Body illusion and affordances: the influence of body representation on a walking imagery task in virtual reality
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Body illusion and affordances: the influence of body representation on a walking imagery task in virtual reality Giorgia Tosi1,2 · Jassleen Parmar1 · Inderpreet Dhillon1 · Angelo Maravita2,3 · Giuseppe Iaria1 Received: 5 April 2019 / Accepted: 6 July 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract It is well known that our body works as a fundamental reference when we perform visuo-perceptual judgements in spatial surroundings, and that body illusions can modify our perception of size and distance of objects in space. To date, however, few studies have evaluated whether or not a body illusion could have a significant impact on the way individuals perceive to move within the environment. Here, we used a full-body illusion paradigm to verify the hypothesis that an altered representation of the legs of the individuals influences their time-to-walk estimation while imaging to reach objects in a virtual environment. To do so, we asked a group of young healthy volunteers to perform a task in which they were required to imagine walking towards a previously seen target location in a virtual environment, soon after receiving the body illusion; we required participants to use a response button to time their imagined walk from start to end. We found that participants imagined walking faster following the illusion elicited by the vision of longer legs presented from an anatomical perspective, as compared to when experiencing standard legs in the same position.This difference in imagined walking distance decreased when the object to reach was displayed farther, suggesting a fading effect. Furthermore, taking into consideration the baseline error in walking time estimation in VR, we noticed a specific influence of the long anatomical legs in reducing the perceived time needed to reach an object and a general increase in the percentage of error when the same legs are presented in a nonanatomical orientation. These findings provide evidence that body illusions could influence the way individuals perceive their locomotion in the spatial surrounding. Keywords Body illusion · Imagery walking · Locomotion · Space · Time-to-walk estimation
Introduction To accomplish most of our daily life activities, we need to move appropriately and effectively with the environment around us. This locomotion is mediated by our body, which serves as a reference frame for space perception (MerleauPonty 1945; van der Hoort, Guterstam, and Ehrsson 2011). As such, our body plays a significant role in the way we interact with our peripersonal space, that is, the environment immediately surrounding us (Holmes and Spence 2004; Communicated by Carlo Alberto Marzi. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-020-05874-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Giorgia Tosi [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
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