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Position tracking setup. a) Rangefinder to detect distance, b) Layout of position labels for each player between the Rangefinders.
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In this paper, we investigate how mismatches between biological gender and avatar gender affect interpersonal distance (IPD) in virtual reality (VR). An increasing number of VR experiences and online platforms like Rec Room and VRChat allow users to assume other genders through customized avatars. While the effects of acquaintanceship and gender ha...
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The key point is that every callout made contributes to a team’s capacity to collectively track the movements and locations of their opponents, constituting...
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... Each participant evaluated a complete set of nine avatars (three age groups of avatars x three degrees of avatar realism) matching their self-reported gender. Empirical evidence points towards better self-identification of users with gender-matched avatars [49,53]. Hence, to control for possible gender effects, we matched the participants with avatars of their self-reported gender. ...
Augmented reality (AR) presents vivid opportunities for interpersonal communication. With the growing diversity of social AR users, understanding their unique needs and perceptions becomes crucial. This study delves into how younger, middle-aged, and older adults perceive avatars with different aging attributes and degrees of realism, focusing on their anticipated user experience within a social AR system. We conducted an online within-subjects experiment involving N=2086 age-diverse participants from Germany who assessed a set of nine gender-matched avatars for their perceived social attractiveness (research question 1 = RQ1) and the likelihood of selecting these avatars for self-representation in social AR (RQ2). The evaluated avatars represented different age groups (younger, middle-aged, and older) and levels of realism (low, medium, and high). We validated both the created avatars and our experimental setup and employed a linear mixed-effects modeling approach to analyze the data. Our findings unveiled a strong preference for younger high-realism avatars as communication partners (RQ1), which was consistent across all participant age groups. Similarly, participants favored younger high-realism avatars for self-representation in social AR (RQ2). However, older adults were more inclined to opt for avatars resembling their actual age. The study highlights the prevalence of age-related stereotypes in avatar-based communication. Similar to face-to-face social interactions, these stereotypes tend to render older avatars less socially attractive than their younger counterparts, irrespective of the avatar’s degree of realism. Our results invite considerations on how to combat these stereotypes through a more thoughtful and inclusive avatar design process that encompasses a broader spectrum of aging attributes.
... Participant P1 shared instances where they personalized their avatar with a different gender, ''just to avoid prejudices or labels that people put on women in certain games''. This behavior resonates with findings in the literature (Waddell and Ivory, 2015;Rivu et al., 2021;SooHoo, 2022;Jicol et al., 2022), where studies concluded that choosing a gendermasking avatar is common among female gamers. Women adopt this strategy to circumvent harassment and sexism in gaming environments. ...
The avatar is a digital character that represents a person in a virtual environment, such as the metaverse. It is widely used in games and is also becoming a reality in other domains. Research indicates that the characteristics of a person’s avatar can influence his/her behavior while using a system, improving the sense of presence, immersion, and self-expression. A gap is how to support developers proposing avatar personalization, considering a user’s context, and understanding how context-awareness applied to avatars influences self-expression. In this article, we investigate how to support the development of self-expressive avatars. We present VISHnu, an approach developed to support the formalization of the use of context for avatar personalization. We conducted three evaluations to investigate the potential and feasibility of the VISHnu approach with specialists and developers: a focus group (n=6), interviews (n=6), and a questionnaire (n = 12). In addition to guidelines derived from mixed qualitative methods and data triangulation, including insights from the literature review, we present two tangible artifacts—the checklist and glossary. These artifacts provide a robust initial foundation for developers and enthusiasts aiming to create avatar customization solutions aligned with advancements in immersive worlds like the metaverse. Our results have the potential to contribute to the creation of avatar personalization solutions that are more inclusive and more representative of human diversity.
... Finally, our physiologically-adaptive systems might find applications in Social VR settings involving multi-agent interactions. NPCs display [44], proxemics [75,108] and, quality of interactions with virtual agents are critical to the usability [118] in Social VR scenarios. Here again, physiological arousal as indexed by EDA features can quantify emotional discomfort [122], violation of proxemic space [55,75], and the influence of virtual crowds [23,93]. ...
Biocybernetic loops encompass users' state detection and system adaptation based on physiological signals. Current adaptive systems limit the adaptation to task features such as task difficulty or multitasking demands. However, virtual reality allows the manipulation of task-irrelevant elements in the environment. We present a physiologically adaptive system that adjusts the virtual environment based on physiological arousal, i.e., electrodermal activity. We conducted a user study with our adaptive system in social virtual reality to verify improved performance. Here, participants completed an n-back task, and we adapted the visual complexity of the environment by changing the number of non-player characters. Our results show that an adaptive virtual reality can control users' comfort, performance, and workload by adapting the visual complexity based on physiological arousal. Thus, our physiologically adaptive system improves task performance and perceived workload. Finally, we embed our findings in physiological computing and discuss applications in various scenarios.
