Using Motor Learning to Establish a Scientific Foundation for Mapping Techniques in Virtual Reality

The distinctive potential of Virtual reality (VR) is to give people experiences of being in worlds they otherwise could not be in, having a body that is unlike their real one, and doing things they could not do in real life. That potential can be realised with VR interaction techniques that map the movements of the physical body to a virtual one–mapping techniques. Despite over two decades of research on mapping techniques, there is no scientific foundation for developing them. As a consequence, they are still unusable in VR applications.The goal of this project, MOVR, is to establish a scientific foundation for mapping techniques. Using a mapping technique to interact in VR (e.g., to manipulate objects, to walk) always requires motor learning. Therefore, the central hypothesis in my approach is that motor learning enables establishing it. The objectives of MOVR are to (1) build theory of mapping techniques by characterising them (e.g., which body part to map where, in which ratio) in terms of conceptual models of motor learning (e.g., adaptation, de novo learning); (2) build methods to evaluate mapping techniques by investigating the qualities of VR interaction (e.g., embodiment, presence) in terms of paradigms from motor learning (e.g., implicit and explicit, and parallel learning); and (3) build tools to design mapping techniques by testing ideas (e.g., using muscle tendon vibration for movement illusions) and predictive models from motor learning (e.g., the roles of sensory feedback).MOVR can make the largest scientific leap in decades in research on mapping techniques. The resulting mapping techniques realise VR that people experience as powerfully as the real world but without its bounds. Such experiences increase the effectiveness VR applications with orders of magnitude, impacting millions of users. My research in applying neuroscience to HCI in combination of integrating motor learning experts in the MOVR team makes achieving this possible.