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

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

Shu Wei

Anna Bramwell-Dicks

Conference

Publication date: July 2022

Publication date (Print): July 2022

Pages: 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

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/HCI2022.30

SO-VID: 9eed72ab-907c-46ec-8122-7163545e2b18

License:

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/

Conference name: 35th International BCS Human-Computer Interaction Conference

Conference acronym: HCI2022

Conference number: 35

Conference location: Keele, Staffordshire

Conference date: July 11th to 13th, 2022

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Towards a Human-Centred Digital Society

History

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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/

REFERENCES

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J.N. Bailenson, J. Blascovich, A.C. Beall, and J.M. Loomis. 2003. Interpersonal Distance in Immersive Virtual Environments. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 29, 7 (2003), 819–833.
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Dario Bombari, Marianne Schmid Mast, Elena Canadas, and Manuel Bachmann. 2015. Studying social interactions through immersive virtual environment technology: virtues, pitfalls, and future challenges. Frontiers in psychology 6 (2015), 869.
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Luciano Gamberini, Luca Chittaro, Anna Spagnolli, and Claudio Carlesso. 2015. Psychological response to an emergency in virtual reality: Effects of victim ethnicity and emergency type on helping behavior and navigation. Computers in Human Behavior 48 (2015), 104–113.
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J. Morkes, H.K. Kernal, and C. Nass. 2009. Effects of Humor in Task-Oriented Human-Computer Interaction and Computer-Mediated Communication: A Direct Test of SRCT Theory. Human-Computer Interaction 14, 4 (2009), 395–435.
Arie Nadler. 2015. The other side of helping: Seeking and receiving help. The Oxford handbook of prosocial behavior (2015), 307–328.
Catherine S Oh, Jeremy N Bailenson, and Gregory F Welch. 2018. A systematic review of social presence: Definition, antecedents, and implications. Frontiers in Robotics and AI 5 (2018), 114.
Xueni Pan and Antonia F de C Hamilton. 2018. Why and how to use virtual reality to study human social interaction: The challenges of exploring a new research landscape. British Journal of Psychology 109, 3 (2018), 395–417.
Robin S Rosenberg, Shawnee L Baughman, and Jeremy N Bailenson. 2013. Virtual superheroes: Using superpowers in virtual reality to encourage prosocial behavior. PloS one 8, 1 (2013), e55003.
Aitor Rovira, Richard Southern, David Swapp, Claire Campbell, Jian J Zhang, Mark Levine, and Mel Slater. 2021. Bystander Affiliation Influences Intervention Behavior: A Virtual Reality Study. SAGE Open 11, 3 (2021), 21582440211040076.
P.C.R. Rushton.1981. 1981. The altruistic personality and the self-report altruism scale. Personality and Individual Differences 2, 4 (1981), 293–302.
T. Schubert, F. Friedmann, and H. Regenbrecht. 2001. The experience of presence: Factor analytic insights. Presence: Teleoperators and virtual environments 10, 3 (2001), 266–281.
Mel Slater. 2009. Place illusion and plausibility can lead to realistic behaviour in immersive virtual environments. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 364, 1535 (2009), 3549–3557.
Mel Slater, Aitor Rovira, Richard Southern, David Swapp, Jian J Zhang, Claire Campbell, and Mark Levine. 2013. Bystander responses to a violent incident in an immersive virtual environment. PloS one 8, 1 (2013), e52766.
Teresa Souto, Hugo Silva, Angela Leite, Alexandre Baptista, Cristina Queirós, and António Marques. 2020. Facial Emotion Recognition: Virtual Reality Program for Facial Emotion Recognition—A Trial Program Targeted at Individuals With Schizophrenia. Rehabilitation Counseling Bulletin 63, 2 (2020), 79–90.
Ervin Staub. 2013. Positive social behavior and morality: Social and personal influences. Elsevier. 39–72 pages.
Jacinto Vasconcelos-Raposo, Maximino Bessa, Miguel Melo, Luis Barbosa, Rui Rodrigues, Carla Maria Teixeira, Luciana Cabral, and Antonio Augusto Sousa. 2016. Adaptation and validation of the Igroup Presence Questionnaire (IPQ) in a Portuguese sample. Presence: Teleoperators and virtual environments 25, 3 (2016), 191–203.
Astrid M Von der Puetten, Nicole C Krämer, Jonathan Gratch, and Sin-Hwa Kang. 2010. “It doesn’t matter what you are!” explaining social effects of agents and avatars. Computers in Human Behavior (2010).
Chaoguang Wang and Gino Yu. 2017. The relationship between player’s value systems and their in-game behavior in a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. International Journal of Computer Games Technology 2017 (2017).
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Comments

Comment on this article

[1] Sun Joo Ahn, Amanda Minh Tran Le, and Jeremy Bailenson. 2013. The effect of embodied experiences on self-other merging, attitude, and helping behavior. Media Psychology 16, 1 (2013), 7–38.

[2] Jana Appel, Astrid von der Pütten, Nicole C Krämer, and Jonathan Gratch. 2012. Does humanity matter? Analyzing the importance of social cues and perceived agency of a computer system for the emergence of social reactions during human-computer interaction. Advances in Human-Computer Interaction 2012 (2012).

