Effects of Ankle Tendon Electrical Stimulation on Detection Threshold of Redirected Walking

Redirected walking (RDW) allows users to explore virtual spaces larger than physical spaces while preserving a natural walking sensation. Expanding the range of visual manipulation gains that can be applied without causing discomfort is necessary to apply RDW in practice. Ankle tendon electrical stimulation (TES) has the potential to expand the range by inducing body tilt sensation and body sway. Therefore, in this study, we proposed a locomotion method that applies ankle TES to RDW. In the experiment, we evaluated how ankle TES affects the detection threshold (DT), which is the maximal gain at which visual manipulation is not noticed. The results indicated that the DT was expanded when TES was applied to induce the body tilt sensation in the same direction as the RDW's visual manipulation. Specifically, the pooled mean of the DT was expanded by more than 18%.