Virtual Humans Elicit Skin-Tone Bias Consistent with Real-World Skin-Tone Biases

Rossen, Brent; Johnsen, Kyle; Deladisma, Adeline M.; Lind, Scott; Lok, Benjamin

doi:10.1007/978-3-540-85483-8_24

Cited by 51 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…The standard multiple regression predicting empathy toward the Known Virtual Human using (a) the immersive tendencies and the average number of time they have met Stéphane Bouchard as control predictor variables, and (b) the social presence measure as main predictor, was significant [F (3,41) = 20.57, p < 0.001]. Only two of the three variables contribute significantly to the regression, the Immersive Tendencies Questionnaire (t = 2.35, p < 0.05, sr 2 = 0.24), and the Social Presence Questionnaire (t = 6.6, p < 0.001, sr 2 = 0.66).…”

Section: Research Question 2: Relationship Between Presence and Empathymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1 Men also modify their posture, hand movement, and head movements when they interact with a virtual female character. 2 Rossen et al 3 found that negative skin-tone biases toward people are transferred from the physical to the VR. In that study, reactions toward dark skin-tone virtual humans were predicted by biases toward AfricanAmericans.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Empathy Toward Virtual Humans Depicting a Known or Unknown Person Expressing Pain

Bouchard

Bernier

Boivin

et al. 2013

Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking

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This study is about pain expressed by virtual humans and empathy in users immersed in virtual reality. It focuses on whether people feel more empathy toward the pain of a virtual human when the virtual human is a realistic representation of a known individual, as opposed to an unknown person, and if social presence is related to users' empathy toward a virtual human's pain. The 42 participants were immersed in virtual reality using a large immersive cube with images retro projected on all six faces (CAVE-Like system) where they can interact in real time with virtual characters. The first immersion (baseline/control) was with a virtual animal, followed by immersions involving discussions with a known virtual human (i.e., the avatar of a person they were familiar with) or an unknown virtual human. During the verbal exchanges in virtual reality, the virtual humans expressed acute and very strong pain. The pain reactions were identical in terms of facial expressions, and verbal and nonverbal behaviors. The Conditions by Time interactions in the repeated measures analyses of variance revealed that participants were empathic toward both virtual humans, yet more empathic toward the known virtual human. Multivariate regression analyses revealed that participants' feeling of social presence--impression that the known virtual character is really there, with them--was a significant predictor of empathy.

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Section: Research Question 2: Relationship Between Presence and Empathymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Empathy Toward Virtual Humans Depicting a Known or Unknown Person Expressing Pain

Bouchard

Bernier

Boivin

et al. 2013

Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking

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“…Several of these computer as social actor studies were replicated with virtual agents (who besides speech, interactivity, and the fulfillment of social roles also often have a human-like appearance and show nonverbal behavior). For instance, Rossen et al [24] showed that people apply ethnic stereotypes to agents. Caucasian medical students with a prejudice against Afro-Americans were found to show more empathetic verbal and nonverbal behavior towards an agent with a light skin tone than to an agent with a dark skin tone.…”

Section: The Effect Of Socialmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Humanity Matter? Analyzing the Importance of Social Cues and Perceived Agency of a Computer System for the Emergence of Social Reactions during Human-Computer Interaction

Appel

Pütten

Krämer

et al. 2012

Advances in Human-Computer Interaction

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Empirical studies have repeatedly shown that autonomous artificial entities elicit social behavior on the part of the human interlocutor. Various theoretical approaches have tried to explain this phenomenon. The agency assumption states that the social influence of human interaction partners (represented by avatars) will always be higher than the influence of artificial entities (represented by embodied conversational agents). Conversely, the Ethopoeia concept predicts that automatic social reactions are triggered by situations as soon as they include social cues. Both theories have been challenged in a 2 × 2 between subjects design with two levels of agency (low: agent, high: avatar) and two interfaces with different degrees of social cues (low: textchat, high: virtual human). The results show that participants in the virtual human condition reported a stronger sense of mutual awareness, imputed more positive characteristics, and allocated more attention to the virtual human than participants in the text chat conditions. Only one result supports the agency assumption; participants who believed to interact with a human reported a stronger feeling of social presence than participants who believed to interact with an artificial entity. It is discussed to what extent these results support the social cue assumption made in the Ethopoeia approach.

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“…Rossen et al, using virtual agents with different skin tones, found that Caucasian subjects tend to show more empathy to the agent with a lighter skin tone [5]. Endrass et al showed that German subjects preferred virtual characters speaking in the German way to those speaking in the Japanese way (in terms of silence and speech overlapping, etc.)…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Linguistic and Cultural Congruity on Persuasion by Conversational Agents

Yin

Bickmore

Cortés

2010

Intelligent Virtual Agents

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Abstract. We present an empirical study on the impact of linguistic and cultural tailoring of a conversational agent on its ability to change user attitudes. We designed two bilingual (English and Spanish) conversational agents to resemble members of two distinct cultures (Anglo-American and Latino) and conducted the study with participants from the two corresponding populations. Our results show that cultural tailoring and participants' personality traits have a significant interaction effect on the agent's persuasiveness and perceived trustworthiness.

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Virtual Humans Elicit Skin-Tone Bias Consistent with Real-World Skin-Tone Biases

Cited by 51 publications

References 6 publications

Empathy Toward Virtual Humans Depicting a Known or Unknown Person Expressing Pain

Empathy Toward Virtual Humans Depicting a Known or Unknown Person Expressing Pain

Does Humanity Matter? Analyzing the Importance of Social Cues and Perceived Agency of a Computer System for the Emergence of Social Reactions during Human-Computer Interaction

The Impact of Linguistic and Cultural Congruity on Persuasion by Conversational Agents

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