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      Do People Matter? Presence and Prosocial Decision-making in Virtual Reality

      Published
      proceedings-article
      ,
      35th International BCS Human-Computer Interaction Conference (HCI2022)
      Towards a Human-Centred Digital Society
      July 11th to 13th, 2022
      Virtual Reality, perceived agency, presence, prosocial behaviour, decision making
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            Abstract

            Virtual reality (VR) simulations with virtual characters have been increasingly deployed to understand context-based human behaviour. The current study investigated the effects of perceived agency of the other players, who were either (human-controlled) avatars or (computer-controlled) agents, on the player’s overall presence levels (with 3 subscales of spatial presence, involvement, and realism). We also tested the relationship between the player’s perception of the agency of the other players, in-game prosocial behaviour (voluntary behaviour to help other players) and their own real-life prosocial traits. 32 university students played a VR game with agents, but half the participants were told they were playing with avatars (an experimental deception). The group who were told they were playing with other humans had higher overall presence than the group who knew they were playing with agents, due to increased spatial presence and involvement. While there was no direct link between the player’s perceived agency of the other players and their own in-game behaviours, higher prosocial scores increased their chance of helping the other players in the agent group. Overall, this study suggests that multi-player VR experiences (or those purported to be multi-player) lead to greater influence on people’s psychological and behavioural reactions over single-player experiences.

            Content

            Author and article information

            Contributors
            Conference
            July 2022
            July 2022
            : 1-10
            Affiliations
            [0001]Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
            [0002]XR Stories, Department of Theatre, Film, Television and Interactive Media, University of York, York, UK
            Article
            10.14236/ewic/HCI2022.30
            9eed72ab-907c-46ec-8122-7163545e2b18
            © Wei et al. Published by BCS Learning & Development. Proceedings of the 35th British HCI and Doctoral Consortium 2022, UK

            This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

            35th International BCS Human-Computer Interaction Conference
            HCI2022
            35
            Keele, Staffordshire
            July 11th to 13th, 2022
            Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)
            Towards a Human-Centred Digital Society
            History
            Product

            1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

            Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/HCI2022.30
            Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/
            Categories
            Electronic Workshops in Computing

            Applied computer science,Computer science,Security & Cryptology,Graphics & Multimedia design,General computer science,Human-computer-interaction
            decision making,presence,Virtual Reality,prosocial behaviour,perceived agency

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