Can you stand on virtual grounds? A study on postural affordances in virtual reality

The concept of affordance, introduced by the psychologist James Gibson, can be defined as the functional utility of an object, a surface or an event. The purpose of this article was to evaluate the perception of affordances in virtual environments (VE). In order to test this perception, we considered the affordances for standing on a virtual slanted surface. The participants were asked to judge whether a virtual slanted surface supported upright stance. The perception was investigated by manipulating the texture of the slanted surface (Wooden texture vs. Ice texture). Results showed an effect of the texture: the perceptual boundary (or critical angle) with the Ice texture was significantly lower than with the Wooden texture. These results reveal that perception of affordances for standing on a slanted surface in virtual reality is possible and comparable to previous studies conducted in real environments.