VibroArm: Enhancing the Sensation of Forearm Deformation in Virtual Reality Using Vibrotactile Funneling Illusion

When we enter Virtual Reality (VR) in the first person, the avatar replaces our real body. Within a certain range of mismatches, we tend to identify with our avatar and perceive it as our own body. Previous research has shown that we can even believe that a deformed forearm is our own through haptic and visual feedback. However, the haptic devices used in earlier research were only explored using skin-stretching and weight-shifting. Vibrotactile feedback is the most common technique used to create a haptic VR experience in academia and industry because of its light weight and ease of application. Taking these advantages, we introduce VibroArm, a lightweight wearable haptic system with the vibrotactile funneling illusion that enhances the virtual forearm’s ownership in the forearm deformation illusion. In a perceptual study, we determined that users can make correct direction judgments about vibration on the forearm in different directions. The result shows that all vibration patterns can be sufficiently recognized, with an average recognition rate of $87.17 \%$. Based on our results, we designed 18 vibration patterns and compared their impact on the forearm deformation illusion. Finally, our study shows that using VibroArm in VR applications can significantly improve user realism and enjoyment compared to relying on visual feedback alone.