The Impact of Self-Representation and Consistency in Collaborative Virtual Environments

Abstract

This paper explores the impact of self-representation (full body Self Avatar vs. Just Controllers) in a Collaborate Virtual Environment (CVE) and the consistency of self-representation between the users. We conducted two studies: Study 1 between a confederate and a participant, Study 2 between two participants. In both studies, participants were asked to play a collaborative game, and we investigated the effect on trust with a questionnaire, money invested in a trust game, and performance data. Study 1 suggested that having a Self Avatar made the participant give more positive marks to the confederate and that when the confederate was without an avatar, they received more trust (measured by money). Study 2 showed that consistency led to more trust and better productivity. Overall, results imply consistency improves trust only when in an equal social dynamic in CVE, and that the use of confederate could shift the social dynamics.

The Making of a Newspaper Interview in Virtual Reality: Realistic Avatars, Philosophy, and Sushi

“…A study by Pan and Steed 15 showed that a virtual body representation enabled participants to complete tasks together faster compared to a no-body representation, based on enhanced trust. Collingwoode-Williams et al 16 further found that consistency of representation, where each participant was represented by an avatar, compared to at least one of them only represented by a representation of the hand-held controllers further enhanced trust.…”

Visual Fidelity Effects on Expressive Self-avatar in Virtual Reality: First Impressions Matter

“…In cases where normality was rejected, we conducted the appropriate non-parametric test to validate our result. A similar method is also used in [4]. As for study 1 our sample size is considered extremely small (N < 10) where the normality test itself can be less robust, even when normality was not rejected, we took extra steps to validate our data using additional statistical parameters suggested in [6].…”

“…What makes this convenient access to virtual experiences even more compelling is the ability to express ourselves through our self-avatar, something that could be tailored to reflect our real-life personality and style, or in some cases, one which we desire. However, research on the relationship between self-avatar's level of realism and its psychological impact on the users has been inconclusive [4,17,28]. One of the challenges is that the level of avatar realism can be decomposed into two seemingly orthogonal yet intertwined factors: visual fidelity (appearance realism) and motion fidelity (behaviour realism) [5,26].…”

Beyond the Blue Sky of Multimodal Interaction: A Centennial Vision of Interplanetary Virtual Spaces in Turn-based Metaverse

“…In the sci-fi novel and movie The Martian (Figure 2), the Earthian-Martian communication leveraged text-based interaction and signage through black-and-white images in a turn-taking approach. Similarly, people's communication can be characterized by some type of turn-taking and non-real-time interaction, e.g., ARCAXER 4 . As such, we have to consider these characteristics as the core consideration of designing the interplanetary Metaverse.…”

“…The representation of the avatar has a strong impact on social dynamics [4,14]. In the case of embodied avatars, users' representation in the metaverse goes beyond visuals.…”