Development and evaluation of a system to express a sense of telekinesis in VR

TL;DR

This paper presents a VR system designed to simulate telekinesis, aiming to evoke a sense of agency and physical sensation similar to fictional portrayals, and evaluates its effectiveness.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel VR method to simulate telekinesis and investigates its ability to produce a realistic sense of agency and physical sensation.

Findings

Participants experienced a significant sense of agency over remote objects.

The system successfully evoked a perceived physical sensation of telekinesis.

The VR method enhanced immersion and user engagement in manipulating remote objects.

Abstract

Telekinesis is the ability to manipulate remote objects without direct physical contact. In fictional works, telekinesis users are often depicted as controlling objects with their hands and other body parts as if by will alone. Such depictions suggest that users experience a sense of agency over the object despite not physically touching it. In this study, we developed a VR method to simulate telekinesis and investigated whether it is possible to achieve a sense of physical sensation and agency similar to the experience portrayed in fiction.