Reaching movements in virtual reality depend on the seen avatar arm and not just the acting arm
- 1Western University
Abstract
Virtual reality (VR) offers unique opportunities to study behaviour by allowing the visual environment to be manipulated in ways otherwise impossible in the real world. A central theoretical question is how body-related visual information shapes movement control. Given right-handers' greater dexterity with the right arm, perhaps even seeing a right arm vs. a left arm may engage sensorimotor processes associated with more precise motor control. We examined reaching performance while participants used their own right or left arm to move the manipulandum of a KINARM robot to intercept static targets. Participants wore a VR head-mounted display, calibrated to the robot's physical workspace, in which they saw either the right or left arm holding and moving the manipulandum. The 2 x 2 design allowed for independent manipulation of the controlling arm and virtual arm displayed. As expected, reaches were faster and more accurate when controlled by the right arm. More interestingly, performance was also affected by the seen arm. Participants made straighter reaches when they saw a virtual right arm than a left arm, especially for the right controlling arm. These findings show that precise motor control relies not only on the arm that is actually moved and provides proprioceptive feedback, but also on the visual identity of the arm. The ability to modulate performance using visual features in VR opens new theoretical questions and opportunities for applications such as rehabilitation.
Related
- Avatar-Induced Postural Responses during a Virtual Full-Body Illusion
- Practice-dependent changes in body representation but not in reaching distance following virtual tool-use
- Investigation of human defence responses in a virtual reality environment: an EEG study
- Beyond heartbeats: re-thinking interoception in autism through virtual reality and computational modelling
- Virtual Placebo: a scoping review of control conditions in randomized controlled trials of psychological immersive virtual reality interventions
BibTeX
@misc{ipwanshek2026reaching,
title = {{Reaching movements in virtual reality depend on the seen avatar arm and not just the acting arm}},
author = {O. Ipwanshek and K. Babin and P. L. Gribble and J. C. Culham},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.64898/2026.10.05.756878},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.05.756878v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Reaching movements in virtual reality depend on the seen avatar arm and not just the acting arm
AU - O. Ipwanshek
AU - K. Babin
AU - P. L. Gribble
AU - J. C. Culham
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/05
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.10.05.756878
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.05.756878v1
AB - Virtual reality (VR) offers unique opportunities to study behaviour by allowing the visual environment to be manipulated in ways otherwise impossible in the real world. A central theoretical question is how body-related visual information shapes movement control. Given right-handers' greater dexterity with the right arm, perhaps even seeing a right arm vs. a left arm may engage sensorimotor processes associated with more precise motor control. We examined reaching performance while participants used their own right or left arm to move the manipulandum of a KINARM robot to intercept static targets. Participants wore a VR head-mounted display, calibrated to the robot's physical workspace, in which they saw either the right or left arm holding and moving the manipulandum. The 2 x 2 design allowed for independent manipulation of the controlling arm and virtual arm displayed. As expected, reaches were faster and more accurate when controlled by the right arm. More interestingly, performance was also affected by the seen arm. Participants made straighter reaches when they saw a virtual right arm than a left arm, especially for the right controlling arm. These findings show that precise motor control relies not only on the arm that is actually moved and provides proprioceptive feedback, but also on the visual identity of the arm. The ability to modulate performance using visual features in VR opens new theoretical questions and opportunities for applications such as rehabilitation.
ER -