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    16Nov, 2023
    When we feel things that are not there

    Virtual reality (VR) is not only a technology for games and entertainment, but also has potential in science and medicine. Researchers at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, have now gained new insights into human perception with the help of VR. They used virtual reality scenarios in which subjects touched their own bodies with a virtual object. To the researchers’ surprise, this led to a tingling sensation at the spot where the avatarized body was touched. This effect occurred even though there was no real physical contact between the virtual object and the body. The scientists led by Dr. Artur Pilacinski and Professor Christian Klaes from the Department of Neurotechnology describe this phenomenon as a phantom touch illusion. They published their results in the journal Scientific Reports of the Nature Publishing Group in September 2023.

    “People in virtual reality sometimes have the feeling that they are touching things, although they are actually only encountering virtual objects,” says first author Artur Pilacinski from the Knappschaftskrankenhaus Bochum Langendreer, University Clinic of Ruhr University Bochum, explaining the origin of the research question. “We show that the phantom touch illusion is described by most subjects as a tingling or prickling, electrifying sensation or as if the wind was passing through their hand.”

    Body sensation arises from complex combination of different sensory perceptions

    The neuroscientists wanted to understand what is behind this phenomenon and find out which processes in the brain and body play a role in it. They observed that the phantom touch illusion also occurred when the subjects touched parts of their bodies that were not visible in virtual reality. Second author Marita Metzler adds: “This suggests that human perception and body sensation are not only based on vision, but on a complex combination of many sensory perceptions and the internal representation of our body.”

    This study involved 36 volunteers wearing VR glasses. First, they got used to the VR environment by moving around and touching virtual objects. Then they were given the task of touching their hand in the virtual environment with a virtual stick.

    Comparison between virtual and suggested touch sensations

    Participants were asked if they felt anything. If not, they were allowed to continue touching and the question was asked again later. If they felt sensations, they were asked to describe them and rate their intensity on different hand locations. This process was repeated for both hands. There was a consistent reporting of the sensation as “tingling” by a majority of participants.

    In a control experiment, it was investigated whether similar sensations could also be perceived without visual contact with virtual objects purely due to experimental situation demands. Here, a small laser pointer was used instead of virtual objects to touch the hand. This control experiment did not result in phantom touch suggesting that phantom touch illusion was unique to virtual touch.

    The discovery of the phantom touch illusion opens up new possibilities for further research into human perception and could also be applied in the fields of virtual reality and medicine. Christian Klaes, member of the Research Department of Neuroscience at Ruhr University, says: “It could even help to deepen the understanding of neurological diseases and disorders that affect the perception of one’s own body.”

    Further collaboration with the University of Sussex

    The Bochum team plans to continue their research on the phantom touch illusion and the underlying processes. For this reason, a collaboration with the University of Sussex has been started. “It is important to first distinguish between the actual sensations of phantom touch and other cognitive processes that may be involved in reporting such embodied sensations, such as suggestion, or experimental situation demands,” says Artur Pilacinski. “We also want to further explore and understand the neural basis of the phantom touch illusion in collaboration with other partners.”

    The research of Artur Pilacinski and Christian Klaes took place within the Research Department of Neuroscience (RDN). The RDN further develops and consolidates a long-established, outstanding research strength of Ruhr University Bochum in the field of systems neuroscience research.

    Resource : https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/11/231114143821.htm

    4Nov, 2023
    Robot stand-in mimics movements in VR

    Researchers from Cornell and Brown University have developed a souped-up telepresence robot that responds automatically and in real-time to a remote user’s movements and gestures made in virtual reality.

    The robotic system, called VRoxy, allows a remote user in a small space, like an office, to collaborate via VR with teammates in a much larger space. VRoxy represents the latest in remote, robotic embodiment.

    Donning a VR headset, a user has access to two view modes: Live mode shows an immersive image of the collaborative space in real time for interactions with local collaborators, while navigational mode displays rendered pathways of the room, allowing remote users to “teleport” to where they’d like to go. This navigation mode allows for quicker, smoother mobility for the remote user and limits motion sickness.

    The system’s automatic nature lets remote teammates focus solely on collaboration rather than on manually steering the robot, researchers said.

    “The great benefit of virtual reality is we can leverage all kinds of locomotion techniques that people use in virtual reality games, like instantly moving from one position to another,” said Mose Sakashita, a doctoral student in the field of information science at Cornell. “This functionality enables remote users to physically occupy a very limited amount of space but collaborate with teammates in a much larger remote environment.”

    Sakashita is the lead author of “VRoxy: Wide-Area Collaboration From an Office Using a VR-Driven Robotic Proxy,” to be presented at the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST), held Oct. 29 through Nov. 1.

    VRoxy’s automatic, real-time responsiveness is key for both remote and local teammates, researchers said. With a robot proxy like VRoxy, a remote teammate confined to a small office can interact in a group activity held in a much larger space, like in a design collaboration scenario.

    For teammates, the VRoxy robot automatically mimics the user’s body position and other vital nonverbal cues that are otherwise lost with telepresence robots and on Zoom. For instance, VRoxy’s monitor — which displays a rendering of the user’s face — will tilt accordingly depending on the user’s focus.

    It is equipped with a 360-degree camera, a monitor that displays facial expressions captured by the user’s VR headset, a robotic pointer finger and omnidirectional wheels.

    In future work, Sakashita wants to supercharge VRoxy with robotic arms that would allow remote users to interact with physical objects in the live space via the robot proxy.

    This research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Nakajima Foundation.

    Resource : https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/10/231027110752.htm