... For example, one study reported that human perception of distance does not change much between physical and virtual environments [3]. Other studies suggested that one's preferred distance from virtual agents is affected by complex relationships among the genders of both the users and agents as well as friendliness toward them [4,5]. These studies suggested that addressing such knowledge in physical environments is critical for designing acceptable virtual agents in virtual environments. ...
This study investigated whether the coughing behaviors of virtual agents encourage infection avoidance behavior, i.e., distancing behaviors. We hypothesized that the changes in people’s lifestyles in physical environments due to COVID-19 probably influence their behaviors, even in virtual environments where no infection risk is present. We focused on different types of virtual agents because non-human agents, such as robot-like agents, cannot spread a virus by coughing. We prepared four kinds of virtual agents (human-like/robot-like and male/female) and coughing behaviors for them and experimentally measured the personal distance maintained by participants toward them. Our experiment results showed that participants chose a greater distance from coughing agents, regardless of the types, and negatively evaluated them. They also chose a greater distance from male agents than from female agents.
... De même, modifier le genre de l'avatar peut avoir de nombreux impacts, principalement liés à l'effet Proteus. Représenter un avatar féminin ou masculin a une influence sur les performances lors de tâches de calcul (Chang et al., 2019;Lee et al., 2014;Ratan and Sah, 2015), la distance interpersonnelle (Rivu et al., 2021), la mémoire de travail ou encore le degré d'auto-identification avec des mains (Schwind et al., 2017). ...
L’Homme fait naturellement l’expérience d’un soi conscient, localisé à l’intérieur de ses frontières corporelles. Cette conscience de soi corporelle peut être manipulée à l’aide de stimulations multisensorielles, combinant des signaux extéroceptifs et intéroceptifs. En particulier, l’usage d’un avatar en réalité virtuelle (VR) se substituant au corps du participant permet d’induire des illusions corps entier grâce à l’induction de signaux physiologiques, et d’exploiter des phénomènes cognitifs et moteurs liés à l’identification au corps virtuel.Les progrès de la réalité virtuelle et des technologies de capture du mouvement permettent aujourd’hui à un utilisateur de contrôler un avatar en temps réel, perçu à la troisième personne. Conscience de soi, cognition et comportement visuomoteur agissent alors de concert, créant de nouvelles interactions pouvant donner naissance à l’incarnation de l’avatar.L’objectif final de ce travail était de concevoir un cadre expérimental permettant de mesurer et de comprendre les relations entre l’utilisateur et son avatar, et d’étudier leur impact sur ses performances. Les travaux menés s’intéressent à la fois à la mesure des performances et de la conscience de soi corporelle en VR, mais aussi à l’application d’une nouvelle méthode de mesure des adaptations visuomotrices et du sentiment d’incarnation via la complexité des signaux du mouvement humain.L'activité motrice volontaire est organisée autour du sentiment d'agentivité, qui décrit la conscience d'un corps agissant, et la coordination de systèmes complexes impliquant perception, cognition et mouvement, autour de la conscience d’un soi ancré dans un corps physique. Des études récentes suggèrent qu’il est possible d’obtenir des informations sur les interconnexions entre le cerveau, le corps et l’environnement en s’intéressant aux propriétés non-linéaires du mouvement émergeant des interactions entre ces différents composants. Sur la base de signaux moteurs échantillonnés à haute fréquence, la multifractalité des séries temporelles se révèle être un indicateur pertinent pour évaluer ces interactions.Dans ce travail nous avons transposé une tâche de temps de réponse visuomoteurs en VR, et conduit une analyse multifractale des mouvements des mains (enregistrés avec les contrôleurs VR) pour caractériser les adaptations fines provoquées par différents espaces visuels d’intervention, ainsi que les différences de contrôle entre les mains dominante et non-dominante. L’analyse multifractale a également été appliquée aux mouvements d’une souris d’ordinateur pour étudier le phénomène d’incarnation d’un outil, littéralement l’incorporation d’un outil dans un système cognitif étendu. Enfin, nous avons étudié l’influence de stimulations multisensorielles sur le sentiment d’incarnation d’un avatar vu à la troisième personne, statique ou mobilisé par le participant.Les résultats de ces expériences permettent de mieux comprendre le phénomène d’incarnation impliquant la conscience de soi corporelle, et de proposer l’analyse des interactions non-linéaires entre l’utilisateur et son avatar pour rendre compte du phénomène de cognition étendue. En combinant ces phénomènes avec des dispositions individuelles des utilisateurs, nous avons tenté d’éclairer un champ transdisciplinaire, nécessaire à l’approche de systèmes complexes dont les propriétés émergentes sont fondamentales pour appréhender les interactions permanentes entre perception, cognition et action.
