Experiencing Age-Related Movement Impairment Through Visual Delegation in VR Can Substitute Haptic Impairments of an Age Simulation Suit

To investigate limitations of older adults in everyday situations, age simulation suits are used to reflect on the experience of age-related impairments in body movement. However, age simulation suits have drawbacks in accessibility. As an alternative to a physical arm movement impairment induced by an age simulation suit, we designed a virtual arm movement impairment inside a virtual reality environment by using a visual tracking offset and a transparency effect. We compared our virtual movement impairment with the physical movement impairment of the “adit” age simulation suit and to a baseline without impairment in a between-groups user study (N=30). We investigated perceived arm movement impairment, task performance, presence, usability, and simulator sickness. Results show that the virtual impairment we designed can elicit comparable experiences as an age simulation suit while offering more flexibility and adaptability with users. With our paper we want to contribute to designing more effective visual pseudo-haptic effects for virtual reality age simulations.