ИСТИНА

Various studies have proved that the use of natural interfaces which able to exploit body movements can contribute to increase the feeling of presence in the virtual environments. We investigated the subject’s interactions with her/his own avatar through the use of virtual embodiment technology. The experiment consisted of two parts. In the first part the participants were asked to carry out body movements that were exactly copied by their own avatar displayed in front of the participant and repeat their motor actions several times toverify the existence of their own avatar. In the second part the participant performing body movements at some moment could perceive the avatar’s movements that did not correspond to participant’s movements. To measure the level of interactions between the participant and her/his own avatar the physiological reactions (summary EMG activities) were recorded during the performance. Then participants filled out questionnaire (IPQ) assessing their presence effect. The results showed that EMG activities were significantly higher when body movements consistency was broken. Also the results revealed the correlation between body physiological reactions and the presence scores. Our data support the interaction paradigm that is based on maximizing the match between visual data and proprioception. The study was funded by Russian Scientific Fund project № 15-18-00109.