... Previous VR research has examined questions related to avatar appearance, initially as related to avatars featured within computer-based games (e.g., Bente et al., 2008) and more recently associated with avatars interacting within userimmersed VR settings (e.g., Wirth et al., 2021). For example, within VR, researchers have examined whether perceptions of avatar trustworthiness are influenced by the relative realism of the avatar (Aseeri & Interrante, 2021), whether differences in avatar facial characteristics influence perceptions of social presence (Dubosc et al., 2021), whether avatar appearance influences prosocial behavior enacted in a subsequent task (Guegan et al., 2020), whether similarity of avatar appearance to the user's actual appearance has effects on perceptions of body ownership (Jo et al., 2017), whether there are effects when there is a mismatch between an avatar's gender appearance and the user's actual gender (Rivu et al., 2021), and whether there are effects of using human appearing versus abstract (i.e., free-floating cube) avatars on synchrony of avatars' non-verbal behavior (Sun et al., 2019). Such research has markedly increased recognition that avatar-based effects, at times, can and do occur. ...
Recent experimental research revealed that people can form meaningful relationships interacting with strangers in virtual reality (VR), with resulting affiliative outcomes (e.g., feelings of closeness) at the same levels as those attained via interactions in other sensory-rich communication modalities. The present preregistered experiment examined whether avatar type and avatar matching in VR influence levels of closeness (and affiliated constructs) generated among previously unacquainted strangers using a validated structured discussion procedure. Based on previous theory and research, we hypothesized that affiliative outcomes would not differ 1) regardless of whether the interacting avatars appeared to be human or not, and 2) regardless of whether there was a (mis)match in avatar type between interactants. Two hundred and four previously unacquainted undergraduate students were randomly assigned to interact in VR as pairs in one of three stylized avatar conditions: both human in appearance, both non-human in appearance (Crab-Things, created for this study), or one human and one Crab-Thing. Results were consistent with hypotheses, suggesting that closeness and related outcomes can be generated and experienced in VR regardless of the stylized avatar types used in the current study. Exploratory analyses of individual difference variables (personality and attachment) as possible moderators of stylized avatar type effects yielded non-significant findings, supporting the generalizability of findings across key intra- and interpersonal dispositions.
... This resulted in 24 diferent conditions, where conditions were counterbalanced according to a Latin Square design, with subsequent trials randomized. Gender of the observed companion avatar was also randomized to minimize VR gender bias efects (cf., [79]). We tested pairs of participants in an experiment session, as we expected this would heighten the experience of being socially present with a companion whose biosignals are visualized. ...
Visualizing biosignals can be important for social Virtual Reality (VR), where avatar non-verbal cues are missing. While several biosignal representations exist, designing effective visualizations and understanding user perceptions within social VR entertainment remains unclear. We adopt a mixed-methods approach to design biosignals for social VR entertainment. Using survey (N=54), context-mapping (N=6), and co-design (N=6) methods, we derive four visualizations. We then ran a within-subjects study (N=32) in a virtual jazz-bar to investigate how heart rate (HR) and breathing rate (BR) visualizations, and signal rate, influence perceived avatar arousal, user distraction, and preferences. Findings show that skeuomorphic visualizations for both biosignals allow differentiable arousal inference; skeuomorphic and particles were least distracting for HR, whereas all were similarly distracting for BR; biosignal perceptions often depend on avatar relations, entertainment type, and emotion inference of avatars versus spaces. We contribute HR and BR visualizations, and considerations for designing social VR entertainment biosignal visualizations.
... In this paper, we focus on aspects related to the study methodology in the description of the case studies, rather than on the main research questions of the projects and the obtained results. The results are instead discussed in two separate papers [36,49]. ...
We investigate opportunities and challenges of running virtual reality (VR) studies remotely. Today, many consumers own head-mounted displays (HMDs), allowing them to participate in scientific studies from their homes using their own equipment. Researchers can benefit from this approach by being able to recruit study populations normally out of their reach, and to conduct research at times when it is difficult to get people into the lab (cf. the COVID pandemic). In an initial online survey ( N = 227), we assessed HMD owners’ demographics, their VR setups and their attitudes toward remote participation. We then identified different approaches to running remote studies and conducted two case studies for an in-depth understanding. We synthesize our findings into a framework for remote VR studies, discuss strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches, and derive best practices. Our work is valuable for Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers conducting VR studies outside labs.
Recent advancements in tele-operated avatars, both on-screen and robotic, have expanded opportunities for human interaction that exceed spatial and physical limitations. While numerous studies have enhanced operator control and improved the impression left on remote users, one area remains underexplored: the experience of operators during touch interactions between an avatar and a remote interlocutor. Touch interactions have become commonplace with avatars, especially those displayed on or integrated with touchscreen interfaces. Although the need for avatars to exhibit human-like touch responses has been recognized as beneficial for maintaining positive impressions on remote users, the sensations and experiences of the operators behind these avatars during such interactions remain largely uninvestigated. This study examines the sensations felt by an operator when their tele-operated avatar is touched remotely. Our findings reveal that operators can perceive a sensation of discomfort when their on-screen avatar is touched. This feeling is intensified when the touch is visualized and the avatar reacts to it. Although these autonomous responses may enhance the human-like perceptions of remote users, they might also lead to operator discomfort. This situation underscores the importance of designing avatars that address the experiences of both remote users and operators. We address this issue by proposing a tele-operated avatar system that minimizes unwarranted touch interactions from unfamiliar interlocutors based on social intimacy.
