Exploring the Effect of Virtual Hand Realism on Embodiment by Subjective Ratings and Eye Tracking

Previous research has emphasized the significance of virtual hand representations to induce users’ embodiment, including three subcomponents: body ownership, agency and self-location. However, there are insufficient evidence and conflicting conclusions about agency and self-location with various hand representations in literature. This study aims to explore the influence of hand realism on three subcomponents of users’ embodiment in virtual reality. An experiment was conducted with three hand realism levels to collect participants’ perception data. The results revealed the lower embodiment in abstract hand from the self-report and eye behavior, and the correlation between agency and eye behavior from integrating the subjective and objective data. This study brings new insights to users’ embodiment with virtual hand by subjective measure through self-report and objective method of eye tracking.