Self-attribution of distorted reaching movements in immersive virtual reality

This study explores the extent to which individuals embodied in Virtual Reality tend to self-attribute the movements of their avatar. More specifically, we tested subjects performing goal-directed movements and distorted the mapping between user and avatar movements by decreasing or increasing the amplitude of the avatar hand movement required to reach for a target, while maintaining the apparent amplitude – visual distance – fixed. In two experiments, we asked subjects to report whether the movement that they have seen matched the movement that they have performed, or asked them to classify whether a distortion was making the task easier or harder to complete. Our results show that subjects perform poorly in detecting discrepancies when the nature of the distortion is not made explicit and that subjects are biased to self-attributing distorted movements that make the task easier. These findings, in line with previous accounts on the sense of agency, demonstrate the flexibility of avatar embodiment and open new perspectives for the design of guided interactions in Virtual Reality.