In this article, we introduce a concept called “virtual co-embodiment”, which enables a user to share their virtual avatar with another entity (e.g., another user, robot, or autonomous agent). We describe a proof-of-concept in which two users can be immersed from a first-person perspective in a virtual environment and can have complementary levels of control (total, partial, or none) over a shared avatar. In addition, we conducted an experiment to investigate the influence of users’ level of control over the shared avatar and prior knowledge of their actions on the users’ sense of agency and motor actions. The results showed that participants are good at estimating their real level of control but significantly overestimate their sense of agency when they can anticipate the motion of the avatar. Moreover, participants performed similar body motions regardless of their real control over the avatar. The results also revealed that the internal dimension of the locus of control, which is a personality trait, is negatively correlated with the user’s perceived level of control. The combined results unfold a new range of applications in the fields of virtual-reality-based training and collaborative teleoperation, where users would be able to share their virtual body.

中文翻译：

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虚拟协同体现：评估在两个人之间共享虚拟身体控制时的代理感

在本文中，我们介绍了一个称为“虚拟协同体现”的概念，它使用户能够与另一个实体（例如，另一个用户、机器人或自主代理）共享他们的虚拟化身。我们描述了一个概念验证，其中两个用户可以从第一人称的角度沉浸在虚拟环境中，并且可以对共享的化身具有互补的控制级别（全部、部分或无）。此外，我们还进行了一项实验，以调查用户对共享头像的控制水平和他们行为的先验知识对用户代理感和运动行为的影响。结果表明，参与者善于估计他们的实际控制水平，但当他们能够预测化身的运动时，他们会显着高估他们的代理感。而且，参与者执行类似的身体动作，而不管他们对化身的真正控制。结果还表明，控制点的内部维度是一种人格特质，与用户的感知控制水平呈负相关。综合结果在基于虚拟现实的培训和协作远程操作领域展开了一系列新的应用，用户将能够共享他们的虚拟身体。