This week I setup a 15-meter walkway in the lab for the obstacle experiment in walking paradigm. I chose to use Vive pro with a wireless adapter to accomplish a wireless VR experience. Compared with Oculus Quest, the wireless Vive pro is much heavier, and it is still constrained by the coverage of Lighthouses and the wireless adapter. But we have to use Vive because we are going to use Vive trackers to track ankles. With the Vive tracker attached to the ankles, we will be able to detect if participants’ feet collide with the virtual obstacles. This will significantly help us to assess the balance ability while there is no risk of trip and fall.
The current setup anticipates participants to walk on the 15-meter walkway for 2 round trips. Obstacles will be generated when the virtual scene starts, the dimension and the interval distance between every pair of obstacles will be the same. In the unanticipated obstacle experiment, the obstacles will be generated in front of the participant with a random interval time and random distance, participants will have to respond to the unanticipated obstacles in a random short responding time.
