The effect of posture on virtual walking experience using foot vibrations

Virtual walking systems for stationary observers have been developed using multimodal stimulation such as vision, touch, and sound to overcome physical limitation. In previous studies, participants were typically positioned in either a standing or a seated position. It would be beneficial if bedridden users could have enough virtual walking experience. Thus, we aimed to investigate the effects of participants' posture and foot vibrations on the experience of virtual walking. They were either sitting, standing, or lying during observing a virtual scene of a walking avatar in the first-person perspective, while vibrations either synchronized or asynchronized (randomized) to the avatar's walking were applied to their feet. We found that the synchronized foot vibrations improved virtual walking experiences compared to asynchronous vibrations. The standing position consistently offered an improved virtual walking experience compared to sitting and lying positions with either the synchronous or asynchronous foot vibrations, while the difference between the siting and lying postures was small and not significant. Furthermore, subjective scores for posture matching between real and virtual postures, illusory body ownership, and sense of agency were significantly higher with the synchronous than the asynchronous vibration. These findings suggest that experiencing virtual walking with foot vibrations in a lying position is less effective than a standing position, but not much different from a sitting position.