Analysis of Physiological Responses to a Social Situation in an Immersive Virtual Environment

An experiment was conducted in a Cave-like environment to explore the relationship between physiological responses and each of breaks in presence, and utterances by virtual characters towards the participants. Twenty people explored a virtual environment (VE) that depicted a virtual bar scenario. The experiment was divided into a training and an experimental phase. During the experimental phase breaks in presence (BIPs) in form of whiteouts of the VE scenario were induced for 2 seconds at four equally spaced times during the approximate 5 minutes in the bar scenario. Additionally 5 virtual characters addressed remarks at the subjects. Physiological measures including ECG and GSR were recorded throughout the whole experiment. The heart rate, the heart rate variability and the event-related heart rate changes were calculated from the acquired ECG data. The frequency response of the GSR signal was calculated with a wavelet analysis. The study shows that the heart rate and heart rate vari...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2006
• Where: PRESENCE
• Authors: Mel Slater, Christoph Guger, Guenter Edlinger, Robert Leeb, Gert Pfurtscheller, Angus Antley, Maia Garau, Andrea Brogni, Doron Friedman
• Keywords: Event-related Heart Rate, Heart Rate, Heart Rate Changes, PRESENCE 2006