Impact of Long-Term Use of an Avatar to IVBO in the Social VR

Abstract

AbstractThe illusion of virtual body ownership (IVBO) gives us the feeling of perceiving a virtual body as our own body. It affects our behavior and the sense of presence. The recent emergence of lower-cost VR devices and social VR environments have created the ability for consumers to possess and manipulate avatars in an immersive virtual environment. In other words, IVBO can be induced even in consumer environments. However, apart from laboratory experiments, few studies have investigated IVBO in social VR, because it is necessary to have the same participants go to the laboratory and participate in experiments every day. Thus, we investigated how long-term use of an avatar impacts IVBO. Our experiment was conducted on social VR platform VRChat. Participants are instructed to pick up 30 objects during at the start of experiment. Then, they played VRChat up to 2 h. This task was lasted 30 day per user. Our results shown IVBO could be enhanced day by day. Specifically, IVBO can be significantly enhanced at day 14 regardless of the type of an avatar. However, this effect was not collated with avatar-identification.KeywordsVirtual body ownershipAvatarsSocial virtual reality