The Influence of Virtual Agents on Player Experience and Performance

Emmerich, Katharina; Masuch, Maic

doi:10.1145/2967934.2968092

Cited by 21 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…The questionnaire spans over 14 questions on four domains: general presence, spatial presence, involvement and experienced realism. Its broad application scope makes it a widely adopted metric used by [10,12], just to cite a few. The authors of the IPQ state that they interpret sense of presence as an individual experience and therefore a matter of subjective rating scales.…”

Section: Assessing Immersion/presence In Vrmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting Visuo-Haptic Mismatches in Virtual Reality using the Prediction Error Negativity of Event-Related Brain Potentials

Gehrke

Akman

Lopes

et al. 2019

Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

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Designing immersion is the key challenge in virtual reality; this challenge has driven advancements in displays, rendering and recently, haptics. To increase our sense of physical immersion, for instance, vibrotactile gloves render the sense of touching, while electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) renders forces. Unfortunately, the established metric to assess the effectiveness of haptic devices relies on the user's subjective interpretation of unspecific, yet standardized, questions. Here, we explore a new approach to detect a conflict in visuohaptic integration (e.g., inadequate haptic feedback based on poorly configured collision detection) using electroencephalography (EEG). We propose analyzing event-related potentials (ERPs) during interaction with virtual objects. In our study, participants touched virtual objects in three conditions and received either no haptic feedback, vibration, or vibration and EMS feedback. To provoke a brain response in unrealistic VR interaction, we also presented the feedback prematurely in 25% of the trials. We found that the early negativity component of the ERP (so called prediction error) was more pronounced in the mismatch trials, indicating we successfully detected haptic conflicts using our technique. The results can be understood as a first step towards ERPs as a potential metric of haptic immersion in VR. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Haptic devices; Virtual reality;

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Section: Assessing Immersion/presence In Vrmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting Visuo-Haptic Mismatches in Virtual Reality using the Prediction Error Negativity of Event-Related Brain Potentials

Gehrke

Akman

Lopes

et al. 2019

Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

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“…The possibility of its occurrence is supported by the results of other studies in which only social facilitation took place (Pan and Hamilton, 2015;Murray et al, 2016). In several other studies social inhibition was observed (Hoyt et al, 2003;Zanbaka et al, 2007;Emmerich and Masuch, 2016). However, other studies report a null effect (Hayes et al, 2010;Baldwin et al, 2015;Pan and Hamilton, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 78%

Moderators of Social Facilitation Effect in Virtual Reality: Co-presence and Realism of Virtual Agents

et al. 2020

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“…The analysis of the data showed that the type of audience had no impact and all of the conditions where the observers were in some way present were able to produce a social inhibition effect in complex tasks when compared to the alone condition. Another attempt worth describing was the experiment conducted by Emmerich and Masuch (2016) in which the subjects were to play a spaceshooter game in the presence of a virtual observer (a robot displayed in the cockpit of a spaceship) or alone. Additionally, the display device varied between the conditions so the task could be completed on the ordinary monitor or HMD.…”

Section: Social Facilitation Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As noted by the researchers (Emmerich & Masuch, 2016), one of the problems associated with virtual observers is that their characteristics are not tested in pilot studies, and instead they are directly implemented for research. Often there is also no information about how the character was constructed, as well as how its realism was operationalized.…”

Section: No Pilot Tests Of Observers and No Description Of How Their mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another shortcoming of the analyzed studies is unintentional direct evaluation embedded in the experimental design. One of the most straightforward examples is the study of Emmerich and Masuch (2016) in which the authors implemented a robot that, after each hit of an asteroid, reminded the user that they had made a mistake. It is worth noting that when we directly inform or indicate a subject's failure, the test ceases to be a mere social facilitation study and becomes a feedback test.…”

Section: Evaluation Activationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Can Virtual Observers Affect Our Behavior? Social Facilitation in Virtual Environments: A Mini-Review

Sterna¹,

Strojny

Rębilas

2019

SPB

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The social facilitation effect describes the change in the performance of the task under the influence of the presence of observers. The effect itself consists of two components: social facilitation in simple tasks and social inhibition in complex tasks. In the context of the dynamic development of new technologies, the question of the possible influence on human behavior by virtual characters gains importance. We attempted to critically describe and summarize current research on social facilitation in order to answer the question of whether it occurs in virtual environments. We found 13 relevant studies, 3 of which demonstrated social facilitation, 4 social inhibition and 1 demonstrated the whole effect. The conclusions drawn from the analysis are ambiguous. Firstly, we identified that 12 out of 13 analyzed studies failed to show the whole effect. Secondly, we encountered several shortcomings of the summarized research that further complicated its interpretation. The shortcomings: presence of the researcher, unclear usage of “agent” and “avatar”, evaluation of activation, no pilot tests of observers and no description of how their characteristics are generated, among others, are discussed. Furthermore, we investigated the effect sizes and their variability. The average effect size for social facilitation was g = 0.18, CI [-0.28; 0.64] and for social inhibition g = -0.18, CI [-0.40; 0.04]. In social facilitation, a substantial level of heterogeneity was detected. Finally, we conclude that it is still too early to provide a definite answer to the question of whether social facilitation exists in Virtual Environments. We recommend limiting evaluation activation to the lowest possible level, conducting pilot tests prior to the experiment, avoiding the presence of the researcher in the experimental room and a clear distinction of “agent” and “avatar”, as measures to achieve a better quality in future research.

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The Influence of Virtual Agents on Player Experience and Performance

Cited by 21 publications

References 23 publications

Detecting Visuo-Haptic Mismatches in Virtual Reality using the Prediction Error Negativity of Event-Related Brain Potentials

Detecting Visuo-Haptic Mismatches in Virtual Reality using the Prediction Error Negativity of Event-Related Brain Potentials

Moderators of Social Facilitation Effect in Virtual Reality: Co-presence and Realism of Virtual Agents

Can Virtual Observers Affect Our Behavior? Social Facilitation in Virtual Environments: A Mini-Review

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