title: Tuning self-motion perception in virtual reality with visual illusions.
abstract: Motion perception in immersive virtual environments significantly differs from the real world. For example, previous work has shown that users tend to underestimate travel distances in virtual environments (VEs). As a solution to this problem, researchers proposed to scale the mapped virtual camera motion relative to the tracked real-world movement of a user until real and virtual motion are perceived as equal, i.e., real-world movements could be mapped with a larger gain to the VE in order to compensate for the underestimation. However, introducing discrepancies between real and virtual motion can become a problem, in particular, due to misalignments of both worlds and distorted space cognition. In this paper, we describe a different approach that introduces apparent self-motion illusions by manipulating optic flow fields during movements in VEs. These manipulations can affect self-motion perception in VEs, but omit a quantitative discrepancy between real and virtual motions. In particular, we consider to which regions of the virtual view these apparent self-motion illusions can be applied, i.e., the ground plane or peripheral vision. Therefore, we introduce four illusions and show in experiments that optic flow manipulation can significantly affect users' self-motion judgments. Furthermore, we show that with such manipulations of optic flow fields the underestimation of travel distances can be compensated.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Human-Computer Media and Computer Science, University of Würzburg, Oswald-Külpe-Weg 82, D-97074 Würzburg, Germany. gerd.bruder@uni-wuerzburg.de
authors.forename: Gerd
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bruder
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Steinicke
authors.forename: Phil
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wieland
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lappe
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003196:Computer Graphics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007088:Illusions; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D057849:Optic Flow / Q000502:physiology; D014584:User-Computer Interface