- Title
- Gender differences in spatial ability and affective processing in avatar perception
- Creator
- Bailey, Jacqueline; Blackmore , Karen; Sutton, Ken
- Relation
- Australasian Simulation Congress 2017. Proceedings of the Australasian Simulation Congress 2017 (Sydney 28-31 August, 2017)
- Relation
- http://proceedings.simulationaustralasia.com/index.html
- Publisher
- Simulation Australasia
- Resource Type
- conference paper
- Date
- 2017
- Description
- The widespread use of virtual humans (avatars) in training and simulation has seen the expansion of these digital characters from entertainers, to more serious roles. This change has emerged from the need to develop cost-effective and customisable avatars for interacting with trainees in immersive virtual environments. However, issues surrounding the impact of individual trainee factors on training outcomes, and the design implications of avatars that may impact on these factors, are not well understood. In particular, gender presents as an important consideration when creating avatars, both in the context of the gender of trainees or end-users, and the avatars themselves. Understanding the role of gender, and key dimensions that may underlie gender differences in the perception of avatars presents a key focus in this research. To explore this area, we draw on an existing measure of spatial ability, which is the human capacity to understand and remember the spatial relationships between objects. Spatial ability has been shown to vary between genders, however, remains relatively unexplored in the context of virtual environments and avatars. Thus, the goal of this research is to explore the potential role of gender and spatial ability in user acceptance of avatars. We review literature in the area and present the results of an evaluation of gender and spatial ability in the affective response of participants to avatars. While the results confirm previous findings relating to gender differences in the perception of avatars, no correlation was found between spatial ability and gender or avatar perceptions. These results point to more complex socio-emotional behavioural explanations for these gender differences.
- Subject
- virtual humans; avatars; spatial ability; uncanny valley; gender differences; training; simulation
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1386982
- Identifier
- uon:32499
- Language
- eng
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