Japan: A virtual reality game that integrates tactile experiences using biometric feedback

Researchers at Nagoya University's School of Informatics in Japan have recently created a new VR game that integrates immersive audiovisual experiences with tactile perception. This game, presented in a paper published in the Journal of Robotics, Networking and Artificial Life, uses a player's biometric data to create a spherical object in the VR space that beats in alignment with his/her heart. The player can thus perceive the beating of his/her heart via this object visually, auditorily and tactually.The goal of the VR game developed by the researchers is to break a series of targets by throwing a spherical object onto them. In the simulated environment, this spherical object is connected to a wire that appears to originate from where the player is standing.

Essentially, the researchers' idea was to convey the feeling that the sphere is connected to a player's heart and thus beats with its same rhythm, via a combination of visual, auditory and tactile stimuli. At the end of the game, after the player destroys all the targets, he is asked to cut the thread that connects him/her to the spherical object, using a pair of scissors that appear in the simulated environment and that can be handled via the controller. If the game produced the desired effect (i.e., eliciting the sense that the sphere is connected to the user's heart), a player should have a strange feeling when cutting the thread or might even be hesitant to do so.

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