Stimulating the Brain in VR: Effects of Transcranial Direct-Current Stimulation on Redirected Walking
Redirected walking (RDW) enables virtual reality (VR) users to
explore large virtual environments (VE) in confined tracking spaces
by guiding users on different paths in the real world than in the VE.
However, so far, spaces larger than typical room-scale setups of 5m
× 5m are still required to allow infinitely straight walking, i. e., to
prevent a subjective mismatch between real and virtual paths. This
mismatch could in theory be reduced by interacting with the under-
lying brain activity. Transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS)
presents a simply method able to modify ongoing cortical activity
and excitability levels. Hence, this approach provides enormous
potential to widen detection thresholds for RDW, and consequently
reduce the above mentioned space requirements. In this paper, we
conducted a psychophysical experiment using tDCS to evaluate
detection thresholds for RDW gains. In the stimulation conditon
1.25 mA cathodal tDCS were applid over the prefrontal cortex (AF4
with Pz for the return current) for 20 minutes. TDCS failed to exert
a significant overall effect on detection thresholds. However, for
the highest gain only, path deviance was significantly modified by
tDCS. In addition, subjectively reported disorientation was signifi-
cantly lower during the tDCS as compared to the sham condition.
Along the same line, oculomotor cyber sickness symptoms after the
session were significantly decreased compared to baseline in tDCS,
while there was no significant effect in sham. This work presents
the first use of tDCS during virtual walking which provides new
vistas for future research in the area of neurostimulation in VR.
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BibTex references
@InProceedings{LSKMB19, author = "Langbehn, Eike and Steinicke, Frank and Koo-Poeggel, Ping and Marshall, Lisa and Bruder, Gerd", title = "Stimulating the Brain in VR: Effects of Transcranial Direct-Current Stimulation on Redirected Walking", booktitle = "ACM Symposium on Applied Perception (SAP)", pages = "(accepted)", year = "2019", url = "http://basilic.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/Publications/2019/LSKMB19" }