Simulating illusary self motion

Some scientist experimented with floor projection in a virtual immersive environment, tried to study illusion of vection- self motion.

For people who do not know, vection refers to the perception of self-motion induced by some visual stimuli. The most familiar example of this sensation is that if one is seated in a train parked at the station while the train next to it pulls out from the station, one may have a sustained sensation that one is moving in the opposite direction.

So anyways, coming back to them scientists and their floor projection.This kind of projection helped them manifest linear vection, but not circular vection- the "real" illusion in our known world :)

So they tried a new thing- curvilinear forward vection which turned out to be more convincing experience. If you want to read further: CMU Research Paper

Here's what it looked like:

and,