The effect of avatar realism in immersive social virtual realities

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of avatar realism on embodiment and social interactions in Virtual Reality (VR). We compared abstract avatar representations based on a wooden mannequin with high fidelity avatars generated from photogrammetry 3D scan methods. Both avatar representations were alternately applied to participating users and to the virtual counterpart in dyadic social encounters to examine the impact of avatar realism on selfembodiment and social interaction quality. Users were immersed in a virtual room via a head mounted display (HMD). Their full-body movements were tracked and mapped to respective movements of Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the owner/author(s).

Human, Chameleon or Nodding Dog?

“…al. [38] studied the impact of avatar realism on the experience of embodiment and quality of social interaction. They compared a neutral abstract avatar representation (wooden mannequin) with high fidelity scans of real humans.…”

Fidelity of the remote partner's avatar in an immersive virtual environment

“…De leur côté, Steptoe et al montrent que l'ajout du comportement oculaire sur l'avatar à travers le suivi du regard permet d'améliorer les interactions sociales [16]. L'étude de Latoschik et al montre un effet positif du réalisme visuel de l'avatar de l'autre (avatar abstrait Vs avatar photo-réaliste préconstruit) sur la perception de soi dans l'EV [10]. Enfin, L'étude de Roth et al montre que les utilisateurs compensent l'absence des comportements non verbaux lors de l'utilisation d'avatars non visuellement réalistes pour améliorer leurs interactions sociales [14].…”

“…La performance collaborative sera évaluée à travers la durée nécessaire aux participants pour guider l'expérimentateur à sélectionner correctement l'objet 3D indiqué, le nombre d'erreurs de sélection de cet objet, la durée nécessaire aux participants pour retrouver le bon code ainsi que le nombre de codes erronés. Nous allons également évaluer les sentiments de coprésence et de présence sociale des participants avec leur partenaire en se basant sur le questionnaire proposé par Latoschik et al [10].…”

The Avatar's Nature and Its Modern Modifications

“…In this connection P.M. Daineko marks, -the status-role affiliation of communicants, including experts, is beginning to acquire a mobile and often conditional character‖ [10]. A number of authors consider the effects of user identification with an avatar [11] [12], mark the appearance of the Proteus effect [13] [14], which consists in an individual's adjustment of his behavior after the experience of managing a virtual embodiment. We believe that the avatar phenomenon lies in the field of game characteristics, the possibility of a partial transfer of one's personality and its subsequent editing.…”