Influence of User Posture and Virtual Exercise on Impression of Locomotion During VR Observation

A seated user watching his avatar walking in Virtual Reality (VR) may have an impression of walking. In this paper, we show that such an impression can be extended to other postures and other locomotion exercises. We present two user studies in which participants wore a VR headset and observed a first-person avatar performing virtual exercises. In the first experiment, the avatar walked and the participants (n=36) tested the simulation in 3 different postures (standing, sitting and Fowler’s posture). In the second experiment, other participants (n=18) were sitting and observed the avatar walking, jogging or stepping over virtual obstacles. We evaluated the impression of locomotion by measuring the impression of walking (respectively jogging or stepping) and embodiment in both experiments. The results show that participants had the impression of locomotion in either sitting, standing and Fowler’s posture. However, Fowler’s posture significantly decreased both the level of embodiment and the impression of locomotion. The sitting posture seems to decrease the sense of agency compared to standing posture. Results also show that the majority of the participants experienced an impression of locomotion during the virtual walking, jogging, and stepping exercises. The embodiment was not influenced by the type of virtual exercise. Overall, our results suggest that an impression of locomotion can be elicited in different users’ postures and during different virtual locomotion exercises. They provide valuable insight for numerous VR applications in which the user observes a self-avatar moving, such as video games, gait rehabilitation, training, etc.