Real Time Remapping of a Third Arm in Virtual Reality

Abstract

We present an initial study investigating the usability of a system for users to use their own limbs (here the left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg and head) to remap and control a virtual third arm. The remapping was done by: pre-selecting the limb by gazing over it, then selecting it by voice activation (here we asked the participants to say ''switch''). The system was evaluated in Virtual Reality (VR), where we recorded the performance of participants (N=12, within-group design) in 2 box collection tasks. We found that participants self-reported: (i) significantly less body ownership in switching limbs than in not switching limbs; and (ii) less effort in switching limbs than not switching limbs. In addition, we found that dominant limbs do not significantly affect remap decisions in controlling the third arm.