Altering Time Perception in Virtual Reality Through Multimodal Visual-Tactile Kappa Effect

The perception of time is highly subjective and intertwined with space perception. In a well-known perceptual illusion, called Kappa effect, the distance between consecutive stimuli is modified to induce time distortions in the perceived inter-stimulus interval that are proportional to the distance between the stimuli. However, to the best of our knowledge, this effect has not been characterized and exploited in virtual reality (VR) within a multisensory elicitation framework. This paper investigates the Kappa effect elicited by concurrent visual-tactile stimuli delivered to the forearm, through a multimodal VR interface. This paper compares the outcomes of an experiment in VR with the results of the same experiment performed in the “physical world”, where a multimodal interface was applied to participants' forearm to deliver controlled visual-tactile stimuli. Our results suggest that a multimodal Kappa effect can be elicited both in VR and in the physical world relying on concurrent visual-tactile stimulation. Moreover, our results confirm the existence of a relation between the ability of participants in discriminating the duration of time intervals and the magnitude of the experienced Kappa effect. These outcomes can be exploited to modulate the subjective perception of time in VR, paving the path toward more personalised human-computer interaction.