Our bodies are fundamental to how we experience and interact with the physical world, and they shape the way our minds develop. The human brain develops together with the rest of the human body, adapting to its specific properties like size, weight or the resulting biomechanics. Virtual/extended reality (VR), on the other hand, allows us to instantly assume a virtual body (avatar) of any kind. While virtual bodies do not need to follow real-world physical, anatomical or biomechanical constraints, their users are humans whose brains are wired to represent human bodies. VR enables embodiment in entirely new forms—human, animal, robotic, or abstract—raising profound questions: How does our human sensorimotor experience shape interactions in non-human avatars? How can we create realistic sensations and emotional expressions for virtual bodies?

At the VRS25 conference we will host experts in these diverse approaches to virtual embodiment and this current Frontiers Research Topic will provide a follow up extensive discussion on virtual bodies. In this special topic we tackle these above challenges by bringing together articles in neuroscience and human-machine interactions working on cutting-edge developments in providing naturalistic sensations to users of extended reality.

The Topic aims at highlighting tools and methods allowing people and embodied naturalistic experience in virtual spaces. We aim at gathering opinions of experts in avatar embodiment, real and illusory haptics and emotions. All these different perspectives are meant to paint a coherent and multidisciplinary picture of challenges and pathways towards giving real human brains the possibility to connect with virtual bodies.

Scope and Information for authors:

The Topic collects insights allowing leveraging avatar embodiment technologies in establishing naturalistic and embodied interactions in virtual spaces. The following topics will be discussed:

- Avatar anthropomorphism and biomechanics
- Phantom Touch
- Social Touch in VR
- Haptics and artificial senses
- Naturalistic emotional expressions

The proposed Research Topic accepts all types of manuscripts, embracing a list of research areas not limited to the ones listed above.

Are you interested in contributing a manuscript to this Research Topic?

Virtual Bodies for Real Humans - Avatars, Sensations and Emotions