How to Build an Embodiment Lab: Achieving Body Representation Illusions in Virtual Reality
Bernhard Spanlang, Jean‐Marie Normand, David T. Borland, Konstantina Kilteni, Elias Giannopoulos, Ausià s Pomés, Mar González-Franco, Daniel Pérez-Marcos, Jorge Arroyo-Palacios, Xavi Navarro Muncunill, Mel Slater · Frontiers in Robotics and AI · 2014
Advances in computer graphics algorithms and virtual reality (VR) systems, together with the reduction in cost of associated equipment, have led scientists to consider VR as a useful tool for conducting experimental studies in fields such as neuroscience and experimental psychology. In particular virtual body ownership, where the feeling of ownership over a virtual body is elicited in the participant, has become a useful tool in the study of body representation, in cognitive neuroscience and psychology, concerned with how the brain represents the body. Although VR has been shown to be a useful tool for exploring body ownership illusions, integrating the various technologies necessary for such a system can be daunting. In this paper we discuss the technical infrastructure necessary to achieve virtual embodiment. We describe a basic VR system and how it may be used for this purpose, and then extend this system with the introduction of real-time motion capture, a simple haptics system and the integration of physiological and brain electrical activity recordings.