What is “Phantom Touch” in the Metaverse?
Phantom Touch is an exciting and evolving area in the virtual reality landscape. Imagine if you can see, hear, and FEEL in VR. This experience takes interaction to a new level. It opens the door to novel applications and a more fully immersive experience for business interactions, medical services, and personal recreation, especially at the most intimate level.
Before we delve further, we must understand the ‘Rubber Hand Illusion.’
Rubber Hand, What?
In 1998, researchers discovered they could trick people into feeling like a rubber hand was their own through a surprisingly “simple method.” The scientists applied simultaneous paintbrush strokes to a rubber hand within the subjects’ view. The results were surprising. The participants felt these touches as if they were their own in a novel sensory experience that researchers now call Phantom Touch.
Don’t believe it’s possible? Watch these short videos to see how it works.
Weird, right? But what does this have to do with VR?? Keep your digital pants on, and continue reading!
Similar to the rubber hand illusion, there is the Body Ownership Illusion (BOI), wherein VR users feel like a virtual avatar they see in VR as their own. The brain is tricked into incorporating a virtual body as part of its body schema. It works by synchronizing visual and physical sensations. For example, if the virtual arm moves simultaneously while the user moves their real arm, it creates the illusion that the virtual arm must be their own.
Several experiments have been conducted to test the phenomenon. Most notable was the experiment when researchers placed HMD VR users into a virtual body. They found it induced subjective ownership and physiological responses to threats against the virtual body.
Another experiment found that letting VR users inhabit virtual child bodies caused them to overestimate the sizes of objects, demonstrating changes in perception due to body schema.
This illusion gives VR users a feeling of Embodiment, which means the user feels present in the virtual world through the virtual body. They feel a sense of ownership over it. BOI and Embodiment over a virtual body creates a perceptual outcome – Phantom Touch. The brain refers to sensations that feel like coming from your virtual body when there is no natural tactile stimulation.
Phantom Touch Impact on Virtual Reality
Although Phantom Touch is still being researched and understood, it has created a new field of user experience for VR. Besides communicating with users via visual and sound-related means, VR technology can now also utilize touch, significantly broadening the immersive experience. Haptic feedback is a touch-related communication we are all familiar with — think of your phone vibrating or game controller rumble in certain situations. But Phantom Touch allows VR technology to expand the haptic feedback sensory perception into unique and still evolving user experiences.
Haptic feedback has been shown to enhance the “embodiment” feeling in virtual reality. The immersive experience improved the subjects’ performance in completing tasks like drawing using VR technology.
Devices like haplets and gloves give sensory perception and performance-enhancing qualities to various tasks, from creating sculptures and other works of art to simply moving objects around.
Recently, haptic feedback has been expanded far beyond the phantom hand. Designers have created many new devices, from vests to head cushions, that provide tactile stimulation to other body parts. From the soft patter of downpouring rain to the forceful impact of a bullet, it has made video games and virtual reality experiences much more like actual reality. The holy grail of Phantom Touch is now the BOI, where users experience an entire phantom body in a virtual landscape.
Research shows that the BOI enhances the immersive experience, creates stronger memories of the activity, and makes it seem like it happened in reality.
Friendly Touch
VR technology vastly expands the user experience, allowing users to interact with each other. People use SocialVR platforms like VRChat to connect with others by creating an avatar that they feel best represents them in a virtual environment. Until now, the interactions have been visual and sound. Phantom Touch takes things to a different level by adding the element of sensory experience.
Families and friends can now hug, kiss, and pat each other on the head or back, no matter how far away they are. Gamers can interact through tactile experiences that create lifelike sensations of human contact.
Exploring Sexuality
Of course, integrating the sensual realm into the VR technology landscape opens up the topic of human sexuality.
From having real sexual relations with dates in the Metaverse to opening up a brand new virtual reality sex worker marketplace, Phantom Touch allows for a broad spectrum of sexual experiences. It promises to change the way we see human sexual interaction — especially since physical touch is not necessary for sexual relations in the VR realm. Just as people can experience pleasure while dreaming, stimulating the brain can cause sensations of touch that are not occurring in real life.
Companies like Meta Spa VR now offer fantasy fulfillment packages that combine VR environments with sensual touch — and the VR game Eroticissima is the first sex and love stimulator that allows users to experience Phantom Touch in the Metaverse.
Business Uses
With VR Technology used for everything from corporate training to remote maintenance, adding sensory experience through Phantom Touch has profound implications for the business world.
Haptic technology is revolutionizing the healthcare industry, bringing the much-needed tactile element into telemedicine. The US military also integrates haptic feedback into its training models for everything from medics to flight pilots. Haptic technology is now studied for its potential to improve the efficiency of on-the-job training for industrial workers. Phantom Touch has incredible potential to transform the business world, from remote repairs in hazardous situations to augmenting the shopping experience in virtual reality.
Another exciting use case is its potential to alleviate the suffering of those with phantom pain due to the loss of limbs. Combining VR technology with haptic feedback robots, University College of London scientists believe they can treat phantom limb pain. This syndrome affects as many as 8 out of 10 amputees. Because phantom pain is thought to be caused by a lack of “feedback” from the limb, creating a VR technology-based phantom limb that incorporates phantom touch may help these patients dramatically.
Implications of Phantom Touch
Technologies like video conferencing have dramatically transformed how we interact. Research on Zoom conferencing and schoolchildren, for example, found that one of the detrimental factors was reducing the five human senses to two. Phantom Touch in VR provides a better sensory perception experience by adding touch back into sight and hearing.
Many studies link pornography use to not just lower mental health indexes but actual damage to genuine interpersonal relationships. The potential of Phantom Touch technology to provide a new platform for abuse or even addiction while exploring sexuality in VR is a genuine concern.
But just like how Phantom Touch can give users a more immersive experience by adding sensory perception, they also have the potential to alleviate some of the numbing effects of pornography and virtual sex. By incorporating haptic feedback into erotic role play, virtual sex can become a lot more intimate and fulfilling. According to neuroscience researchers, human contact is essential for human mental health.
Conclusion
Since Phantom Touch in Metaverse is still in its infancy, we are excited about the many opportunities and applications that will come out of this fascinating technology. Write to us if you are focused on this area and have a perspective – we would love to engage!
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