Department of Psychology, University of Durham, Durham DH1 3LE, UK.
Department of Psychology, University of Durham, Durham DH1 3LE, UK; Azrieli Program in Mind, Brain & Consciousness, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), Toronto, Ontario M5G 1M1, Canada.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2022 Dec;224:105518. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105518. Epub 2022 Aug 11.
Previous work shows that in adults, illusory embodiment of a virtual avatar can be induced using congruent visuomotor cues. Furthermore, embodying different-sized avatars influences adults' perception of their environment's size. This study (N = 92) investigated whether children are also susceptible to such embodiment and size illusions. Adults and 5-year-old children viewed a first-person perspective of different-sized avatars moving either congruently or incongruently with their own body. Participants rated their feelings of embodiment over the avatar and also estimated the sizes of their body and objects in the environment. Unlike adults, children embodied the avatar regardless of visuomotor congruency. Both adults and children freely embodied different-sized avatars, and this affected their size perception in the surrounding virtual environment; they felt that objects were larger in a small body and vice versa in a large body. In addition, children felt that their body had grown in the large body condition. These findings have important implications for both our theoretical understanding of own-body representation, and our knowledge of perception in virtual environments.
先前的研究表明，在成年人中，通过一致的视动线索可以诱导出对虚拟化身的虚幻体现。此外，体现不同大小的化身会影响成年人对环境大小的感知。本研究（N=92）调查了儿童是否也容易受到这种体现和大小错觉的影响。成年人和 5 岁的儿童从第一人称视角观察不同大小的化身，这些化身的运动与自己的身体一致或不一致。参与者对自己在化身中的体现感进行了评价，并估计了自己身体和环境中物体的大小。与成年人不同，儿童无论视动一致性如何，都会体现出化身。成年人和儿童都可以自由地体现不同大小的化身，这会影响他们在周围虚拟环境中的大小感知；他们觉得小身体里的物体更大，大身体里的物体则相反。此外，儿童觉得自己的身体在大身体状态下变大了。这些发现对我们对自身身体表现的理论理解以及对虚拟环境中的感知的认识都具有重要意义。
