Time Perception, Movement and Presence in Virtual Reality

Weber, Stefan; Weibel, David; Mast, Fred W. (26 July 2018). Time Perception, Movement and Presence in Virtual Reality (Unpublished). In: VECTOR Workshop 2018. Tübingen, Deutschland. 25.-27. Juli 2018.

Although perception has been a prominent topic in virtual reality (VR) research for decades, only little attention was given to time perception. For example, it has been shown that in VR environments distances and sizes are perceived to be diminished (Renner, Velichkovsky, & Helmert, 2013) and this effect can be reduced by enhancing presence and providing the self-perspective of an avatar (Ries, Interrante, Kaeding, & Anderson, 2008). In contrast, only little attention was given to the perception of time in VR. In non-VR studies, the speed and acceleration of objects have been linked to their subjective duration (Brown, 1995; Matthews, 2011). Additionally, Binetti, Siegler, Bueti, and Doricchi (2013) suggest that movement of the own body could have the same effect. However, most studies involving body movement are limited in the way they control for the effects of attention or the way in which movement is induced. A VR study would allow controlling for these factors by creating movement that is perfectly linear and does not interfere with attentional resources of the participant. In an experiment, we investigated whether the velocity of one’s own movement in a car influences the perception of time intervals and if higher levels of presence could improve judgments. The research design consisted of a long virtual road on which participants (N = 26) were being moved as co-drivers for various amounts of time and velocity. The participants had to judge the duration, distance and velocity of their journey and indicate their level of presence. The results suggested that there was a positive linear relationship between actual velocity and the judgement of time, similar to the findings of previous studies using moving stimuli. Individual presence affected these judgements only indirectly by improving the confidence for time judgements. In line with previous assumptions, our findings show a supportive effect of presence on veridical judgements in VR environments. Our study is still ongoing and will involve further conditions where we will examine whether acceleration affects these associations and whether cars that drive towards us are perceived to have a longer duration than cars driving away from us.

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