Abstract
How might nonverbal synchrony naturally evolve in a social virtual reality environment? And how can avatar embodiment affect how participants coordinate nonverbally with each other? In the following pre-registered between-subjects experiment, we tracked the movements of pairs of users during a collaborative or competitive task in immersive virtual reality. Each conversational partner controlled either a customized avatar body or an abstract cube that responded to their movements. We compared the movements of the actual user pairs between the two conditions, and to an artificial “pseudosynchrony” dataset composed of the movements of randomly combined participant pairs who did not actually interact. We found stronger positive and negative correlations between real pairs compared to pseudosynchronous pairs, providing evidence for naturally occurring nonverbal synchrony between pairs in virtual reality. We discuss this in the context of the relationships between avatar appearance, task success, social closeness and social presence.
Highlights
Research on interactions in both virtual reality [1] and face-to-face settings [2] supports the vital role of gestures and posture in communication
How this nonverbal behavior is communicated in virtual reality depends both on how user movements are tracked, and how they are rendered
In consumer virtual reality systems, the head and hand tracking required to allow participants to interact with digital content in a virtual space allows users to see their own movements, and others’ movements, represented by avatars in the virtual environment
Summary
Research on interactions in both virtual reality [1] and face-to-face settings [2] supports the vital role of gestures and posture in communication How this nonverbal behavior is communicated in virtual reality depends both on how user movements are tracked, and how they are rendered. In consumer virtual reality systems, the head and hand tracking required to allow participants to interact with digital content in a virtual space allows users to see their own movements, and others’ movements, represented by avatars in the virtual environment This process of tracking and rendering can capture user behavior; it can influence users’ experiences of presence and social closeness, as well as the outcome of the tasks they perform in virtual reality.
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