Stepping into the Right Shoes : The Effects of User-Matched Avatar Ethnicity and Gender on Sense of Embodiment in Virtual Reality
In many consumer virtual reality (VR) applications, users embody predefined characters that offer minimal customization options, frequently emphasizing storytelling over user choice. We explore whether matching a user's physical characteristics, specifically ethnicity and gender, with their vir...
| Veröffentlicht in: | IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics. - 1996. - 30(2024), 5 vom: 04. Apr., Seite 2434-2443 |
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| Format: | Online-Aufsatz |
| Sprache: | English |
| Veröffentlicht: |
2024
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| Zugriff auf das übergeordnete Werk: | IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics |
| Schlagworte: | Journal Article |
| Zusammenfassung: | In many consumer virtual reality (VR) applications, users embody predefined characters that offer minimal customization options, frequently emphasizing storytelling over user choice. We explore whether matching a user's physical characteristics, specifically ethnicity and gender, with their virtual self-avatar affects their sense of embodiment in VR. We conducted a $2\times 2$ within-subjects experiment ($\mathrm{n}=32$) with a diverse user population to explore the impact of matching or not matching a user's self-avatar to their ethnicity and gender on their sense of embodiment. Our results indicate that matching the ethnicity of the user and their self-avatar significantly enhances sense of embodiment regardless of gender, extending across various aspects, including appearance, response, and ownership. We also found that matching gender significantly enhanced ownership, suggesting that this aspect is influenced by matching both ethnicity and gender. Interestingly, we found that matching ethnicity specifically affects self-location while matching gender specifically affects one's body ownership |
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| Beschreibung: | Date Completed 22.04.2024 Date Revised 22.04.2024 published: Print-Electronic Citation Status MEDLINE |
| ISSN: | 1941-0506 |
| DOI: | 10.1109/TVCG.2024.3372067 |