Digital chameleons: automatic assimilation of nonverbal gestures in immersive virtual environments

Previous research demonstrated social influence resulting from mimicry (the chameleon effect); a confederate who mimicked participants was more highly regarded than a confederate who did not, despite the fact that participants did not explicitly notice the mimicry. In the current study, participants interacted with an embodied artificial intelligence agent in immersive virtual reality. The agent either mimicked a participant's head movements at a 4-s delay or utilized prerecorded movements of another participant as it verbally presented an argument. Mimicking agents were more persuasive and received more positive trait ratings than nonmimickers, despite participants' inability to explicitly detect the mimicry. These data are uniquely powerful because they demonstrate the ability to use automatic, indiscriminate mimicking (i.e., a computer algorithm blindly applied to all movements) to gain social influence. Furthermore, this is the first study to demonstrate social influence effects with a nonhuman, nonverbal mimicker.     

The Effect of Interactivity on Learning Physical Actions in Virtual Reality

Virtual reality (VR) offers new possibilities for learning, specifically for training individuals to perform physical movements such as physical therapy and exercise. The current article examines two aspects of VR that uniquely contribute to media interactivity: the ability to capture and review physical behavior and the ability to see one's avatar rendered in real time from third person points of view. In two studies, we utilized a state-of-the-art, image-based tele-immersive system, capable of tracking and rendering many degrees of freedom of human motion in real time. In Experiment 1, participants learned better in VR than in a video learning condition according to self-report measures, and the cause of the advantage was seeing one's avatar stereoscopically in the third person. In Experiment 2, we added a virtual mirror in the learning environment to further leverage the ability to see oneself from novel angles in real time. Participants learned better in VR than in video according to objective performance measures. Implications for learning via interactive digital media are discussed.     

Virtually True: Children's Acquisition of False Memories in Virtual Reality

Previous work on human memory has shown that prompting participants with false events and self-relevant information via different types of media such as narratives, edited 2-dimensional images, and mental imagery creates false memories. This study tested a new form of media for studying false memory formation: Immersive Virtual Environment Technology (IVET). Using this tool, we examined how memory was affected by viewing dynamic simulations of avatars performing novel actions. In the study, 55 preschool and elementary children were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 memory prompt conditions (idle, mental imagery, IVET simulation of another child, or IVET simulation of self). Each child was questioned 3 different times: once before the memory prompt, once immediately after the memory prompt, and once approximately 5 days after the memory prompt. Results showed that preschool children were equally likely to develop false memories regardless of memory prompt condition. But, for elementary children, the mental imagery and IVET self conditions caused significantly more false memories than the idle condition. Implications regarding the use of digital media in courtroom settings, clinical therapy settings, entertainment, and other applications are discussed.     

Psychophysics of perceiving eye-gaze and head direction with peripheral vision: implications for the dynamics of eye-gaze behavior

Two psychophysical experiments are reported, one dealing with the visual perception of the head orientation of another person (the 'looker') and the other dealing with the perception of the looker's direction of eye gaze. The participant viewed the looker with different retinal eccentricities, ranging from foveal to far-peripheral viewing. On average, judgments of head orientation were reliable even out to the extremes of peripheral vision (90 degrees eccentricity), with better performance at the extremes when the participant was able to view the looker changing head orientation from one trial to the next. In sharp contrast, judgments of eye-gaze direction were reliable only out to 4 degrees eccentricity, signifying that the eye-gaze social signal is available to people only when they fixate near the looker's eyes. While not unexpected, this vast difference in availability of information about head direction and eye direction, both of which can serve as indicators of the looker's focus of attention, is important for understanding the dynamics of eye-gaze behavior.     

Virtual Virgins and Vamps: The Effects of Exposure to Female Characters’ Sexualized Appearance and Gaze in an Immersive Virtual Environment

This experiment exposed a sample of U.S. undergraduates (43 men, 40 women) to suggestively or conservatively clad virtual females who exhibited either responsive, high eye gaze or nonresponsive, low gaze in an immersive virtual environment. Outside the virtual world, men and women who encountered a highly stereotypical character—a suggestively clad, high gaze agent (“vamp”) or conservatively clad, low gaze character (“virgin”)—demonstrated more sexism and greater rape myth acceptance than participants who saw a suggestively clad nonresponsive or conservatively clad, responsive character. Results suggest that gender-stereotypical virtual females enhance negative attitudes toward women, whereas those that violate expectations and break stereotypes do not.     

