Wings and Flying in Immersive VR - Controller Type, Sound Effects and Experienced Ownership and Agency

An experiment investigated the subjective experiences of ownership and agency of a pair of virtual wings attached to a motion controlled avatar in an immersive virtual reality setup. A between groups comparison of two ways of controlling the movement of the wings and flight ability. One where the subjects achieved the wing motion and flight ability by using a hand-held video game controller and the other by moving the shoulder. Through four repetitions of a flight task with varying amounts of self-produced audio feedback (from the movement of the virtual limbs), the subjects evaluated their experienced embodiment of the wings on a body ownership and agency questionnaire. The results shows significant differences between the controllers in some of the questionnaire items and that adding self-produced sounds to the avatar, slightly changed the subjects evaluations.