Abstract
Perceptual illusions help us understand deficits in human perception, but they also have the potential to serve as treatment methods; e.g., to alleviate phantom limb pain. Treatment effects are usually the direct result of a mismatch between false visual feedback and somatosensory/proprioceptive feedback. We aimed to influence physical activity (walking distance) using a memory-related perceptual illusion that relies on a mismatch between a spatially manipulated virtual reality environment and a weakness of memory for a similar, previously experienced environment. Participants' main task was to reproduce a baseline distance three times, by walking on a treadmill while moving through a virtual reality environment. Depending on condition, the environment was either stretched or compressed relative to the previous session, but participants were not informed about these manipulations. Because false, suggestive information can lead to alterations in memory, especially when conveyed through ‘rich’ forms of media such as virtual reality, we expected each manipulation to alter memory for the previous environment(s) and we hypothesized that this would influence walking distance. The results for the first time showed that memory-related perceptual illusions can directly affect physical activity in humans. The effects we found are substantial; stretching previously experienced virtual environments led participants to almost double their initial walking distance, whereas compressing the environments resulted in about half of the initial distance. Possible clinical applications arising from these findings are discussed.
Highlights
Visual perception was traditionally thought of as a passive, flawless process, in which our eyes function as a perfect camera
We aimed to influence physical activity using a memory-related perceptual illusion that relies on a mismatch between a spatially manipulated virtual reality (VR) environment and a weakness of memory for a similar, previously experienced environment
The effects of applications using perceptual illusions to affect physical activity are the direct result of a mismatch between false visual feedback and somatosensory/ proprioceptive feedback
Summary
Visual perception was traditionally thought of as a passive, flawless process, in which our eyes function as a perfect camera. This allows users to walk through large-scale virtual environments while they physically remain in a small workspace; users can be redirected on a circular arc with a radius of at least 22 m while they believe that they are walking straight [16] These false visual feedback examples illustrate a clear strength of VR, namely that it is not subject to the limitations of the physical world. Even if memory was not impacted, participants’ walking distance may have been influenced solely by the presence of the virtual flag; i.e., without linking the presented visual information to memory For this reason, and the fact that people normally do not reach a pain barrier while they walk on a treadmill, we used a different task in which participants had to reproduce a baseline walking distance. The effects we found are substantial and the findings of our study can be applied in the development of novel clinical applications
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