Biofeedback Based Interaction for Manipulating Virtual Environments

Abstract

Virtual reality technique has evolved majorly in the last years. New systems and head mounted displays have been produced and numerous applications have been developed. They offer more immersive experiences in virtual environments. However, the level of immersion is in parts influenced by the way the user can interact with the system. On the one hand traditional input methods, namely game controllers have the advantage that most users are already experienced in using them. On the other hand, performing actions on a controller, which are nearly unrelated to the action happening in the virtual environment, might lessen the immersion in the game and worsen the user experience. To avoid this and deepen the experience in virtual environments further we try to explore possibilities for biosignal based input methods to interact with the virtual reality through muscle activities.
To evaluate the effectiveness of our methods we create applications in which interactions can be caused by muscle activity or conventional input methods. Those applications are then tested in a user study in which participants use both methods successively and answer questionnaires about their experience and felt presence in the virtual environment.