One Body, Two Minds: Alternating VR Perspective During Remote Teleoperation of Supernumerary Limbs
Published in The 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26), 2026
Recommended citation: Hongyu Zhou, Xincheng Huang, Winston Wijaya, Yi Fei Cheng, David Lindlbauer, Eduardo Velloso, Andrea Bianchi, Zhanna Sarsenbayeva, and Anusha Withana. 2026. One Body, Two Minds: Alternating VR Perspective During Remote Teleoperation of Supernumerary Limbs. In Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26), April 13-17, 2026, Barcelona, Spain. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 20 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3791433
Abstract: Remote VR teleoperation with supernumerary robotic limbs enables distant users to operate in another’s local space. While a shared first-person view aids hand-eye coordination, locking the guest’s camera to the host’s head can degrade comfort, embodiment, and coordination. Based on a formative study (N=10) using a virtual supernumerary robotic limbs configuration to stress-test coordination, we propose guest-driven perspective switching from a shared first-person baseline (Shared Embodied View) to two alternatives: (a) a stabilized view with guest-controlled rotation (Embedded Anchored View), and (b) a fully decoupled third-person view (Out-of-body View). We ran a user study with 24 pairs (N=48), who switched between the baseline and proposed views as task demands changed. We measured performance, embodiment, fatigue, physiological arousal, and switching behaviors. Our results reveal role-dependent trade-offs: Out-of-body View improves navigation efficiency and reduces errors, while Embedded Anchored View supports embodiment. We conclude with guidelines: use Embedded Anchored View for hand-centric adjustments, Out-of-body View for navigation and object placement, and ensure smooth transitions.
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