"I've talked without intending to": Self-disclosure and Reciprocity via Embodied Avatar

Abstract

Considering the importance of self-disclosure in building relationships, it is vital to investigate how self-disclosure is affected via avatars in virtual environments, as they are likely to become increasingly popular. Previous work has shown that using avatars increases friendliness and honesty. However, issues such as how and what types of avatars affect self-disclosure and reciprocity have not been fully explored. We conducted a study with 108 participants (54 dyads) discussing a personal topic using one of three communication media: videoconferencing, avatars with avatar-self appearance similarity, or avatars without avatar-self appearance similarity. The results showed that self-disclosure is most encouraged via the avatars without similarity. Reciprocity was formed via both types of avatars but not videoconferencing. Interestingly, although the participants disclosed more about themselves via avatars than via videoconferencing, there was no difference in their subjective experiences. It means that avatar users can disclose more about themselves without being particularly aware that they are using avatars, which suggests the usefulness of avatars to understand people's candid thoughts and feelings. Finally, we discuss the design implications for applications requiring self-disclosure.

Understanding the effect of a virtual moderator on people’s perception in remote discussion using social VR

“…Although the past study showed that self-disclosure occurred when people started establishing trust with each other (Maloney et al, 2020), it can be challenging when building trust and rapport in a cueless environment. In the context of video-based communication, various existing approaches have been proposed to enable users to display nonverbal cues using their avatars for supporting relationship building, such as showing gaze (Pan et al, 2014) or changing the appearance or facial expression of one's avatar (Hyde et al, 2015;Ichino et al, 2022). However, in the context of social VR, little has been explored about the effect of avatars' nonverbal behavior on rapport building in group discussions.…”