[3] J.N. Bailenson, J. Blascovich, A.C. Beall, and J.M. Loomis. 2003. Interpersonal Distance in Immersive Virtual Environments. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 29, 7 (2003), 819–833.

[4] Philippe Bertrand, Jérôme Guegan, Léonore Robieux, Cade Andrew McCall, and Franck Zenasni. 2018. Learning empathy through virtual reality: multiple strategies for training empathy-related abilities using body ownership illusions in embodied virtual reality. Frontiers in Robotics and AI 5 (2018), 26.

[5] Frank Biocca, Chad Harms, and Judee K Burgoon. 2003. Toward a more robust theory and measure of social presence: Review and suggested criteria.Presence: Teleoperators & virtual environments 12, 5 (2003), 456–480.

[6] Jim Blascovich, Jack Loomis, Andrew C Beall, Kimberly R Swinth, Crystal L Hoyt, and Jeremy N Bailenson. 2002. Immersive virtual environment technology as a methodological tool for social psychology. Psychological inquiry 13, 2 (2002), 103–124.

[7] Dario Bombari, Marianne Schmid Mast, Elena Canadas, and Manuel Bachmann. 2015. Studying social interactions through immersive virtual environment technology: virtues, pitfalls, and future challenges. Frontiers in psychology 6 (2015), 869.

[8] Saniye Tugba Bulu. 2012. Place presence, social presence, co-presence, and satisfaction in virtual worlds. Computers & Education 58, 1 (2012), 154–161.

[9] J.M. Darley and B. Latane. 1968. Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of personality and social psychology 8, 4 (1968), 377–383.

[10] J. Diemer, G.W. Alpers, H.M. Peperkorn, Y. Shiban, and A. Mühlberger. 2015. The impact of perception and presence on emotional reactions: a review of research in virtual reality. Frontiers in Psychology 6 (2015), 26.

[11] Jing Du, Yangming Shi, Chao Mei, John Quarles, and Wei Yan. 2016. Communication by interaction: A multiplayer VR environment for building walkthroughs. In Construction Research Congress 2016. 2281–2290.

[12] Nancy Eisenberg, Paul A Miller, Rita Shell, Sandra Mcnalley, and Cindy Shea. 1991. Prosocial development in adolescence: a longitudinal study. Developmental psychology 27, 5 (1991), 849.

[13] Luther Elliott, Andrew Golub, Geoffrey Ream, and Eloise Dunlap. 2012. Video game genre as a predictor of problem use. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 15, 3 (2012), 155–161.

[14] J. Fox, S.J. Ahn, J.H. Janssen, L. Yeykelis, K.Y. Segovia, and J.N. Bailenson. 2015. Avatars versus agents: a meta-analysis quantifying the effect of agency on social influence. Human–Computer Interaction 30, 5 (2015), 401–432.

[15] Guo Freeman and Dane Acena. 2021. Hugging from A Distance: Building Interpersonal Relationships in Social Virtual Reality. In ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences. 84–95.

[16] Luciano Gamberini, Luca Chittaro, Anna Spagnolli, and Claudio Carlesso. 2015. Psychological response to an emergency in virtual reality: Effects of victim ethnicity and emergency type on helping behavior and navigation. Computers in Human Behavior 48 (2015), 104–113.

[17] O. Gillath, C. McCall, P.R. Shaver, and J. Blascovich. 2008. What can virtual reality teach us about prosocial tendencies in real and virtual environments? Media Psychology 11, 2 (2008), 259–282.

[18] M. Havranek, N. Langer, M. Cheetham, and L. Jäncke. 2012. Perspective and agency during video gaming infleunces spatial presence experience and brain activation patterns. Behavioral and brain functions 8, 1 (2012), 34.

[19] C.L. Hoyt, J. Blascovich, and K.R. Swinth. 2003. Social inhibition in immersive virtual environments. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 12, 2 (2003), 183–195.

[20] Wijnand IJsselsteijn, Yvonne De Kort, Karolien Poels, Audrius Jurgelionis, and Francesco Bellotti. 2007. Characterising and measuring user experiences in digital games. In International conference on advances in computer entertainment technology, Vol. 2. 27.

[21] Glena H Iten, Julia Ayumi Bopp, Clemens Steiner, Klaus Opwis, and Elisa D Mekler. 2018. Does a prosocial decision in video games lead to increased prosocial real-life behavior? The impact of reward and reasoning. Computers in Human Behavior 89 (2018), 163–172. Manuscript submitted to ACM

[22] Crescent Jicol, Chun Hin Wan, Benjamin Doling, Caitlin H Illingworth, Jinha Yoon, Charlotte Headey, Christof Lutteroth, Michael J Proulx, Karin Petrini, and Eamonn O’Neill. 2021. Effects of Emotion and Agency on Presence in Virtual Reality. In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 1–13.

[23] A. Knoppers, M. Zuidema, and B.B. Meyer. 1989. Playing to win or playing to play? Sociology of Sport Journal 6, 1 (1989), 70–76.

