Mind-body therapies aim to improve health by combining physical and mental exercises. Recent developments tend to incorporate virtual reality (VR) into their design and execution, but there is a lack of research concerning the inclusion of virtual bodies and their effect on body awareness in these designs.
In this study, 24 participants performed in-VR body awareness movement tasks in front of a virtual mirror while embodying a photorealistic, personalized avatar. Subsequently, they performed a heartbeat counting task and rated their perceived body awareness and sense of embodiment towards the avatar.
We found a significant relationship between sense of embodiment and self-reported body awareness but not between sense of embodiment and heartbeat counting.
Future work can build on these findings and further explore the relationship between avatar embodiment and body awareness.
%0 Conference Paper
%1 dollinger2022virtual
%A Döllinger, Nina
%A Wolf, Erik
%A Mal, David
%A Erdmannsdörfer, Nico
%A Botsch, Mario
%A Latoschik, Marc Erich
%A Wienrich, Carolin
%D 2022
%J CHI 22 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts
%K mindfulness reality virtual vr
%P 7
%R 10.1145/3491101.3519613
%T Virtual Reality for Mind and Body: Does the Sense of Embodiment Towards a Virtual Body Affect Physical Body Awareness?
%X Mind-body therapies aim to improve health by combining physical and mental exercises. Recent developments tend to incorporate virtual reality (VR) into their design and execution, but there is a lack of research concerning the inclusion of virtual bodies and their effect on body awareness in these designs.
In this study, 24 participants performed in-VR body awareness movement tasks in front of a virtual mirror while embodying a photorealistic, personalized avatar. Subsequently, they performed a heartbeat counting task and rated their perceived body awareness and sense of embodiment towards the avatar.
We found a significant relationship between sense of embodiment and self-reported body awareness but not between sense of embodiment and heartbeat counting.
Future work can build on these findings and further explore the relationship between avatar embodiment and body awareness.
%@ 978-1-4503-9156-6/22/04
@inproceedings{dollinger2022virtual,
abstract = {Mind-body therapies aim to improve health by combining physical and mental exercises. Recent developments tend to incorporate virtual reality (VR) into their design and execution, but there is a lack of research concerning the inclusion of virtual bodies and their effect on body awareness in these designs.
In this study, 24 participants performed in-VR body awareness movement tasks in front of a virtual mirror while embodying a photorealistic, personalized avatar. Subsequently, they performed a heartbeat counting task and rated their perceived body awareness and sense of embodiment towards the avatar.
We found a significant relationship between sense of embodiment and self-reported body awareness but not between sense of embodiment and heartbeat counting.
Future work can build on these findings and further explore the relationship between avatar embodiment and body awareness.},
added-at = {2022-03-09T10:54:45.000+0100},
author = {Döllinger, Nina and Wolf, Erik and Mal, David and Erdmannsdörfer, Nico and Botsch, Mario and Latoschik, Marc Erich and Wienrich, Carolin},
biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2df298b6bb388bab2089e8a289cde9e45/yish},
doi = {10.1145/3491101.3519613},
eventdate = {April 29-May 5, 2},
eventtitle = {CHI ’22 Extended Abstracts,},
interhash = {27b88eb16cbb2f9179d55f9f6767567f},
intrahash = {df298b6bb388bab2089e8a289cde9e45},
isbn = {978-1-4503-9156-6/22/04},
journal = {CHI 22 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts},
keywords = {mindfulness reality virtual vr},
month = {April},
pages = 7,
timestamp = {2022-03-09T10:54:45.000+0100},
title = {Virtual Reality for Mind and Body: Does the Sense of Embodiment Towards a Virtual Body Affect Physical Body Awareness?},
venue = {New Orleans, LA, USA},
year = 2022
}