Avatar-mediated creativity: When embodying inventors makes engineers more creative

Abstract

is an open access repository that collects the work of Arts et Métiers ParisTech researchers and makes it freely available over the web where possible. This is an author-deposited version published in: https://sam.ensam.eu Handle ID: .http://hdl.handle.net/10985/12194 To cite this version :Jérôme GUEGAN, Stéphanie BUISINE, Fabrice MANTELET, Nicolas MARANZANA, Frédéric SEGONDS -Avatar-mediated creativity: When embodying inventors makes engineers more creative -Avatar-mediated creativity: When embodying inventors makes engineers more creative a b s t r a c tAn important challenge today is to support creativity while enabling geographically distant people to work together. In line with the componential theory of creativity, self-perception theory and recent research on the Proteus Effect, we investigate how avatars, which are virtual representations of the self, may be a medium for stimulating creativity. For this purpose, we conducted two studies with a population of engineering students. In the first study, 114 participants responded to online surveys in order to identify what a creative avatar may look like. This enabled us to select avatars representing inventors, which were perceived as creative by engineering students, and neutral avatars. In the second study, 54 participants brainstormed in groups of 3, in 3 different conditions: in a control face-to-face situation, in a virtual environment while embodying neutral avatars and in a virtual environment with inventor avatars. The results show that inventor avatars led to higher performance in fluency and originality of ideas. Moreover, this benefit proved to endure over time since participants allocated to inventor avatars also performed better in a subsequent face-to-face brainstorming. The prospects of using avatars for enhancing creativity-relevant processes are discussed in terms of theoretical and applicative implications.

Creativity in Virtual Teams: Bridging the Gap Between Professional Wisdom and Scientific Insights

“…This means that the appearance of an avatar not only influences users' behavior in the virtual world, but also in the real world. Finally, a recent study (Guegan, Buisine, Mantelet, Maranzana, & Segonds, 2016) showed that avatars looking like inventors increase the creative performance of engineers. This benefit also endured over time and participants allocated to inventor avatars continued to perform better in a subsequent face-to-face creativity task.…”

Learning Empathy Through Virtual Reality: Multiple Strategies for Training Empathy-Related Abilities Using Body Ownership Illusions in Embodied Virtual Reality

“…However, previous work shows that the digital self-representations can influence behavior in a pro or antisocial way. For example, the embodiment of an avatar resembling an inventor led engineering students to show higher creative fluency and originality of ideas during a face-to-face brainstorming session conducted after immersion in a virtual environment (Guegan et al, 2016). Another example shows that embodying a casually dressed black avatar enhances users' performance in playing drums in comparison to embodying a formally dressed white avatar (Kilteni et al, 2013), probably due to the positive stereotypic association of black individuals and rhythm.…”

“…In a second study, they also observed that tall avatars lead to more confident behavior than short avatars in a negotiation task. More recent studies have also shown that the appearance of the embodied avatars could influence attitudes, beliefs (Fox et al, 2013) and actions of the users (Peña et al, 2009;Guegan et al, 2016). For instance, it has been shown in nonimmersive VR environments that the use of an avatar resembling a member of the Ku Klux Klan activates more negative thoughts and leads users to participate more aggressively (e.g., murder, vengeance) in the stories created (Peña et al, 2009).…”

Avatar characteristics induce users’ behavioral conformity with small-to-medium effect sizes: a meta-analysis of the proteus effect

“…antisocial behavior (Peña, Hancock, & Merola, 2009;Yoon & Vargas, 2014), food choice (Fox, Bailenson, & Binney, 2009;Sah, Ratan, Sandy Tsai, Peng, & Sarinopoulos, 2016), physical exercise (Li, Lwin, & Jung, 2014;Peña, Khan, & Alexopoulos, 2016;Peña & Kim, 2014), racial bias (Aviles, 2017;Peck, Seinfeld, Aglioti, & Slater, 2013), body dissatisfaction (Fox, Bailenson, & Tricase, 2013;Sylvia, King, & Morse, 2014), financial risk-taking (Hershfield et al, 2011), consumer choices (Ahn & Bailenson, 2011), math performance (Lee, Nass, & Bailenson, 2014;Ratan & Sah, 2015), student engagement , and creative thinking (Buisine, Guegan, Barré, Segonds, & Aoussat, 2016;de Rooij, van der Land, & van Erp, 2017;Guegan, Buisine, Mantelet, Maranzana, & Segonds, 2016).…”

“…Although the Proteus effect may seem like a valid phenomenon given the broad array of contexts within which it has been tested and supported, these tests have not provided consistent evidence for the effect, with some studies unable to replicate the effect at all (Kaye, Pennington, & McCann, 2018;Sylvia et al, 2014) while others find medium-to-large effects sizes (Banakou, Groten, & Slater, 2013;Guegan et al, 2016). Hence, the present research aims to provide clarity about the reliability and size of the Proteus effect by offering the first meta-analysis of previous research on the phenomenon.…”