  Immersive Virtual Reality typically requires a head-mounted display (HMD) to
visualize the environment and hand-held controllers to interact with the
virtual objects. Recently, many applications display full-body avatars to
represent the user and animate the arms to follow the controllers. Embodiment
is higher when the self-avatar movements align correctly with the user.
However, having a full-body self-avatar following the user's movements can be
challenging due to the disparities between the virtual body and the user's
body. This can lead to misalignments in the hand position that can be
noticeable when interacting with virtual objects. In this work, we propose five
different interaction modes to allow the user to interact with virtual objects
despite the self-avatar and controller misalignment and study their influence
on embodiment, proprioception, preference, and task performance. We modify
aspects such as whether the virtual controllers are rendered, whether
controllers are rendered in their real physical location or attached to the
user's hand, and whether stretching the avatar arms to always reach the real
controllers. We evaluate the interaction modes both quantitatively (performance
metrics) and qualitatively (embodiment, proprioception, and user preference
questionnaires). Our results show that the stretching arms solution, which
provides body continuity and guarantees that the virtual hands or controllers
are in the correct location, offers the best results in embodiment, user
preference, proprioception, and performance. Also, rendering the controller
does not have an effect on either embodiment or user preference.
