Abstract
Virtual reality (VR) protocols inducing illusory embodiment of avatars have shown a positive impact on participants’ perception of outgroup members, in line with the idea that the simulation of another’s sensorimotor states might underlie prosocial behavior. These studies, however, have been mostly confined to laboratory settings with student populations and the use of artificial avatars. In an interdisciplinary effort benefiting from the heterogeneous sample within a museum, we aimed at quantifying changes in interpersonal perception induced by embodying a transgender man narrating his life. We compared an artistic methodology mixing VR and elaborate sensorimotor stimulation to a more conventional primarily audiovisual VR experience. We tested how these affect embodiment and the perception of transgender men as measured by a brief implicit association test and a questionnaire. Neither significant difference in embodiment nor changes in implicit or explicit bias was found, the latter potentially due to the initially low bias in the group. We further assessed participants’ illusory embodiment as a function of age, finding a negative correlation between these. The results are discussed with respect to current theories of embodiment, differences between laboratory and real-life settings, and the intersection of art and science.
Highlights
Human beings are individuals who are consciously aware of their selves and whose perception, cognition, and behavior are grounded in bodily processes (e.g., Dijkerman and Lenggenhager, 2018)
While artistic groups are applying Virtual reality (VR) methods derived from psychological research on the relation of embodiment and interpersonal perception in diverse settings across cultural boundaries (e.g., Bertrand et al, 2014, 2018; Sutherland, 2015), this study aimed at using these artistic applications to feedback to science
An artistic project using video-based VR with scientific measures from laboratory settings were combined to investigate in the context of a museum exhibition how social bias toward the transgender community might change after embodying a transgender man while listening to his personal story
Summary
Human beings are individuals who are consciously aware of their selves and whose perception, cognition, and behavior are grounded in bodily processes (e.g., Dijkerman and Lenggenhager, 2018). Recent work has argued that boosting sensorimotor sharing by exposing participants to a multisensory first-person perspective narrative/experience of an outgroup member might enhance empathy toward them (e.g., Galli et al, 2015; Maister et al, 2015) This process seems to rely on altering embodiment, the somatic awareness of the body, which is claimed to be grounded in the senses of body ownership and agency (Gallagher, 2000; Longo et al, 2008). The participants’ explicit and implicit bias toward transgender men was assessed before and after the exposure to an embodied, first-person perspective immersive video narrative (part of the Library of Ourselves; BeAnotherLab, 2020) shown on a head-mounted display (HMD) This experience was created by a group professionally working on enhancing empathy and prosocial behavior with focus on artistic methods (Sutherland, 2015; Bertrand et al, 2018). Following evidence pointing at bodily self-plasticity in adults decreasing with age (Tajadura-Jiménez et al, 2012; Graham et al, 2015) and given the anticipated broad age range in the museum sample, a negative correlation between illusory embodiment with age was hypothesized (hypothesis 4)
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