Contagious yawning in virtual reality is affected by actual, but not simulated, social presence

Abstract

Contagious yawning occurs in humans and a few other highly social animals following the detection of yawns in others, yet the factors influencing the propagation of this response remain largely unknown. Stemming from earlier laboratory research, we conducted five experiments to investigate the effects of social presence on contagious yawning in virtual reality (VR). We show that, similar to a traditional laboratory setting, having a researcher present during testing significantly inhibited contagious yawning in VR, even though participants were viewing a virtual environment and unable to see the researcher. Unlike previous research, however, manipulating the social presence in VR (i.e., embedding recording devices and humanoid avatars within the simulation) did not affect contagious yawning. These experiments provide further evidence that social presence is a powerful deterrent of yawning in humans, which warrants further investigation. More generally, these findings also have important applications for the use of VR in psychological research. While participants were quite sensitive to social stimuli presented in VR, as evidenced by contagious yawning, our results suggest a major difference in the influence of social factors within real-world and virtual environments. That is, social cues in actual reality appear to dominate and supersede those in VR.

Pursuing behavioral realism in Virtual Reality for fire evacuation research

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The neuroethology of spontaneous mimicry and emotional contagion in human and non-human animals

“…Yawning is also socially modulated: it is more likely to occur in real social settings, as a result of yawn contagion (Provine, 1989;2005). However, in Virtual Reality (VR) trials, the physical presence of a researcher during testing significantly inhibited contagious yawning, even though participants were viewing a virtual environment (and virtual yawns) and were unable to see the researcher (Gallup et al, 2019).…”

Stronger reactivity to social gaze in virtual reality compared to a classical laboratory environment

“…Wienrich, Gross, Kretschmer, and Muller‐Plath (2018) documented an inhibition of return effect towards virtual avatars – an effect which was previously believed to only be triggered by other human beings. In a study by Gallup, Vasilyev, Anderson, and Kingstone (2019), by contrast, contagious yawning was inhibited in the presence of a real conspecific, but not in the presence of a virtual agent. In the latter study, however, the virtual agent showed no meaningful social behaviour – a possible prerequisite for perceiving an agent as believable and activating natural modes of social information processing.…”