The Impact of a Virtual Agent's Non-Verbal Emotional Expression on a User's Personal Space Preferences

Bönsch, Andrea; Radke, Sina; Ehret, Jonathan; Habel, Ute; Kuhlen, Torsten

doi:10.1145/3383652.3423888

Cited by 16 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 42 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Therefore, researchers have implemented behaviors to maintain certain distances between users depending on the situation to achieve acceptable conversational interaction in virtual environments [ 14 , 15 ]. Similar to physical environments, people’s personal space preferences are influenced by several factors, e.g., the agents’ emotional expressions [ 16 ] and touching behaviors [ 17 , 18 ]. These studies suggested that addressing such knowledge is critical for designing acceptable virtual agents in a virtual environment.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stay away from me: Coughing increases social distance even in a virtual environment

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study investigated whether the coughing behaviors of virtual agents encourage infection avoidance behavior, i.e., distancing behaviors. We hypothesized that the changes in people’s lifestyles in physical environments due to COVID-19 probably influence their behaviors, even in virtual environments where no infection risk is present. We focused on different types of virtual agents because non-human agents, such as robot-like agents, cannot spread a virus by coughing. We prepared four kinds of virtual agents (human-like/robot-like and male/female) and coughing behaviors for them and experimentally measured the personal distance maintained by participants toward them. Our experiment results showed that participants chose a greater distance from coughing agents, regardless of the types, and negatively evaluated them. They also chose a greater distance from male agents than from female agents.

show abstract

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stay away from me: Coughing increases social distance even in a virtual environment

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The notion behind it is that people will keep similar distances to virtual characters in VR as they do with real people when social presence is sufficiently high. For example, similar distance patterns which exist in real life were discovered in VR when assessing, e.g., the effect of age and gender (Iachini et al, 2016 ), attractiveness (Zibrek et al, 2020 ), and facial expression (Bönsch et al, 2020 ). Other indirect measures include eye-tracking and psychophysiological measurements (Slater et al, 2009 ).…”

Section: The Problem Of Indirect Measures Of Social Presencementioning

confidence: 70%

Psychology in Virtual Reality: Toward a Validated Measure of Social Presence

Sterna

Zibrek

2021

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…The existence of personal space has been confirmed in VE, and the same trend as in many REs has been observed [12], [60]- [64]. In addition, it is easier to control the conditions and to measure the participants in experiments in VE than in RE, which makes it easier to conduct research with an increased number of interpersonal people [65] and to measure the anxiety felt [43], [66].…”

Section: B Interpersonal Distance Researchmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…One's impression of others can be manipulated by changing the elements of the avatar in VE. Reference [12] showed that interpersonal distance changes with differences in avatars' facial expressions, and Ref. [13] emphasized that interpersonal distance changes with differences in an avatar's eye movements.…”

Section: B Objectives and Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mouth-in-the-Door: The Effect of a Sound Image of an Avatar Intruding on Personal Space That Deviates in Position From the Visual Image

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this paper, we examine the audiovisual experience in virtual reality (VR) service context that enables a more effective interaction between a user immersed in a virtual environment (VE) and an avatar as a store staff. By utilizing the characteristics of VE experiences, we find the effects of this unrealistic relationship between the visual and auditory positions of the avatar presented to the user variable rather than uniformly presented in the same position. In this study, we conducted an experiment to investigate how the positional deviation between the sound and visual images can be tolerated in VE, the effect of positional deviation on the interpersonal distance to the avatar, and the possibility of manipulating the impression of the avatar by deviating the sound image from the visual image. For the experiment, we prepared a space resembling a VE store and conducted proximity experiments with 16 gender-balanced participants and six types of avatars. By utilizing the superiority of visual information over auditory information revealed in the experiments, we constructed an interpersonal situation with an avatar playing the role of store staff in which only the sound image intruded into the user's personal space, and we investigated users' impressions of the avatar. We also investigated users' impressions of the avatar. We found the following two phenomena in the experimental conditions where the positional difference was allowed: 1) Even when the positional difference was allowed, it caused an "uncanny valley"-like phenomenon that led to a decrease in rapport; and 2) In the conditions where the positional difference was allowed when the sound image was closer than the visual image to the participant, the rapport was greater with the avatar playing the role of the store staff. This phenomenon is similar to the "foot-in-the-door" phenomenon in which small unconscious consent (i.e., allowing a sound image to intrude on one's personal space) leads to an improvement in the evaluation of the other person (i.e., the rapport with another person). The techniques proposed in this paper, such as the positional difference between the sound and visual images, significantly improve the value of the service experiences obtained through interaction with others in VE.INDEX TERMS interaction, interpersonal service, personal space, service on metaverse, ventriloquism effect I. INTRODUCTION A. BACKGROUNDServices such as stores and offices in virtual environments (VEs) currently exist, and it is expected that the use of VE and communication based on the metaverse will become mainstream in the future [1]. The virtual reality (VR) market

show abstract

The Impact of a Virtual Agent's Non-Verbal Emotional Expression on a User's Personal Space Preferences

Cited by 16 publications

References 42 publications

Stay away from me: Coughing increases social distance even in a virtual environment

Stay away from me: Coughing increases social distance even in a virtual environment

Psychology in Virtual Reality: Toward a Validated Measure of Social Presence

Mouth-in-the-Door: The Effect of a Sound Image of an Avatar Intruding on Personal Space That Deviates in Position From the Visual Image

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About