How Immersive Is Enough? A Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Immersive Technology on User Presence

The concept of presence, or “being there” is a frequently emphasized factor in immersive mediated environments. It is often assumed that greater levels of immersive quality elicit higher levels of presence, in turn enhancing the effectiveness of a mediated experience. To investigate this assumption the current meta-analysis synthesizes decades of empirical research examining the effect of immersive system technology on user experiences of presence. Aggregating 115 effect sizes from 83 studies, it finds that technological immersion has a medium-sized effect on presence. Additionally, results show that increased levels of user-tracking, the use of stereoscopic visuals, and wider fields of view of visual displays are significantly more impactful than improvements to most other immersive system features, including quality of visual and auditory content. These findings are discussed in light of theoretical accounts of the presence construct as well as practical implications for design.     

Virtual Humans and Persuasion: The Effects of Agency and Behavioral Realism

Two studies examined whether participant attitudes would change toward positions advocated by an ingroup member even if the latter was known to be an embodied agent; that is, a human-like representation of a computer algorithm. While immersed in a virtual environment, participants listened to a persuasive communication from a digital representation of another student. The latter was actually an embodied agent (a computer-controlled digital representation of a human). Study 1 examined the extent to which gender of the virtual human, participant gender, and the agent's behavior affected attitude change. Results revealed gender-based ingroup favoritism in the form of greater attitude change for same gender virtual humans. Study 2 examined behavioral realism and agency beliefs; that is, whether participants believed the other to be an agent or an avatar (an online representation of an actual person). Results supported Blascovich and colleague's model of social influence within immersive virtual environments. Specifically, the prediction that virtual humans high in behavioral realism would be more influential than those low in behavioral realism was supported, but this effect was moderated by the gender of the virtual human and the research participant. Implications of these findings for the model are discussed.     

Self‐Representations in Immersive Virtual Environments1

This experiment varied whether individuals interacted with virtual representations of themselves or of others in an immersive virtual environment. In the self‐representation condition, half of the participants interacted with a self‐representation that bore photographic resemblance to them, whereas the other half interacted with a self‐representation that bore no resemblance to them. In the other‐representation condition, participants interacted with a representation of another individual. The experimental design was a 2 (Participant Gender) × 3 (Agent Identity: high‐similarity self‐representation vs. low‐similarity self‐representation vs. other representation). Overall, participants displayed more intimacy‐consistent behaviors for representations of themselves than others. Implications of using immersive virtual environment technology for studying the self are discussed.     

Transformed Facial Similarity as a Political Cue: A Preliminary Investigation

Experimental subjects evaluated a political candidate whose face was digitally altered to absorb the subjects' facial structure. For half of the subjects, the photograph of the candidate was morphed such that the image presented was a blend composed of 60% of the unfamiliar Caucasian male and 40% of the subject. For the other half the photograph was unaltered. Given previous research on implicit familiarity (Zajonc, 1968, 1980), we predicted that the morph would advantage the candidate. The results demonstrated no main effect of the similarity manipulation. However, there was a robust similarity by gender interaction. Male subjects evaluated the morphed candidate more favorably than the unaltered photograph, while female subjects rated him more negatively. We discuss potential explanations for this interaction effect and explore the possible implications of facial similarity as a political cue in both high- and low-information elections.     

Interpersonal distance in immersive virtual environments

Digital immersive virtual environment technology (IVET) enables behavioral scientists to conduct ecologically realistic experiments with near-perfect experimental control. The authors employed IVET to study the interpersonal distance maintained between participants and virtual humans. In Study 1, participants traversed a three-dimensional virtual room in which a virtual human stood. In Study 2, a virtual human approached participants. In both studies, participant gender, virtual human gender, virtual human gaze behavior, and whether virtual humans were allegedly controlled by humans (i.e., avatars) or computers (i.e., agents) were varied. Results indicated that participants maintained greater distance from virtual humans when approaching their fronts compared to their backs. In addition, participants gave more personal space to virtual agents who engaged them in mutual gaze. Moreover, when virtual humans invaded their personal space, participants moved farthest from virtual human agents. The advantages and disadvantages of IVET for the study of human behavior are discussed.