight is likely to worsen significantly. Therefore, the main challenge is to enable the passengers to maintain a high level of comfort and satisfaction while being placed in a restricted physical space.

Summary form only given. It has been shown that it is possible to generate perceptual illusions of ownership in immersive virtual reality (IVR) over a virtual body that visually substitutes a person's real body, independently of appearance differences between the two [1, 2]. However, the psychological, behavioral and attitudinal consequences of such body transformations remain unknown [3]. Thirty six Caucasian people participated in a between-groups experiment where they played a West-African Djembe hand drum accompanying another avatar inside IVR. Participants were represented by plainly shaded white hands in the baseline condition, and either a casually dressed dark-skinned virtual body (CD) or a formal suited light-skinned body (FL) in the experimental conditions. Although the experienced body ownership illusion was strong for both groups, only the CD representation produced significant increases in participants' movement patterns compared to the baseline and compared to the FL representation. Further analysis showed that the observed behavioral changes were a function of the illusion strength and the perceived appropriateness of the virtual body for drumming. These results demonstrate that full body ownership illusions can lead to substantial behavioral and possibly cognitive changes depending on the virtual body appearance, with important implications for learning, education, training, psychotherapy and rehabilitation applications using IVR.

It has been shown that it is possible to generate perceptual illusions of ownership in immersive virtual reality (IVR) over a virtual body seen from first person perspective, in other words over a body that visually substitutes the person's real body. This can occur even when the virtual body is quite different in appearance from the person's real body. However, investigation of the psychological, behavioral and attitudinal consequences of such body transformations remains an interesting problem with much to be discovered. Thirty six Caucasian people participated in a between-groups experiment where they played a West-African Djembe hand drum while immersed in IVR and with a virtual body that substituted their own. The virtual hand drum was registered with a physical drum. They were alongside a virtual character that played a drum in a supporting, accompanying role. In a baseline condition participants were represented only by plainly shaded white hands, so that they were able merely to play. In the experimental condition they were represented either by a casually dressed dark-skinned virtual body (Casual Dark-Skinned - CD) or by a formal suited light-skinned body (Formal Light-Skinned - FL). Although participants of both groups experienced a strong body ownership illusion towards the virtual body, only those with the CD representation showed significant increases in their movement patterns for drumming compared to the baseline condition and compared with those embodied in the FL body. Moreover, the stronger the illusion of body ownership in the CD condition, the greater this behavioral change. A path analysis showed that the observed behavioral changes were a function of the strength of the illusion of body ownership towards the virtual body and its perceived appropriateness for the drumming task. These results demonstrate that full body ownership illusions can lead to substantial behavioral and possibly cognitive changes depending on the appearance of the virtual body. This could be important for many applications such as learning, education, training, psychotherapy and rehabilitation using IVR.