가상현실에서 아바타을 통한 정보전달 시 뇌의 활성화와 현존감의 관계

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) provides a virtual experiment (VE) context consisting of information presented to the senses of the user. The user perceives and interprets the VE context, and then naturally recognizes a level of realism in the VE. Presence is often thought of as the sense of 'being there' in the VE. Presence includes overall feelings about the information conveyed from a virtual avatar to the user. Therefore, there must be brain mechanisms for integrating sensory information about presence. 'Feeling of presence' is related with the user's cognition and perception about information on communication through medium. Thus 'feeling of presence' may characterize perceptual mechanisms in the brain. We studied these mechanisms by presenting a VR that consisted of an avatar telling a story about a social conversation. We performed covariance analysis on subjective brain activity (fMRI) during the story presentation with a presence score. The data analysis revealed that activity in several brain areas was correlated with the presence score. A positive correlation was shown in the right lingual gyrus, right cuneus, left lingual gyrus, right fusiform gyrus, left inferior temporal gyrus, anterior cingulate cortex and right posterior cingulate cortex of the brain. This study showed the brain mechanism to be related the feeling of presence and brain activities in our subjects, using VR to communicate information.