Latency and avatars in Virtual Environments and the effects on gait for persons with mobility impairments

Latency and avatars in Virtual Environments have been extensively studied over the years. However, there has been minimal research conducted on the effects of latency and avatars for mobility impaired users. To address this, we have conducted a study involving both healthy and mobility impaired participants with the simple task of walking across a simulated room under various latency and avatar conditions. We investigated the impact of latency and avatars on perceived latency and gait parameters (i.e., walking patterns). The results suggest that mobility impaired persons react to latency and the presence of an avatar differently than healthy users.