Stretch your reach: Studying Self-Avatar and Controller Misalignment in Virtual Reality Interaction

TL;DR

This study investigates how different interaction modes in virtual reality affect user embodiment, proprioception, and performance, finding that arm stretching to reach controllers enhances experience despite misalignments.

Contribution

The paper introduces five novel interaction modes to address self-avatar and controller misalignment in VR, evaluating their impact on user experience and task performance.

Findings

Arm stretching improves embodiment and user preference.

Rendering controllers does not significantly affect embodiment.

Different interaction modes influence proprioception and task success.

Abstract

Immersive Virtual Reality typically requires a head-mounted display (HMD) to visualize the environment and hand-held controllers to interact with the virtual objects. Recently, many applications display full-body avatars to represent the user and animate the arms to follow the controllers. Embodiment is higher when the self-avatar movements align correctly with the user. However, having a full-body self-avatar following the user's movements can be challenging due to the disparities between the virtual body and the user's body. This can lead to misalignments in the hand position that can be noticeable when interacting with virtual objects. In this work, we propose five different interaction modes to allow the user to interact with virtual objects despite the self-avatar and controller misalignment and study their influence on embodiment, proprioception, preference, and task performance. We modify aspects such as whether the virtual controllers are rendered, whether controllers are rendered in their real physical location or attached to the user's hand, and whether stretching the avatar arms to always reach the real controllers. We evaluate the interaction modes both quantitatively (performance metrics) and qualitatively (embodiment, proprioception, and user preference questionnaires). Our results show that the stretching arms solution, which provides body continuity and guarantees that the virtual hands or controllers are in the correct location, offers the best results in embodiment, user preference, proprioception, and performance. Also, rendering the controller does not have an effect on either embodiment or user preference.