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Designing the Virtual Self How Psychological Connections to Avatars May Influence Education-Related Outcomes of Use Rabindra Ratan & Béatrice Hasler
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The ShanghAI Lectures A Large-scale International Field Study http://shanghailectures.org
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The ShanghAI Lectures A Large-scale International Field Study
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Avatar Design Choices Default avatar (n = 77) Customized avatar (n = 41) Personalized avatar (n = 36) Total number of participants: N = 155 (120 male, 35 female)
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Avatar Design Default avatar Definition: Generic avatar; no design choices made by the user
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Avatar Design Avatar Customization Definition: The user changes the avatar’s appearance by choosing different attributes (gender, hair style, clothing…)
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Avatar Design Avatar Personalization Definition: The user creates an avatar that resembles his/her “real-life” appearance.
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Measuring “Connection to Avatars” 1.Self-Presence - Proto (body) SP - Extended (identity) SP x Self-Presence Questionnaire (Ratan & Hasler, 2010) http://sites.google.com/site/selfpresenceinfo/self-presence-questionnaire 2.Avatar Personality Similarity Psychological gender x Diekman & Eagly’s (2000) measure of masculinity/femininity ratings applied to self and avatar
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Education-Related Outcome Measure Satisfaction with Group Work Process x 5 items taken from Suh’s (1999) Performance Perception Questionnaire
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Results (1/3) Avatar personalization and customization facilitate identity-level connections to avatars (extended self-presence) Only personalization facilitates body-level connections to avatars (proto self-presence). Implication: Virtual worlds could be designed to influence identity/body-level connections through avatar design options
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Results (2/3) Extended self-presence and avatar personality similarity are more strongly correlated (pos) for default than for customized avatars. – i.e., avatar customization reduces psychological similarity between the user and avatar
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Results (3/3) Avatar personality similarity and extended self-presence are positively related to group process satisfaction. Implication: Virtual worlds could be designed to induce group process satisfaction by encouraging these avatar connections
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Conclusion Avatar design options matter for education- related outcomes of virtual world use Thank you! Béatrice Hasler & Rabindra Ratan hbeatrice@idc.ac.ilhbeatrice@idc.ac.il raratan@gmail.comraratan@gmail.com
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