@article{GallRothStauffertetal.2021,
  author    = {Gall, Dominik and Roth, Daniel and Stauffert, Jan-Philipp and Zarges, Julian and Latoschik, Marc Erich},
  title     = {Embodiment in Virtual Reality Intensifies Emotional Responses to Virtual Stimuli},
  series = {Frontiers in Psychology},
  volume    = {12},
  journal   = {Frontiers in Psychology},
  issn      = {1664-1078},
  doi       = {10.3389/fpsyg.2021.674179},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-245624},
  year      = {2021},
  abstract  = {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.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{BartlWenningerWolfetal.2021,
  author    = {Bartl, Andrea and Wenninger, Stephan and Wolf, Erik and Botsch, Mario and Latoschik, Marc Erich},
  title     = {Affordable but not cheap: a case study of the effects of two 3D-reconstruction methods of virtual humans},
  series = {Frontiers in Virtual Reality},
  volume    = {2},
  journal   = {Frontiers in Virtual Reality},
  doi       = {10.3389/frvir.2021.694617},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-260492},
  year      = {2021},
  abstract  = {Realistic and lifelike 3D-reconstruction of virtual humans has various exciting and important use cases. Our and others' appearances have notable effects on ourselves and our interaction partners in virtual environments, e.g., on acceptance, preference, trust, believability, behavior (the Proteus effect), and more. Today, multiple approaches for the 3D-reconstruction of virtual humans exist. They significantly vary in terms of the degree of achievable realism, the technical complexities, and finally, the overall reconstruction costs involved. This article compares two 3D-reconstruction approaches with very different hardware requirements. The high-cost solution uses a typical complex and elaborated camera rig consisting of 94 digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras. The recently developed low-cost solution uses a smartphone camera to create videos that capture multiple views of a person. Both methods use photogrammetric reconstruction and template fitting with the same template model and differ in their adaptation to the method-specific input material. Each method generates high-quality virtual humans ready to be processed, animated, and rendered by standard XR simulation and game engines such as Unreal or Unity. We compare the results of the two 3D-reconstruction methods in an immersive virtual environment against each other in a user study. Our results indicate that the virtual humans from the low-cost approach are perceived similarly to those from the high-cost approach regarding the perceived similarity to the original, human-likeness, beauty, and uncanniness, despite significant differences in the objectively measured quality. The perceived feeling of change of the own body was higher for the low-cost virtual humans. Quality differences were perceived more strongly for one's own body than for other virtual humans.},
  language  = {en}
}