Stepping off a ledge in an HMD-based immersive virtual environment

We explore whether a gender-matched, calibrated self-avatar affects the perception of the affordance of stepping off of a ledge, or visual cliff, in an immersive virtual environment. Visual cliffs form demonstrations in many immersive virtual environments because they create compelling environments. Understanding the role that self-avatars contribute to making such environments compelling is an important problem. We conducted an experiment to find the threshold at which subjects on a ledge in an immersive virtual environment would report that they could step gracefully off of the ledge without losing their balance, and compared the threshold height at which their decision changed under the condition of having and not having a self-avatar. The results show that people unrealistically say they can step off a ledge that is approximately 50% of their eyeheight without a self-avatar, and realistically about 25% of their eyeheight with a self-avatar.

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