Studying “Avatar Transitions” in Augmented Reality: Influence on Sense of Embodiment and Physiological Activity

The impact of avatar transitions, in which an avatar's appearance is changed, has been little studied. We implemented an avatar transition system that is decomposed into two parts: an active one and a passive one. In the active transition, the avatar's appearance is transformed according to the user's physical action. In the passive transition, users automatically experience the same transition without physical action. The influence of transitions on the user's physical performance and the sense of embodiment was explored. Our results show that active transitions increase the sense of agency and magnitude of surface electromyography (sEMG) compared to passive transitions, and both transitions increase the sEMG magnitude following the virtual Reality embodiment.