Factors and Influences of Body Ownership Over Virtual Hands

The sense that one’s own body belongs to oneself is called “Body Ownership”. Until now, body ownership is investigated in a psychology field. However, the investigation of the origins and functional role of the sense of one’s own body not only explores the philosophical question, but it also examines the issues that should be investigated before VR becomes widely used in our daily life. In this paper, we surveyed the existing literature on body ownership and categorized factors into bottom-up and top-down processes. We also identified the perceptual, cognitive, and behavioral influences of body ownership. We then discussed some promising areas for future research in the VR field. As for factors, it is promising to consider the interaction between the body and the external world, and to develop a unified evaluation standard and theoretical framework for research in this field. As for influences, it is promising to consider the higher, longer-term cognitive influences in the social context, and to apply them in the context of body augmentation in the real world.