In the virtual world, the ability to alter first-person perspectives is generating some fascinating applications, many of them driven by the intriguingly named ‘body swap’ illusion, which was described in a 2008 study led by the Swedish researcher Henrik Ehrsson. In the body swap set-up, two people wear head-mounted displays, each with a camera attached. By swapping the camera feeds between the headsets, each person can see themselves from the other’s point of view. The effect kicks in properly only when they shake hands. The idea is that seeing and simultaneously feeling the handshake
...more