[24] Oswald D Kothgassner, Andreas Goreis, Lisa M Glenk, Johanna Xenia Kafka, Leon Beutl, Ilse Kryspin-Exner, Helmut Hlavacs, Rupert Palme, and Anna Felnhofer. 2021. Virtual and real-life ostracism and its impact on a subsequent acute stressor. Physiology & Behavior 228 (2021), 113205.

[25] M. D. Kozlov and M. K. Johansen. 2010. Real Behavior in Virtual Environments: Psychology Experiments in a Simple Virtual-Reality Paradigm Using Video Games. Cyberpsychology Behavior and Social Networking 13, 6 (2010).

[26] Sinead Lambe, Indira Knight, Thomas Kabir, Jonathan West, Riana Patel, Rachel Lister, Laina Rosebrock, Aitor Rovira, Benn Garnish, Jason Freeman, et al. 2020. Developing an automated VR cognitive treatment for psychosis: gameChange VR therapy. Journal of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy 30, 1 (2020), 33–40.

[27] Chien-Yu Lin, Ho-Hsiu Lin, Pi-Hsia Hung, and Chien-Chi Lin. 2010. Perception of motion traces as a spatial concepts activity for children with learning disabilities. In 2010 International Computer Symposium (ICS2010). IEEE, 342–347.

[28] Daniel McFadden. 1977. Quantitative Methods for Analyzing Travel Behaviour of Individuals: Some Recent Developments. Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 474 (1977).

[29] J. Morkes, H.K. Kernal, and C. Nass. 2009. Effects of Humor in Task-Oriented Human-Computer Interaction and Computer-Mediated Communication: A Direct Test of SRCT Theory. Human-Computer Interaction 14, 4 (2009), 395–435.

[30] Arie Nadler. 2015. The other side of helping: Seeking and receiving help. The Oxford handbook of prosocial behavior (2015), 307–328.

[31] Catherine S Oh, Jeremy N Bailenson, and Gregory F Welch. 2018. A systematic review of social presence: Definition, antecedents, and implications. Frontiers in Robotics and AI 5 (2018), 114.

[32] Xueni Pan and Antonia F de C Hamilton. 2018. Why and how to use virtual reality to study human social interaction: The challenges of exploring a new research landscape. British Journal of Psychology 109, 3 (2018), 395–417.

[33] Robin S Rosenberg, Shawnee L Baughman, and Jeremy N Bailenson. 2013. Virtual superheroes: Using superpowers in virtual reality to encourage prosocial behavior. PloS one 8, 1 (2013), e55003.

[34] Aitor Rovira, Richard Southern, David Swapp, Claire Campbell, Jian J Zhang, Mark Levine, and Mel Slater. 2021. Bystander Affiliation Influences Intervention Behavior: A Virtual Reality Study. SAGE Open 11, 3 (2021), 21582440211040076.

[35] P.C.R. Rushton.1981. 1981. The altruistic personality and the self-report altruism scale. Personality and Individual Differences 2, 4 (1981), 293–302.

[36] T. Schubert, F. Friedmann, and H. Regenbrecht. 2001. The experience of presence: Factor analytic insights. Presence: Teleoperators and virtual environments 10, 3 (2001), 266–281.

[37] Mel Slater. 2009. Place illusion and plausibility can lead to realistic behaviour in immersive virtual environments. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 364, 1535 (2009), 3549–3557.

[38] Mel Slater, Aitor Rovira, Richard Southern, David Swapp, Jian J Zhang, Claire Campbell, and Mark Levine. 2013. Bystander responses to a violent incident in an immersive virtual environment. PloS one 8, 1 (2013), e52766.

[39] Teresa Souto, Hugo Silva, Angela Leite, Alexandre Baptista, Cristina Queirós, and António Marques. 2020. Facial Emotion Recognition: Virtual Reality Program for Facial Emotion Recognition—A Trial Program Targeted at Individuals With Schizophrenia. Rehabilitation Counseling Bulletin 63, 2 (2020), 79–90.

[40] Ervin Staub. 2013. Positive social behavior and morality: Social and personal influences. Elsevier. 39–72 pages.

[41] Jacinto Vasconcelos-Raposo, Maximino Bessa, Miguel Melo, Luis Barbosa, Rui Rodrigues, Carla Maria Teixeira, Luciana Cabral, and Antonio Augusto Sousa. 2016. Adaptation and validation of the Igroup Presence Questionnaire (IPQ) in a Portuguese sample. Presence: Teleoperators and virtual environments 25, 3 (2016), 191–203.

[42] Astrid M Von der Puetten, Nicole C Krämer, Jonathan Gratch, and Sin-Hwa Kang. 2010. “It doesn’t matter what you are!” explaining social effects of agents and avatars. Computers in Human Behavior (2010).

[43] Chaoguang Wang and Gino Yu. 2017. The relationship between player’s value systems and their in-game behavior in a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. International Journal of Computer Games Technology 2017 (2017).

[44] B. Witmer and M. Singer. 1998. Measuring Presence in Virtual Environments: A Presence Questionnaire. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 7, 3 (1998), 225–240.

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