TY  - JOUR
A1  - Gall, Dominik
A1  - Roth, Daniel
A1  - Stauffert, Jan-Philipp
A1  - Zarges, Julian
A1  - Latoschik, Marc Erich
T1  - Embodiment in Virtual Reality Intensifies Emotional Responses to Virtual Stimuli
T2  - Frontiers in Psychology
N2  - Modulating emotional responses to virtual stimuli is a fundamental goal of many immersive interactive applications. In this study, we leverage the illusion of illusory embodiment and show that owning a virtual body provides means to modulate emotional responses. In a single-factor repeated-measures experiment, we manipulated the degree of illusory embodiment and assessed the emotional responses to virtual stimuli. We presented emotional stimuli in the same environment as the virtual body. Participants experienced higher arousal, dominance, and more intense valence in the high embodiment condition compared to the low embodiment condition. The illusion of embodiment thus intensifies the emotional processing of the virtual environment. This result suggests that artificial bodies can increase the effectiveness of immersive applications psychotherapy, entertainment, computer-mediated social interactions, or health applications.
KW  - embodiment
KW  - virtual body ownership
KW  - avatars
KW  - agency
KW  - immersive interfaces
KW  - human-computer interaction
KW  - affective computing
KW  - emotions
Y1  - 2021
UR  - https://opus.bibliothek.uni-wuerzburg.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/24562
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-245624
SN  - 1664-1078
VL  - 12
ER  -