Immersion in Movement-Based Interaction

The phenomenon of immersing oneself into virtual environments has been established widely. Yet to date (to our best knowledge) the physical dimension has been neglected in studies investigating immersion in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). In this paper we investigate how the concept of immersion can be extended and applied to movementbased interaction. In movement-based interaction the user steers the interface via body movements, e.g. direct manipulation of screen objects via gestures or using a handheld controller as a virtual tennis racket. It has been shown that physical activity affects arousal and that movement-based controllers can facilitate engagement in a video games context. This paper aims at identifying movement features that influence immersion. We first give a brief survey on immersion and movement-based interfaces. Then we report results from an interview study that investigates how users experience their body movements when interacting with movement-based interfaces. Based on the interviews, we extend existing models of immersion to account for the role of movement in modulating immersive experiences.