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The Impact of a Virtual Agent's Non-Verbal Emotional Expression on a User's Personal Space Preferences

Published: 19 October 2020 Publication History

Abstract

Virtual-reality-based interactions with virtual agents (VAs) are likely subject to similar influences as human-human interactions. In either real or virtual social interactions, interactants try to maintain their personal space (PS), an ubiquitous, situative, flexible safety zone. Building upon larger PS preferences to humans and VAs with angry facial expressions, we extend the investigations to whole-body emotional expressions. In two immersive settings-HMD and CAVE-66 males were approached by an either happy, angry, or neutral male VA. Subjects preferred a larger PS to the angry VA when being able to stop him at their convenience (Sample task), replicating previous findings, and when being able to actively avoid him (Pass By task). In the latter task, we also observed larger distances in the CAVE than in the HMD.

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  1. The Impact of a Virtual Agent's Non-Verbal Emotional Expression on a User's Personal Space Preferences

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      cover image ACM Conferences
      IVA '20: Proceedings of the 20th ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents
      October 2020
      394 pages
      ISBN:9781450375863
      DOI:10.1145/3383652
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      Publication History

      Published: 19 October 2020

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      Author Tags

      1. emotions
      2. personal space
      3. virtual agents
      4. virtual reality

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      • Research-article
      • Research
      • Refereed limited

      Funding Sources

      • German Research Foundation
      • Exploratory Research Space Seed Fund at RWTH Aachen University

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      IVA '20
      Sponsor:
      IVA '20: ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents
      October 20 - 22, 2020
      Scotland, Virtual Event, UK

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      Overall Acceptance Rate 53 of 196 submissions, 27%

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      Cited By

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      • (2024)Wheelchair Proxemics: interpersonal behaviour between pedestrians and power wheelchair drivers in real and virtual environmentsProceedings of the 30th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology10.1145/3641825.3687709(1-12)Online publication date: 9-Oct-2024
      • (2024)A randomised controlled test in virtual reality of the effects on paranoid thoughts of virtual humans’ facial animation and expressionScientific Reports10.1038/s41598-024-67534-414:1Online publication date: 24-Jul-2024
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      • (2021)Being Guided or Having Exploratory FreedomProceedings of the 21st ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents10.1145/3472306.3478339(33-40)Online publication date: 14-Sep-2021
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