This article reports the first psychological evidence that the combination of
oscillating optic flow and synchronous foot vibration evokes a walking
sensation. In this study, we first captured a walker’s first-person-view scenes
with footstep timings. Participants observed the naturally oscillating scenes on
a head-mounted display with vibrations on their feet and rated walking-related
sensations using a Visual Analogue Scale. They perceived stronger sensations of
self-motion, walking, leg action, and telepresence from the oscillating visual
flow with foot vibrations than with randomized-timing vibrations or without
vibrations. The artificial delay of foot vibrations with respect to the scenes
diminished the walking-related sensations. These results suggest that the
oscillating visual scenes and synchronous foot vibrations are effective for
creating virtual walking sensations.
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