Perspective-taking of Virtual Agents for Promoting Prosocial Behaviors

Advancing prosociality in extended reality: systematic review of the use of embodied virtual agents to trigger prosocial behaviour in extended reality

“…Recent investigations into human-agent interaction in immersive settings highlight VR's role as an empathy-enhancing tool, especially through embodied experiences that allow for perspective-taking of EVAs, thereby fostering prosocial behaviours among users (Paiva et al, 2018;Tassinari et al, 2022). For instance, research has shown that taking the perspective of EVAs can influence human behaviour, with participants behaving more altruistically towards robots when they adopt the help-receiver view (Hang et al, 2022) and can enhance closeness and empathy experiences in VR games (Ho and Ng, 2022;Kambe and Nakajima, 2022). Notably, the perceived agency of other players in immersive environments, whether human-controlled avatars or computer-controlled EVAs, can also influence prosocial decision-making (Wei and Bramwell-Dicks, 2022).…”

“…Subsequent studies reported positive results in favour of VCs. For instance, several studies, including (Ho and Ng, 2022;Hang et al, 2022), focused on how the perspective-taking abilities of VCs can enhance understanding and empathy towards a victimised character. Similarly (Chenlin et al, 2023), examined how Studies by journal/conference name.…”