The Impact of Avatar Personalization and Immersion on Virtual Body Ownership, Presence, and Emotional Response

Abstract

This article reports the impact of the degree of personalization and individualization of users' avatars as well as the impact of the degree of immersion on typical psychophysical factors in embodied Virtual Environments. We investigated if and how virtual body ownership (including agency), presence, and emotional response are influenced depending on the specific look of users' avatars, which varied between (1) a generic hand-modeled version, (2) a generic scanned version, and (3) an individualized scanned version. The latter two were created using a state-of-the-art photogrammetry method providing a fast 3D-scan and post-process workflow. Users encountered their avatars in a virtual mirror metaphor using two VR setups that provided a varying degree of immersion, (a) a large screen surround projection (L-shape part of a CAVE) and (b) a head-mounted display (HMD). We found several significant as well as a number of notable effects. First, personalized avatars significantly increase body ownership, presence, and dominance compared to their generic counterparts, even if the latter were generated by the same photogrammetry process and hence could be valued as equal in terms of the degree of realism and graphical quality. Second, the degree of immersion significantly increases the body ownership, agency, as well as the feeling of presence. These results substantiate the value of personalized avatars resembling users' real-world appearances as well as the value of the deployed scanning process to generate avatars for VR-setups where the effect strength might be substantial, e.g., in social Virtual Reality (VR) or in medical VR-based therapies relying on embodied interfaces. Additionally, our results also strengthen the value of fully immersive setups which, today, are accessible for a variety of applications due to the widely available consumer HMDs.

From Robot to Virtual Doppelganger: Impact of Visual Fidelity of Avatars Controlled in Third-Person Perspective on Embodiment and Behavior in Immersive Virtual Environments

“…Our results confirm our first hypothesis and demonstrate that truthfulness positively impacts the sense of embodiment in virtual environments and especially the ownership factor. Based on complex stimuli in an immersive gaming scenario, our study corroborates and contributes to extend previous findings observed with first-person perspective (Waltemate et al, 2018) also for third-person perspective. Participants of the experiment reported being more connected with their own representation and appreciated having a personalized character: "Since he represents me, I think immersion is stronger.…”

“…While this side effect has to be considered before developing virtual reality applications involving avatars based on users' appearance, our results contribute to extend the knowledge concerning the impact of avatar truthfulness. Moreover, they corroborate previous findings demonstrating that avatar visual fidelity can improve the sense of embodiment in immersive virtual environments (Waltemate et al, 2018). Furthermore, Argelaguet et al (2016) and Latoschik et al (2017) demonstrate that the levels of anthropomorphism and realism of a virtual character positively influence the sense of ownership.…”

“…The work of Lucas et al (2016) on video-games and of Waltemate et al (2018) on immersive environments, respectively, demonstrate a better user engagement and a higher sense of ownership with virtual self-representation. However, little is known concerning the impact of controlling in real-time our doppelganger perceived from a third-person perspective in terms of embodiment and behavior in immersive virtual environments.…”

“…On the other hand, if it is acknowledged that top-down factors like morphological similarities and realism level are not mandatory to embody virtual characters, they nevertheless seem to positively impact the sense of ownership Latoschik et al, 2017). Moreover, the recent work of Waltemate et al (2018) demonstrates that avatar personalization, based on users' real appearance, also induces a higher the sense of ownership in virtual environments. This study relies on the virtual mirror metaphor and first-person perspective, the latter being known to induce a high sense of embodiment Maselli and Slater, 2013).…”

“…Previous work demonstrates that facing a virtual doppelganger in immersive environments can impact users' attitudes (Fox and Bailenson, 2009;Bailenson and Segovia, 2010;, but few studies have investigated the impact of controlling in real-time one's own representation via a full-body tracking system (visuomotor synchrony). Nonetheless, the work of Waltemate et al (2018) provides evidences concerning the impact of avatar personalization on the sense of embodiment in virtual environment using the classical mirror metaphor and a first-person perspective. In this context, our study aims to extend such previous results to potential new use cases relying on a third-person perspective enabling to perceive the whole body of the controlled avatar (Gorisse et al, 2017).…”