2019): Avatar characteristics induce users' behavioral conformity with small-to-medium effect sizes: a metaanalysis of the proteus effect, Media Psychology, ABSTRACTOver a decade of research on the Proteus effect in numerous contexts suggests that people conform in behavior and attitudes to their avatars' characteristics. In order to provide clarity about the reliability and size of the Proteus effect, a metaanalysis was conducted with 46 quantitative experimental studies in which avatars with specific characteristics were randomly assigned to participants. Results indicate a relatively consistent effect size (between .22 and .26, depending on subset of studies examined) and nearly all variance explained. Unexplained variance differed between studies that used behavioral or attitudinal measures, while studies which examined potential moderators explained all variance. Overall, this research suggests that the Proteus effect is a reliable phenomenon, with a small-but-approaching-medium effect size according to a traditional rule of thumb, but is relatively large compared to other digital media effects examined in previous meta analyses. ARTICLE HISTORY

No abstract

The propagation of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) applications that leverage smartphone technology has increased along with the ubiquity of smartphone adoption. Although AR and VR technologies have been widely utilized in the educational domain, there remains a dearth of empirical research examining the differences in educational impact across AR and VR technologies. The purpose of our exploratory study was to address this gap in the literature by comparing AR and VR technologies with regard to their impact on learning outcomes, such as retention of science information. Specifically, we use a two-condition (AR vs. VR) between-subjects' design to test college students' science-knowledge retention in response to both auditory and visual information presented on a Samsung S4 smartphone app. Our results ( N = 109) suggest that VR is more immersive and engaging through the mechanism of spatial presence. However, AR seems to be a more effective medium for conveying auditory information through the pathway of spatial presence, possibly because of increased cognitive demands associated with immersive experiences. Thus, an important implication for design is that educational content should be integrated into visual modalities when the experience will be consumed in VR, but into auditory modalities when it will be consumed in AR.

Prior research on digital games illustrates a perceived gender gap in participation and

The computers are social actors framework (CASA), derived from the media equation, explains how people communicate with media and machines demonstrating social potential. Many studies have challenged CASA, yet it has not been revised. We argue that CASA needs to be expanded because people have changed, technologies have changed, and the way people interact with technologies has changed. We discuss the implications of these changes and propose an extension of CASA. Whereas CASA suggests humans mindlessly apply human-human social scripts to interactions with media agents, we argue that humans may develop and apply human-media social scripts to these interactions. Our extension explains previous dissonant findings and expands scholarship regarding human-machine communication, human-computer interaction, human-robot interaction, human-agent interaction, artificial intelligence, and computer-mediated communication.

This article proposes an empirical test of whether aggregate economic behavior maps from the real to the virtual. Transaction data from a large commercial virtual world -the first such data set provided to outside researchers -is used to calculate metrics for production, consumption and money supply based on real-world definitions. Movements in these metrics over time were examined for consistency with common theories of macroeconomic change. The results indicated that virtual economic behavior follows real-world patterns. Moreover, a natural experiment occurred, in that a new version of the virtual world with the same rules came online during the study. The new world's macroeconomic aggregates quickly grew to be nearly exact replicas of those of the existing worlds,

No abstract

No abstract